It behooves us to recognize that in the U.S. today there is no meaningful political contest between Democrats and Republicans and little genuine conflict between conservatives and liberals. Our elections have become mere contests between panderers.
The real divide is between, on the one hand, those who control or aspire to control our governmental bodies, the judicial system, the country's major law firms, the politically correct entertainment as well as the establishment media, our elite educational institutions, and the satraps that support this structure, and, on the other hand, the rest of us -- the great unwashed who pay the bills.
For public consumption, members of the ruling elites still talk about "public service" and claim to be "public servants." But this is empty language. Those who use it have morphed themselves into our rulers. They view themselves as permanently entitled to that status. They care not one whit about the common good except to the extent necessary to retain power and to improve or at least maintain their positions at the public trough. Their care about ordinary people is limited to ensuring that we be kept quiescently in line and dutifully paying taxes to keep their trough full.
In this respect our government has become similar to those that exist in third world countries. They perform governmental functions only to the extent necessary to maintain a façade of legitimacy. Their real purpose is to provide a continuing flow of goodies for whichever gang of reprehensibles has seized control of the structure for the time being.
We do in one respect differ from the third world. There, the controlling gang seeks to kill off members of opposing gangs. Here the opposing gang is the public and government unleashes its instruments of violence against ordinary citizens who seem to be stepping out of line or might do so -- as at Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco to cite just a few examples.
What members of the controlling elite are good at it taking care of each other . . . with our tax dollars.
One significant hallmark of the decline of American politics to the level indicated above is the abandonment of an unwritten but long observed tradition of not honoring public officials by naming things after them until after they died. The generations that preceded mine were savvy enough to recognize that even the most favored politician might commit some dastardly act so long as he remained above ground and room temperature. Now, we allow these folks to honor each other hither and yon on a regular basis.
In Berkeley, California -- the belly of the beast -- where I live we even honor (as well as reelect) living politicians who already have committed dastardly and even criminal acts. A new sports complex here has been named for Berkeley's current mayor notwithstanding the fact that he previously pleaded guilty to stealing and destroying every copy he could get his hands on of a newspaper critical of him. And sections of our crumbling roadways routinely are named for other still breathing members of the ruling class. Think also of the bloated philandering and frequently inebriated Hero of Chappiquiddick and the illustrious but senile former Klansman (who, incidentally, still uses the N word) sitting in the U.S. House of Gasbags, having been reelected repeatedly by their respective home states, which have numerous public facilities bearing their names.
Underlying all this is the fact that these folks require manifestations of public adulation to overcome the recognition that they have at some deep down unconscious level of how contemptible they really are. They therefore provide such manifestations for each other at every opportunity.
Gun control is another aspect of the deserved self-loathing of so many of our 'leaders.' They fear the retribution they know they deserve. The clearest example of this is the apparently nonsensical designation as an assault weapon and ban of .50 caliber rifles in California. This firearm is too heavy to be carried in any assault and there is no record of it ever having been used in a crime. However, the real reason for the designation and ban is logical -- the weapon is lethal, and accurately so, at such a great range that politicians recognize that no practical perimeter can be provided by their security details to protect them from it.
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