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I have long argued that the reason why everyone in America is so unhappy these days has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with the system of government and the culture that evolved from it.
When you have a culture of “every man for himself”, and divide and conquer so that the biggest and most powerful person can become the leader you end up with a dog-eat-dog world. It’s an uncomfortable world that is truly ugly and where “normal” and healthy people do not want to live.
dog eat dogRuthlessacquisition or competition, as in Withshrinkingmarkets,it'sdogeatdogforeverycompany in thisfield. Thiscontradicts a Latinproverbwhichmaintainsthatdogdoesnoteatdog,firstrecorded in English in 1543.Nevertheless, by 1732 it wasput as "Dogsareharddrovewhentheyeatdogs"(ThomasFuller,Gnomologia).
Within this world you see things that simply do not exist outside of America. And while the more Western nations have adopted some of these American aspects, not all do. And you would be surprised at how much better life can be without…
Fees to use a Bank ATM.
Being forced to buy bottled water instead of a water fountain.
Having to pay to have your car washed.
Reporting your entire year of financial transactions to the government.
Being told that you MUST buy health insurance or face fines.
every man for himselfEachindividualputshis or herowninterestsforemost.Forexample,In thiscompany no onehelpsanyone-it'severymanforhimself. In Chaucer'sdaythisdictumwasstatedapprovingly,meaning"ifyoudon'tlookoutforyourself, no oneelsewill,"buttodaysuchselfishness is usuallycensured.Despitethewording,thetermapplies to eithersex.
So anyways, what I am presenting here is just a small taste of how the “every man for himself” culture manifests within the Untied States. If you live within a Western nation like the UK, like Australia, and like Canada some of these images will seem strangely familiar.
Big Tricks
We start with one of the big tricks. In it the BIG words and numbers say one thing, but the fine print says something else…
So, eh? What is it? Why not simply say nothing?
It’s all very manipulative and insulting.
Disguised Packaging
Here’s another trick, to pretend that the consumer will get more product by disguising the size of the packaging.
Again, trying to provide less while giving the impression of more.
How can this be legal? Well, if the government does not take action against these kinds of predatory activities then indeed it is actually legal.
In the case of the meat above, the deception is that the buyer think that it is a slab of meat that is much larger than what the packaging shows or indicates. It’s fully deceptive. And while the fine print, the tiny letters might say so many ounces or Kg of meat, that is meaningless when the image is right there in front of your face.
Look at this below.
We can see that the number of cookies in the package was intentionally reduced to save on costs to make the product, but the end sale price was not changed.
Deceptive Wording
And then, there is the “deceptive wording” trick. Where the words say one thing, but legalese is used to twist the meaning of the words.
US Health Care
And of course nothing says fraud and corruption in America like the “health care system”.
Here’s an example about the care that people receive inside of America…
My Point
My point is not to list the many, many ways that companies swindle, cheat or trick consumers. That has been the norm for some time now. My point is that it is permitted to happen without consequence.
I wouldn’t even notice this, if it wasn’t for the fact that I am in China. If a Chinese company tries to pull such a shit-head move they risk some serious push-back from the Chinese government. Probably a notice, and then a time-table to incorporate the changes. Followed by fees and fines if the company “drags it’s feet”, and much harsher measures down-the-line if results still do not materialize.
China is a serious; serious nation that does not play.
For the world to become a better place, people and companies need to STOP this on-going policy of trickery, manipulation, bait-sand-switch, and money-grubbing profit at all costs orientation.
There is no way around it.
And it is a significant issue, but NO ONE inside America is talking about this. Absolutely no one.
It is considered a trivial matter.
What are they talking about instead? Well, it’s the same old, same old.
I guess that the point that I am trying to make here is that whatever you might want to call America; a “democracy”, a “Republic”, a “crime syndicate”, an “oligarchy”, a “military empire”, the fact remains that it is NOT servicing the needs of the American citizenry.
It is not.
This is evident on every single level, in every single measurement, and in every conceivable way.
This is more than problematic, it is horrifying.
You see, America is at that historical stage where the government no longer functions to the point where the needs of the people are not met.
Typically, a solution develops. Either [1] the people construct a new government, or [2] they overthrow the old violently, or [3] that the government takes preemptive measures and starts some kind of distraction to prevent the “torches and pitchforks” from arriving at their doorsteps.
The government has decided to go with door number three.
And they are poking both the bear and the panda (Russia and China) with a long pointed stick.
They refuse to consider the MUCH NEEDED option; an emergency Constitutional Convention to restructure the Federal government, or disband the federal government entirely.
They would rather start World War III than accept any other solution.
Dangerous times indeed.
Things must be FIXED. Wrongs must be righted, and serious structural changes to the government need to start happening right NOW.
If they do not happen…
…do not believe that nothing worse will happen…
…you do not need a crystal ball to forecast the future of America without serious structural changes to it.
…
This is NOT the time to pay the same old “play book”. This is the time for America, the American people, the world, and everyone to come together.
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This article suggests that of the numerous forces tearing America apart, one such force is an out-of-control legal system. No, we are not talking about the US Prison system that incarcerates a full 25% of the inmates on the planet. Though, yes it is a problem. We are instead going to talk about laws and regulations in the United States and the damage to liberty that they have forged. This article argues that when the laws and regulations have become so numerous and complex, that the entire system devolved into lawlessness.
Now, of course, there are numerous forces that are tearing the United States apart, and eventually (sure as shit) it will crumble and die, and a New America will rise up from the ashes. What it will look like, no one knows.
Though, I have painted some pretty dark and gloomy pictures of what could happen in other posts. Don’t you know.
These forces are numerous and include such things as…
The socialists Marxist movement started 100 years ago by President Wilson.
The greedy oligarchy that is gobbling up everything that they can lay their hands on.
The upper middle class which is following the (winning) strategy of the oligarchy.
A collapsing culture and morals.
A decaying infrastructure.
A collapsed educational system churning out imbecile serfs ready to work on “the plantation”.
And, many more.
Here is an article that was written by Alec Orrell . I think that is is really very good. He mapped out how we devolved into orderly lawlessness. His article is titled Legitocracy in America, and it is worth the time to read.
This article is copied as written without much editing aside from some paragraph formatting and the fonts used in this template.
I added some "pull away" text for highlighting and maybe interjected on or two personal comments along the way (though you will be able to easily see that they are from your's truly.)
I have added my own pictures to help illustrate some of his fine points, but there are a couple of decorative "splash" pictures on his originally posted venue.
After reading the article, I would suggest the reader go to his original article and read some of his other works. This fellow is brilliant and a word-smith. (Though he tends to write on a university level, where I tend to be far more plebeian.)
All credit to the author Alec Orrell writing in Human Events.
The commentariat across the political spectrum have recently reveled
in predicting imminent authoritarianism and the “literal death of
democracy” unless sundry bugbears are stopped.
As Murray sees it, the United States’ hyper-complicated and outrageously voluminous law is much the same as no law at all for the ordinary citizen.
The catastrophizing is quaint.
Perhaps they are too terrified, distracted, or dissembling to utter the truth obvious under closer examination: the United States ceased to operate as a constitutional democratic republic at least 100 years ago. Democracy isn’t “in peril”—it’s dead and buried.
The United States ceased to operate as a constitutional democratic republic at least 100 years ago. Democracy isn’t “in peril”—it’s dead and buried.
How did we get here?
How did we get here? Social scientist Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) penned a fascinating but little-remarked book titled By The People in 2015. There, Murray argued the United States has become, in effect, a lawless society.
His assertion may strike some as odd, because lawless usually calls to mind a breakdown in order, like in Afghanistan or Somalia.
But countries maintain order without righteous law all the time.
Dictators the world over regularly keep the peace using suppression and intimidation. There’s no shooting in the streets, but there’s no sense of justice or predictability, either.
Dictators the world over regularly keep the peace using suppression and intimidation. There’s no shooting in the streets, but there’s no sense of justice or predictability, either.
LAWS, LAWS, AND MORE LAWS
As Murray sees it, the United States’ hyper-complicated and outrageously voluminous law is much the same as no law at all for the ordinary citizen. The oppressor isn’t a dictator but an incomprehensible and unpredictable justice system passed from one set of leaders’ hands to another, from one political party to another.
Murray writes:
[L]et’s talk about the legal system not as it looks from thirty thousand feet to law professors, where everything can be fit together and rationalized, but how it looks at ground level to ordinary law-abiding citizens …
I am reminded of science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke’s famous observation that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
From ground level, our encounters with today’s legal system as it actually functions are often indistinguishable from lawlessness.
Consider that, between federal, state, city, county, and judge-made
law—along with truckloads of regulations and codes by state and federal
agencies which carry the full force of law—an American today lives under something like 100 times as much law as his or her great-great-grandfather. That’s a chilling comparison.
An American today lives under something like 100 times as much law as his or her great-great-grandfather.
Further, consider that the average American thoroughly understands few or none of the laws governing him.
Sure, he possesses a vague sense of the basics and some traffic law, but that’s all.
Should the internal functions of the miraculous device go awry, the average citizen is helpless. He usually cannot afford skillful lawyers to interpret the laws or to defend him when he is forced to confront the legal system. A lawsuit or a criminal prosecution ruins him, regardless of his culpability.
Washington, D.C.; April 29, 2019: A study released today shows that the vast majority of Department of Health and Human Services regulations issued over a recent 17-year period are unconstitutional. The first-of-its-kind study reviewed 2,952 rules issued by HHS and found that 71% of final rules from 2001 through 2017 were issued by low-level officials and career employees who lack constitutional authority to do so.
Such rules are unconstitutional. The Constitution requires that significant government decisions must be made solely by “principal officers” appointed by the president after Senate confirmation. Issuing a regulation with the force of law is one of those actions that only principal officers can perform.
The majority of unconstitutional rules were issued by the Food and Drug Administration. Just 2% of FDA rules were issued by principal officers, while 1,860 rules were finalized and issued by career employees.
“In a democracy, those who make the rules need to be accountable to the people,” report co-author Thomas Berry, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, explained. “That’s why the Framers included the Appointments Clause in the Constitution. Only properly-appointed officers in the executive branch may issue regulations that are binding on the public. This preserves democratic accountability for significant executive branch actions.”
One such rule is the controversial “Deeming Rule,” which classifies tobacco-free vaping products as tobacco products. The rule prohibits Steve Green, a California vape shop owner, from telling his customers his story about using vaping to stop smoking and recover from early signs of emphysema. PLF filed three lawsuits challenging the rule last year.
“Among the hundreds of illegal FDA rules, 25 rules were classified as significant because they had an impact on the American economy of at least $100 million or had other significant economic impacts,” said Angela Erickson, PLF’s strategic research director and co-author of the report. “Congress and the White House should ensure that this practice ends and agencies comply with the law.”
The full report is available at pacificlegal.org/HHSreport.
He usually cannot afford skillful lawyers to interpret the laws or to defend him when he is forced to confront the legal system. A lawsuit or a criminal prosecution ruins him, regardless of his culpability.
The law is like an iPhone: a miraculous device at which he glances all the time and uses for simple tasks without knowing the first thing about how the internal functions perform their magic.
Should the internal functions of the miraculous device go awry, the average citizen is helpless.
He usually cannot afford skillful lawyers to interpret the laws or to defend him when he is forced to confront the legal system. A lawsuit or a criminal prosecution ruins him, regardless of his culpability.
In the United States, Federal drug defendants who won’t plead guilty pay dearly, according to our new report, “An Offer You Can’t Refuse.” Prosecutors use their ability to vary the charges to seek longer mandatory sentences for people who turn down plea bargains. Defendants who go to trial receive sentences that, on average, are three times as long. Not surprisingly, 97 percent of drug defendants are convicted by pleas, not trial.
The wrongfully accused regularly plea bargain to avoid being crushed by the legal process.
The vast majority of criminal cases in the United States end not in courtroom trials but in negotiated agreements between prosecutors and defense lawyers. Plea bargaining dates to the 1800s and has often been controversial. Law-and-order advocates say the practice lets criminals get lower sentences, while some defense lawyers and civil libertarians say it coerces defendants to give up their legal rights. Most prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, however, say the practice helps produce justice while reducing strains on the court system. Defense lawyers last year cheered a court ruling that would have barred prosecutors from offering leniency in exchange for a defendant’s testimony against accomplices. But prosecutors celebrated last month when the ruling was overturned.
The citizen is told that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, but he cannot correct his ignorance himself nor pay to have others supplement it.
It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.
Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?
Madison’s sketch of run-amok law bears an uncanny resemblance to the United States today.
He highlights a fundamental truth Americans have forgotten amidst the partisan bickering over which byzantine laws to pass:
Representative lawmaking does not produce democracy when demos (“the people”) cannot grasp the laws, either to express their disagreement with them or to follow them.
In Madison’s view, such edicts aren’t real law, just dressed-up tyranny divorced from the ethos of a constitutional republic.
Taxation of Social Security benefits. The complicated formula and the 20 step worksheet used to determine the percentage of benefits (up to 85%) subject to tax aren’t new, but they are affecting more Americans as the number receiving Social Security grows. Here is the equation as i stood in 1997.
Were Madison alive to witness the present debacle, he might opine:
The United States possesses no authentic law, only enforced order.
A tyrant who inflicts his will with rifles and a legal priesthood who inflict their will with occult laws are functionally equivalent. In both cases, citizens lose all confidence in a coherent moral order of their own design underlying their day-to-day existence.
The United States possesses no authentic law, only enforced order.
RULE BY LAWYERS
The United States today might be better called a legitocracy—a government by the legal priesthood for the legal priesthood.
Judges, lawyers, prosecutors, regulators, law schools, bar associations, and legal-activism conglomerates like the ACLU and GLAAD use their specialized knowledge to function as gatekeepers of society’s rules, politics, and culture.
Nothing is accomplished without the involvement of the legal priesthood.
Judges, lawyers, prosecutors, regulators, law schools, bar associations, and legal-activism conglomerates like the ACLU and GLAAD use their specialized knowledge to function as gatekeepers of society’s rules, politics, and culture. Nothing is accomplished without the involvement of the legal priesthood.
Armies of lawyers draft the bills for elected lawmakers, who enact their recommendations with only a vague understanding of their mandates.
Then lawmakers turn the laws backover to prosecutors, regulators, and jurists for implementation and enforcement. More often than not, lawmakers come from the ranks of the law-schooled themselves.
Representative lawmaking does not produce democracy when demos (“the people”) cannot grasp the laws, either to express their disagreement with them or to follow them.
Thus the legal priesthood operates in a closed system, disconnected from the populace and unaccountable in practice to anyone but themselves.
Thus the legal priesthood operates in a closed system, disconnected from the populace and unaccountable in practice to anyone but themselves.
To be sure, the priesthood declaims with great eloquence about “democracy,” a “nation of laws,” and “the people”; but they amount to an insular social class—the card carriers in a one-party state.
The rest of us are merely along for the ride.
One is reminded of the famous maxim:
“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” In this case, one might say: “Those who enact the laws and vote for lawmakers decide nothing. Those who interpret and enforce the laws decide everything.”
Much like the aristocracies and theocracies of bygone days, the chieftains of the legitocratic class have fallen into warlording over which of them gets to make the rules that control the society and the state.
They bicker over bizarre ideologies and disrupt elected government at every turn with nuisance lawsuits and politically-motivated prosecutions. They divert political and cultural issues from legislatures and elections into courtrooms.
They divert issues away from legislatures and elections and into the courtrooms instead.
For example, Americans recently were treated to the groaning spectacle of a federal judge deciding how the President may operate his personal Twitter account, and whether biological men must be allowed in women’s locker rooms when they identify as women.
As in all warlordism, the resulting instability destroys the average citizen’s peace, predictability, and trust.
He may not be able to articulate the government’s devolution into feuding legitocracy; nevertheless, he senses that he lives in a failed state.
He sees no sacred or impartial justice emerging from the legal system anymore. Virtue and common sense have no place and no reward. All he sees are wizards in tailored suits hurling thunderbolts at one another and terrorizing his day-to-day existence with their staggering litigiousness and self-righteous culture crusades.
He senses that he lives in a failed state.
He sees no sacred or impartial justice emerging from the legal system anymore.
Virtue and common sense have no place and no reward.
All he sees are wizards in tailored suits hurling thunderbolts at one another and terrorizing his day-to-day existence with their staggering litigiousness and self-righteous culture crusades.
The average citizen hesitates to publicly speak his mind, defend his person, establish a business, worship openly, or seek redress for real injuries.
Should anyone bother to ask him, the citizen will declare that the words chiseled on the Supreme Court building (“Equal Justice Under Law”) have turned to bitter irony.
He watches with ballooning cynicism as the legal priesthood deploys word games to exonerate one another’s heinous manipulations, then turn and damn ordinary citizens like him to years of legal hell for standing up to their diktats.
He watches with ballooning cynicism as the legal priesthood deploys word games to exonerate one another’s heinous manipulations, then turn and damn ordinary citizens like him to years of legal hell for standing up to their diktats.
Justice is no longer a sacred right grounded in fear of God and His mystery. It is something you hire or receive as a reward for loyalty.
Justice is no longer a sacred right.
The legitocratic class has changed the motto of the United States from “In God, We Trust” to “There Is No God—Trust Us.”
Thus, the average citizen hesitates to publicly speak his mind, defend his person, establish a business, worship openly, or seek redress for real injuries.
He fears to resist the legal system’s incessant cultural bullying, lest he gets sucked into the vortex and land in Oz for years pursued by flying monkey lawyers.
Thus, the average citizen hesitates to publicly speak his mind, defend his person, establish a business, worship openly, or seek redress for real injuries. He fears to resist the legal system’s incessant cultural bullying, lest he gets sucked into the vortex and land in Oz for years pursued by flying monkey lawyers.
He can’t say how it happened, but the citizen knows he dwells at the bottom of a multi-tiered, politically corrupt, unchecked cabal of a legal system that cares nothing for his well-being.
Will the legal priesthood reform themselves?
Will activist judges voluntarily give up their arrogated and unconscionable power of nationwide injunction?
Will the Supreme Court allow voters and lawmakers to address questions of culture and politics through elections and legislation once again, rather than dictating both from the bench?
Will law schools cease to operate as seminaries of progressive social engineering, imperious elitism, state-enforced credentialism, relativism, nihilism, identity politics, and other ever-shifting philosophies?
Will the legal priesthood stop terrorizing the unanointed and favoring their own, demanding with one voice that the law revert to a form comprehensible and accessible to the average citizen?
Of course they will, right after unicorns fly out of Chief Justice John Roberts’ robes.
He can’t say how it happened, but the citizen knows he dwells at the bottom of a multi-tiered, politically corrupt, unchecked cabal of a legal system that cares nothing for his well-being. Happiness has been replaced by trinkets and freedom by tax rebates, and liberty… well, it just doesn’t exist.
Americans live in denial of their rationalized, systemic oppression.
Over the last five or so generations, legalistic authoritarianism has progressively choked the average citizen’s pursuit of happiness, like a slow garroting in a collar of recondite laws.
Americans live in denial of their rationalized, systemic oppression. Over the last five or so generations, legalistic authoritarianism has progressively choked the average citizen’s pursuit of happiness, like a slow garroting in a collar of recondite laws.
If one doubts this, it’s only because he hasn’t experienced the extremities of the legal system’s insanity himself yet—the Kafkaesque horror of an endless, politically motivated IRS audit, or a court telling a father he must call his 6-year-old son a girl. The law and government do not serve the will of the people; it’s the other way around now.
The law and government do not serve the will of the people; it’s the other way around now.
Where does that leave the citizen?
He is reduced to hoping the orderly lawlessness of the legal system remains confined to the courts and the government, that disorderly lawlessness does not erupt in public.
He is right to be concerned.
Americans are quarreling with one another in frustration. A growing number of individuals and groups misidentify the root of the tyranny and endanger public order, blaming vague and simplistic concepts like “white supremacy,” “fascism,” “the patriarchy,” “capitalism,” etc. for the oppression they sense.
Americans are quarreling with one another in frustration. A growing number of individuals and groups misidentify the root of the tyranny and endanger public order, blaming vague and simplistic concepts like “white supremacy,” “fascism,” “the patriarchy,” “capitalism,” etc. for the oppression they sense.
Meanwhile, disturbed young male shooters at the end of their tether scapegoat women and minority groups for the proliferation of politically correct rules under which they feel smothered.
Tracing their anxieties back reveals a common source: alienation from the rules that govern them.
Tracing their anxieties back reveals a common source: alienation from the rules that govern them.
Unsurprisingly, the legal priesthood plays both sides to lengthen their reach and tighten their grasp: The root problem is not that the people toil under mountains of legal minutiae and can’t even breathe without violating at least five laws.
No, according to them the problem is always too much freedom requiring (you guessed it!) more laws.
Laws restricting firearms.
Laws restricting hurtful speech.
Laws restricting plastic straws.
Laws, laws, laws.
A violent response.
Rooftop Koreans taking matters into their own hands when the government failed them.
A militia-like civil defense response from ordinary citizens akin to the Roof Koreans of the L.A. riots seems well within the realm of possibility these days.
Scene from the television series “The Walking Dead”. Americans are getting ready for the conflict that lies ahead. They are “prepping” and make no mistake, it will happen unless drastic action takes place immediately.
American citizens must be brought to understand that the struggle gripping the country does not fundamentally pit liberals against conservatives or Democrats against Republicans.
The struggle pits average citizens who want to live under clear, predictable, and widely understood laws against the legal priesthood’s empire of complication and confusion.
American citizens must be brought to understand that the struggle gripping the country does not fundamentally pit liberals against conservatives or Democrats against Republicans. The struggle pits average citizens who want to live under clear, predictable, and widely understood laws against the legal priesthood’s empire of complication and confusion.
And that is the way it is.
One of the first things that you notice when you move to another nation is just how simple it is.
If there is a tax, it's only one singular tax. There are no regulations, and the things that you can do, from driving without a seat-belt, to having your five year old buying a beer for you is astounding.
Here in communist China, I am afforded so many, many MANY freedoms that Americans haven't a clue to what they have lost. That's a fact Jack. Deal with it.
If the public can grasp that their system of government has slowly
changed without their consent, the legal priesthood’s magical powers
will evaporate and the U.S. legal system will be seen for what it is: a
recondite abomination propped up by platitudes. At that time, rescuing
the democratic republic back from the pit of legitocracy stands a
chance.
Until that time, the wizards will continue to rule, and may God help us all.
SHTF Related Index
This is a collection of my posts related to prepping, SHTF (Shit Hit The Fan), CWII (American Civil War 2), Fourth Turning (Strauss–Howe generational theory)
and other posts related to the very sad and sorry tatters that America
is today. Actually, I am a little stunned that I have written so much
about these matters. But America today is very ill and there are things
that really should be said.
Here are the posts.
SHTF and Related Index
Some prepper humor…
Articles & Links
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off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
