(04-11-2021, 09:41 AM)Lucky2Last Wrote: Engage me in the debate.

I believe there is a deep state, but it's not a cabal of wealthy elites. It's entrenched bureaucrats that operate behind the scenes. Corruption in our government began in the 60s due to the cold War. Certain agencies grew to rapidly and were given too much unchecked maneuverability. The American public is to stupid to put limitations on them.

These officials have become major influencers when it comes to policy decisions. Corporations, bankers, big pharmaceutical, big tech, and the military industrial complex has learned to exploit their influence for their own profit, which enriches everyone involved at the expense of the people. The deep state manipulates the media and politicians via leaks and disinformation, which benefits everyone at the expense of the people. Any president is only as successful as his willingness to get in bed with the lot of them.

If I had to guess, the system was entrenched in the later years of the Reagan administration, but seems like a few of those factions were jockeying for control, but unified under the Trump administration due to their mutual dislike of him. Democrats have become the party of the deep state because they have adopted literally all of the policies that enable these industries to thrive, with the exception of big oil.

I'm typing this on my phone as I'm riding home from vacation, so some of this is stream of thought, but I think I can support most of it. I'm open to any additions or corrections. This is basically a rough draft that is open for criticism, but you have to be a pretty blind partisan or extremely naive to think none of this is likely.

You're talking about government corruption which began long before the 60s. Corruption probably goes back to the beginning of human civilization. Specifically, you're probably referring to the military-industrial complex warned about by Eisenhower in his farewell address. There are elements of that and they do have undue influence on some of our institutions. Largely those are business interests and they peddle their influence mostly above board in the form of lobbyists.

That's not what the conspiracy theory crowd is typically talking about in reference to the deep state though. They literally believe that there's a secret association of government officials, celebrities, special interests and captains of industry that effectively governs the United States (or in some versions of the theory, the world) without the consent or knowledge of the people. They function as a single body in order to subvert society for their own ends. In some extreme versions of the theory, they kidnap and drink the blood of children. Sort of like a bad dystopian science fiction movie. If an organization like that did exist, surely there would be some evidence of it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and for that, there's none.

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