madaxe

Yup, just said the same as you. Hobbes and Hayek both anticipated this.

Revolution is the only way out.

No, it isn't, but it appears to be the endgame of representative democracy. I'd suggest reading Hobbes' Leviathan, or perhaps Hayek's Road to Serfdom, if you haven't already, as both anticipated this exact malaise. The US and the UK are in the terminal stages of decline.

The representative democratic ideal is ultimately revealed to be a fiction, and the rule of law is a falsehood - for without a universally applied rule of law, there is no rule of law - just authoritarianism - and our rule of law is decidedly not universal, and never has been. One set of rules for us, one for them.

All representative democracy eventually declines under the same disease of creeping authoritarianism due to the inevitable desire of entrenched power structures and bureaucracies to self-sustain and expand. This should not be mistaken for malice, rather it's the inevitable output of a system optimised for self-preservation.

The only solution to my mind while maintaining a democratic ideal is either strict sortition, or direct democracy.

"Responding officer"?

You mean, the phone drone whose job it is to go "sir, burglary is a civil matter, you will need to pursue it yourself"? Already have.

Politicians have always run the police - a police force is the government's visible threat of violence and method of control over the population. They're not there to protect you. They're there to protect the establishment.

The police are there to:

- Do you for speeding.

- Protect the establishment.

- Threaten violence.

- Prop up the prison-industrial complex for the benefit of private corporations.

They are categorically not there to help you. They never have been. This is a misapprehension that has been around since the days of Peel. A police force is the state's visible threat of violence against its populace, in order to exact control and to keep the powerful powerful.

Fighting fraud which loses them money. Fraud which makes them money is fine, because it's not fraud, it's "for your convenience".

The UK is sadly becoming increasingly like defective ex-soviet states, where doing things in the "right, open and upfront" way is no longer possible, as one is actively punished for honesty.

Had a fascinating chat with a Latvian chap who was telling me how literally every business in the country keeps two sets of books.

Software development, metalwork, carpentry, all have the same base skills, of planning, patience, and perseverance.

I do all, and many more such engineering/mechanical/creative type things, and I know many developers who are as adept at hacking in the real as in the aether.

Anyway, my point I guess is that it's all the same domain, and the skills are eminently transferable, and the internet fills in the knowledge blanks to a large extent.