Getting the leaders we deserve?

Wise words dictate that "a nation deserves the leaders it gets". How true is that?  I have had the occasion to entertain differing opinions on this. Some of my argumentative friends say that this is a very unfair statement. Especially those who seem to be more religiously inclined say that it is sacrilege to utter such a thing for that insinuates an unkind Maker. Rational as that view maybe, yet another angle of rationality is about us having the choice to make our decisions on our life processes bestowed on us by our Maker. Along this latter thinking we know that we can indeed make our own decisions and that their consequences have to be borne by us as our own responsibility -- those negative merits being called sin or negative karma. So can't we still say that we deserve the leaders we get? 

In a democracy the vote is the gem in our hand. But it’s also true that how we use our vote is our own responsibility, and if we choose to sell that which we feel is our’s, who can stop us? But an aware public in a democracy must know that this is like playing with fire, and we are sure to get burnt. Just as sure is that by selling our vote we will indeed get the leaders we deserve. And these might just be the retribution we have to contend with in our own lifetime