Surprisingly, the problems our country has been experiencing since the 1980s aren't the result of Republican over-spending, military build-ups, religiousity, blatant hypocrisy or rampant marital infidelity. They also aren't the result of Democratic homo-friendly amorality, Pro-Education elitism or “We know best” over-regulation. No, the reason that this once-proud, Capitalistic country is melting down can be traced directly back to one insidious evil: advertising. And I should know, after all, I work in the business.

To be clear, I don't mean advertising advertising. I mean political advertising. And I don't even mean political advertising itself, although it is a huge, puss-filled blight on face of respectable advertising (and yes, there is some). No, I mean the multi-million dollar media empires over which politicians must run their puss-filled political advertising. (In retrospect, I guess advertising isn't to blame after all—my bad.)

In order to get elected in this country, a politician needs to talk to The People wherever they are—most likely, in front of a TV drinking a beer. But self-promoting on mass media such as radio and television costs money. Big money. Money that most honest politicians probably don't have (unless they're already millionaires, in which case, they're probably not all that honest).

And since banks don't give out loans to politicians—“gifts,” sure, but not loans—they have few legal means of getting the millions of dollars they need.

Enter Corporate America. Fat with profits extracted from The People through anti-competitive protectionism, business-friendly legislation loopholes and government-sanctioned monopolies, their deep pockets are just what the political adviser ordered.

Corporations have money and want legislative power, while politicians need money and have legislative power. It's an arrangement that has historically worked out beautifully for everyone, especially the mob.

It's win-win for everybody except the American taxpayer.

The arrangement works for the politician at first, but inevitably, the corporations ask for repayment in the form of a “favor” that the politician can not refuse if he wants to get re-elected (like when Senators voted against a bill meant to allow a Haliburton employee who was gang-raped by co-workers to sue the company).

And that's when Democracy begins to die.

Because while the U.S. does have a tenuous separation between Church and State, there is absolutely no separation between Business and State.

By accepting contributions from Corporations (often disguised as “special interests”), politicians are no longer free to vote their conscience or, more importantly, vote that of their constituents. They are slaves to their new corporate masters, and paying back favors leads directly to the aforementioned anti-competitive protectionism, business-friendly legislation loopholes and government-sanctioned monopolies.

Read this article (just not right now).

As Glen Greenwald so eloquently states in his article, Who are the undeserving "others" benefiting from expanded government actions?, We The People are getting fleeced by every Tom, Dick and Harry on Capital Hill and we don't even realize it.

This frightening habit of choosing the interests of corporations over constituents is running rampant in modern politics—all because politicians need so much money to get elected and re-elected. That's the crux of the problem. And if we could eliminate the need for self-promotion funding, we'd eliminate a politician’s need to write bills later that screw us over.

The obvious question is, How? Well, I've got a naive, idealistic suggestion.

First, we need to put a stop to political TV ads. And not simply because the ads themselves are frequently ad hominem character attacks, intended to distract, misinform or inflame people about an issue. But, rather, because they are always one-sided, comprised of half-truths or lies of omission and do nothing but derail thoughtful consideration of the issues.

They bastardize the letter and spirit of “representative democracy” by turning elections into popularity contests. Candidates are judged more by the stylishness of their haircut than the brain underneath the coiffure.

Of course, killing political ads just creates a vacuum that political sleazebags will rush to fill with their bags of political sleaze. To re-pressurize that vacuum, Democracy needs to be brought into the 21st 20th Century.

In the age of the Internet, there's simply no reason we can't create a XML-based website or Internet application (open-source, so there's no black box trickery...) that could aggregate each politicians’ stance on each issue (vetted for accuracy by a neutral 3rd party).

Or, since the goal of “representative democracy” is to elect a person who has the same view on issues as the majority of their constituents, I like the idea of using an opinion survey (or “wizard” like Pick Your Candidate) that would walk each citizen through a check-list of candidate qualifications, attitudes and beliefs about the issues.

Once the citizen had completed the process, the site would tell them the name of the candidate whose beliefs and values most closely matched their own. Using already existing technology, we’d immunize the electoral process from political advertising’s most virulent weapons: manipulation, insecurity, fear, and outrage—in short, knee-jerk emotion.

That one change would go a long way toward making politics less of a cult of personality and more of what our forefathers originally intended politics to be. Namely, boring. Mind-numbingly so.

But the price of democracy is eternal vigilance. And if I have to watch something 24/7/365 for the rest of my life, I'd rather just do it from my laptop, sitting on my couch.