EDITORIAL - Suppose you were sitting at home one evening and watched a commercial that tries to prove the company behind it has your best interests at heart, cares about your future and only wants to ensure your own happiness. Would you believe it?

Probably not. Ordinarily, most people would respond with something along the lines of “Yeah right, they only want my money.” And truthfully, that is most likely the case. Corporations are in business, after all, for money and nothing but money. Money is the lifeblood of any corporation.

But, tomorrow night you decide to attend a political rally for your favorite presidential candidate. You slap on your nicest sport coat and high-tail it to the event and listen to the politician talk about “securing” your social security, or providing health care for every American, or raising the minimum wage. You wave your fists in the air in approval and join the crowd in applauding the candidate's tender-hearted policies and warm-blooded demeanor.

That politician, after all, has your best interests at heart, right? They care about your future and only want to ensure your own happiness. Is that not correct? Politicians rarely lie, after all, and most of them eat at McDonalds every evening to conserve their measly savings.

This situation drips of irony, of course. While you accurately point out that corporations behind virtually any commercial hold money tight against their chests rather than your best interest, you blindly attend political rallies and lend support for a candidate that effectively argues the exact same message.

All joking aside, politics is big business. Politicians crave money as much as corporations do. A typical politician's bank account far exceeds what any of us will make in a lifetime, and they stand tall on stage, sweating through a $250 white dress shirt, shouting “terms of affection” towards the crowd, somehow making his or her supporters believe they care one way or another about the future of those people's lives.

Why do Americans fall for this? Why can they see right through a commercial for what it truly is but get stopped cold when confronted by a politician that holds the same message?

The answer lies with the way that the American people have been trained to think over the last 50+ years. The “teachers” are the media, government-funded school systems and the politicians themselves. The “students” are the hapless American people, eager to soak up almost anything that they are told.

The lesson, of course, is that corporations are lying, greedy entities hell-bent on pure wealth, while the government, and by extension the politicians that run it, are selfless public servants who give their lives to serve the American people. The politician is what makes America better, not the American people. The government is why America is the most powerful nation in the world, not the determination and steadfast resolve of the American people, and certainly not the military.

Politics can do cruel things to people. Politics typically transcends logic, ethics, morality and individual liberties. It is a business of pure wealth, and one that takes a mild-mannered, humane and benevolent person and turns him or her into a selfish, greedy and downright perverse controller of virtually every facet of our lives. Have you ever heard the phrase “We came here to change Washington, but in the end, it is Washington that changed us”?

There is just as much business in politics as there is politics in business. This phenomenon bears watching, and recognizing that the presence of the same maniacal forces that plague a business also plague a politician.

If corporations aren't trustworthy, why are politicians any different?