By Mason Mohon | USA

The castle walls are crumbling, and nobody hiding within them is safe. Inside its walls, every type of immoral and evil degenerate can be found feeding their self-centered desire and exploiting others. This is the castle of the cultural and political elite, filled with popular culture icons, politicians, and bureaucratic pigs who think they’re “all that,” and why wouldn’t they? They beat us. They made it up the ladder by stepping on our heads. They are the snakes who bit us on our heels when we thought we were safe. They are the friends who stabbed us in the back. These methods are the only way the ladder could really ever be climbed, with a few exceptions of course.

I feel as if there is a shadow man exposing people sitting behind the curtain and spinning a wheel of who is going to be ousted for a past of disgusting sexual misconduct next. Roy Moore, George Takei, Kevin Spacey, and Louis C.K. were all exposed in rapid succession, and no matter what strategy they employed things always came back to bite them. Spacey came out as gay in response to his accusations, but that doesn’t make what he did ok. House of Cards is finished and I will be thoroughly surprised and slightly disgusted the next time I see him get a shot. Takei’s coming out card had been played forever ago, though, so he just went for it and blamed the Russians for it. Really? Come on George, own what you did and quit making hypocritical and senselessly unbacked political commentary. Stop shilling for FDR’s clearly destructive New Deal policies and quit trying to justify his imprisonment of the Japanese population. C.K. admitted to what he did without making sorry excuses for his actions.

And on this idea of a “gay card,” I say that because homosexuality is real. Don’t use it as a dodge when your messed up past is revealed to the world. You commodify your sexuality by using it to keep yourself relevant in the game of cultural popularity, and that is messed up. Doing such marginalizes and otherizes those within the gay community. Stop pretending to be any sort of “ally” while using life-defining characteristics as a tool for political gain. It was all in vain anyway, because Spacey’s career is taking hits.

But this article is about politics, is it not? It takes some messed up action to climb to the top of pop culture, but the game is a lot messier in the political world. As allegations came out against both Al Franken and Roy Moore, I was told by friends that both the subreddits of r/The_Donald and r/politics were ablaze with a defense of the member of their ideological camp. Those in Donald’s attempted to make sense of how Al Franken was in the wrong, and somehow Roy Moore was in the right. Politics, a very liberal leaning subreddit, swayed in just the opposite direction. All I have to say is what the hell is wrong with you people? You think you can just write off somebody’s egregious past because they have an R or D in front of their name? That’s messed up. I am officially taking the radical position that sexual assault is wrong in any and all instances, along with clear sexual harassment.

The question still faces us, though. Why does the sleazy perv always find himself at the top of the food chain? That’s a hard question to answer, but it is one worth trying to answer, and a very important one to at least take a stab at. One important thing to take note of is men are built with a drive to reproduce and being in a position of power gives them the idea they can exercise that drive when there is not a consenting response that indicates the drive should be pursued. Men in positions of power like to exercise that power, and that seems to be manifesting itself in ways that are not ok.

At the same time, let us take a look at the political industry itself. Getting elected is a nasty game and not an easy feat, particularly in the case of a national election to the house, senate, or even presidency. Getting there means climbing a ladder, and let us not forget that the ladder of the political system is one that rests on violence. The taxpayer is exploited so that the system may be upheld, and that only provides an incentive to leave the bottom of exploitation and run to the top, reaping the benefits of the exploiter. The politician gets to choose how others live their lives (yes, I know Rand Paul exists, yet he is literally one out of one-hundred). Maybe a politician aspires to change things for the better, but he will always be beaten out by the man who takes the massive paycheck under the table from the corporation he just agreed to lobby for.

The winner will be the one who attacks the opponent viciously. Remember the election between Adams and Jackson? No, you don’t, you were not alive, but you can still read about it. Adams and Jackson resorted to using unbacked accusations to ruin the moral character of the other candidate just so they would look better. The way to win was to ruthlessly attack your opposition. These days, it is done through massive payoffs to news organizations who will target candidates on what they know of the least, or it is done through presidential debates with rigged questions, or they just plain and simple bar you from speaking (remember how little time Ron Paul got to speak in the debates?). The point is, there is no room for nice guys in the political system. To win, you have to lie, steal, and cheat.

This is the system that we live under. Why are we ever surprised when somebody is found guilty of lying, stealing, cheating, or sexual assault when we all give our support to a system that encourages such things? If you want this to stop, quit playing into their system. You don’t know how many more Harvey Weinstein’s are out there, so don’t support their lifestyle by throwing your money into the movie industry. Don’t vote for anyone who may have a background of sexual assault, even if they’re the only choice for your party. What this probably means is not voting for either of the major two parties, but be wary for sickos in the third ones too. It is your responsibility to dismantle this system by removing your service from it. Serve them no more, and they shall fall apart.