Cognitive Dissonance Question.

[l0st]

I would say you’re generous here.

Eisenhower’s departure was the beginning of the end - ending with JFK.

Well, I figured JFK would come up. In my opinion his assassination was entirely arranged at the Federal level. Lots of the behavior coming out of Washington has been "problematic" since basically forever post passage of the Federal Income Tax. However, I don't believe state and local were involved at that time. Fast forward to today and the collusion and corruption is present on every level.

Through the late 90s there was still some semblance of state and local governments passing legislation that benefits the constituency. Post 9/11 any and all resources have been poured into all aspect of "law enforcement" and "the war on terror." Hell, the minimum wage hasn't even been raised since 2009 despite costs of everything tripling or quadrupling since that time. Some states have passed their own raises, but only because they absolutely had to. Minimum wage, in its original incarnation, was pegged to inflation with increases every couple years.

Look at the state and local coffers these days! Every other year they want to raise property taxes - nevermind that in some areas your property taxes are basically a second mortgage payment on their own. No legislation to control in-state tuitions which have quintupled in the last 25 years. No legislation to fund local hospitals and medical centers. No legislation to provide services to get homeless and the drug addicted off the streets and into treatment.

Now, what do we have? Oh, we need more armed personnel carriers, and millions of rounds of ammunition, and tactical gear, cameras, and more cameras, and speeding cameras, and red light cameras, and camera drones to inspect for code violations, social media surveillance software, teams of online agents to police speech on the internet  and.... I think you see my point - basically none of these post 9/11 additions to our state and local governments actually benefit the constituency in any way. They're all ways for the governments to criminalize more people and get their hands in our pockets. 

Nobody is out there screaming for more surveillance on the internet. Nobody is out there demanding the government install more cameras. The government has turned into a rogue organization that abuses public resources for profit.

I'm sure there were plenty of problems during the 60s (and there were) but just not anywhere near the level and frequency we are seeing today.

I guess one could also point out other incidents like Ruby Ridge & Waco and while those were also abuses they were years apart, and there were changes made after those incidents occurred. Now this stuff happens on a daily basis, all the investigations are shams, and nothing ever gets done about the impropriety. The entirety of the Covid-19 scandal is a perfect example of that. So, so, so many laws flat out broken and ignored by our "lawmakers" and zero action taken at the judicial level.