Millions of Petty Tyrants

by tzo
Strike The Root
Nov. 06, 2010

The empirical evidence that power corrupts goes a long way in explaining the inevitable one-way course to tyranny trod by all governments. Having a monopoly on force, corruption within the government monopoly cannot be effectively checked, and growing corruption and its attendant increasing power eventually congeal into absolute power and absolute corruption.

Tyranny.

Kurt Vonnegut turned a slightly more colorful phrase in articulating the association of power and corruption by claiming that human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. It must be pretty heady stuff indeed to be in a position within the U.S. government in which you effectively are part of the controlling mechanism of over 3.8 million square miles and 350 million human lives, not to mention the power projected out over the rest of the entire globe.

The most dangerous aspect of our “democratic” government, though, is the fact that the reg’ler folks are made to feel that they are part of the system. Shareholders, as it were. "We" is thrown around a lot, even when the government seems to be spinning out of control. The situation is rarely articulated as “us versus them,” but rather "we are the government and we are doing it to ourselves," and “we have to work within the system to fix the system.”

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