For decades, conservatives have warned about the coordinated efforts of most of the American media to frame the news and political figures in a leftist narrative. While many are dismissive of these cries in the wilderness, the reason to heed these warnings and respond is rooted in the blatant corruption on display in our government and its beneficiaries.

Thomas Jefferson prophetically declared, “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” Through misinformation and propaganda, the American people now have a “rigged” system that benefits and serves only those whose treasury permits the hire of Beltway lobbyists and consultants or those within the inner circles of the governing elite with no accountability to its people.

Melodramatic, you say?

When did you ever believe you’d live to see the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) politicized despite the safeguards around its appointment processes and governance to prevent partisan influence? Director James Comey’s 10-year appointment, like all other directors, is intended to serve as a buffer from the politics of governing. Yet, as the headlines blare regarding the Hillary Clinton email scandal, the true crisis lies in the coordination of the FBI with the Department of Justice to “investigate” but do nothing with the findings that reveal illegal activity.

Not only did Clinton establish an external system of communication that circumvented safeguards to protect our national secrets against forces seeking intelligence to harm our nation, the very top “civil servants” employed to serve without favor or fear of political retribution willingly operated within that same system without alarm or whistleblowing. There are no records of reports to expose this violation of laws.

Where were the informers concerned about our nation? Where were the investigative reporters who could have uncovered this corruption?

The New York Times, among other news outlets, revealed, “Mrs. Clinton said in her [FBI] interview it was ‘common knowledge’ that she had a private email address because it was ‘displayed to anyone with whom she exchanged emails.’” In other words, it was apparently widely known that Clinton circumvented law set in place to protect America’s intelligence. And yet no one said a word.

So we have the law enforcement agency charged to find and expose public corruption and crime for the purpose of prosecution stepping past that role and advising the Department of Justice to refrain from any prosecutorial action despite clear proof of violations of law. How does this level of corrupt complicity occur within a system that’s created to serve citizens, entrusted with taxpayer money and charged with such a monumental role and jurisdiction of international relations?

When an entity grows so expansive that its accountabilities are no longer to those it serves but to its own existence and internal stakeholders, corruption is the seed that takes root and chokes out the good of that agency. And while an organization does not have its own morality, it takes that of its leaders.

The State Department was the first executive department established in 1789 and is led by the secretary of state, who serves as the president’s principal foreign-policy advisor. The element of protected communications is indisputably critical. Yet disregard by one individual grew into complicit participation of teams of support staff for Hillary Clinton.

The FBI is the nation’s prime law enforcement agency. The bureau declares on its website, “Our priority is to help protect you, your children, your communities, and your businesses from the most dangerous threats facing our nation — from international and domestic terrorists to spies on U.S. soil, from cyber villains to corrupt government officials [emphasis added].”

If the FBI is supposed to protect us from “cyber villains” and “corrupt government officials,” the bureau has failed. Arguably, this is due to the politicized leadership of Director James Comey, who answers to the Attorney General Loretta Lynch — the friend of Bill Clinton who likes to talk grandchildren on private planes in the midst of criminal investigations.

And, yes, the Justice Department, created to enforce the laws of the U.S. in order to administer justice, has been weaponized to advance Barack Obama’s political agenda. Is Lynch fulfilling her sworn duty to support and defend the Constitution? No. The same oath is taken by the FBI’s director. Has Comey fulfilled his pledge or is he complicit in permitting corruption? He too has failed. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton clearly abdicated her sworn duties on many fronts, just one of which was successfully fleecing the taxpayers to support her family’s foundation while exposing key communications to cyberspies.

The corrupt bureaucracy of the U.S. government exists because the malignant size permits unseen and unknown activity. Those in oversight roles are more interested in their self-preservation than ferreting out criminal and unethical transactions.

Founding Father Samuel Adams summed up the sad state of those who tolerate corruption: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom … crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

It’s time our elected leaders prosecute corruption and remove it; steward the people’s treasury with care; and do the job they claim to be obliged through oath to do. Otherwise, they are nothing but corrupt tyrants.