"The System", "the machine"... I think you have your own mental problems to sort out, paranoids tend to use those kind of description of everything they can't directly control and therefore are afraid of. Anti-government and pro-gun* groups encourage this kind of shit too, I don't know if your drinking partners do...
There are a lot of people helped by your scary "System", I personally know several and you probably do too (assuming you aren't living an eremite life in your basement) - but this isn't something that one normally like to tell others.
(* I like guns, I like the idea that one should be able to own a gun, pro-gun types == weapon fetishism)