Our government, however, is ostensibly governed by "the people. " This makes the issue even more problematic given all the diversity and difference in our society. It was probably easier early on in our country's history because most people shared a common set of general values, eg being married before living together,not having children out of wedlock, serving in the military, and so on. There are so many moving parts to our system now, it's hard to keep track of them all. Plus, we move with such rapidity from one issue to the next that it seems nothing really gets resolved, it's just on we go to the next crisis. Geo political speaker, Larry McKewin would say the government likes it that way because it keeps us arguing with each other rather than keeping our government officials accountable. Thanks again for all the food for thought and for all the hard work you obviously put into this article. I also appreciated your objectivity. You weren't ranting and that's easy to do given the controversial nature of the topic. Finally, I'm a big Orwell fan and it intrigued me to learn that the reason he titled the book "1984" was because he began writing it in 1948. He simply inverted the 4 and the 8 to make it "1984.