Dear Congress,

I am not convinced that the "bailout" is necessary, nor that it will have the desired results. The evidence points to something too terrifying to believe, but too credible to be dismissed out of hand: our government is driven by criminal sociopaths whose sole aim is to enrich themselves without regard to our fellow citizens, our nation, or the world as a whole. The Executive and Legislative branches of our government appear to be driven and directed by the overwhelming financial influence of groups, both foreign and domestic, such as the Banking, Finance and Insurance sectors, the defense industry and its dependents (including firearms manufacturers), and the petrochemical and energy sectors, among numerous others.

What is a sociopath? In dictionary definitions we find that a sociopath is a person whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. They are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others.

Tell me if this does not describe the long chain of presumably intelligent and highly educated people who built and operated the business model that has resulted in the crisis that motivates the bailout. How can we consider the supporters of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000) or the repealers of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act) as anything other than sociopaths? With their fanatical adherence to Free Market fundamentalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_friedman#Chile and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market_fundamentalism) they have caused economic damage to our nation and the world comparable to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/badguys/061025/the_cost_since_911_1.htm), and very likely much more. Why have we allowed this? Where were our senators and congressmen? On whom are we supposed to rely when our own representatives pass suicidal legislation whose financial damage is comparable to the worst terrorist attack in human history? Far from stopping such calamities, we are being stirred into a panic in a reprehensible effort to force us to pay for the fraud and irresponsibility of sociopathic businessmen and politicians.

Fear and imminent large scale damage have been invoked yet again, just as they were in 2002-2003 when we were pushed into a completely unjustified (and unbelievably expensive: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/business/17leonhardt.html?_r=1&scp=21&sq=financial%20cost%20of%209/11&st=cse&oref=slogin) war against a third-rate dictator who represented absolutely no threat to us. Our deceitful politicians now claim they were the victims of "flawed intelligence," which apparently consisted of nothing more than the unsubstantiated claims of the notorious swindler and opportunist, Ahmed Chalabi and his self-interested cronies. Is history repeating itself? Are the same lying, cheating, thieving, murderous war criminals robbing us of the largest single disbursement of all time by filling our ears with lies and our hearts with unwarranted terror? Are financial institutions toppling due to their abysmal judgment and incompetence? If so, shouldn't the free market fanatics be cheering their demise? Shouldn't we all be pleased that "free markets correct themselves," and allow the corrupt and the foolish to go under?

No! We are told. Doing nothing is even worse than the colossally stupid act of sorting all existing loans in the nation and using taxpayer dollars to purchase several million of the absolute worst from the resulting list. Politicians and economists have even had the temerity to suggest that we may well not only get all of our money back, but perhaps even realize a tidy little profit! This is the worst sort of dishonest, bottom-of-the-barrel exploitative drivel. Nobody seriously believes that such an outcome is likely. They are empty words to comfort the victims of what amounts to armed robbery.

I am profoundly disillusioned with our government, more specifically, with what remains of our very system of government. As I mentioned earlier, it appears to be allied with criminal sociopaths. Can it be? Can it be that the hopeful democracy of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams is gone? Is the spirit of nationhood defended practically to the death by Abraham Lincoln or the solidarity with Americans of all social classes shown by Franklin Roosevelt now a distant, fading memory? The Italian and Sicilian mobsters of the 20th century seem puny and laughable when compared to the level of criminality and disregard for human life and well-being shown by our government and the vicious super-businessmen who drive it. We citizens are little more than cattle or sheep to be husbanded at the lowest possible cost and sacrificed for the highest possible profit. Democracy, civility, and rule of law are gone. The prospect of the continued reign of these sociopaths truly inspires terror.

Do what you will with regards to the "bailout." Apparently it is too late for anything else.

... "Do it this way or the sky is going to fall", I immediately wonder what alternatives I'm not supposed to consider.

Isn't this something...a tectonic fissure in the global financial plates...how pervasive the shock & aftershocks shake the foundations is to be seen...

"Partisans on the left and the right seem happy to watch the flames."

Happy, no. Fed up? Yes.

If government has to step in to "save" the U.S. economy, let it save the real economy, the one in which hard working people create goods, products and ideas that other real people can and will use.

Believing a nation can thrive on an "industry" that is nothing more than high stakes gambling is asinine.

At this point it looks as though the decision has been made. For better or worse, we're going to have to muddle through a second great depression. The thinning of the herd just may apply to the general population, too.

Our whole financial system needs to shatter into tiny bits and be swept into the trash, then replaced with a new one. Bailouts will only prolong the agony.

That is because of its complexity and interdependence. That is the fatal flaw which cannot be fixed.

This flaw exists because the financial system has constructed itself in accordance with a false premise: that transparency will limit systemic risk.

No, no, no. Look to computer science. Ever since the 80's, faced with building complex systems, tools and languages have evolved with limit contagion - NOT through transparency, but through rigorous interfaces and protocols.

Transparency (as a substitute for regulation) is the gate to hell.

By this analysis, the virtues of something like 'glass-stegall' (sp?) is that it created a rigorous interface for financial contagion. Seemed to work rather well, when you look at the historical record.

Of course such interfaces cannot exist in a banana republic, in which corruption is rife, and that is more and more the case with the USA.