Why do Americans put up with it?  I'm talking about our kleptocracy, a government of kleptomaniac thieves.

Not to pick on Janet Napolitano, but I wrote about her recently on this site, after she was caught squirreling away taxpayer money in a hidden fund, using it to reward her bureaucratic allies, while at the same time, she was asking the state of California for even more taxpayer money, for the University of California, which she heads.

Now she's back in the news, with a closely related scandal.  Quoting from the news article (emphasis added), "The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday that UC President Janet Napolitano 's office reimbursed regents for more than $225,000 in dinner parties since 2012, including $17,600 for a banquet held the night before the board voted to raise tuition."

The article is a follow-up to a previous one in which, after having been publicly caught with their bibs down, the connoisseurs of catered $250 meals decided to tone it down a bit.  That previous article contains an account of the decision, and if you believe it, I have a bridge in Oakland Bay I'd like to sell you.  "Longtime regent Richard Blum, a wealthy financier ... said the policy change was his idea. ... 'I said, Janet [Napolitano], it's not worth the aggravation.  Let's have the Regents pay for their own dinners.'"  Oh, let's (sarcasm).

Turn on the lights, and the cockroaches scurry for cover.

The problem is that the California Board of Regents is but one small nest in a horde of cockroaches that remain hidden behind the impenetrable walls of government at every level.

Why do Americans put up with the pickpockets and strong-arm robbers who gut our economy and steal our quality of life, while living lives of luxury?  The answer is to be found in one of our earliest founding documents, the Declaration of Independence.

[A]ll experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

It's true.  We put up with a lot.  Many evils are, indeed, sufferable, at least for a time.  But there comes a time when, as the Declaration makes clear, it becomes our duty to throw off an abusive government, and to replace it with one that better serves the public.

We would, of course, prefer to do so by elections.  The 2016 election was the most recent instance of a popular outcry by the voters.  Were we heard this time?  Maybe.  Let's give President Trump a fair chance to keep his campaign promises.  Thus far, however, the Swamp is displaying absolute determination and resourcefulness in refusing to be drained.  It remains to be seen who will win this epic battle.

If it is the swamp that wins, instead of us, then the next phase of our outcry will be yet another declaration of independence, complete with our duty to remove and replace not just Obamacare, but the whole rotten establishment.