Is The Government The Great Satan?

I know a number of people from Texas who appear to be of the impression that the American government is the Great Satan.

Simply, these people don't know what a bad government is.

I was born in the former Soviet Union. The government there really was brutal and oppressive. The American government is no such thing. In the Soviet Union, the worst abuser really was the government. In America, they are private. The American government is elected, official, accountable, checked and balanced. The private organs of brutality and oppression are no such thing. And this allows them to get away with greater levels of brutality and oppression than are allowed the American government

I would much rather be dealing with the American government than with men who like to beat their wives and rape their childen, or with Westboro Baptists, or with mafia and the gangs. And while these people are spending all their energy scrutinizing the government, they are allowing real brutality and oppression to grow up right under their noses.

I knew a man in Texas who had every bone in his body broken as a child by his stepfather and his grandmother. I do not know what his mother was doing, but I have complete contempt for her. There was a case in Texas in which a woman got raped, and a man was put away in prison and died in prison only to have someone else confess to the crime. An innocent life was lost to a false accusation of rape. In neither case was the government the perpetrator.

Anything capable of choice is capable of wrong choice. That is as much the case for people who are not a part of the government as it is for people who are part of the government. And when people expect corruption and brutality potentials only in the government, they allow other entities than the government to perpetrate real brutality and corruption.

So it is time that this be seen for what it is. Once again, anything capable of choice is capable of wrong choice. And that is as much the case for private individuals and private entities as it is for the government.