"...and the wealthy and the powerful getting away with crime after crime."

These habits give rise to the desire for a totalitarian state. The perpetrators see that Republicans are their best bet to achieve  a continuation of a country in which they are seen as wise benefactors, more knowledgeable than the experts who took years of study to accumulate factual information not only necessary for our country's success but for the planets existence.

How did the rich become so wise.  For us it takes years of study.  For them, all it took was the removal of an income tax that took 94% of everything earned over $400,000 dollars.

Identified first with knowledge, then later, as with Bill Gates, and his desired and failed overhaul of public education, wisdom, those we depend upon to dispense facts, gather around money as students gathered around Socrates. The lies with which Bill Gates wishes to justify his idiotic master plans appear in print under bylines of trusted messengers.

Individualism as a  natural outgrowth of legitimate contributions  to community is pushed aside by, among other things, Ayn Rand's virtue of selfishness.

From the valley of the shadow of John Galt, out crawl the know-it-all-rich, who on occasion, I must admit, mouth the need for the rich to pay higher taxes, yet, nevertheless, continue to obscenely profit from the actions of those to whom they make extravagant political contributions.

If we want to end this impending tragedy, we must end the system that grants the all-knowing rich the ability to become all-knowing, the system that permits the obscene, anti-community accumulation of wealth.

I