It's worth keeping in mind Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: "In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions." Kurt On Wed, Apr 3, 2019 at 3:53 PM Ryan Carboni <33389@protonmail.com> wrote:

Corrupt governments are inherently inept, or at least appear so. There is a decisional overhead in maintaining the illusion of corruption or maintaining a certain level of BS that would avoid outraging people enough to take action. The complexity in decision making was partially what destroyed the Soviet Union, virtually all sectors of society was lying to each other to maintain an illusion and the ability of the central government to enforce their plans rapidly eroded.

The US government is extremely corrupt. Take Trump for instance, why would the media keep mentioning he is corrupt, and yet Congress does nothing about it? Congress is the most powerful branch of government, ignoring Congress’s capability to censure or remove their own members, a 2/3 vote would allow Congress to take any action for any reason, exemplified by the Supreme Court decision in Nixon vs. United States (a different Nixon oddly enough). Congress can impeach the entire Supreme Court on a whim, impeach the entire Executive Branch even.

So what does it say? Maybe Trump really is corrupt, he got rich from money laundering or so the media says. Where did the profits from Operation Fast and Furious go, to the ATF or to the gun runners themselves? ( https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/us/atf-tobacco-cigarettes.html ) I suppose only Congress has oversight over that matter. But the United States is rapidly crumbling, and US politics have become a circus. The whole thing is a distraction, clearly. Every major city has rising unemployment, with homeless people looking more and more able to work, even the city I live in is in debate about adding maybe several dozen units for housing the homeless (which says a lot about everyone’s sanity or the size of the local homeless population).

So. The US government can’t do anything about Trump? Just a bunch of leaks and exaggerated statements condemning Trump with no evidence? Even if the evidence had to be secret, Congress can’t be trusted with it? Or if Congress can be trusted with it, do they lack the spine to maintain a functioning and free society?

I wonder what happened to the ATF agents involved with violating federal law and smuggling cigarettes. Maybe they pulled a John Connolly, forged informant reports and accepted bribes. Or they used fake informants and forged the paperwork to pay off other officials. It certainly seems outrageous, it sounds like the whole ATF could be potentially corrupt, or just a few bad apples. But what does it say about the “good” people if they don’t notice what is happening around them when they are practically in the thick of it?

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