limits on power

 

Liberals have often said something like this:

Positions of power offer a chance to abuse that power, and so they often attract people who are eager to abuse that power.    Our job in a democracy is then to try to keep abusers out of these positions of the public trust, and instead find ways to put good people into those positions —– people less likely to abuse them.

 

Conservatives, I think, have the more realistic idea:

It's in the nature of humanity to abuse power.    From the Ring of Gyges to today's parents and police and policitians —– every position of power you've ever had you have in some way, even a small way, abused.   We're humans.   No one is above this human frailty.    The search for "the best people" will always wind up in disaster because, as the man said, "Is there one who is righteous?   No, not one."
    Our job in a democracy is then to try to limit the powers of the positions of public trust.    Create checks and balances where different people in different positions can place limits on each other.

 

Power corrupts, and *small* power corrupts greatly.    *Any* power corrupts greatly.    So look around and see how, for instance, one branch of our government acts to limit the powers of another branch, as our Founders structured it, or how one branch acts to disable itself and strengthen the powers of another branch.

Any time you have someone *increasing* the chance of corruption, you have a problem.   Something's wrong.   It is in our power to fix it.

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I wrote this in 2010, when Democrats held the White House and Capitol Hill and a Court majority.    I could have written it any year I've been alive.    I believe it would've been true any year of our republic, or any of thousands before that.