05-27-2016, 10:00 AM
(05-27-2016, 02:14 AM)Galen Wrote:(05-26-2016, 05:34 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(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.
I have lived in places where all of the above were corrupt and on the take, possibly not the hangmen. I grew up in a town where the cops were the drug dealers and were all dating the same teenager. People even caught her going down on one of them while he was on duty and that didn't get a response out of the powers that be. Last I heard he retired with a full pension.
You must live a very sheltered life to be this naive.
So we don't need laws, police, prosecutors, judges, tax collectors, and prisons?
Welcome to the jungle! How long would you live?
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.