Why we need a 3000+ county and 100% of towns and cities solution

Labor progressives, Civil Libertarian progressives all need to rally around "good government" progressive efforts. And that starts at the local level. Anyone who pays attention to politics and digs a little, soon finds that even in "liberal" districts with "good" leaders there is a lot of room for process improvement and ethical cleanup. If the Military-Security Industrial complex and Financial monsters dominate at the National level, at the local level their lawyers, investors and developers dominate at local levels. Where-ever there is money to be made developers and corrupt businessmen descend like flies and their maggots test their corrupt chops. The one thing the recent poisoning of West Virginia water supplies, and "Bridgegate" have in common, is local corruption. Bridgegate may be about a high powered lawyer in New Jersey's effort to redevelop his property there. And the company that leaked chemicals poisoning West Virginia Water was formed just before the disaster, filed for bankruptcy, and the "bank" that aided that filing is owned by the same people who owned the now bankrupt company. When Mafia do it it's criminals, when the criminals are corrupt lawyers and insiders it is "getting things done" and perfectly legal. Our country is in trouble.

If we want to clean up politics in this country, we have to start with the local politicians. We either have to put them under a spotlight to keep them honest and push them to always do the right thing, replace them, or find the guts to run against them. Progressives seem oblivious to the corrupt developers, contractors, privateers and thefts going on all around us. What is going on in New Jersey is going on around the country. And what is going on in West Virginia is where the rest of our states are headed if we don't reign in our nascent aristocracy.

It's no accident that some parts of America are poor. There are rich people who use their local power to oppress and steal around the country. They can only be reigned in by local activism and by progressives who care about their local government as much as the Federal Government.

Further reading:

Steve Kornacki's thorough exposition on how the corruption in New Jersey related to Hobocken and "Bridgegate": http://www.mediaite.com/tv/hoboken-mayor-alleges-that-chris-christies-lt-governor-extorted-her-over-sandy-funds/

Kennedy was in the process of "evolving" on Russia and Cuba: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/john-f-kennedys-vision-of-peace-20131120

Enemies and Bureaucracy Intro

People misunderstand the "enemy" because they fail to understand that thinking requires us to differentiate between individual, human, very personal "enemies" who are actors on the stage filling roles; and who can change those roles sometimes. Because they fail to understand that we have many "frenemies" in this world who are unreliable friends, unreliable enemies, and sometimes both; but need to be handled with strategy not naevity or anger.

An example of a "frenemy" are your religious Wahabi Arabs. They have a world model that draws its inspiration from the Caliphs of the 8th century. When you see a man dressing like the Prophet, who has memorized the Koran and Haddith, and who lives by those teachings, you are meeting an actor. He probably thinks he's just a religious muslim, but he's acting out an ideology that follows certain rules and demands certain behaviors. If you don't understand him he might send airliners crashing into towers. And he might do it even if you do understand him if your understanding is delusional.

We do have people in this country who think they understand Al Qaeda, and it didn't stop 9/11/2001 because they either saw the Wahabi as all terrorists or trusted them. We still have people who work with the same people who launched 9/11. We are doing it in Syria. Prince Bandar created Al Qaeda, there is no evidence he ever broke with them. There is no point getting paranoid. That is reality. Prince Bandar was stirring up things a little for his Oily friends every bit as much as he was living out 800 year old fantasies; Frenemies. Prince Bandar threatened the Russians in Sochi through his Chechen Clients. The Russians understand. They put millions of people in uniform to protect the place. It probably won't work perfectly. Al Qaeda was not a non-state actor. It works for the Saudis. The Saudis are our friends. Al Qaeda is our enemy. Same people. Who'd figure? We are allied with the Saudis so if A=B and B=C then we are A=C; allied with Al Qaeda. Some of our CIA is.

Certainly if our politicians were brighter folks like Senator McCain would be more careful about praising Jihadists fighting Assad if he knew they were controlled by the same folks who control Al Qaeda. But we humans aren't that simple or that smart. Two different plays by the same author. What the members of Al Qaeda did was personal. What Bandar is doing is treacherous and personal. What Chris Christie did with "Bridge-gate" is both personal and treacherous, and was essentially an act of war on New York City. But I'm sure he's a "loyal" friend. They are all "loyal" Friends. Like Brutus and Julius Caesar.

But the real enemy is never these individuals. Individuals can be corrupt, deluded, vicious, unreliable, friends one day and launching airplanes at buildings the next. But there are forces too. Forces like inertia, entropy, and human equivalents like greed, anger and bureaucracy. The Human equivalents are driven by human frailties and the way people are organized. One of those "forces" is an age-old set of human structures and organizing principles called "Bureaucracy."

Taming or Fighting Bureaucracy

The right is right to fear "large government" but they are delusional in that they don't identify what they mean. If they had a clear genuine intention to do something about "large government" they'd be pushing for less bureaucracy and more democratic government. But they are only against bureaucracy outside law enforcement and big business so you rarely hear them defining terms or clarifying targets. They know that they use bureaucracy and it's structures just as sharply as the left does. And many righties are themselves bureaucrats.

Bureaucracy has structural attributes: Hierarchy, lists, rules, top down direction, bottom down responsibility that make it an ideal vehicle for armies, police, tax collection, or any kind of administration. Bureaucratic governance is a feature of government, and if you see a bureaucracy anywhere you are seeing a government "not a person", but bureaucracy and it's attributes amplify the power and influence of those at the top of their hierarchy. When the right complains about "big government" they talk about features of bureaucratic government:

• Laws listed and treated as sacred.
• Laws interpreted arbitrarily and applied as regulations with no relationship to real world.
• Officials who follow these "laws" and claim they can't use common sense because of the laws.
• Common sense treated as corruption depending on who uses it, with those at the top of the hierarchy deciding
• Those running hierarchies blaming subordinates for their bad decisions or taking credit for the decisions of subordinates
• Corruption seen as perfectly okay by high status officials near top of hierarchy, who interpret the rules
• Folks following lists and pursuing organizational objective without any regard to it's impacts on that mission, sometimes long after the organization has lost any resemblance to it's original purpose.

When the right demonize "government programs" they are talking about the particular and peculiar corruptions associated with bureaucratic governance. For example the Byzantines inherited a bureaucratic governance from the Romans that was inherited from Greek Kingdoms who inherited it from the Persians, who inherited it from Babylon! When Byzantium was reduced to one city it had the same bureaucracy and nearly the same numbers as it had had when the city of Constantinople (now Istambul) administered a vast empire. When it fell the Turks and Russians picked up it's bureaucratic organization. Before it fell the Vatican had already copied most of it's features. It influences from the USA to Russia to this day. Other countries have parallel structures and bureaucrats copy each other, but bureaucracy is eternal. There is no getting rid of it completely but it can be reduced from the size of a Brown bear to a Teddy bear with a little reforming. If the Right were talking about turning Brown Bear Bureaucracies to Teddy bear Bureaucracies they'd make sense and people would understand them better.

The way to reduce bureaucracy is by reducing hierarchy, and increasing the power of bottom up representative structures and also raising the accountability of the hierarchs who head bureaucracies. Bureaucrat hierarchs resist both accountability and anything that makes them consult with others and thus reduces their authority, and so there are a million ways that they frustrate or control efforts at reform, but it can be done. Bureaucracy can't be eliminated. Folks pretend to eliminate it all the time, but it doesn't even make sense to try. Al Qaeda is an Arab World that means sort of "the structure." It's a very flat, very loose, and very networked bureaucratic structure. Bureaucracy pops up everywhere, and the biggest bureaucrats are the folks who run giant companies. When we hear righties talking about "reducing government" they aren't talking about reducing bureaucracy, just transferring it's power to their rich patrons.

Letter to my Righty Friends

Hey Guys. It's pretty obvious to me that y'all have been at war with the rest of us for some time. It took a long time for me to figure it out because I'm an American first and thought that everybody in this country, including you guys, believed in Democratic-Republicanism, thought of this country as a commonwealth, and that those who claimed to "believe" in the constitution actually in fact respect and practice it's principles. Boy was I wrong. You guys need to look within the reality of what you are proposing. The only Government small enough to drown in a bathtub are Monarchies. Do you want King Christie, or King Obama, to run everything dictatorial-like? Turns out, Small Government is a bait and switch. What most of us want is participatory democracy, not a King. We want "consent of governed". We want the right to eat, drink, have a roof over the head, and be left free in our homes. And we want that to be a common project not a freebooting operation run by pirate captains who never share their loot. Not all of us of course, but most of us want common sense and pragmatism not any kind of ideology.

We are Giving you the black spot

Most of us believe that politics can be a good thing. It has the virtue of creating win/win policies when pursued virtuously and as an art. You've made politics something vicious. And now you are projecting that viciousness on the people hurt by your tactics and strategy. I'm a white guy, I could go to the darkside and not take it personally, but my minority, women and Gay-Lesbian-Transgender friends won't. And to add insult to injury your recent policies are stripping me and other working white guys of their power too - by destroying jobs and the safety net. Turns out we have common interest with minorities, women and gay-lesbians. Trickle down only seems to be your masters marking their territory. We are losing the middle class and that affects 90% of us. Politics is personal. And when those with power (including money, ownership, and influence) won't play together and share their toys, well the playground stops being a nice place to play. If I'd ever been tempted to be a con before, this great recession (face it it's a great depression) and your nasty policies have made it so it will not happen in my life-time. The New Deal makes a lot more sense when one is unemployed and broke after losing money to the con swindlers. Most of us have come to think of you guys as con artists not conservatives.

Abusive projection

For example, you guys meet in groups like groundswell that seem to be projecting your own behavior when you argue:

"The meeting notes also stated that an "active radical left is dedicated to destroy [sic] those who oppose them" with "vicious and unprecedented tactics. We are in a real war; most conservatives are not prepared to fight."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas?page=2

Now from my POV abusive projection is the order of the day from you guys. You attack gay groups, non-partisan groups registering voters, women and other minorities; and then refers to our efforts to stop them as "vicious and uncontained." You built up ACORN into a demonic thing and then even after it was gone still act like it is still an ongoing conspiracy. You guys have become all the nasty attitudes and tactics you love to go on about. You remind me of the Trotskyite guys I used to debate with back in College. Ends justify means? concern for your brother? Common weal? Forgeddaboutit. These kinds of selfish behavior and abusive projection are symptoms of sociopathy not a movement with integrity.

I'm sure there are folks on the far left who have the same machiavellian/ "ends justify means" approach to politics as the righty folks have. I've met them. There aren't very many. But you folks use any excuse to engage in corrupt fights based on shoddy principles, so it's not progressives who are deliberately stopping traffic on the GW Bridge to get back at "enemies." Just bad politicians and worse operatives. I welcome real conservatives who really are not prepared to fight -- but are prepared to actually discuss issues and resolve them. None of you fit that bill right now. We are resisting you because we don't want to be destroyed, degraded, dispossessed and treated like dirt; not because we hate you guys. We might think most of you are tools unless you've the wealthy and powerful paying and preying on you because it doesn't trickle down, but we don't want a literal war or literal fighting. The ones who get paid may be willing useful tools, like dogs on a dog sled, but the rest of you are being played.

Problem is your movement can't stop with well enough. You and your paid shills in the fake (faux) media, have to hate us, insult us, and then get offended when we get offended. But, we gave you welfare reform. We gave you deregulation. Welfare Reform is something we are all about too. Deregulation let loose an entire cadre of buccaneers and freebooters who swindled everybody worldwide from Ma and Pa with their balloon mortgage to Sovereign funds that bankrupted entire countries [Iceland]. So we have to re-regulate or our economy and politics will collapse. Don't facts sway you? Maybe, but fox makes up it's own. We can agree that this country is in trouble -- yet you make up stuff that doesn't make sense about why. So the swindled are the reason that the economy collapsed? So Wall Street will fix itself if we leave it alone to monopolize, conglomeratize, merge and become more and more a plutocratic government? Doesn't that disturb you?

And the problem isn't conservism it is corruption

When the right cuts off benefits to the poor, the poor don't suddenly find hundreds of dollars in a jar and eat. They can't even grow their own potatoes in most of the country. When you cut WIC, and SNAP, Unemployment and jobs, and then give the proceeds to your wealthy patrons, that isn't conservatism, that is corruption. When we let the powers that be (which include quisling lefties) enable pirates to privateer, loot and steal with impunity, then that is tyranny, oppression and corruption -- not conservatism.

Resisting oppression, repression and usurpation; tyranny.

We are resisting usurpation, oppression and power grabs, not resisting conservative values. But your paranoia is such that when they one of your own bullies someone and get caught on it -- suddenly the cops are the bullies. You are rallying around Chris Christie even as his behavior is on video. You can't lie with records -- that is why so much of his releases so far are so "redacted." This isn't new behavior. I remember Nixon and his tapes. Somehow sociopathic behavior is "hard choices", "realistic" and "getting things done, when done by righties. When Grover only cares about tax cuts on his rich patrons I think most of us should be cluing ourselves. But my righty friends, most of you are not members of the 1% and you should recognize that your party is not right. It's buccaneering. When John Locke defined Tyranny it's core is government for "private, separate advantage." The right pretty much enshrines privateering as a business model. That may not be national tyranny, but it is state tyranny or corporate tyranny.

So what do you do when your "friends" start making economic war on you? You figuratively fight back, you organize, you protest, you try to change minds. Let's keep it a figurative war.

The Right and left thus have all sorts of councils about what to do to win their struggles. Normally it would be a legitimate struggle between rich and poor, employers and employees, senior management and their employees and customers, and advertizing versus reality. And we'd work it out. But you folks don't seem interested in solving common problems more than beating the snot out of invented enemies like myself. You would think we could resolve things under rule of law with negotiation and elections. It's not happening now. It may be normal in the sense of the sad historical mess that is human history but it's not normal in the normative sense. I don't think the majority of people have caught on yet, but those of us who have caught on can see that this is an escalation of politics as usual into increasingly violent politics and incitement. It has to be stopped somehow. Let's try a little ot go from figurative war and partisanship back to debate and figurative partisanship. How about it? Your masters already own most of the country. Do we have to give them everything to satisfy you? Our democratic structure itself is liable to come under assault. Our plutocrats such as the Koch's and their frenemies the Rockefellers and Soros, think they run the world through running US. I think we can do better than that.

Where are the Frederick Douglass Republicans?

I mean I could be swayed by ideas like this:

" "We are failing the propaganda battle with minorities. Terms like, 'GOP,' 'Tea Party,' 'Conservative' communicate 'racism.'" The Groundswellers proposed an alternative: "Fredrick Douglas Republican," a phrase, the memo noted, that "changes minds." (His name is actually spelled "Frederick Douglass.")"

But you know that ever since Nixon (with Haldeman and Erlichman) pursued his southern Strategy y'all been pursuing the "Archie Bunker" strategy of using hate and mysogyny to further a class war against the majority of the people in this country. You will continue to lose (Even if you win) if you continue to see their problems with minorities and woman as mere propaganda battles. It's not the democrats who wanted to force women to have intrusive ultrasounds or who thought it was a good idea to replace Obstetrics and Gynecology Doctors with Uncle Sam. You aren't losing the "messaging war" because you don't package it right, but because the message is ugly. You folks are packaging stinky poisonous tripe in the constitution and then accusing us of subverting it. You folks are attacking progress since the new deal as if having a middle class or well fed and educated workers were something bad. You folks learned all about the tactics and strategies of the far left only to apply the most machiavellian and cynical ones available. You read novels decrying behavior as instructions on how to get your way. I've never seen so many sociopaths in one place as at one of your gatherings.

You can't talk Frederick Douglass while suppressing the vote. I'd really like to see some Frederick Douglas Republicans, but when you get one you run him out of the party like you did your last party chairman. Rancid Previous drummed out your last Frederick Douglass Republican. The conservatives make way for the con artists.

Mafioso Politics is not normal politics.

Chris Christie's assault on Fort Lee is a symptom of a problem that doesn't come from the left. It comes from your own mirrors. Y'all need to actually read the testaments in the bible and stop projecting your hatred and fear on others. I love all you like the brothers and sisters of mine you are. But you truly are becoming a frightening bunch of human beings who think "Tony Soprano" is an ideal behavior model. All we want is a society that looks out for the common weal. For crimminy sakes we are the rubes who bought into ACA because you guys said it might work better than single payer. And we tried your other ideas. They do work -- for your wealthy patrons who paid for them. You don't have a messaging problem. You've got a Rancid message.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas

Being a little less naive about politics

Strategic Alliances

One thing I've learned since I've had internet email is that friends, frenemies, and allies are sometimes the same people on different issues, and that even a long time friend can sometimes turn out to be a stuffed shirt or a twit. Worse even saintly me can act like a complete twit. Somehow twit and twitter go together. Somehow threads tend to obey certain rules of insanity that lead to observations like "Godwin's law" being almost definitional "happenings" in political threaded discussions. So it's important not to take anyone, not even oneself too seriously based on one encounter. Though one can bet that anything said on the internet even if it is supposed to be totally private and confidential will reach all unintended ears. So relax cautiously. It takes time to figure out if someone is a real serious twit or not. Though not always.

“Thinking itself is such a dangerous enterprise.” [Hannah Arendt]

Truthdig Review of Hannah Arendt's last interviews

Review of Truthdig article on Hannah Arent's Final Inteview

Truthdig has a review by Andrew Nagorski of a collection of the final interviews given by Hannah Arendt shortly before she died in 1975.

The review is worth reading, and so is the book of interviews:

Thinking Itself is Such a Dangerous Enterprise

The review is very good and highlights some important details of the background of her last days. She died sort of "in media res" still fighting the battle of clear thinking versus dogma and exploitation, and Nagorski notes that she believed that "critical thought always challenges and undermines established rules and conventional wisdom"

“Thinking itself is such a dangerous enterprise.”

Destroying the Legend of the Greatness of Evil

Personally I think her choice of wording might have been better. When she was writing about the "banality of evil" and used the expression; "banality of evil" she wasn't saying that evil wasn't evil. As Nagorski points out, when the nasty folks who'd been the self promoting "master race" faced trial they all were suddenly merely: "obeying orders" -- even the ones who had directed those orders. And when she said “There’s something outrageously stupid about this,” and: “The whole thing is simply comical!” As Nagorski notes "“comical” clearly doesn’t mean ha-ha funny". If you read the transcripts of the Nuremberg trial you'll see the pathetic nasty distusting nature anti-semitism, of hatred and evil itself. and the absolute muddy selfish, greedy, Pathetic nastiness of evil. As she states and Nagorski Highlights in his review:

“One of my main intentions was to destroy the legend of the greatness of evil, of the demonic force,” she told Errera. To that end, she wanted to prove that “if there was anyone who deprived himself of any demonic aura, it was Herr Eichmann.”

Pathetic People not Great People

Not big, giant, mighty demons, just pathetic, sad, sick things. And a continuing battle, as folks doing evil always want to paint themselves as "good people" making the "hard decisions" or even heroic. The word she should have used was "pathetic."

Eichmann and the rest of them were pathetic, not heroic. And their later day imitators are too.

the review:

[www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/hannah_arendts_last_interview_20140110].

Book of Interviews at Amazon:

"http://www.amazon.com/Hannah-Arendt-Interview-Other-Conversations/dp/1612193110"

Further Reading

Written 1/10/2014, Added some headers, formating and the following list of links:

Trump's GOP Totalitarian Movement and Totalitarian Propaganda

Hannah Arendt Trump and the Stateless

The Dictator in Front of the Mob

Hannah Arendt on Donald Trump's Mob

Our Democratic Movement is not Totalitarian

The Power of Doublespeak

Being a Little Less Naive about Politics

Authoritarians and Totalitarians, Altemeyer & Arendt

EMAD Trump

Subsidiarity and Fascism

http://lithub.com/tag/hannah-arendt/

We Gonna Maka U an Offa U can't refuz

Chris Christie shows that he's what he is.

http://rackjite.com/chris-christie-bully-troll-bridge-tony-auth-cartoon/

I can see why some folks love him. He's a real life Tony Soprano -- or maybe Archie Bunker runs for Governor (except Archie Bunker was depicted as having actually fought in a war) -- and everyone loves the Uncle who's a bully but not to "me." But he's a bully. Recently I made a joking poem that compared most of the Republican party to an Army of Grinches, but Chris Christie isn't a Grinch, he's an old fashioned troll. The first thing he did as Governor was to turn down a Federal project that would have benefited both New Jersey and New York, and was going to cost next to nothing for New Jersey because the Feds were going to fund part of it. He nixed it. The man has a thing about bridges. He demands a toll or nobody can cross them. 3 Days for a "study" that it turns out was just intended to punish a Democrat who dared to support a Democrat for Governor. Real Piece of work. He messes with people all around New York City when he blocks traffic, and he knows it. He's a troll. What need I say? He says that he was betrayed by his staff. And who knows maybe they'll take the "fall for the Gipper." Grinches love their trolls and figureheads. A lot of scoundrels took a fall for the Reagan-Troll. Maybe he really didn't know. Wink. Wink. Moderate??? Wink, Wink. He's a con and we should stop letting ourselves be conned. This man is no moderate but he knows how to con us into thinking that bullying is conservative.

Freebooters Stealing homes

I've talked a little of the financial crisis brought on by the freebooting behavior of pretty much all our banks. The writers Ravi Batra, coming from the left; and Kevin Phillips coming from the right and also from a historical view, both predicted the entire mess. And I've noticed that the frauds and swindles in this swindle bubble housing market have followed three stages:

1. In the first banks learned to securitize loans and resell them to investors. And they found they could make money from those sales up front. They didn't have to wait for folks to pay their monthly mortgage, they could turn them into securities. This led to what might have been a normal housing expansion as housing prices tracked locational prosperity or simple inflation being turned into a bubble as folks were encouraged to leverage purchases of homes on the expectation of selling those homes later, and the banks no longer worried about making money downstream, they could sell derivative contracts instead.

2. But then they began creating derivative contracts in a fraudulent manner, selling mortgages in a fraudulent manner, and leveraging their loans with additional derivative contracts. To the point where they often can't prove who owns the underlying loan and that made a second phase of fraud. They started preparing to pawn off the risk on their investors and home-buyers. Eventually their frauds collapsed, the companies that had been the fronts for these operations were "wound up" by the FDIC, but the banks were deemed "too big to fail" and no one frog-marched there. So there was a huge sucking sound as money was sucked out of intact businesses, workers -- and home owners.

3. This led to the third phase of the swindle when they started fraudulently foreclosing on mortgages they didn't own anymore -- because they'd already sold them several times. They did this by arbitrarily raising interest rates on variable mortgages, and by victimizing people who lost jobs due to their original perfidy.

The blog "Deadly Clear" goes into detail on this, and I'll be partially quoting:

In most cases they could rely on judges who didn't care if they still owned the note. As the author of a blog that explains this in much more detail than I care to go into writes:

When all is said and done the courts come back to the main premise, “Did you pay?”. That is so injudicious on so many levels. The deeper we get into securitization and contract law we soon realize (after dissection) there is one very basic question being ignored – “Is the Promissory Note even enforceable?”

Now since there is so much corruption in our courts a lot of courts are going to ignore this question. So if I owed a mortgage I'd feel safer just paying the darn thing off, but there are people who get into trouble because of bank fraud who are accused of being late or not paying when they in fact are, so if someone is in trouble with a loan it is worth fighting this.

Non-traditional mortgages and sub-prime mortgages are the culprits here. In many cases people were sold them fraudulently from the beginning, but even if they knew what they were getting into, most were lied to about Non Traditional Mortgages (I was sold one and they lied to me and it took me a few months to figure it out and I can be an idiot but fortunately i caught it early enough and had the resources to get out of it. But it turns out that many of these loans were illegally done in the first place.

Anyway the frauds were sloppy and so some folks in trouble may be able to prove that the banks have no business foreclosing on their home anyway. For more read:

http://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/is-the-promissory-note-even-enforceable/

Also read these:

http://www.bairblog.com/

More on Ravi Batra:

Amazon: [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Ravi+Batra&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3ARavi+Batra]

More on Kevin Phillips:

Amazon Profile and list of books: [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&field-author=Kevin+Phillips&search-alias=books&text=Kevin+Phillips&sort=relevancerank]

Democracy Now Interview: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/28/former_gop_strategist_kevin_phillips_on

A Good Year for Revolution [http://www.amazon.com/1775-A-Good-Year-Revolution/dp/0670025127]

Review of "American Theocracy:"

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/author-phillips.html

Unfortunately the Judges must be honest enough to go along with the law for that to work.