οἱ πολλοί -- λαουτζίκος -- πολλοί

I know, you can't read the title.  That's OK, neither can I.  No, I take that back.  I can read the title and I can understand it.  It's the reality behind the meaning that I can't understand.  I thought that I would give you a different flavor.  This has been a culturally challenging day, so I figured a little dose of culture would not hurt anybody.  So, I wrote the title in Greek.  It is late, so I didn't go to the character map to get the language in the all upper-case format.  I just got it where I found it...on Google, of course.  Should I complain to Sergei that he doesn't make it easy enough to get Greek caps?  If I did, he might make it work.  Allow me this digression.  Several years ago, I did make a remark to Google about the lack of Greek alliterations in the search engine and the translation gadget.  I only gave one example.  I said that if the Google in Athens and Sparta could be used in Greek, it should be possible to have Greek language results to searches and translations in the United States.  I got a nice letter back and inside of one year, Google had Greek.  
Back to work.  I am a person who does not have much faith in what is politely called, in English,  "the people" and in Greek "Hoi Polloi."  Now I used Greece as an example because this is the civilization that is touted as being the mother of democracy.  Well, you see where that has got them.  You also see where it has got us.  You also see where it has got a lot of others as well.  I know that there is another side to this opinion, but I for one think that "the people" don't generally make very good decisions about a lot of things.  One of the most interesting examples of making stupid decisions is to be found in an early book of the Bible.  Read chapters 8 to 10 of the First Book of Samuel.  It is the story of when Israel demanded of God to give it a king.  Yegads, what idiots!  They got a king all right...Guy by the name of Saul.  A flaming idiot he was.  Not only that, the ones who came after him do not have a long and illustrious history.  You can get that image by reading the Prophets.  
You think, oh yeah, what they needed was rule by the people, grass roots stuff.  OK, bring on the Greeks.  In comes Alexander himself.  Oh, no.  This is worse.  Alexander didn't last long.  Neither did the Greeks in Israel...So you know what?  The Israelite kings turned to the Romans for help and support.  Oh, that was a real smart move!  Heee.  Aren't these people ever going to learn?  The answer is, "NO."  
3,500 years later, here we are.  We don't have a king either.  Maybe we should have one.  Oh yeah?  They got one across the Pond.  HHmmm...
You're now saying to yourself, "Where is Dion going with this?  This isn't a thought, it's a rant."  Rant?  No way.  It's only a rant if it has nasty words in it.  This is clean as a whistle.  So far.  Actually, I want to make the point that crossed my mind today during the heavily multi-cultural funeral rites that I presided.  I had prepared myself for the mix of cultures to be present.  It was interesting to be there and to be in charge of the process.  Everybody behaved.  Of course, anyone can stand ANYTHING for only an hour, right?  Then on the drive back home I listened to the news.  What a mistake!  Complaints about the new Coca-Cola Can; Gossip about 9-9-9; Comparing Newt to a newt; Nasties about Mormons; Warnings about Sharia; Advice of how to ship 25,000,000 Mexicans back south of the border; Gnashing of teeth about the rejection of the "Scientific" assurances that human life, as such, begins at conception; Assurances that we should follow the British lead and close our embassy in Tehran [we did that in 1974];  Assuring us that it is totally unnecessary for our children to be forced to learn "cursive;"  Crying and wailing for more taxes to be assessed against the Millionaires and Billionaires.  Through it all I remembered how just recently how a man who didn't know the fundamental grammar rules of our major language was elected president, and now we have to listen to the same crowd who did that, tell us how to save our beloved homeland from disintegrating.  
Hoi Polloi indeed.  Bring on the clowns.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  How does that square with the famous Greek aphorism, Όλες οι κάρτες, "Everything passes."  Yeah, maybe.