To paraphrase Voltaire, the art of all governments throughout all of human history has always been to take as much money and power away from the masses to centralize it in the hands of the few, who themselves run and own the government.
The purpose of government--of all governments throughout all the thousands and thousands of years of human civilization--is to make the rich richer and make the powerful more powerful.
The rich and powerful government; or, perhaps more accurately, they are the government. Granted, in your head, you might picture their bickering puppets as the government, when that is just its face. And, like all faces, it's of course a bit of a false face.
The powers that be use their power to make themselves more powerful, meaning to centralize money and centralize power even more.
That is not some crazy conspiracy theory; it's something nearly true by definition: The powerful do their best to use their power to accumulate more power, meaning the governors use their government to centralize even more power into their own hands.
A great strategy for them to achieve that is the strategy of divide and conquer.
Take the USA as an example. The same group of wealthy special interests own both parties in the two-party system. The Republicans and the Democrats work for the same people. I typically don't even call them Republicans and Democrats; I call them Republicrats or Democans. They use controversial inflammatory confusing wedge issues (e.g. abortion, transgenderism, etc.) to divide and conquer the masses. They use the wedge issues and divisive theatrics to confuse and distract. Typically, they don't even seriously propose or debate policies and have or present actual policy or philosophical disagreements, but instead merely engage in symbolic inflammatory rhetoric, such as using scapegoat arguments against each other that anger one's own base and other inflammatory pointless superficial divisive theatrics. One said calls the other hatefully woke, and the other calls the other side racist, both purposely misquoting and misrepresenting each other to keep the joint charade going. The irony is they are actually working together. Like two pro wrestlers in the ring allegedly fighting in WWE, the more absurdly hateful and absurdly antagonistic they seem to be towards each other is actually a symptom of how they are working together with the same goal, which is to manipulate the crowd namely by getting them emotional. And anger is the number one emotion they play, with anger itself simply being a type of fear.
The Republicrats and Democans want you to assume that your choice is only between the two of them and have yous settle for voting for the so-called lesser of two evils. But there is no lesser of two evils because they are the same evil. (Figuratively speaking, that is. I don't believe in literal evil.) Neither could be more evil, neither literally or figuratively, because they are the same one thing. To vote for either the Republicrats and Democans is to vote for the same one thing. To vote for either the Republicrats and Democans is to vote for bigger government with more government spending and thus also more and higher taxes. And no matter what they say, those higher taxes will always end up being higher taxes on the working class, meaning on the poor and middle class. The rich own the government, and always have, and they won't ever use their power (i.e. government) to move money and power from their hands to yours. Both Republicrats and Democans will work tirelessly to ensure that rich welfare queens like Jeff Bezos pay less in taxes than you.
To vote for either the Republicrats and Democans is to vote for more of what you would call so-called "government waste" and "corruption" because those aren't bugs of government but rather by design. What you would think of or call "corruption" is actually government doing exactly what's it always done and always been designed to do. It's not actual corruption; it's what it's meant to do. A government that makes the richer richer and the powerful more powerful is a government that is totally and utterly uncorrupted and that is doing exactly what it and all governments and meant to do: make the rich richer and the more power powerful, or, in other words, centralize and delocalize power.
The opposite of big government is self-government (a.k.a. freedom). Both the Republicrats and Democans will continue to work tirelessly against that. They will work tirelessly against self-government, against localization, and against decentralization of power and money. They don't want power and money spread out into the hands of the likes of you, the masses. They want the power and money to be even more concentrated into the hands of their bosses, meaning essentially into the hands of themselves.
To vote for either the Republicrats and Democans is to vote to even further centralize and delocalize power, meaning to make the powerful more powerful. To vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is to vote to centralize and delocalize money even further, meaning to make the richer richer.
A vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is a vote against self-government, against freedom, and against decentralization of power.
A vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is a vote to take more of your money/power away from you and to give it to the government (i.e. to the rich and powerful).
The rich own the government and the government owns you. And A vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is a vote to make your rich powerful owners even more rich and powerful. A vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is a vote to further solidify their ownership of you.
A vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is a vote to continue purposely and unfairly excluding third-parties (e.g. by not implementing runoff voting).
A vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is a vote to continue the system of divide and conquer and to maintain the illusion of choice rather than have real choice.
A vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is a vote against democracy and vote to perpetuate and further empower the oligarchic pseudo-democractic plutocracy.
A vote for either the Republicrats or Democans is a vote for the duopoly.
It is a vote bigger government with more government spending, more taxes, and more centralization/delocalization of power and money.
Neither a vote for the Republicrats nor Democans is a vote for the so-called "lesser of two evil" because they are both the same one figurative evil. And thus it can't be more or less "evil" than itself. They are the same one thing. Even the words like "both", "either", and "neither" are all misleading misnomers when used to talk about the Republicrats/Democans. They aren't two. They are one.
It doesn't matter which of the seeming two you vote for because they aren't really two. They are one. To vote for 'either' is to vote the same exact one thing.
If Republicrats or Democans were real leaders, or at least if they didn't work for the same exact people and have the same exact policy plans when it comes to matters, then they wouldn't even be talking about the wedge issues much at all anyway. They would be talking about reforms on which 90%+ of Americans would eagerly agree, instead of using lip service about divisive controversial wedge issues to divide and conquer.
But, nonetheless, an irony of all this is that, even on the wedge issues they use to divide and conquer, if one looks at it with calm rational unmanipulated mind, it is obvious that even on those issues the vast majority of people easily agree.
Take abortion as an example. The idea that nearly 50% of Americans support making late-term legal in all cases is absurd and obviously false. Likewise, the idea that nearly 50% of Americans want a national ban on all abortion, even very early in the pregnancy, is equally absurd. Instead, almost all Americans have nearly identical views on how they want the legality of birth control, abortion, and infanticide.
Here are some examples of how there is, ironically, vast consensus on even the wedgiest of wedge issues:
Transgenderism -- 95% consensus:
Poll: Do you support letting biological men compete in women's sports?
Abortion Legality -- 75% consensus:
View Abortion Poll & Vote
Gun Control vs Gun Rights -- 100% consensus:
View Gun Control Poll & Vote
Macro-Criminalization of Consensual Crimes -- 80% consensus
Consent in relation to democracy and legality -- 75%-100% consensus:
Consent & Legality Topic 1 (86% consensus) | Consent & Legality Topic 2 (75% consensus) | Consent & Legality Topic 3 (100% consensus)
Here are some other specific topics and issues upon which I believe there would be similar broad consensus, despite the government tending to do the exact opposite of what 90%+ of people want and the exact opposite of what is in the best interests of 90%+ of the people:
1. End Civil Forfeiture
2. End "Stop & Frisk", "Pretextual Traffic Stops", and other instances of unreasonable search and seizure (namely police and surveillance procedures in which the vast majority of the people detained against their will and searched against their will are not actually arrested or prosecuted for a noteworthy crime)
3. A constitutional amendment to codify into law the principle of no taxation without representation
4. Implement runoff voting, which would almost certain break the two-party system to give third-parties a much fairer consideration by eliminating the dishonest "spoiler vote" excuse that the Republicrats use for shunning and excluding third parties.
5. Reduce amount of taxes paid by the working class, including both the so-called middle class and the working poor, especially those whose gross income before taxes is above the poverty line but whose net income after taxes is below the poverty line. In other words, stop literally taxing people in poverty.
6. Simplify the tax code (despite the millions and millions spent in lobbying by HR Block and TurboTax and such to kill any bills that would simplify the tax code), and thereby close the loopholes that make the tax system so regressive.
7. End corporate welfare and other taxpayer-funded government handouts to wealthy people.
With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.
"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."
I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.