It is hard to pinpoint the exact answer but I think I can come up with some places to start. First, Americans like to blame their government for most if not all of their problems and in many cases rightly so. What if though the problem was not just that our government was failing us, what if our government’s failures were just a reflection of our own shortcomings as a society. The evidence does seem strong to suggest that could be the case. Lets take a look at that evidence, yes our government runs huge deficits but the cause of the melt down in 2008 was at least in part people living beyond their means. What about government corruption and incompetence, well here again there is ample evidence to suggest that it is just as big of a problem in society as it is government. From wide-spread examples of corporate greed to private individuals defrauding the government of welfare entitlements, taxes, disability and so forth, the list goes on. These are serious charges to make because it shifts some of the blame from government back to society which is a problem because you can vote out the current president or members of congress but who do you vote out when the problem is us? It would be difficult for people not to have the government to blame solely for the problems of the country because then we might finally have to start asking some serious questions of ourselves, and it is quite possible we might not like the answers we get to those questions. Below are some links to examples of our own problems as a society.
Food stamp fraud raising concerns in gov’t offices
A Cheating Crisis in America’s Schools – ABC News
sickunclesam 