I don't think that's quite a fair assertion to make. Local elected officials' hands are generally tied by policies set at the national and state levels. California is a strong example of this. Someone up above mentioned the extreme imbalance of tax payments made to the federal government vs. returns received. And I have experienced firsthand the enforced impotence of well-meaning school district officials in repairing severely outdated school plants due to positively Byzantine and constantly shifting state funding rules (which are typically rigged to benefit huge districts like Los Angeles). These are but two examples. The social engineering policies that define our society are set at the highest levels, and the power brokers at those levels do indeed come from an elite background or are validated by the elites who control the political and financial machinery. Populists and guys next door can make it to national office, usually in the House of Representatives, but they quickly learn to toe their party's line or be marginalized.

The American republic may have a system vaguely resembling democracy, but it is hardly participatory, and that is where the populist rage you decry comes from. It is especially intensified by the ease of individual interconnectivity that modern information technology enables. As these interconnected individuals come to feel more disempowered, their rhetoric becomes more intense. The same thing happened with liberals under Bush.

Having driven both, I must say that I agree.

Science is all about having replicable results... how could someone replicate your results if you failed to list all the procedures you used?

Part of it is that Next Generation ran longer and thus had a better opportunity to develop all the characters, making it more disappointing when the movies degenerated into Picard/Data stories. Insurrection and Nemesis were Rick Berman's incompetent attempts to balance the desires of both Star Trek fans and general audiences, something that JJ Abrams seems to have done quite deftly.

In a way, the wormhole aliens were simply a logical extension of the ideas they began exploring with the character of Q. Q chose to present himself as easily relatable, essentially a human with boundless control over space and time. However, it was easy for Picard to dismiss Q as a god due to his human appearance, which included such flaws as hubris and a willingness to pass judgment. The Prophets, on the other hand, had a completely different non-linear perspective that was not friendly to human comprehension (or easy writing). Thus Sisko and co. had a much harder time dismissing them.

The theme of relating to superhuman intelligences is found throughout Star Trek. It's just too bad that later attempts at exploring it failed so miserably, such as the Q episodes of Voyager.

Please elaborate on your metrics of efficiency. I would also like to hear about specific social improvements that are a direct result of the school system.

The front companies provide the illusion of choice, but the American Medical Association holds a monopoly on licensing for conventional care, the drug companies are focused mainly on securing patent monopolies above anything else, and the insurance companies themselves have an army of lobbyists to keep them in their places of privilege.

Note also that neither Clinton nor Obama seriously advocated for a single-payer system during the recent election. Both proposed federal subsidies for existing insurance companies, touting it as the more politically realistic choice. I don't support state-monopolized medicine myself, but I can't see such a proposal as anything other than crackpot realism, which is the first refuge of scoundrels.

Why bother involving yourself with the existing parties or trying to seize a seat in Congress? There are far too many compromises down that road. Get involved in transforming your local politics away from a pathetic sideshow, and build sustainable institutions on the local level. Disregard what the national government is trying to do. It will collapse in upon itself.

Counterproductive, unsustainable, divisive policies like this one might appear to be the roots of dystopia to most people, but it really amounts to the last desperate thrashings of a dinosaur as it drowns in a tar pit.