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Our country is supposed to be ruled by the people. The representatives that we put in to office are supposed to be held to our standards because we put them there. They are not, at least not today.

Today, corporations control the government. The food industry alone spends $1,200,000,000 a year lobbying congress. They (fast food, agribusiness, snack food, etc.) spend a lot of our money (all their money comes from us buying their stuff) to control us through our government.

The current system supports itself. Ralph Nader is hardly ever on TV even though people actually know his name. However, very few people actually know what he believes in (incluing a lot on this board arguing for Libertarianism based on civil liberties and anti-corporate powers even though that's the platform of the green party). Who controls the TV and the media in general,and therefore, what the public thinks is true? Corporations.
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How Corporations Own the Media:

From freepress.net, on the page about Who Owns the Media?, you can read the following:

NewsCorp:
2003 revenues: $17.5 billion
News Corporation's holdings include: FOX Network, DirecTV, 34 TV stations, National Geographic Channel, FX, 20th Century Fox, the New York Post, Harper Collins Publishers, Regan Books, and sports teams.

General Electric (GE)
2003 revenues: $134.2 billion
General Electric holdings include: NBC, Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Universal Parks & Resorts, CNBC, Bravo, MSNBC, and vast holdings in numerous other business sectors
GE/NBC recently acquired many of the highest-profile media properties previously held by Vivendi.

Viacom
2003 revenues: $26.6 billion
Viacom holdings include: CBS and UPN networks, over 35 TV stations, MTV, Showtime, Nickelodeon, BET, Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Video, over 175 radio stations, Simon & Schuster, and vast billboard holdings

TimeWarner
2003 revenues: $39.6 billion
TimeWarner holdings include: Warner Bros, AOL, CNN, HBO, Time Warner Cable, Turner (TNT, TBS), Cartoon Network, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock Entertainment, Atlantic Recordings, Elektra/Sire, Rhino, Time-Life Books, DC Comics, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, People, and Netscape Communications

Walt Disney
2003 revenues: $28.4 billion
The Walt Disney Company holdings include: ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, A&E, History Channel, E!, Buena Vista, Touchstone Pictures, 10 TV stations, 60+ radio stations, ESPN Radio, Miramax Films, Hyperion Books, & theme parks. (click a category for complete details)

2003 revenues: €25.5 billion (roughly $30.1 billion)
Vivendi Universal owns: CANAL+, Cineplex Odeon Theatres (42%), MCA Records, PolyGram Records, Vivendi Telecom, and 26.8 million shares of TimeWarner stock
Vivendi Universal recently sold its cable and movie properties (Universal Pictures, Sci-Fi Channel, and USA Network) to GE/NBC.

2003 revenues: €16.8 billion (roughly $19.8 billion)
Bertelsmann AG's holdings include: 11 TV networks, Random House Publishing (which includes Alfred A. Knopf, Ballantine, Doubleday, among many others), BMG Music, Arista Records and RCA Records
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Hypothetical: A miracle occurs, the libertarians gain control of congress and the white house. Half the country celebrates in their soon to be near-non-existant government and the free market they will all enjoy.
NewsCorp, GE, Viacom, TimeWarner, Walt Disney, Vivendi, Bertelsmann, McDonald's, Walmart, and all other corporations making billions of dollars a year in net profit, amazed at their successful ad campaigns in favor of Libertarian candidite, Bobby McGee, celebrate the new lack of government regulation by merging all their companies in to WeOwnTheWorld, Inc. Of course, they actually refer to themselves publically by some other, more friendly name in the media, of which they all own. All media begins to celebrate how wonderful the new giant corporation is.
Faced with no government regulation, the corporation cuts wages across the board, decreases safety proceedures, and uses their monopoly on mostly everything to destroy competition, becoming the only supplier of everything within 6 months. The news says how wages have gone up, the work place is safer than ever, and competition is stronger than it has ever been. As a result, the corporation can raise prices, and the people will understand.
A small "watchdog" group says that this is not the case: wages have dropped, safety is at an all-time low, and the monopoly has destroyed all competition. WeOwnTheWorld, Inc. doesn't air their claims, and kills the leaders of the watchdog group. The police investigate, and find an employee of the Corporation guilty. The Corporation doesn't air this on the news. No one cares. The world ends.

Extreme? Yes. Possible? Yes. Likely? Nope, but only because Libertarians will never get in to power, hopefully.