I mean like this: “Realized that most of these programs are not meant to help anyone, merely to control people and make them dependent. I was forced to reconsider everything I’d once believed. I developed a profound distrust of government regardless of the philosophy of the people in power. I remained a liberal on civil-rights issues, became a conservative on defense, and a semi-libertarian on all other matters.” - Dean Koontz. Am I wrong?
I think I’m largely with @[email protected], I’ll comment here.
I think realistically, we need to give our anti-monopoly laws teeth, and give them automatic effect. Hard and fast rules (thought out to catch loop holes) like “there can’t be one company with more than 15% of any market which directly affects more than 45% of citizens on an annual basis.”
Similarly, clearing up political funding regulations, preventing insider trading by representatives, and preventing obvious “bribe” jobs post representation.
FWIW, I think Socialism is interesting, but I think the influence of human greed is too strong in a socialist system. In a true socialist system, rather than capital gains being a route to power, the greedy have one route, government. I think this is fundamentally the reason why no attempts at creating a socialist society have actually… worked.
The best I think we can get is a well regulated market, but we need to actually ensure it’s well regulated and not just serving some people that gobbled up the competition so they could sit by idle and cozy.
FWIW, I would also consider moving the oversight of federal law enforcement into its own federally elected office. i.e., we elect local sheriff’s, we should elect a “National Director of Law Enforcement” in charge of overseeing the FBI, IRS, TSA, US Marshall Service, etc.