"Good cop - bad cop" is exactly the purpose served by the grand old liberal/conservative divide that passes for democracy. It took me decades to realize that, after I gradually came to see that no matter who I voted for, and no matter who won, the hidden oligarchy behind all the parties continued to rule, and our freedoms and our general level of prosperity slowly vanished, a little bit at a time, while the rich got richer and everyone else got poorer.

The government people vote for is a mask, like one of those phony western sets they used to use in films. You don't want to see what's behind that mask, cos it is ugly.

- LH