Excellent post, my man.

It's true that there are power hungry tyrants who get off on controlling the rest of us. Most of us see them as enemies. The Bill Gates and Elizabeth Warrens and Hillary Clintons of world will always be there, eager to steal, and even murder to consolidate their power and enrich themselves at others' expense.

But those people aren't the problem. They're not even the enemy. They're just a symptom. The sad fact is that our fellow men no longer value freedom. It's not even that they're indifferent to freedom; They actively despise it, and they despise you for wanting it -- because freedom entails personal responsibility, and today, there's no greater anathema to the common man than being responsible for one's own life.

The majority is more than happy to use the government to transfer wealth by force from your pocket into their own. A sizable chunk of Democrats, and even some Republicans, would've had you arrested for not following government mandates on masks and vaccines. The government is a useful tool to them. Not a threat. Not an enemy.

This is why I laugh a bit when I see people on NOSTR who, like in the anime world you described, try to help us define which policy maker is our "enemy." Our enemy isn't some leftist senator or compromised Core devs embracing spam. Those people are just a symptom of a society that loathes freedom. Embracing this truth was initially depressing, but ultimately freeing. I no longer have to maintain a list of enemies. I no longer have burn mental cycles hating people or groups. I just game-theory the heck out of my environment, ally myself with like-minded individuals, and exploit loopholes in the broken system wherever they may be found.