How Corrupt Is the American Government?

Government corruption has become rampant:

• Senior SEC employees spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes

• Nuclear Regulatory Commission workers watch porn instead of cracking down on unsafe conditions at nuclear plants

• An EPA employee who downloaded 7,000 porn files, then spent 2-6 hours each workday watching porn. He’s been doing it for years … but the EPA never fired him. Another EPA employee harassed 16 women co-workers … and then was promoted to a higher-paying job with more responsibility, where he harassed more women

• NSA spies pass around homemade sexual videos and pictures they’ve collected from spying on the American people

• NSA employees have also been caught using their mass surveillance powers to spy on love interests, such as girlfriends, obsessions or former wives … and to eavesdrop on American soldiers’ intimate conversations with their wives back home. And see this (“routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted” … “‘Hey, check this out … there’s good phone sex’”)

• An employee of the Transportation Security Administration admitted that TSA agents share – and laugh at – nude scans of passengers. Another TSA employee says that screeners make excuses so they can grope and fondle travelers that they’re attracted to (maybe that’s why the TSA failed to find mock explosives or banned weapons going through checkpoints in 95% of trials)

• Investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives … instead of actually working to help the economy

• The Minerals Management Service – the regulator charged with overseeing BP and other oil companies to ensure that oil spills don’t occur – was riddled with “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity”, which included “sex with industry contacts”

• Agents for the Drug Enforcement Agency had dozens of sex parties with prostitutes hired by the drug cartels they were supposed to stop (they also received money, gifts and weapons from drug cartel members)

• Drug Enforcement agents also RAN New Jersey’s sleaziest strip club – using illegal, undocumented girls – which included a prostitution ring

• Pentagon employees used government credit cards to pay for adult “escorts” (i.e. prostitutes) and to gamble

• North Carolina passed a law LEGALIZING PROSTITUTES for state lawmakers.

• Federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Secret Service investigating Bitcoin money laundering extorted and stole over $1 million in Bitcoin

• The IRS gave promotions to employees who were themselves tax cheats

• The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has conspired with big banks to manipulate commodities prices for decades

• The government-sponsored rating agencies committed massive fraud (and see this)

• The Treasury department allowed banks to “cook their books”

• Regulators knew of and allowed the use of debt-hiding accounting tricks by the big banks

• The SEC has been shredding Wall Street documents for decades to help the big banks cover up their fraud

• The Secretary of Treasury (Tim Geithner) was complicit in Lehman’s accounting fraud, (and see this)

• The former chief accountant for the SEC says that Bernanke and Paulson broke the law and should be prosecuted

• The government knew about mortgage fraud a long time ago. For example, the FBI warned of an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud in 2004. However, the FBI, DOJ and other government agencies then stood down and did nothing. See this and this. For example, the Federal Reserve turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud, and the SEC has repeatedly ignored accounting fraud (a whistleblower also “gift-wrapped and delivered” the Madoff scandal to the SEC, but they refused to take action). Indeed, Alan Greenspan took the position that fraud could never happen

• Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy when they were not. The Treasury Secretary also falsely told Congress that the bailouts would be used to dispose of toxic assets … but then used the money for something else entirely

• The D.C. politicians said that the giant failed banks couldn’t be nationalized, because that would be socialism. Instead of temporarily nationalizing them and then spinning them off to the private sector – or breaking them up – the politicians have bailed them out to the tune of many tens of billions of dollars each year, and created a system where all of the profits are privatized, and all of the losses socialized

• Obama and Congress promised help for struggling homeowners, and passed numerous bills that they claimed would rescue the little guy. But every single one of these bills actually bails out the banks … and doesn’t really help the homeowner

• Many D.C. politicians pay lip service to helping the little guy … while pushing policies which have driven inequality to levels surpassing slave-owning societies

• A high-level Federal Reserve official says quantitative easing is “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time”

• The American government’s top official in charge of the bank bailouts wrote, “Americans should lose faith in their government. They should deplore the captured politicians and regulators who distributed tax dollars to the banks without insisting that they be accountable. The American people should be revolted by a financial system that rewards failure and protects those who drove it to the point of collapse and will undoubtedly do so again.”

• Bailout funds were not used to help Main Street or the little guy. Instead, the government threw money at “several billionaires and tens of multi-millionaires”, as well as hedge funds, giant corporations like McDonald’s and Harley-Davidson, and numerous foreign banks, including Gaddafi’s Libyan bank, the Arab Banking Corp. of Bahrain, and the Banks of Bavaria, Korea and Mexico

• The regulators pretend that they are being tough on the big banks. But – instead of doing the right thing – they’ve done everything they can to help COVER UP THEIR SINS

• The non-partisan Government Accountability Office calls the Fed corrupt and riddled with conflicts of interest

• Nobel prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz says the World Bank would view any country which had a banking structure like the Fed as being corrupt and untrustworthy. The former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said said he worried that the failure of the government to provide more information about its rescue spending could signal corruption. “Nontransparency in government programs is always associated with corruption in other countries, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be here,” he said

• Arguably, both the Bush and Obama administrations broke the law by refusing to close insolvent banks

• Congress may have covered up illegal tax breaks for the big banks

• Congress recently told the courts that Congress can’t be investigated for insider trading

• Congress has exempted itself from the healthcare rules it insists everyone else follow

• State lawmakers are routinely wined and dined by corporate lobbyists who literally TELL THEM what laws to pass

• Police have been busted framing numerous innocent people

• Systemic corruption at the FBI lab led to the EXECUTION of innocent people

• Police raise money by handing out tickets … and they’re given quotas by their bosses. And see this

• Law enforcement also grabs massive amounts of people’s cash, cars and property … even when people aren’t CHARGED with – let alone convicted of – any crime

• Private prisons are huge profit-making centers for giant companies, and private prison corporations obtain quotas from the government, where the government guarantees a certain number of prisoners at any given time

• The government has gone to great lengths to cover up nuclear accidents, radiation dangers, and unsafe conditions at nuclear plants

• The government made sure that false claims were made about the amount of oil spilled by BP in the Gulf

• The government covered up the health risks to New Orleans residents associated with polluted water from hurricane Katrina, and FEMA covered up the cancer risk from the toxic trailers which it provided to refugees of the hurricane. The Centers for Disease Control – the lead agency tasked with addressing disease in America – covered up lead poisoning in children in the Washington, D.C. area (the Centers for Disease Control has also been outed as receiving industry funding)

• The government’s response to the outbreak of mad cow disease was simple: it STOPPED TESTING for mad cow, and PREVENTED cattle ranchers and meat processors from VOLUNTARILY testing their own cows (and see this and this)

• In response to new studies showing the substantial dangers of genetically modified foods, the government passed legislation more or less PUSHING IT onto our plates

• Government scientists originally pushed fluoridation of water as “safe and effective” because fluoride is a major byproduct of making nuclear weapons … and the government ordered them to downplay the risks of fluoride exposure in order to prevent massive lawsuits by those suffering injury from poisoning

• When one of the most respected radiologists in America – the former head of the radiology department at Yale University – attempted to blow the whistle on the fact that the FDA had approved a medical device manufactured by General Electric because it put out massive amounts of radiation, the FDA installed spyware to record his private emails and surfing activities (including installing cameras to snap pictures of his screen), and then used the information to smear him and other whistleblowers

• The EPA colluded with Dow Chemical to toss aside Dow’s own safety studies showing that the Agent Orange ingredient 2,4-D caused kidney damage in rats, so it could approve an increase of 4100% of 2,4-D in the American diet

• In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of wrongdoing – the Department of Justice told Bank of America to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this)

• The Bush White House worked hard to smear CIA officers, bloggers and anyone else who criticized the Iraq war

• The FBI smeared top scientists who pointed out the numerous holes in its anthrax case. Indeed, the head of the FBI’s investigation agrees that corruption was rampant

• After a top USDA scientist disclosed that commonly-used pesticides kill monarch butterflies and beneficial insects, the government punished him and tried to make his life miserable

• Senior judges in Pennsylvania have pleaded guilty to falsely convicting and imprisoning hundreds of YOUTHS (they got kickbacks from the prisons). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to hear a case regarding the corrupt judges. A month later – only after the judges confessed to criminal wrongdoing – did the Supreme Court change its mind and take any interest

• The government has intentionally whipped up hysteria about terrorism for cynical political purposes. For example, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge admitted that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help the president win reelection (and the biggest terrorism fearmongers themselves actually support terrorism. And see this)

• Warmongers in the U.S. government knowingly and intentionally lied us into a war of aggression in Iraq. The former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the highest ranking military officer in the United States – said that the Iraq war was “based on a series of lies”. The same is true in Libya, Syria and other wars. Indeed, the U.S. has often launched or proposed launching wars based upon FALSE PREMISES

• The U.S. has befriended the main backers of Islamic terrorism … because they have a lot of oil and do our government’s dirty work. In the name of fighting terrorism, the U.S. has been directly supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorists and providing them arms, money and logistical support in Syria, Libya, Mali, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iran, and many other countries … both before and after 9/11. And see this
• Conservatives like the director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan (Lt. General William Odom)  and liberals like Noam Chomsky all say that the American government is the WORLD’S LARGEST purveyor of terrorism

• When the American government got caught assassinating innocent civilians, it changed its definition of “enemy combatants” to include all young men – between the ages of say 15 and 35 – who happen to be in battle zones. When it got busted killing kids with drones, it changed the definition again to include kids as “enemy combatants”

• U.S. government officials say that the government has long PROTECTED drug cartels

• $8.5 TRILLION dollars in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 has NEVER been accounted for. The military wastes and “loses” trillions of dollars. And Congress pushes expensive boondoggles that our generals say are unnecessary and unhelpful … because it’s pork for their district

• The government lied when it said it doesn’t conduct mass surveillance on Americans, and then lied again when it said that spying was aimed at protecting America against terrorists.  The highest-level NSA whistleblower in history says that a recently-passed bill authorizing mass surveillance is “just another example of corruption“

• Why do the intelligence agencies spy on innocent Americans? Because they rake in the dough when they do.  Why do so many in Congress support NSA spying? Because NSA contractors give them money

• The same Congress members who backed mass surveillance against the American people have only become indignant only when they were spied on by the government

• The government also lied when it said America doesn’t torture (and see this), and then lied once again when it said torture was aimed at protecting America against terrorists

• The government protects criminal wrongdoing by prosecuting whistleblowers. The Obama administration has sentenced whistleblowers to dozens of times the jail time of all other presidents COMBINED). And the government has framed whistleblowers with false evidence

• The government treats journalists who report on government corruption as CRIMINALS OR TERRORISTS. And it goes to great lengths to smear them. For example, when USA Today reporters busted the Pentagon for illegally targeting Americans with propaganda, the Pentagon launched a SMEAR CAMPAIGN against the reporters. But  journalists who act as mere cheerleaders for the government who never criticize are protected and rewarded

• The intelligence services BLACKMAIL people in both government and the private sector with evidence of homosexuality, nude pictures and other information that people want to stop from going public

• Terror attacks such as 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and the Texas shooting all happened because of PERVASIVE CORRUPTION in our intelligence agencies

The biggest companies own the D.C. politicians. Indeed, the head of the economics department at George Mason University has pointed out that it is unfair to call politicians “prostitutes”. They are in fact pimps … selling out the American people for a price.

Government regulators have become so corrupted and “captured” by those they regulate that Americans know that the cop is on the take. Institutional corruption is killing people’s trust in our government and our institutions.

Neither the Democratic or Republican parties represent the interests of the American people. Elections have become nothing but scripted beauty contests, with both parties ignoring the desires of their own bases.

Indeed, America is no longer a democracy or republic … it’s officially an oligarchy. And the allowance of unlimited campaign spending allows the oligarchs to purchase politicians more directly than ever.

No wonder polls show that the American people say that the system is so thoroughly corrupt that government corruption is now Americans’ number one fear.

And politicians from both sides of the aisle say that corruption has destroyed America. And see this.

Moreover, there are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats … and one for everyone else. Indeed, Americans have less access to justice than Botswanans … and are more abused by police than Kazakhstanis.

Big Corporations Are Also Thoroughly Corrupt

But the private sector is no better … for example, the big banks have literally turned into criminal syndicates engaged in systemic fraud.

Wall Street and giant corporations are literally manipulating every single market.

And the big corporations are cutting corners to make an extra penny … wreaking havoc with their carelessness. For example:

• Fracking companies dumped 3 billion gallons of highly-toxic waste into California’s drinking water supply. Fracking is polluting water all over the country. A study published in the journal Ground Water predicts that the highly-toxic fluids used in fracking can migrate to aquifers within a few short years. In addition, it is now official that fracking can cause earthquakes. Yet fracking companies are using military psychological operations techniques to discredit opponents (and see this)

• U.S. military contractors have pocketed huge sums of money earmarked for humanitarian and reconstruction aid. And see this (whistleblowers alerted the government about the looting of Iraq reconstruction funds, but nothing was done)

• General Electric and other nuclear companies KNEW their designs were faulty and unsafe … but hid that fact for decades

• Monsanto has claimed for decades that Roundup is safe, but the World Health Organization just said that it probably causes cancer. Monsanto forbids independent scientists from testing its GMO crops for safety, attacks the computers of people who oppose GMO foods and sue small farmers when Monsanto GMO crops drift onto their fields

• Big farmers are drenching their crops with Roundup right before harvest … to save a buck

• Big food companies work hand-in-glove with the government to dish up unhealthy food

• BP’s criminal negligence led to the giant Gulf oil spill

• There is systemic corruption among drug companies, scientific journals, university medical departments, and medical groups which set the criteria for diagnosis and treatment

(Further examples here, here, here, here and here.)

We’ve Forgotten the Lessons of History

The real problem is that we need to learn a little history:

• We’ve known for thousands of years that – when criminals are not punished – crime spreads

• We’ve known for hundreds of years that the failure to punish financial fraud destroys economies, as it destroys all trust in the financial system

• We’ve known for centuries that powerful people – unless held to account – will get together and steal from everyone else

Beyond Partisan Politics

Conservatives and liberals tend to blame our country’s problems on different factors … but they are all connected.

The real problem is the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government.

Comments

[Wulfkind]

How sweet.  proLiberty still believes in the "Constitution"

I suppose ignorance is indeed bliss.

[B.S.D.]

+1,000,000,000 upvotes

[WTFUD]

Trick Question? Rhetorical for certain!

If it takes 3 men 5 days to dig a hole, how long will it take 4 men?

If i'm stupid and 18 years old and my sister is twice as stupid as me, how old is she?

To quantify the level of corruption of the American Government you would have to determine, Who exactly qualify as the AGov? For certain it is not anyone who is Elected.
So when we pass this barrier of identification the next important factor would be to quantify the number of deaths the AGov have been responsible for, since inception; multiply in the Total Annual Defense Budget divided by the Individual Entities who share X percentage of this total; There are fellow Z/H'rs with the analytical skills and adeptness to complete this complex equation in order to arrive at some rough estimate.

[Renfield]

<<If i'm stupid and 18 years old and my sister is twice as stupid as me, how old is she?>>

LOL'd!

Cracked up then told my husband. He said: "That's not very funny."

Then again, he never thought Jack Handey was funny either...

[Bits_of_Real_Panther]

Amazing post, makes what passes as journalism in the mainstream look full blown retard.  My only criticism is how is today any different than any other day in history?  Hasn't this shit always been the soup of the day?

[mastersnark]

We just have to elect the right Bilderberger and this all goes away.

[cherry picker]

We can do our part to turn some of this around.  First thing is to not upgrade to Win10.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2016/01/06/windows-10-spying-secrets-revealed/?utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix

Start by taking away the massive profits from Microsoft, Apple and Google. 

It would not surprise me if .gov is paying these companies for intrusions into our privacy.

Anyone would like to bet if Microsoft has users social security numbers, bank and financial account login names and passwords?

[Solio]

Radioactive Cesspool, Inq.

Not that that would be wrong.

[dontgoforit]

Pitiful; I'd reckon.

[yovatti]

Yeah, the US government has its flaws. But it's hilarious to hear a Russian mouthpiece say it.

It's not really a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It's more like used toilet paper telling the floor it's dirty.

[George Washington]

Nice numbers 1, 13 and 14!

[HoserF16]

Ayn Rand: "You can Avoid Reality but you can not Avoid the Consequences of ignoring that Reality"

[HandyCrapper]

Economic Fascism at its best.

[Charles Offdensen]

You might want to re-word that title of your post to read "how corrupt are ALL governments?"

For the record I tried!!!

[numapepi]

Wow... we better not ever shut down the bureaucracy! The porn industry would collapse overnight!

[steelhead23]

Having worked for various government agencies, from counties to the federal gov't, it is my experience that most government workers do a good job, porn-wathers not withstanding.  But agency leadership bowing to political pressure is pretty common.  In my view, the real rot is at the top and the best cure is to get money out of politics.  Also, it is quite true that it is much easier to trim dead wood in the corporate world than in government so many bosses, not actually paying the salaries, would rather keep them on and limit their responsibilities than go through the dreadful hassle of firing them.  I wish that weren't true, but it is.

[NuYawkFrankie]

How Corrupt is The USSA?

Like a mosquito at a nudist convention, it's hard to know where to start.

[Wulfkind]

I would look for any organ that has a tendency to bleed on a regular basis.

[dearth vader]

Terrific, if all them bribes are included in GDP and if they're taxed!

[koan]

""Consensual sexual relationships do not have monetary value and therefore are not reportable as gifts or 'reportable expenditure made for lobbying,'" the opinion reads.""

Tell a hooker that.

[Reaper]

Government is a moral hazard in all in parts. The courts and the media are enablers of government malfeasance. There are no honest judges, because not even one judge will act against another judge, except if there are outrageous public acts otherwise exposed. http://faqusajudicialcorruption.blogspot.com/

Trust in government empowers the US Ruling Kleptocracy.

[hendrik1730]

Hail to the land of the free. Impressive track record. Almost sounds like Belgium - but THEIR politicians/administration are truly unbeatable. "Government" there needs 54% of the GNP and even then runs DEFICITS while they cannot even pay the meagre pensions of their retirees ( typically 900 US$/month ) , and Belgium is not at war with anyone to my knowledge.

[RabbitOne]

I was disappointed in this article. The last list I saw had more than 10,000 major government corruption incidents. The owners of that last list said they had to cut out 90,000 items to keep it short…

[Dragon HAwk]

You get enough Bureaucracy and you can hide a lot of crooks

[sapioplex]

As the number of people involved in any system of human cooperation increases, so do the opportunities to hide corruption. The human brain evolved optimizing the propensity for deceit to the size of a hunter-gatherer group, perhaps 20-100 people. (We're hard-wired this way; deceit is a natural part of animal behavior.) As the cooperating population increases, opportunity for corruption increases exponentially. Technology in the hands of the powerful amplifies the problem.

The only change that can eliminate this recurrent problem (without going back to small tribes) is to implement a governance system structured such that deceit is automatically filtered out of the decisionmaking process. I assert this is possible. (It is also possible to filter out ignorant/unwise decisions with the same single mechanism.)

[Teknopagan]

Democracy is the rule of money/credit

[rsnoble]

I know a couple people down the road that work for the gov't.  Blows my mind everytime I see them as to how that's possible.  Complete alcoholics and not very bright.  Seems they have more time off than they work. 

[Otrader]

I know a federal worker who is a good friend of mine, he gets 58 days/year between sick days/vacation.   Amazing. 

[dizzyfingers]

...only braindead need apply?

[VW Nerd]

In government, whistleblowers are problem employees.  I guess corruption is great if you're in on the action....

[Kickaha]

Well, nobody's perfect.

[JohnGaltsChild]

Gee, then maybe Hil-liary would be the perfect person for the job.

[garlansm]

How can anyone watch porn for that many hours a day. I'm good for maybe two minutes. OK I realize I am over sharing but WTF?

[Casey Jones]

That's how bored these morons are. Me, I'd be plowing through Ayn Rand and Knausgaard.

[Michigander]

It's one big club...AND YOU AIN'T IN IT!

[JustObserving]

The land of the free is a fascist, police state masquerading as a democracy.  And the press, completely owned by the CIA, does a fine job of covering that up:

Who rules America? 

The secret collaboration of the military, the intelligence and national security agencies, and gigantic corporations in the systematic and illegal surveillance of the American people reveals the true wielders of power in the United States. Telecommunications giants such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, and Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter, provide the military and the FBI and CIA with access to data on hundreds of millions of people that these state agencies have no legal right to possess.

Congress and both of the major political parties serve as rubber stamps for the confluence of the military, the intelligence apparatus and Wall Street that really runs the country. The so-called “Fourth Estate”—the mass media—functions shamelessly as an arm of this ruling troika.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/10/pers-j10.html

Snowden's documents revealed that the NSA spies on everyone:

The most extraordinary passage in the memo requires that the Israeli spooks “destroy upon recognition” any communication provided by the NSA “that is either to or from an official of the US government.” It goes on to spell out that this includes “officials of the Executive Branch (including the White House, Cabinet Departments, and independent agencies); the US House of Representatives and Senate (members and staff); and the US Federal Court System (including, but not limited to, the Supreme Court).”

The stunning implication of this passage is that NSA spying targets not only ordinary American citizens, but also Supreme Court justices, members of Congress and the White House itself. One could hardly ask for a more naked exposure of a police state.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/13/surv-s13.html

GMO foods are toxic as is fluoride

Study Shows Dramatic Correlation Between GMOs And 22 Diseases

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/study-shows-dramatic-correlation...

50 REASONS TO OPPOSE FLUORIDATION

http://fluoridealert.org/articles/50-reasons/

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- William Colby, former CIA Director

[Farqued Up]

I take it that the Illuminati aren't really in control?

[Radical Marijuana]

The globalized systems of electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs can no longer be fully comprehended by any groups of human beings, and so NOBODY is in control anymore, not even those who originally made and maintained those systems. Consider that the vast majority of trading these days is being done by computers operating way faster than human beings. Even the few mathematicians that made those programs no longer fully understand what they have built.

[Radical Marijuana]

I wonder which seemingly robotic Zero Hedge account(s) registered the red down-arrow(s) regarding JustObserving's comment?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-28/cyber-attacks-are-new-cold-war

Cyber-Attacks Are The New Cold War

"The warfare ideology today is ‘Multilateral Unconstrained Disruption’ (MUD). This unrestrictive warfare is meant to disrupt societal functioning; to ‘poison’ information to elevate distrust of all computer information."

After reading the comment posted above by JustObserving, it would appear that the best guess about any red down vote(s) of such a comment would be that it was due to MUD.

These days, that one can not tell whether some votes were made by machines or men is an indication of the magnitude of the overall problem that the vast majority of people have already LOST the War Against Consciousness. There is an intensifying paradox regarding "Who rules America," because that has become a scientific dictatorship, which uses all of the advancing science and technologies that it can, from physics to psychology, in order to promote its overall agenda, which manifests as War Against Consciousness.

OF COURSE, bankster controlled governments have become integrated systems of the best organized criminals controlling the biggest forms of organized crime. Furthermore, that has become so blatant that public opinion polls in the USA now tend to routinely have about two thirds of those polled asserting well-founded opinions that government corruption is their worst enemy, and the greatest threat.

HOWEVER, THE DEGREE TO WHICH ALL OF THE PUBLICLY SIGNIFICANT OPPOSITION GROUPS ARE CONTROLLED (MOSTLY BY THE WAYS THAT THEY THINK) MAKES IT SEEM POLITICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO CHANGE THAT!

The American democratic republic and its rule of law was destroyed long ago! Step by step, the international bankers recaptured control over the American monetary system. WHEN "We the People" lost control over the public money supply, THEN democracy was destroyed. Although there were some historical reversals (most notably under President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s), for more than a Century, after the milestone of the Federal Reserve Board and the Income Tax, in 1913, everything since then has merely been the rigor mortis of an already dead democracy.

Since then, Americans, and most of the rest of the world, particularly all NATO countries, have become increasingly bankster controlled governments, which have more and more become Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds, where everything appears to be absurdly backwards, so that all the political labels that the bankster controlled government threaten with, and apply to others, actually apply most of all to those banksters, and the political puppets that they control, as well as enough of the masses of muppets that vote for those puppets. E.g., the banksters are the greatest of "financial terrorists," etc. ...

The basic facts about how civilization developed:

The oldest and best developed form of social science and social engineering was warfare. Economics developed inside the context of warfare. Since successful warfare was based upon backing up deceits with destruction, successful finance became based upon enforcing frauds. The only things that actually exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. The currently established systems, namely bankster controlled governments, are EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL at what those were actually designed to do, in the sense that the banksters' frauds are SYMBOLIC ROBBERIES, which have transferred trillions upon trillions of the tokens of wealth and claims over ownership from the many to the few.

The social FACTS that a tiny minority own more than the vast majority demonstrates that "economics" IS "scientific."  However, economics is scientific social engineering in the same ways as warfare was scientific social engineering. The successfulness of being the victors through warfare became the successfulness of being the victors in economics. That the social pyramid systems have gotten bigger and BIGGER, while also getting steeper and STEEPER, are due to economics being systems of organized lies operating robberies, which were being done better and BETTER, from the point of view of those who were the best at operating those systems.

Those who judge economic and political theories on the superficial basis of what the professional hypocrites promoting those theories are asserting their theories are supposed to do tend to deliberately ignore what those theories actually do! There is ONLY ONE theory that corresponds to all the social facts, and that is civilization operates according to the principles and methods of organized crime. Bankster controlled governments have become extremely successful forms of organized lies operating robberies, in the sense that those doing that have become almost unimaginably more wealthy, in the sense of more politically powerful. The basic problems with respect to most people not understanding that, and not wanting to understand that, are that they have become way too brainwashed to believe in bullshit about "economics," and "politics." Therefore, they tend to take for granted thinking about everything in the most absurdly backward ways possible. Indeed, it is practically impossible to exaggerate the degree to which almost everyone thinks about "economics" and "politics" in the most bullshit-based ways possible, which is how and why so many of them end up falsely concluding that economics is somehow not scientific, when economics is actually fantastically successful social engineering, since real political economy actually operates as organized crime, through integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, and MUST necessarily do so!

The established sociopolitical systems were quite paradoxically driven by natural selection pressures through the history of successful warfare based on backing up deceits with destruction, morphing to become successful finance based on enforcing frauds, to become systems of artificial selection which deliberately ignore and/or misunderstand natural evolutionary ecologies, due to those sociopolitical systems NOT wanting to admit and address what they are really doing, since their social successfulness has depended upon a long history of becoming as dishonest as possible about doing that, while those lies were backed by violence, so that those bullshit social stories became the biggest bullies' bullshit, which dominated all sociopolitical systems, and therefore, all of those systems continue being operated by the best available professional hypocrites.

Human beings operate their artificial selection systems in the most deliberately dishonest ways possible, and that applies to BOTH the core groups of organized crime (currently the bankster controlled governments) AND the various layers of controlled opposition groups that surround that core of organized crime, resulting in an increasingly oxymoronic SCIENTIFIC DICTATORSHIP. A more genuinely scientific society, contrary to an oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, would better understand the relationships of artificial selection systems inside natural selection systems. However, the currently existing kinds of scientific dictatorship continue to be as deliberately unscientific about themselves as possible, since their social successfulness depends upon the vast majority of people not understanding themselves any better, and moreover, feeling like they do not want to understand themselves any better. For all those reasons, our current kinds of technological civilization is rushing toward self-destruction, (to the degree that it seems practically pointless to bother to try to explain that to people who do not want to understand that!)

In order for technological civilization to survive, Neolithic Civilization must become Translithic Civilization, which requires that the currently existing, oxymoronic scientific dictatorship be transformed into being a genuinely more scientific society, that uses more information, enabling higher consciousness, in order to operate its death control systems. The artificial selection systems should become better reconciled with the natural selection systems. The human evolutionary ecologies ought to be better done, within a more scientific society. However, the first and foremost developments of the actually existing artificial selection systems were actually driven by the principles and methods of organized crime, operating on larger and larger scales, pumped up and UP by progress in physical science, while political science continued to be so totally dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world views, that the philosophy of science was more forced to compromise with the biggest bullies' bullshit, rather than the progress in physical science was able to change the degree of sociopolitical domination done by the best available professional hypocrites, operating through their relative social successfulness based upon backing up lies with violence, gradually becoming the currently existing systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence.

That situation is trillions of times worse now than it ever was before in human history. All of the established systems were built on the basis of presuming endless exponential growth, which could strip-mine the natural resources of a fresh planet, using the newly developed technologies generated by the industrial revolutions. "ECONOMIC GROWTH" IS THE GOAL, which never comes within light years of the need for series of intellectual scientific revolutions and profound paradigm shifts regarding the limits to growth, or how to cope with the strip-mining of the planet's natural resources reaching those limits in the form of diminishing returns, which limits end up having paradoxically counter-intuitive results, since those are being channeled through fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems.

Meanwhile, that situation makes it appear to now be politically impossible to stop VICIOUS SPIRALS OF POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS automatically getting worse, faster ... so that the most probable futures are psychotic breakdowns, crazy collapses into chaos, and severe series of social storms blowing through, due to the natural selection pressures building up and UP inside artificial selection systems which adamantly refuse to admit and address those issues in any other ways than even bigger lies, backed by more violence, despite that having become globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs!

That situation, of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, was originally made and maintained by the banksters. However, they no longer can fully understand nor control those systems. The banksters are not rightly thought of as the "elite" because the only things that they were good at were backing up lies with violence, which only required them to be more competent at doing that than those they previously were able to control.

Who rules America?

There is no doubt that there is a Deep State Shadow Government, operating via sets of consistent contradictions, as a scientific dictatorship, which manifests through the "malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government."

However, the degree to which that has become the case is many orders of magnitude worse now than ever before in human history. The inherently paradoxical problems that civilization was controlled through being able to back up lies with violence (which still never stopped those lies from being false) have become amplified to astronomical sizes by progress in all sciences, from physics to psychology, being primarily employed to get better at backing up lies with violence, constantly driving the inherent contradictions that those lies were still fundamentally false to get bigger and BIGGER!

Collectively, human beings have lost control over systems of electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs. While most people like to still think that the world is the same now as when it was paper frauds backed by gunpowder weapons, actually, since electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs are trillions of times GREATER, that world is radically different. But nevertheless, since the first generation that was born into that developing situation is still alive today, almost everyone continues to think in ridiculously old-fashioned ways.

One can not fully imagine the degree to which the ruling classes have becoming increasingly psychotic psychopaths, while the matching developments have been the degree to which those ruled over have become impotent, incompetent political idiots. Democracy and the rule of law DIED to the degree that the people lost control over the public money supplies, while the international bankers gained that control. Collectively, the international bankers became a group of trillionaire mass murderers. Since their control over the public "money" supplies has been about 99% achieved already, "democracy and the rule of law" is already about 99% DEAD.

It is politically impossible to have any rational public debates based upon evidence and logical arguments! Since all of the established sociopolitical systems are actually based upon public governments enforcing frauds by private banks, all of those sociopolitical systems are dominated by the best available professional hypocrites, whose most well developed skills are to deliberately ignore and remain willfully blind toward the basic social facts, which bullshit they can continue to get away with spouting because those frauds are enforced, despite that enforcing frauds never stops those frauds from still being false!

Civilization has always necessary operated as manifestations of the principles and methods of organized crime, because the death controls were always central to everything, and MUST necessarily be! The most extreme forms of those were the human murder systems, which were most socially successful when done through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries. Around that developed layers of controlled opposition groups, which operated INSIDE the biggest bullies' bullshit frame of reference regarding the death control issues, due to the history of the most successful murder systems being done in the most deceitful ways, which sets of social facts became the vicious spirals that enabled governments to become operated by the best available professional hypocrites.

A democratic republic operating through the rule of law only makes some relative sense IF "We the People" are directing the murder systems that back up the monetary systems. Since the vast majority of the so-called "citizens" do not understand that, and do not want to understand, they have effectively become incompetent political idiots. In my opinion, ALL the various "isms" and "ocracies" are based upon BULLSHIT, due to the degree that the biggest bullies have been able to dominate society, so that the dominate natural languages, as well as even the philosophy of science, so totally take that BULLSHIT for granted.

Ironically, most of the articles and comments published on Zero Hedge continue being superficially correct analyses. Any genuine democratic republic, or constitutional monarchy, etc., working through its rule of law, could  only possibly achieve some better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies, because the central issues are necessarily the death controls in general, and murder systems in particular. The presently established sociopolitical systems are operated by the best available professional hypocrites, whose death controls, that back up the debt controls, are based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds, which they especially continue to publicly get away with to the degree that the vast majority people do not understand, because they feel like they do not want to understand, the ways that artificial selection systems necessarily developed inside natural selection systems.

ALL of the publicly significant "isms" and "ocracies" are based upon taking for granted the dualities of false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals. However, when one develops the use of more unitary mechanisms to perceive human beings and civilization, then it is revealed that ALL those "isms" and "ocracies" have become ways that professional hypocrites are able to have their systems of organized lies engage in robberies, with murders being the most extreme form of those robberies, since money is measurement backed by murder.

As soon as we perceive and define human beings as separate from their environment and each other, then they necessarily live as gangs of robbers, by being entropic pumps of environmental energy flows. However, that fundamental set of social facts, that civilization operates according to the principles and methods of organized crime, has been driven to develop intense paradoxes, as sets of consistent contradictions, due to the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals being able to spout their kind of BULLSHIT. The degree to which the vast majority of "citizens" do not understand that, because they do not want to understand that, is the degree to which they have become incompetent political idiots, that lost control over their country.

Any government is necessarily the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gang of criminals. As long as any human beings survive, there can NEVER be NO government, because there can NEVER be NO organized crime.

While I agreed with the statements of social facts outlined in the article above, which appear to me to established beyond any reasonable doubt that those ARE the social facts, there is NOT presented enough of deeper analysis to more effectively be able to respond to those runaway political problems. Indeed, at the present time, since all of the so-called "free and democratic societies operating through the rule of law" are actually already more than 99% BULLSHIT ... it appears politically impossible for anything else than that those political problems will continue to get worse, faster, for the foreseeable future ...

NO DOUBT:

There is a Deep State Shadow Government, that rules America, operating via set of consistent contradictions as a scientific dictatorship, which manifests through the "malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government."

However, the matching flip side of that is the degree to which there is nothing which is publicly significant other than layers of controlled opposition surrounding that core of organized crime. Such "opposition" continues to promote bogus "solutions" based upon the same old-fashioned dualities, false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals that were originally developed by the biggest bullies as their bullshit which would enable them to operate as better professional hypocrites.

While it is relatively easy to demonstrate the social facts, such as presented in the article above by George Washington, or in the comment by JustObserving, I have never read anything previously posted by them that presents any more realistic resolutions of the real problems, rather than presents bogus "solutions," based upon various magical phrases, using words that have no operational definitions, but rather, continue to merely be old-fashioned forms of what may be regarded as political transcendental poetry.

While there is NO DOUBT regarding America developing a bankster controlled government (which is somewhat similar almost everywhere else, particularly in NATO countries), at the most, the publicly significant debates regarding that, such as published on Zero Hedge, ONLY engage in superficially correct analyses of those problems. The deeper reasons for how and why civilization necessarily operates through the principles and methods of organized crime tend to be deliberately ignored, even while still somewhat revealing the history and the results of that being the case, such as JustObserving and George Washington have done above.

As long as those who engage in superficially correct analysis of who rules America through the "malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government," continue to promote bogus "solutions" based upon the old-fashioned dualities of false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, then they are still controlled opposition, that promotes bogus "solutions" because they still think in ways which are being controlled by the bullshit that they were brainwashed to believe in, to the point where they want to continue to believe in that kind of bullshit.

Indeed, that is the most tragic way in which the vast majority of people have already LOST the War Against Consciousness: there is no publicly significant opposition which is not controlled by the ways that they think.  As was expressed previously on Zero Hedge by Cognitive Dissonance:

"The absolute best controlled opposition is
one that doesn't know they are controlled."

In my opinion, more than 99% of the content published on Zero Hedge fits within that description. That is why I am forced to come to the conclusion that the human species has more than 99% LOST the War Against Consciousness. Civilization has become based on being able to back up lies with violence, so much, for so long, that every sociopolitical institution is almost totally dominated by the best available professional hypocrites, and that includes the various controlled opposition groups, such as presented in about 99% of the content published on Zero Hedge.

Superficially correct analyses of the political problems due to bankster controlled governments becoming "malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government," ARE NOT ENOUGH!

Militarism, as the ideology of the murder systems, is the supreme ideology, and deserves to be. The BIG PROBLEMS that civilization now faces are how to operate better murder systems after the development of weapons of mass destruction. Those who promote bogus "solutions" based upon the same old-fashioned dualities of false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals, regarding the murder systems provide nothing but controlled opposition, that actually enables things to get worse, faster, because that only strengthens the professional hypocrites abilities to continue to bullshit.

Who rules America, is necessarily the result of governments being military organizations, operating through the principles and methods of organized crime, which have enabled the best organized criminals to capture control over those biggest forms of organized crime. It was those death control systems that made and maintained the debt control systems, which became debt slavery systems, that have grown at an exponential rate to generate numbers which have become debt insanities.

Those are inherently set up to eventually become so completely crazy and corrupt that they will go through series of psychotic breakdowns, while severe social storms blow through. What makes that even worse is the degree to which there are no publicly significant groups who appear to resist that but various kinds of controlled opposition, that are not sufficiently changing the ways they think.

Human civilization continuing to operate its death control systems most successfully through the maximum possible deceits has become criminally insane after the development of weapons of mass destruction. The ability of that history of social success through backing up deceits with destruction becoming governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks has similarly become too criminally insane to survive. The worsening levels of crazy corruption in all NATO countries, with America still "leading" the way, have all become runaway criminal insanities.

The basic problems we face are that there must necessarily be some death control systems, with the murder systems as the most extreme forms of those. The degree to which the existing systems are based upon their history of social successfulness through deceits and treacheries has resulted in that core of organized crime being surrounded by layers of controlled opposition, some of which tends to provide superficially correct analyses of those problems, but then collapses back to bogus "solutions."

For more than a Century, the government of the USA has been quite crazy and corrupt, while that automatically got worse, faster, since the basic structure of bankster controlled governments necessarily drives the exponential growth of "malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government." HOWEVER, it is impossible to go backward to find any genuinely better resolutions of those problems through any old-fashioned religions and/or ideologies. None of their kinds of political transcendental poetry, using their favourite magical words and phrases, can actually cope with runaway systems of electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs!

Rather, at least theoretically speaking, although it now appears to be politically impossible, what is required are profound paradigm shifts in militarism, in the sense of profound paradigm shifts in the ways that the death control systems are perceived and operated. I REPEAT: The only realistic resolutions to the real problems demand better organized crime, operating better death control systems. Doing that should be the longer term goal when the current systems of runaway debt insanities provoke worse death insanities.

It appears that America is headed towards the imposition of democidal martial law, which will be operated by whomever are the best available professional hypocrites during those times (which will include the various controlled opposition groups caught up in that too). The underlying problems are due to the nature of the increasingly oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, applying progress in science to become better at backing up lies with violence, since that historically were the most socially successful ways to operate the combined money/murder systems.

While way more of the content published on Zero Hedge appears to present superficially correct analyses of those political problems than presented on the previously more mainstream media, so far, I am not aware of any significant genuine opposition, that is not controlled by still thinking using dualities, rather than has begun to think using more unitary mechanisms. Indeed, from any relatively objective point of view, there is basically so LITTLE deeper analyses, which continues to be consistent when switching gears to synthesize solutions, that there is effectively NONE.

The USA, and almost all of the rest of the world, has bankster controlled governments, based upon enforcing frauds, whose crazy corruption automatically gets worse, faster, due to the vicious spirals of political funding driving that enforcement of frauds, as "malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government."

HOWEVER, there could be NO genuine solutions which would not be better organized crime, operating better death control systems to back up better debt control systems. Failure to develop better militarism means that technologically based civilization could commit collective suicide. The entrenched scientific dictatorship, with its growing Grand Canyon chasms between progress in physical science, WITHOUT progress in political science, continues to get wider and WIDER, as the bankster controlled governments become more blatantly corrupt and crazy.

Those accumulating anomalies, demonstrating the degree to which the bankster controlled governments are runaway crazy corruption, should drive profound paradigm shifts in the ways that political problems are perceived. PRIMARILY THAT MEANS STOP USING DUALITIES, AND START USING UNITARY MECHANISMS! Anything less results in nothing more than controlled opposition, whose thinking is still the same as all the rest of professional hypocrites that are now controlling civilization, and therefore, actually assists those kinds of professional hypocrites to continue to control civilization, in ways which will therefore automatically become even worse crazy corruption, since such a scientific dictatorship becomes increasingly psychotic, the more able it is to continue to enforce frauds, which nevertheless still continue to be fundamentally false!

[Crawdaddy]

RadMJ I sometimes read your entire posts but this time I won't. I admit I didn't read everything you said here. From what I read I see no mention of your belief in God. Do you believe in God?

[Radical Marijuana]

I believe Energy IS Spirit, and that one may asymptotically approach appreciation of God through contemplation of the principles of the conservation of energy and momentum and preservation of information.

However, I do NOT "believe" in any God which could be comprehended or expressed in any finite form. I tend to like the (non)Definition of God as being similar to the ways that infinity is infinitely more than I could ever comprehend in any finite way.

E.g., the mathematics developed by Greorg Cantor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor#Philosophy.2C_religion_and_Ca...

is similar to that of the theology of Thomas Aquinas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas#Nature_of_God

I believe in God, the ways

I believe in infinite energy.

The only ways that human beings have to work with the various concepts of infinity, and so, similarly make attempts to use the term God, are through various methods of approaching asymptotically, while NEVER being able to get there ... Mostly because everything that human beings "know" is based upon subtraction, which they tend to misunderstand in the most absurdly backward ways. I.e., human beings are parts of the infinity or God, which they can only experience through the processes of subtraction, via time and space.

The dominate cultures, made and maintained by the biggest bullies, tend to bullshit about time and space in the most extreme ways possible. Hence, I do NOT like any of the institutional religions that I am aware of, which I regard as mostly being a range of arrogant attempts to assert some sort of privatization of God. The institutionalized religions that I dislike the least are Buddhist. I tend to most vehemently dislike the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic range of assertions regarding their exceedingly arrogant claims to have privatized God. The more that anyone asserts that they have any finite understanding of God which is somehow anything more than their own systems of organized lies operating robberies, the more I tend to dislike them.

My adult life has mostly been about developing what I refer to as a synthetic mode of thought, in order to attempt creative syntheses between post-modernizing science and ancient mysticism. When I was decades younger, I developed my own sort of philosophy and religion based upon that approach. More and more, during the previous decade or so, I have concentrated upon applying that kind of synthetic mode of thought in ways which endeavour to engage in deeper analysis of the combined money/murder systems, as I have outlined in my comment above.

[Crawdaddy]

TY for the explanation of your position. Read carefully the other side

[aliki]

breaking down social security could have filled this question/page alone for weeks

[Insurrexion]

Thanks for the aggravating aggregation, George.

So, like many of the speed-bitch fests we see here, WTF are you going to do about it?

A. Have a 10 minute coffee shop discussion with someone who could give a shit.

B. Write endless frustrating rants on a political blog that piss people off for 10 minutes.

C. Hoist the black flag and start cutting some throats for 10 minutes...(ala H.L. Mencken).

...where the fuck are my black panties?

[FIAT CON]

I enlighten people everyday to what ZH has within it's pages. Before you can agree to take action you must have the knowledge of being STOLEN/CHEATED by your .gov.

[FIAT CON]

I enlighten people everyday to what ZH has within it's pages. Before you can agree to take action you must have the knowledge of being STOLEN/CHEATED by your .gov.

[12357111317]

Install a clothesline.

Ride a bicycle, and sell your car.

Insulate your dwelling.

Grow something, anything, and then eat it.

Show up at a few City Commission meetings.  Fight for something, anything, locally.

Vote (apparently, only 1 out of 4 people vote in elections in which a President is not chosen).

[Farqued Up]

Now it's 0 out of the 4 in my foursome, I quit, no mas.

[Wulfkind]

You have only two choices.  TWO.  That's it.

1:  Armed Rebellion.....aka Civil War and/or Coup

2:  Drop out and go "Amish".  And that doesn't mean go run out to the country and buy a plot of land...(although that would be best).... and live off the land.  You can "shelter in place" in the city by stating a small garden in your back yard.  Think your back yard is too small.  Tell that to these folks who grow 6000 lbs of food on 1/10 of an acre 15 minutes from downtown L.A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM

How about 20,000 lbs of fish and 70,000 vegetables on 1/4 acre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCCN4nq7BlQ

What if you live in an apartment?  Have a patio ?  A terrace? 

Check out an Earth Box. 

http://earthbox.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LayaD5N8j1U

Too expensive? Make your own from either a plastic storage container or a Home Depot bucket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoP4JJQggv4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE8OrdUZQKk

Apart from growing your own food.......also drop off the voter rolls and don't re-register when you move somewhere.  Voting doesn't matter and only gives legitimacy to the system.  This also can get you off jury duty.  The Justice System is equally broken and corrupt so don't support it. 

Drop your income down so that you can get an Earned Income Tax Credit  (EITC).  Let the corrupt government bankrupt themselves by paying you.  Enroll in SNAP.  Free food to supplement while you grow your own.  Plus, it puts further pressure on the government.  Go solar and/or wind so you pay less utility tax.  That's right....the ulitiies are also in bed with the government so they are fascist as well and part of the corrupt "Tax" system.  Take advantage of tax breaks on the front side for installation and enjoy a utility tax break on the back end.

Get a small 4 cyl. Jap or Korean car for a fuel tax break.  The oil companies are part and parcel with big goverment.  Screw them by cutting your fuel bill.  That will also lessen your auto insurance bill.  Insurance companies are also part and parcel of big government.  They tax you as well with insurance costs. 

If you're not going to pick up the gun, as Americans have refused to do since the Civil War and will never again, then you're only choice is to radically downsize EVERYTHING so as to supply yourself what you need in terms of food, shelter, income and transporation.  When you do this.....you help drain the swamp and cut off the blood supply to the Fascist Regime of Big Government and Big Business.   Namely, money.

[12357111317]

We have 9 earthboxes.

We always vote.  Not voting means dropping out, but the Founding Fathers did not drop out.  In fact, what they were fighting for was the right to vote.  But you can not vote if you want to.  That just makes my vote more powerful.  I will tell you two people who always vote: Judaists and Catholics.  And that's why 9 out of 9 Supreme Court members are Judaists or Catholics.