05-26-2016, 05:34 PM
(05-26-2016, 01:36 AM)Galen Wrote: What you expect doesn't really matter. What does, is that you expect a population of fallible people to produce competent and ethical people to rule us. This is a logical fallacy which is demonstrated by the fact Nixon who contemplated using the IRS for political purposes and later actually did and got away with it. Then there is the Bush and Clinton crime families just in case you needed a few more examples. Then there is Congressman X and his book.
This is the reality that neither you or Eric the Obtuse can accept.
That's why we have laws, police, prosecutors, judges, tax collectors, prisons, and at the extreme hangmen.
The Seven Deadly Sins hubristic pride, greed, lust, malicious envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth, remain degrading and destructive at the least; to those I would add cowardice and self-delusion.
Government of the People, by the People, and for the People (I love James Earl Jones' reading of those words in the Gettysburg Address) is far preferable to government of, by, and for the rich and powerful who often act collectively without conscience. A few people identifiable by class, religion, ethnicity, or occupation are likely to look out for themselves alone. Multitudes of voters can vote their consciences.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.