Yes, exactly. That's why I'm concerned about the system in my home country. However, I find it incomprehensible how anyone who is a US citizen can still believe in the illusion that the US is a democracy. It has been an oligarchy for at least thirty years and, to be honest, always has been - that is to say, a nation that is actually ruled by a few instead of by its people. This was the case long before the first term of the current, unusually criminal president. He has changed little in terms of the facts, but is simply particularly unscrupulous, thus making it obvious that the US system has long since ceased to have anything to do with democracy.

I'm sorry to have to say it so bluntly, but your comments suggests that, like many Americans, you are not really aware of what a democracy is. If there were such awareness in the US, it would not be possible, for example, for there to be no statutory health insurance, no protective rights for workers, and so on.

Is that really what democracy is about, or is that just what billionaires have made of it?

I ask because you are applying a monetary standard instead of what the citizens want. This leads me to suspect that you are a US citizen, as this system no longer has much to do with democracy at all since the fewer than twenty people who make up the Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority in the US system, ruled that there is no upper limit on "campaign donations," that they do not have to be disclosed, and that "political consultants," such as Musk, do not need confirmation by the people to be entrusted with powers that in any other democracy worthy of the name would naturally require the consent of the citizens.

Oh, and one more thing: the Supreme Court has also ruled that the US president is de facto above the law – which is also incompatible with any democratic constitution.

Immer gern. Ich bin inzwischen allerdings leider schon soweit, dass ich mir diese Vorgänge nicht mehr mit Inkompetenz erklären kann. Vielleicht ist es etwas verschwörungstheoretisch, aber das bitte ich zu entschuldigen - ich fürchte, ich habe inzwischen jeden Glauben an die Politik verloren.

Edit: Die Ansage der Grünen lautete allerdings tatsächlich so - das ist keine Verschwörungstheorie, sondern auch hierzulande die Realität.

Die haarsträubende Ausrede war, dass der Naturpark Schwarzwald um einige, wenige Kilometer erweitert werden soll - das habe man der CDU wacker abgerungen, hieß es ... im Austausch dafür, dass grundlose und verfassungswidrige Massenüberwachung auch in Deutschland zur Realität wird und ebenso dafür, dass kein Ermittlungsverfahren gegen jene korrupten CDU-US-Assets eingeleitet wird, die bereits zuvor den besagten Palantir-Deal auf eigene Faust und unter Umgehung jedweder demokratischer Kontrollmechanismen ganz einfach abgeschlossen haben. So haben die Grünen - natürlich unter den allerschlimmsten Bauchschmerzen - die Sache ernsthaft noch als so etwas wie einen politischen Deal verkaufen wollen. Absurder könnte es wirklich nicht mehr sein, aber irgendwie mussten sie ja begründen, warum sie bereit sind, sogar noch die sensibelsten Daten direkt an offene Faschisten weiterzugeben - an den Demokratiefeind Peter Thiel ebenso wie an den organgenen Kinderschänder im weißen Haus.

In BaWü hat die Landesregierung entgegen eine Petition mit mehr als 13.000 Unterschriften (wurde frühzeitig beendet, weil unsere verehrten Politiker lieber schnell abgestimmt haben, bevor noch mehr Gegenstimmen zusammenkommen) sogar eigens das Polizeigesetz geändert, um dem bereits zuvor völlig widerrechtlich mit Palantir geschlossenen Vertrag rückwirkend noch irgendwie zumindest den Anschein von Legalität zu geben. Damit ist der Einsatz der Palantir-Massenüberwachungsanwendung "Gotham" hier beschlossene Sache, obwohl m.E. verfassungswidrig (s. Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung).

Hier findest du auf der Seite des Landtags eine PDF-Datei mit den Namen aller Abgeordneten, die dafür gestimmt und damit die Bürger verraten haben - neben den üblichen Verdächtigen wie CDU und AfD haben auch die Grünen so gut wie geschlossen dafür gestimmt, was zeigt, dass auch diese Partei trotz ihrer hehren Sprüche offensichtlich so sehr vom US-Lobbyismus unterwandert ist, dass sie eklatant entgegen die Interessen der Bürger handelt.

Es ist wirklich zum Kotzen.

Indeed, in the US, prisoners are exploited as slave labor, with private companies essentially running the prisons and earning billions in the process.

On the other hand, the super-rich get away with the most heinous crimes imaginable.

I would say that it wasn't us, the ordinary people, who created this terrible world, but we definitely allowed the worst among us to do so - and we even rewarded them for it, so that this monstrous world is now ruled by the most ruthless, like a monarchy that was believed to have been overcome. Apparently, civilizational progress is not bound to the passage of time, as I strongly suspect that we are regressing civilizational: back to absolutism with its degenerate rulers who give free rein to their perverse desires - and they can do so, because they are at the top of a society they exploit with impunity.

Well, the president is an orange pedophile...

Yes, unfortunately that is true, except that these "legal entities" cannot be held liable for their crimes in the same way as humans. Therefore, the people who control these companies cannot be held liable for their crimes.

This is a legal trick that illustrates that the law has nothing to do with justice, while ensuring that billionaires are "legally" above the law that applies to everyone who is not a billionaire.

Everything points to this - very clearly, in fact, even though millions of documents have been redacted or withheld entirely for the very same reason, which is also a flagrant violation of the law.

The question that has been asked here, however, is how anyone can be okay with this. You answer the question of why a criminal regime in a corrupt system that not only allows these crimes but makes them possible in the first place protects one of the perpetrators, one of their own depraved gang.

Your answer raises the same initial question: How can anyone accept that serious criminals, including numerous child molesters, have been getting away with the most heinous crimes with impunity for decades? How can anyone come to terms with the fact that their own law enforcement agencies are so corrupt that they do not fight organized crime, but are actually used to facilitate it? How can anyone be okay with that?