As I see it, the whole Federal government is a stupid, evil, bloated,...
· Comment — Archer T. Ships replied to Taryn East's comment. · View on Facebook · Markdown source
As I see it, the whole Federal government is a stupid, evil, bloated, corrupt authoritarian mess controlled by a network of crime families that have ruled the US for 150+ years. Democracy is a farce designed to give the rubes the illusion of control. And even if they had power, most voters are ignorant, irrational authoritarians. Most of the government's iniquities are committed to the sound of the public's cheers. Odds are, we're witnessing a new mafia family taking control of the government. Trump is 78 years old and likely to die soon (either via assassination or old age). But his son's and daughters will likely take up the mantle. Will the Trump/Musk/Thiel/Vance crime family he's helped to usher into power commit illegal acts? Almost certainly. But are the laws they're breaking ethically legitimate in the first place? Aren't the law enforcement agencies that purport to enforce good behavior themselves corrupt? Who is supposed to enforce good behavior when law enforcement, Congress, and the civil service are themselves riddled with crime and corruption? Let's review the status quo: * We're not supposed to go to war unless Congress declares war. Yet none of the half dozen or so wars we've been embroiled in since the Korea War have been officially declared by Congress. * Prohibition II should have required a constitutional amendment, the same as Prohibition I. The whole modern regulatory apparatus of the US depends on an interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause so tortured that it allows the government to dictate whether you can grow wheat on your own land for your own use. * The DEA should not have caged a million people for taking recreational drugs. The DEA should not exist at all. * The military should not have the power to enslave men and force them to fight and die in foreign wars. * The USG should not be adding $1 trillion to the national debt every year. * A cabal of private bankers should not be in control of the money supply. * Old people welfare--Medicare, Social Security--should not exist. * The NSA is not supposed to wiretap US citizens. * The CIA is not supposed to operate secret torture prisons. * The FBI is not supposed to willfully lie to Congress. * The White House is not supposed to pressure private firms to censor their users. * The IRS should not have selectively audited conservative charities. * The SEC/FinCen should not be pressuring banks/financial firms to debank firms in unpopular industries. * The SEC should not be trying to destroy the crypto industry. Moreover, the SEC/FinCen should not exist at all. * USAID should not be subsidizing dictators in other countries. * The nuclear industry should not have been so strangled that no nuclear plants were built for 35 years. * The FDA should not be able to dictate the medicines you take. * The USDA should be able to dictate the foods you eat. * US citizens should be able to hire whom they want, no matter where they were born, without fear of imprisonment. * Biden should not have been able to pre-emptively pardon his family and cronies. It seems to me that the purported checks and balances broke down long ago. So, it's hard for me to get too worked up if Musk et al ignore a few ineffectual checks in the course of destroying the old crime families. To my mind, the most important question is: will the new crime family rule better the crime families they've ousted? Unclear. But it's a certainty that unless the status quo changes, the government will collapse eventually anyway. Currently spending rates are wholly untenable. Let's assume that Trump et al drive the government into even greater dysfunction and corruption. Perhaps that will finally spur the dimwitted public to finally demand that their state secedes, so that they're no longer captive to the pathological federal government. The US governance system was created when the US was a rural country with a population of ~4 million. The US population is now ~335 million. At that scale, no matter who wins, no matter how we fiddle with the governance technology, tens of millions of people are going to be unhappy with the outcome. Long term, the only way we can end the domination of the corrupt Leviathian is to slay it, and divide the corpse into smaller and more manageable nation states.