My Country ?  Or the system of publicans and despots?
Channel: Ken BOB
Date: 2014-04-15

Maybe something will look familiar to some of the Clovers and non clovers alike when comparing today's structure of govt with that of 2,000 years ago.
pay attention to the allowances of corruption.
PUBLICAN [SMITH]
The class designated by this word in the New Testament were employed
as collectors of the Roman revenue. The Roman senate farmed the
vectigalia (direct taxes) and the portorin (customs) to capitalists
who undertook to pay a given sum into the treasury (in publicum), and
so received the name of publicani . Contracts of this kind fell
naturally into the hands of the equites , as the richest class of
Romans. They appointed managers, under whom were the portitores , the
actual custom-house officers, who examined each bale of goods,
exported or imported, assessed its value more or less arbitrarily,
wrote out the ticket, and enforced payment. The latter were commonly
natives of the province in which they were stationed as being brought
daily into contact with all classes of the population. The name
pubicani was used popularly, and in the New Testament exclusively, of
the portitores . The system was essentially a vicious one. The
portitores were encouraged in the most vexatious or fraudulent
exactions and a remedy was all but impossible. They overcharged
whenever they had an opportunity, (Luke 3:13) they brought false
charges of smuggling in the hope of extorting hush-money (Luke 19:8)
they detained and opened letters on mere suspicion. It was the basest
of all livelihoods. All this was enough to bring the class into ill
favor everywhere. In Judea and Galilee there were special
circumstances of aggravation. The employment brought out all the
besetting vices of the Jewish character. The strong feeling of many
Jews as to the absolute unlawfulness of paying tribute at all made
matters worse. The scribes who discussed the question, (Matthew 22:15)
for the most part answered it in the negative. In addition to their
other faults, accordingly, the publicans of the New Testament were
regarded as traitors and apostates, defiled by their frequent
intercourse with the heathen, willing tools of the oppressor. The
class thus practically excommunicated furnished some of the earliest
disciples both of the Baptist and of our Lord. The position of
Zacchaeus as a "chief among the publicans," (Luke 19:2) implies a
gradation of some kind among the persons thus employed.

Today's Roman caste system is as unequal today as 2000 years ago. It
needs to be exposed for what it is, repeatedly.