Gavin de Becker

A law gets passed, and then regulators, unelected officials, go fucking nuts on interpreting that law the way they want to and applying it the way they want to.

And so it moves toward totalitarianism.

40,000 new laws passed in the United States every year.

How many rescinded?

Almost none.

Now the we, if you're talking about where are we now like Western society or the U.S.,

Empire in decline.

And first of all, is it an empire?

Obviously, right?

We have 760 military bases overseas.

760.

We have a larger budget for what we call defense, now called war, since Trump has changed the name to Department of War more accurately.

We have a larger budget than every other country in the world combined for military spending.

How many overseas bases does China have?

I think it's one.

I'm not saying China's all lovely.

I'm just saying they have a different method.

They have a method closer to what we had in the 60s, which was to come in with beneficial help.

We'll redo your roads, et cetera, et cetera.

So we're an empire, and we're an empire in decline.