RE: People Shouldn't be Afraid of their Governments, Governments Should be Afraid of their People
The whole "who works for who" issue seems to have been twisted out of context by a rather toxic (almost "religious") adherence to the notice that we must respect our elders or those in power or those who ostensibly "know more." And so, people have questions... but are afraid of questioning, lest they be seen as rude or even unpatriotic.
Whoa... let's back up. WE hired THEM, by casting our votes. Doesn't matter whether they are socially in a "superior" position of influence, we still hired them. Which is why I have always been somewhat in favor of the mostly British system where one can call for "a vote of no confidence."
All in all, though... it seems like we also suffer from a declining ability to engage in personal analysis and critical thought. The school system is increasingly set up to teach "regurgitation" rather than thinking and reasoning. Our news and information systems are increasingly designed to deliver "the facts" in 30 seconds or less, when that is actually totally inadequate.
Solutions? Don't have any, right now...
I think the cult of personality and celebrity is also a problem. People seem to lose their minds when they see anyone famous and it seems to be being applied to politicians too.
Waaaay back when it seemed being in political office was viewed by many as a willing sacrifice, setting aside their lives, livelihoods, and to some degree families to 'serve.' While I'm sure it didn't quite perfectly fit this ideal, it was nothing like it is nowadays. Instead it seems most people going into politics (especially higher offices) look more towards their personal benefit.
I definitely can see benefits of being able to have a 'no confidence' vote, though I'm sure it would also be misused at times. To some degree, I'm surprised that there's been little move towards more direct voting now that we live in the electronic age. We really don't have as much of a need (due to slow communications) to have 'representative voting' on many issues.
I'll agree that there's a culture of not questioning elders/office holders, which does seem like a remnant of older times. It's somewhat ironic to have this coupled with the talking point of democracies running on an educated and well informed populace. Hard to have a good idea of what's going on when questioning is shunned. *sigh.
I remember hearing Chomsky talk about the issue of requiring concision, with things needs to be in nice little sound bites and fitting between commercial breaks. I really don't think most people truly care, so long as they're comfortable or getting what they want. It's unfortunately the case that outside of this it's easier to just agree with what sounds good or reinforces what they already think instead of actually putting in the effort to understand multiple aspects of any issue.
Solutions? On the large scale I can't think of any since most people don't necessarily want to change what they're doing or put in the 'work.' The best I've got are thoughts on trying to build smaller communities of people that do want to try better methods. There is always some prerequisite for 'ego-work' to be a part of things like this, so it won't be for everybody. But this would be a HUGE post to fully explain my ideas, which are still never a sure thing to work.
Even when economics work out, often communities fail because of the human relationships.