George.

You are making many great points. I wanted to highlight much of this article, but that would have been pointless.

Speaking of "pointless," I really liked the comment from Senator Sasse. Some rookie politicians believe they will use their life experience to help design better legislation, but spend most of their time on the games of partisanship. Legislation mostly comes from forces outside our legislators. So yes, they are impotent to effect change.

If we want to move beyond the "often-subpar collection," we really need new a new kind of democracy.

We have talked before. Here is the link to my alternative democracy.

http://www.tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/tdg.php