Not everyone thinks they have the answer, but you know perfectly well that there is no shortage of political clowns (and, I'm sorry to say, clownettes) who insist that they have the answer to everything.

But they don't. They're so clueless they don't even know that they're clueless.

Now, if you consider yourself a kind-hearted and reasonably not-combative individual, you probably think that calling them clueless is just gratuitous meanness. It is no such thing. In fact, it is an accurate description of their behavior. They act clueless, and clueless is as clueless does.

Now I'm going to tell you why they're clueless. It's because "the answer" is the response to a question, or at least that's what it's supposed to be. And the truth is that Your Elected Leaders™ don't have any idea what the question is.

More precisely, they claim they're "serving" you, but it's a pantload. If what they're offering really served everyone's best interests, then it would be the solution to a problem, and it would not create other problems. Meanwhile, back in the real world, there are always negative side effects to political schemes. And you get to pay for them.

There's a reason why the political clowns and clownettes don't have any real solutions—namely, they don't know what the problem is. And the proof that they don't know is the fact that they are the problem. Sorry to break it to you, but if you're voting for them in the belief that they can actually solve anything, then you don't know what the problem is either.

And there you have it. I could give you the answer, but if you don't know what the question is, it won't make any sense. Likewise, I could tell you the solution, but if you don't know what the problem is, I might as well be speaking an alien language.

Now, I'm only going to say this once, and the rest is up to you:

• If you're genuinely interested in finding out the solution, the place to start is to identify the problem.

That's the gateway to advanced civilization.