Welcome to Democracy: Rule by the Mentally Deranged
We Are Ruled by Psychopaths
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Lord Acton’s quote has become a dictum of political thought. Power, so the conventional wisdom goes, has a corrupting effect.
That is clearly true. Powerful people experience temptations and incentives that the rest of us do not. They can tell people what to do. They can spend other people’s money. The halls of power offer many rewards—for bad behavior as well as for good.
As it happens, however, that wasn’t Acton’s only point. Indeed, it was not even his primary point. Here is the quote in its broader context:
“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
There is much we can say about this passage, but Acton’s main point, frequently misunderstood, is not that good people are made bad by power. It is that bad people are attracted to power—and are then made even worse by it…
Rule**. by Gay totalitarian blood dripping JEWS**