As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.

The first and most important thing to understand about politics is this: forget Right, Left, Center, socialism, fascism, or democracy. Every government that exists - or ever existed, or ever will exist - is a kleptocracy, meaning "rule by thieves." Competing ideologies merely provide different excuses to separate the Productive Class from what they produce.

To politicians, solved problems represent a dire threat - of unemployment and poverty. That's why no problem ever tackled by the government has ever been solved. What they want is lots of problems they can promise to solve, so that we'll keep electing them - or letting them keep their jobs in a bureaucracy metastasizing like cancer.

The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners.

If there were a generic one-word expression for 'one whose fear of the uncertainties of success moves him to surrender at the very moment of victory', it would be 'Republican'.

I'm tired of living in a police state.

As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.