What public institution in this country isn't broken and corrupt?

[cali]

that's a serious question. If we take a look at the components of our society, what isn't broken? What isn't corrupt? It's a matter of degree, I guess, with some institutions being less degraded than others.

The criminal justice system from courts to prisons? seriously broken and corrupt.

Congress? just yikes.

The Military?

Public Education?

Statehouses?

[merrily]

1. Media is not officially a government institution, but it is

supposed to perform an important function in our society. It's pretty broken, too.

Are we also broken, though?

[El_Johns]

2. Libraries? Oh, wait, they're being defunded.

[HughBeaumont]

3. You could probably substitute the word "public" with "private" and get the same result.

[cali]

4. you're right, but I thought I'd stick to our public institutions.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. Maybe one of the least corrupt would be NASA.

I think a lot of their funding has been slashed too, however. I'm sure they have to do some questionable things in order to woo Congressmen and Senators when they need money, but I just don't get the overall impression that NASA is rife with corruption or anything.

[CFLDem]

6. People are inherently broken and corrupt.

All these institutions are ran by people.
.
.
.
So all of them.

[cali]

7. that's way too simplistic for me. All institutions are not equally broken and corrupt

though all are run by people. All people are not equally "broken and corrupt". Some institutions function far better than others.

Etc, etc.

[CFLDem]

8. Oh.

I thought we were dealing in absolute terms.

In that case, I agree.

[cali]

9. no, it was a serious question. I'd argue that the public institutions in my state

are fairly healthy but I'd also say that's irrelevant as the population is so tiny.

[The2ndWheel]

10. Maybe the number of people involved makes a difference

More people, more complexity. More complexity, a greater chance of something breaking down or not working. Plus the more people a single person has to represent, the more distance there will be between that person and each of the people they represent, since there are only so many hours in a day. Then money becomes a lot easier to accept, because the money everyone has is the same, and it's more abstract than people, which helps when there's physical or mental distance between people.