Here's my problem: We have TWO governments, and probably even more.

[cherokeeprogressive]

We have the political government, and the bureaucratic government.

The former consists of, to an almost overwhelming majority, persons who seek their positions out of purely egotistical and/or self-aggrandizing motivations. It's why I always laugh at the "Chill the fuck out... I got this" graphic. If anyone actually DID say something like that, I'd write them off immediately and permanently. The notion that one person can fix everything, alone, is more than comical, and bespeaks a barely containable ego. So in the end, what we wind up with are 537 elected officials, a large number of whom are egomaniacs, and an untold number of others elected to statewide offices. These people set the tone for how the other group does its job.

The latter are the people who actually make things happen. In this group, I would include Congressional staffers. They are where the rubber meets the road, if you will. They consist of an amalgam of good and bad, honest and dishonest, D and R. They are career government employees. A large number of them actually bristle at being called public servants. While the performance of their duties should largely be done without regard to their political proclivities, that is not often the case. They work within the tone set by the political portion of the government, knowing that their very existence depends on the whims of those elected people.

Those who read the book or saw the movie "Clear and Present Danger" remember the scene where the President tells his National Security Advisor that drug cartels represent a "clear and present danger" to the US, giving unofficial and unspoken permission to act in South America. The Security Advisor gets someone what the CIA Director of Operations later calls a "get out of jail free card", giving him permission to do whatever it takes to take down the cartels. An illegal drug war ensues and when it's exposed, everyone denies everything, and the President is covered because he never used the exact words the Security Advisor interpreted him to be saying.

Many people have such a large emotional investment in party politics, they tend to project more power on the people they voted for than is actually possessed. They have a need to immediately jump and state loudly "MY government (largely referring to the people they voted for) doesn't lie, and it doesn't do illegal things. Oddly enough, they tend to have the exact opposite view when their party isn't in power.

This is where I part ways with other members of my party. While their emotional investment demands certain actions, words, and defenses for their votes, I am ALWAYS mindful that government consists of MUCH more than the group of people whose names appear on ballots. There are literally millions of others who, for whatever reason, tend to see themselves as responsible to those at the top while being largely autonomous in their own personal actions. While I would never claim there were more bad than good people in those positions, there CERTAINLY are enough bad people in the mix to fuck things up royally, and to cause very bad things to happen in their zeal to make political opponents suffer in some way.

This brings me to the crux of the distrust I have for my government. Given that we are not even allowed to know how the government interprets Section 215 of the Patriot Act, I KNOW there is someone out there whose interpretation is dialectically opposed to mine. I KNOW there is some government employee out there somewhere who will attempt to use information gleaned by government agencies under Section 215 authority in a bad way against someone somewhere. That for me is quite enough.

My first understanding of how the US Government tells lies to achieve its ends was when I learned about the Gulf of Tonkin (supposed) Incident, followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution allowing LBJ to ramp up the Vietnam war, and its subsequent repeal. I probably would never have known if I didn't have three Uncles who served in VN. In the 40 or so years that have followed that first revelation, I don't see how ANYTHING has changed, EVER.

The Government doesn't lie. The Government doesn't do illegal things. Yeah.