Answer to Obama

On Yahoo, there is an Answers section where people can post questions and receive answers from the community of users.
Most of the time, questions posed and answers given are pure drivel.

Recently, I spotted a question from Barack Obama:

How can we engage more people in the democratic process?
I will be asking questions to help create dialogue around this and many other important topics so please add me to your Answers Network so that we can begin exchanging ideas and hopefully make changes that will benefit the future.
Additional Details
Yahoo! Answers Staff note: Yahoo! Answers is a forum for people from all over the world to engage with one another and to find information on topics that interest them. This is not an endorsement. We are not siding with any candidate or party -- in general or for the 2008 US elections. We're hopeful that people from all perspectives will realize the great insights that the Answers community can have, and will turn to us for future discussions.

First of all, if anyone thinks that Obama is really asking an honest question here, they need to go back to 2nd grade. What he is doing is what Coke and Pepsi do. Competing for product placement shelf space. His face is now sitting on Yahoo Answers and has received over 12000 replies so far. Whether you like Coke or Pepsi, it doesnt matter. Their brands are now ubiquitous due to advertising. Can you say the same for RC?

Even though his question is self-serving, I felt compelled to answer:

The whole point of electing people to office is so that we don't involve ourselves in every ticky-tacky decision that has to be made. Ideally, we elect people we trust to make the right decisions.

When generation after generation of lawyers and professional politicians betray the public trust by wasting time and money, by lying and committing fraud, by making the political world so distasteful as to sicken ones stomach, then the results are a public either so apathetic, so ignorant, or so sycophantic that voting might as well be done by monkeys throwing darts.

Most politicians, I am sure, start out as idealistic go-getters wishing to make things better. The trouble is, they are either completely wrong going about it, or they become corrupt or coerced after only a few years.

How can we engage more people in this process of mud-dragging, waste, corruption, lies, scandal, good intentions and flagstones to hell?

Here are some ideas:

• Remove lawyers and professional politicians from public office
• Outlaw political parties
• Reduce the size of the federal government. Hamilton was wrong
• Back our money with gold again
• Stop using federal monies for charitable purposes. That way votes cannot be bought with promises
• Get the federal government out of the state's business
• Impeach federal judges who have broken their oath to defend the Constitution