democracy originated in Greece and was adopted by the founding fathers here, but both groups knew the big flaw in this system. ergo, Plato’s philosopher-king and the founding fathers’ electoral college and checks and balances. and the flaw is that people are ignorant, hooked to self-interest, and engulfed by that strong emotion – fear. when a representative institution has an approval rating of 10% but an incumbency rating of 90%, the problem isn’t the institution but the people whom they represent. and the second biggest culprit is the media with this accurate description of what it is doing: “false equivalency – the practice of giving equal media time and space to demonstrably invalid positions for the sake of supposed reportorial balance – is dishonest, pernicious and cowardly.” (Bob Garfield – theguardian.com)