(Please note that my previous post was posted by me but actually written by someone else. I posted it because I thought it was interesting.)

Human nature dictates:

"Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

The Declaration of Independence

People motivate (as a whole) only when "evils" are no longer sufferable.

The U.S. was designed as a republic. This is a reasonable explaination:

http://www.newswithviews.com/guest_opinion/guest28.htm

You're right; the farm's not in the pot.