Yeah, I once tried figuring out what to do to even just fix healthcare. It basically amounted to rebooting at least two branches of the government entirely and redoing much of the foundation they rest on as well.

It's gut-wrenching and I don't even live on the same continent. It's even more gut-wrenching that a lot of the brokenness stems from these systems dating back to naive early implementations that didn't have the foresight to anticipate perverse incentives and exploitable flaws. (Newer or newly-reformed countries get to use hindsight instead. Much easier.)

Citizens United v. FEC was simultaneously the worst decision on American legal history and a symptom of underlying systemic faults. Unfortunately they were already almost unfixable by then.

I wish I could tell you I believe in the death spiral ending and the States recovering to live up to their ideals. Because all in all you guys are alright with me and you deserve so much better.

Despite my doubts I hope, though. All I can do, I'm afraid, but I can at least do that. It's too early to give up on civilization. It's always too early.

It's not even capitalism. It's badly implemented capitalism. It's perfectly possible to have a fundamentally capitalistic society with solid social services, just not the way the States are currently doing it.