>>In a free or even semi-free society, there has to be an understanding between citizens and leaders. Citizens watch over their end and leaders watch over their end.

Erudite post. ;-) But aren't you also assuming that everybody feels part of the social compact? They don't. There are huge subsets of society who feel that today's economy, society and "leaders" have nothing for them. Not everybody has the bandwidth to be a SQL Server guru. Just as well, right? But after they lose the scrabble for the Walmart greeter position, there's nothing left for a lot of people. With time on their hands, increasingly they realize that society is a paper tiger and in fact they can do whatever they want, especially if there's 10,000 of them. And what they think they want often is a series of short term bonanzas and conquests with little thought for how the universe will react. You're going to see willful "carelessness" taking over the freeways, malls and suburbs in coming years while politicians argue over whether a wall at the Mexican border is more important than Hilary's illicit email server.