I used to enjoy Sunday morning TV interview shows. Important government and political leaders would take partisan stands, but sometimes struggle to avoid the implications of intelligent and pointed questions. But those days are gone.

Now, everyone who appears on TV interview shows seems to have taken the standard course in media training. Novices are taught to disregard the interviewer’s questions and respond with their sound bite de jour. The modern talk show guest is unembarrassed and makes little attempt to hide the evasion. The viewer’s only task is to decide if it was done artistically or clumsily. Unless the interview subject is a top national leader or candidate, I don’t care enough to find out.

Objective interview questions are signposts of a bygone era. Led by avatars Fox News and MSNBC, cable networks chose sides with relish. Every American has the right to be affirmed in the conspiracy theories and objects of derision of his or her choice.

Many commentators, most recently Ted Koppel in the Washington Post, have pointed out that the foreign bureaus and special programming that marked the golden age of TV news were intended to be loss leaders. Three networks had a FCC-granted monopoly, and would justify making money hand-over-fist by trumpeting the quality of their news divisions. This era of relatively straight news was both preceded and followed by periods in which outlets competed through reliance on entertainment and heated opinion. On partisan cable networks, anchors and guests egg each other on. Even in the more traditional media, “news you can use” largely has displaced hard news, and food-fight debates substitute for intelligent discussion. News has become a profit center. For networks and their leading personalities seeking success, pandering to viewers comes as naturally as pandering to voters does to their interview subjects.

While Koppel and other commentators bemoan the state of contemporary journalism, I’m more concerned with the state of the contemporary citizen. For a society of free individuals to work in the long run, those individual must be responsible for the consequences of their conduct. In turn, that entails becoming knowledgeable about important issues.

Since the time of the Founders, we have debated whether America is a democracy or a republic. If the epitome of democracy is decision-making by plebiscite, the epitome of the republic is government by wise and prudent individuals selected by the people or, at one remove, by the people’s representatives. Thus, the U.S. Constitution provided that the president was chosen by an electoral college, senators were chosen by state legislatures, judges were chosen by the president and senators, and only the House of Representatives was intended to reflect popular will through elections every two years by the people.

There is a modest movement afoot to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, under which U.S. senators are chosen directly by the people. While a reversion to senatorial election by state legislators would be a boon for federalism, I think that direct election has become too rooted for that to be a realistic possibility.

Although the necessary mediation between popular passions and public policy no longer can be effectuated through the structure of political institutions, there are other devices that can help achieve the same ends. One is the political party, with its long-term stake in maintaining a reputation for trustworthiness. Government and judicial pronouncements that weaken party leadership and financing do not lead to better democracy. Rather, they lead to parties being commandeered by a sequence of candidates seeking their main chance for success and having little reputation to lose.

Above all, the mediation I speak of here is the self-mastery that comes from creating a buffer between one’s immediate appetites and one’s more measured consideration of one’s goals. The problem with the Declaration of Independence formula “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” is the misunderstanding that “happiness” means having pleasant feelings. However, the Greek word on which it is based, eudemonia, refers to such things as being virtuous, having good friends, and being loved. Maybe “fulfillment” would be a better translation.

One important virtue for present purposes is prudence, manifested in those who govern in the art of necessary compromise. Likewise, both major parties must discern an appropriate role for expert opinion. A traditional mistake of Democrats is to place too much faith on experts. This results in their support for judges deciding what ultimately are social and divisive moral issues, and for their support of complex schemes for environmental regulation and medical care.

Without the support of a solid majority of the electorate, established through sustained exposure to the substance of issues, sensible and economically efficient policies for regarding the health care industry and long-term environmental problems cannot be effectuated. The hideous grab bag of special interest legislation that constitutes “cap and trade” carbon regulation is an example of unworkable reform, as is health care legislation that does not embody meaningful cost reduction. In both cases, parliamentary legerdemain substituted for a viable consensus.

For today’s Republicans, the temptation is for too little respect for facts and for experts. Conservatives traditionally have relied on reasoned argument that has withstood the test of time, and have insisted that concepts such as merit and excellence preclude one person’s opinion being, by definition, as good as another’s. Mounting the tiger of populism may provide an exhilarating ride for the moment, but usually does not end well for the rider.

It is both enjoyable and tactical to state that tax cuts necessarily pay for themselves, and that eliminating waste, fraud, and corruption can alleviate our serious financial problems. No serious economist supports the former, and the lack of a serious plan to accomplish substantial and needed budget cuts presages one more round of failure in mastering our deficits. Likewise, the lack of unanimity of experts does not mean that a substantial scientific consensus should be disregarded. It is disheartening that the overwhelming percentage of media coverage of global warming, for instance, focuses on political infighting rather than scientific education.

Problems are longstanding and difficult when they require difficult choices and sustained attention. So long as citizens seek “news” that entertains and confirms existing biases, and so long as the stock in trade of political leaders is similar rhetoric, our freedom is not exercised responsibly, and thus hangs by a tenuous thread.