What characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theater. Played out on the national stage and eagerly broadcast to a captive audience by media sponsors, this farcical exercise in political theater can, at times, seem riveting, life-changing and suspenseful, even for those who know better. Such that it is, the realm of political theater with all of its drama, vitriol and scripted theatrics is what passes for “transparent” government today, with elected officials routinely performing for their audiences and playing up to the cameras, while behind the scenes, those who really run the show are putting into place policies which erode our freedoms and undermine our attempts at transparent, accountable, representative government.

Police sexual misconduct is a systemic problem, and the dangers arise every time police are dispatched: traffic stops, domestic abuse calls, minor offenses, drug arrests, police interactions with teenagers, investigations into sex trafficking. Rather than being part of the solution, America’s police forces—riddled with corruption, brutality, sexual misconduct and drug abuse—have increasingly become part of the problem. In a number of cases, victims of sex trafficking report that police are among those “buying” young girls and women for sex. While the problem of cops engaged in sex trafficking is part of the American police state’s seedy underbelly that doesn’t get addressed enough, equally alarming is the number of cops who commit sex crimes against those they encounter as part of their job duties, a largely underreported number given the “blue wall of silence” that shields police misconduct. Young girls are particularly vulnerable to these predators in blue. When you add sex crimes against grown women into the mix, the picture becomes even more sordid. 

Police sexual misconduct is a systemic problem, and the dangers arise every time police are dispatched: traffic stops, domestic abuse calls, minor offenses, drug arrests, police interactions with teenagers, investigations into sex trafficking. Rather than being part of the solution, America’s police forces—riddled with corruption, brutality, sexual misconduct and drug abuse—have increasingly become part of the problem. In a number of cases, victims of sex trafficking report that police are among those “buying” young girls and women for sex. While the problem of cops engaged in sex trafficking is part of the American police state’s seedy underbelly that doesn’t get addressed enough, equally alarming is the number of cops who commit sex crimes against those they encounter as part of their job duties, a largely underreported number given the “blue wall of silence” that shields police misconduct. Young girls are particularly vulnerable to these predators in blue. When you add sex crimes against grown women into the mix, the picture becomes even more sordid. 

Children, young girls—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex in America. The average age for a young woman being sold for sex is now 13 years old. Sex trafficking—especially when it comes to the buying and selling of young girls—has become big business in America, the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns. It is estimated that at least 100,000 children—girls and boys—are bought and sold for sex in the U.S. every year, with as many as 300,000 children in danger of being trafficked each year. Some of these children are forcefully abducted, others are runaways, and still others are sold into the system by relatives and acquaintances. On average, a child might be raped by 6,000 men during a five-year period of servitude. This is not a problem found only in big cities. It’s happening everywhere, right under our noses, in suburbs, cities and towns across the nation.

Children, young girls—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex in America. The average age for a young woman being sold for sex is now 13 years old. Sex trafficking—especially when it comes to the buying and selling of young girls—has become big business in America, the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns. It is estimated that at least 100,000 children—girls and boys—are bought and sold for sex in the U.S. every year, with as many as 300,000 children in danger of being trafficked each year. Some of these children are forcefully abducted, others are runaways, and still others are sold into the system by relatives and acquaintances. On average, a child might be raped by 6,000 men during a five-year period of servitude. This is not a problem found only in big cities. It’s happening everywhere, right under our noses, in suburbs, cities and towns across the nation.

When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals. In the current governmental climate, where laws that run counter to the dictates of the Constitution are made in secret, passed without debate, and upheld by secret courts that operate behind closed doors, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can render you an “enemy of the state.” That list of so-called “enemies of the state” is growing. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is merely the latest victim of the police state’s assault on dissidents and whistleblowers. Indeed, it is fitting that we remember that Jesus Christ—the religious figure worshipped by Christians for his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection—paid the ultimate price for speaking out against the police state of his day.

When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals. In the current governmental climate, where laws that run counter to the dictates of the Constitution are made in secret, passed without debate, and upheld by secret courts that operate behind closed doors, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can render you an “enemy of the state.” That list of so-called “enemies of the state” is growing. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is merely the latest victim of the police state’s assault on dissidents and whistleblowers. Indeed, it is fitting that we remember that Jesus Christ—the religious figure worshipped by Christians for his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection—paid the ultimate price for speaking out against the police state of his day.

We’re not living the American Dream. We’re in the grip of a financial nightmare. “We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America. We get taxed on how much we earn, taxed on what we eat, taxed on what we buy, taxed on where we go, taxed on what we drive, and taxed on how much is left of our assets when we die, and yet we have no real say in how the government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used.  All the while the government continues to do whatever it likes—levy taxes, rack up debt, spend outrageously and irresponsibly—with little thought for the plight of its citizens. 

We’re not living the American Dream. We’re in the grip of a financial nightmare. “We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America. We get taxed on how much we earn, taxed on what we eat, taxed on what we buy, taxed on where we go, taxed on what we drive, and taxed on how much is left of our assets when we die, and yet we have no real say in how the government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used.  All the while the government continues to do whatever it likes—levy taxes, rack up debt, spend outrageously and irresponsibly—with little thought for the plight of its citizens. 

Have you noticed how much life increasingly feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone? Only instead of Rod Serling’s imaginary “land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas,” we’re trapped in a topsy-turvy, all-too-real land of corruption, brutality and lies, where freedom, justice and integrity play second fiddle to political ambition, corporate greed, and bureaucratic tyranny. It’s not merely that life in the American Police State is more brutal, or more unjust, or even more corrupt. It’s getting more idiotic, more perverse, and more outlandish by the day. Somewhere over the course of the past 240-plus years, democracy has given way to idiocracy,  and representative government has given way to a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens). Examples abound.

Have you noticed how much life increasingly feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone? Only instead of Rod Serling’s imaginary “land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas,” we’re trapped in a topsy-turvy, all-too-real land of corruption, brutality and lies, where freedom, justice and integrity play second fiddle to political ambition, corporate greed, and bureaucratic tyranny. It’s not merely that life in the American Police State is more brutal, or more unjust, or even more corrupt. It’s getting more idiotic, more perverse, and more outlandish by the day. Somewhere over the course of the past 240-plus years, democracy has given way to idiocracy,  and representative government has given way to a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens). Examples abound.

The U.S. government has unleashed untold horrors upon the world—including its own citizenry—in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances. These horrors are being meted out against humans and animals alike. You don’t have to dig very deep or go very back in the nation’s history to uncover numerous cases in which the government deliberately conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins. 

The U.S. government has unleashed untold horrors upon the world—including its own citizenry—in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances. These horrors are being meted out against humans and animals alike. You don’t have to dig very deep or go very back in the nation’s history to uncover numerous cases in which the government deliberately conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins. 

The absurd cruelties of the American police state keep reaching newer heights. Consider that if you kill a police dog, you could face a longer prison sentence than if you’d murdered someone or abused a child. If a cop kills your dog, however, there will be little to no consequences for that officer. Not even a slap on the wrist. In this, as in so many instances of official misconduct by government officials, the courts have ruled that the cops have qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that incentivizes government officials to engage in lawless behavior without fear of repercussions. This is the heartless, heartbreaking, hypocritical injustice that passes for law and order in America today.

The absurd cruelties of the American police state keep reaching newer heights. Consider that if you kill a police dog, you could face a longer prison sentence than if you’d murdered someone or abused a child. If a cop kills your dog, however, there will be little to no consequences for that officer. Not even a slap on the wrist. In this, as in so many instances of official misconduct by government officials, the courts have ruled that the cops have qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that incentivizes government officials to engage in lawless behavior without fear of repercussions. This is the heartless, heartbreaking, hypocritical injustice that passes for law and order in America today.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national security and urgent military needs. It’s all a ruse. In one month alone, government agencies—including the Department of Defense—went on a $97 million shopping spree that included $670,000 for golf carts, $1.7 million for musical equipment including pianos, tubas, and trombones, $4.6 million for lobster tail and crab, almost $8 million for iPhones and iPads, and nearly $10 million for workout and recreation equipment.    

Don’t be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national security and urgent military needs. It’s all a ruse. In one month alone, government agencies—including the Department of Defense—went on a $97 million shopping spree that included $670,000 for golf carts, $1.7 million for musical equipment including pianos, tubas, and trombones, $4.6 million for lobster tail and crab, almost $8 million for iPhones and iPads, and nearly $10 million for workout and recreation equipment.  

You think you’ve got rights? Think again. All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will. Our so-called rights have been reduced to technicalities in the face of the government’s ongoing power grabs. Consider a case before the U.S. Supreme Court (Mitchell vs. Wisconsin) in which Wisconsin police officers read an unconscious man his rights and then proceeded to forcibly and warrantlessly draw his blood while he was still unconscious in order to determine if he could be charged with a DUI. 

You think you’ve got rights? Think again. All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will. Our so-called rights have been reduced to technicalities in the face of the government’s ongoing power grabs. Consider a case before the U.S. Supreme Court (Mitchell vs. Wisconsin) in which Wisconsin police officers read an unconscious man his rights and then proceeded to forcibly and warrantlessly draw his blood while he was still unconscious in order to determine if he could be charged with a DUI. 

With every smartphone we buy, every GPS device we install, every Twitter, Facebook, and Google account we open, every frequent buyer card we use for purchases—whether at the grocer’s, the yogurt shop, the airlines or the department store—and every credit and debit card we use to pay for our transactions, we’re helping Corporate America build a dossier for its government counterparts on who we know, what we think, how we spend our money, and how we spend our time. Yet it’s not just the surveillance and the buying and selling of your data that is worrisome. The ramifications of a government—any government—having this much unregulated, unaccountable power to target, track, round up and detain its citizens is beyond chilling.