But what many people don't realize is that the most unfair and outright broken parts of the system we have in the USA aren't a result of people breaking the law. No, the craziest, most overtly bullshit practices are perfectly legal. That's why ...

None of you are naive or think government works exactly the way you learned it in elementary school. We all know there are backroom deals and bribes and blackmail and probably, like, orgies and shit behind the scenes.

5 Your Congressional Representative Has Already Been Chosen for You

Weerayut Kongsombut/Photos.com, kunertus/Photos.com

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Here's how neatly the House of Representatives works on paper: For every certain number of U.S. citizens, there is a congressional district. The people in each congressional district elect a representative. If you didn't know any better, you might think that these districts were arranged in a simple grid or something -- small squares in areas with dense populations, large ones for sparsely populated rural areas. But instead, it looks like this:

General Services Administration

District borders are even more ridiculous than state borders.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Yes, these districts are an insane tangle of convoluted shapes that resembles the last game of Tetris you see right before your Game Boy's circuit board dies. So is this all just really sloppy mapmaking? Was the district map drawn by a man with a Sharpie clenched between his butt cheeks?

Nope. Some of you who know this politics stuff recognize this as gerrymandering -- the trick by which parties game the system to keep their people in power. What you may not realize is how profoundly this utterly thwarts everything the system is supposed to be.

The Insanity:

As a result of this border fuckery, U.S. congressional elections are among the most uncompetitive in the world. In 2000, a whopping 98 percent of congressional seats were held by incumbents. That makes congressional races roughly as competitive (and fair) as rigged dictatorial elections.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

That's because these tangled districts are all about making sure it is nearly impossible for most congressional seats to change parties. See, nowhere in the rulebook does it say exactly how the districts must be drawn, as long as they're connected. So, the party in power simply finds all of the most loyal voters on the map and draws the district around them. That's how we wind up with the complete madness that is Illinois District 4: