But you didn't point out a cause.... you pointed out a symptom.

Gerrymandering has been around for 200 years more than Citizens United. If you want to believe that money is the ONLY cause of or political dysfunction, fine. I don't.

Trying to rig the system by suppressing the people who don't agree may possibly be the oldest political tactic there is. In the end, it always comes down to greed. When you scratch the surface of most human disputes, it comes down to greed or love. But on a large scale, it's usually greed.

There are different "root causes," depending on how you analyze reality. You can make an equally good case that fear is the prime cause and greed is a defense against experiencing exposure and vulnerability. Or one could see will-to-power as the root problem and greed as a form of attaining it. Etc.

Almost everyone experiences fear. Fear does not make everyone greedy. For many, fear makes them empathetic and kind to others. Greed makes people cruel. So while fear may be the root of greed, it is not necessarily the root of evil.

But on your own terms, if the root cause of greed is in fact fear, then you should be addressing that fear and not simply decrying greed.

I don't care why they're afraid. I'm advocating to use their greed to destroy them... They made their choice on how to react to their -mostly baseless- fears. I have great empathy for those with less power than I have. I have none for jackbooted thugs.

I'm not talking about having empathy. I'm talking about being effective—which ostensibly was the reason for getting at "root causes." How do you know your approach won't exacerbate the problem?

Exacerbate the authoritarian fascist takeover of our country? Gee, they are already disappearing an out group to for profit interment camps... What road into the future do you see that not getting worse. Like it or not, the messy part has started. This is self-defence.

Maybe I don't understand what you're suggesting. You're saying that by calling people the nasty name "greedy!" you're thereby going to stop the perversion of American law and justice? Because you've identified the "root" of the problem, and the cure is...strongly-worded insults?

Not that this entire argument top to bottom hasn't been extremely silly but when you've gotten to discussing the "root of evil" you've officially become lost in the weeds, friends.

Ugh... to defeat your enemy, you must understand what drives your enemy.

Sure, but that's not what's happening here. What's happening here is faffing about with vague philosophical concepts and trying to boil them into a singular "bad thing" like we're in an anime.

You can remove the cause... But, not the symptoms