09101 Political Criminality

But in our political system, we have an industry dominated by two firms, Republicans and Democrats. Together they have a 99 percent market share. They have undertaken actions at the state and national levels to make it practically impossible for any other party to enter. This system forecloses good competition, the kind that raises new ideas or asks embarrassing questions. We have been fooled into thinking the system is competitive, because we constantly see vigorous rent-seeking competition for access to the public purse. This bad competition is an expensive gladiatorial combat, where Congress keeps a lot of the ticket receipts. Some of the rest of the spending is simply wasted building those expensive office suites on K Street and using the time of those lobbyists who could be doing something more productive. — Michael Munger

The rich and the super-rich..."demand and receive special entitlements in the shape of a news media that coddles them, huge subsidies from the state for their enterprises, undue deference by those who seek jobs or philanthropy from them, an amazingly low estate tax, tax laws that allow them to pay a lower percentage of their incomes than their employees, and special access to public officials to ensure that their activities are not closely regulated in the public interest." — William E. Connolly

According to the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of the US government is —

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I’m sure other governments have similar statements in their constitutional documents.

It reads rather quaint, however, in this day when billions of dollars or euros are spent to win and lose elections in a typical general election year.

Do we believe that anyone will spend that much money to altruistically defend the common good?

By their actions, everyone can see that our federal and state governments do not promote the general welfare but instead loot the public in order to reward the friends and punish the enemies of the parties in power.

The worst fears of our Founding Fathers for their new government over time are a daily reality.

I don't intend to further bemoan the political criminality of modern America. I'm not talking about other governments because each country has its own set of issues that must be addressed.

If you need more moans, try my blog, http://www.bobwaldrop.net/, where I rant with hair and beard on fire on politics, economics, and most other topics.

The question of this section is — how do you protect yourself from political criminality?

The first question is — how does the political criminality of the government harm me? Make your own list. Here are some general observations.

Risk of political terror. All of us are at risk of the midnight knock on the door. The president of the United States has the authority to secretly disappear any American citizen, forever, without trial. In fact, the president has the authority to order the assassination of an American citizen. The execution can be carried out in secret and with impunity from any consequences. At present, the government claims they will only do this in extraordinary situations involving terrorists attacking the United States. “Trust us.” Having established the constitutional principle that the executive branch has this authority to murder citizens, tomorrow there may be a new definition of who is so dangerous that they must be executed without trial by Star Chamber executive directive.

Theft of your productive effort for the benefit of rent-seeking political elites. This takes two primary forms —

1. Diversions of tax money away from the common good toward special interests, spending on wars, ear marks, road construction and other federal, state, and local construction boondoggles. This reduces the public funds available for the useful functions of government. Over the long term, we pay two ways for this criminality — we pay higher taxes and we suffer from degraded infrastructure and declining services.
2. Finagling government rules and regulations to favor some companies while excluding others from the market place or making them less competitive. We pay a price in the form of less competition, lower quality services and products bought at higher prices, lost jobs, damages to our communities

Increased risk of war. The aggressive and adventurous foreign policies of the US government put all of us at increased risk of war and terrorism. Instead of making us safer, our policies put all of us at risk of violence and death right here in the homeland of the United States. Blowback is real and because there are millions of people out there who have lost friends and family to the aggressive military and terroristic actions of the United States Government, we are all at risk of it.

Subsidizing and pollution and destruction of the environment. Clean air and water standards are constantly under political and regulatory attack. The government takes many direct actions that attack and cause harm to the planet’s ecologies. Laws and regulations make it hard for individual households and grassroots communities to live more sustainably. Some sustainable activities in some areas — like composting toilets — are illegal!

Permaculture thinker Vinay Gupta says that the six primary threats to humanity and the planet are state-funded —

• biological weapons
• nuclear weapons
• nanotech
• global warming
• biotechnology
• environmental failure

The second question is — how do you protect yourself and your household from government criminality?

Fortunately, we stack the function of “protecting ourselves from political criminality” on the same elements and systems involved with protection from other hazards of life and the general goals of permaculture design. Permaculture design and its implementation as a good-life plan will liberate you from economic and political subjugation and give you true freedom to be what you can be.