4 ms·

Power does not corrupt, it's just that these people were always bad people and power gives them the tools to do some bad things.

somenameforme 3y ago
I read an interesting article the other day. It was about the Freedom of Information Act. We now take this for granted, but getting it passed was a huge ordeal. It dramatically strengthened the accountability of government and gave citizens one of their strongest tools available. It was, unsurprisingly, vehemently opposed by both major parties and nearly every form of the US political establishment. It would eventually go on to be passed in 1966 after an extensive campaign in support of it. Anyhow, the point. Check out this [1] snippet, which was published as part of said campaign. More important than the snippet is who it's written by. A young exceptionally popular congressman from Illinois by the name of Donald Rumsfeld, who was also critical about the senseless US involvement in Vietnam. His is a name, which if happens to be before your time, would later come to be synonymous with the Iraq War, US ABC agencies torturing people, and of course the complete fabrication of evidence to justify the invasion Iraq. And he's not especially unique. I think it all comes down to a simple problem. Imagine you happen to be pro-choice. If I paid you $10,000,000 would you become an advocate for pro-life? For the overwhelming majority of people, the answer there is going to be yes. But of course you and I are relatively irrelevant, so nobody's ever going to really try to change our values. But if you or I gained power, such hypotheticals suddenly become entirely real. For a man to be surrounded by such possibilities, yet remain true to his own values - he's going to need to be rich enough that people can't afford to bribe him, or some once in a millennium Aurelius like man of true character. [1] - https://acsc.lib.udel.edu/files/original/edbab7cd2d0e82f8e198e772f5f57729.jpg https://acsc.lib.udel.edu/files/original/edbab7cd2d0e82f8e19...
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > For a man to be surrounded by such possibilities, yet remain true to his own values - he's going to need to be rich enough that people can't afford to bribe him, or some once in a millennium Aurelius like man of true character. Not really. The easiest way to be rich enough that you don't need to take bribes to betray your core values is to take a bunch of bribes over issues you don't really care about.
  - johnchristopher 3y ago
    That doesn't solve the bribe problem though. (Or did you forget the /s ?)
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      It solves the problem of people in power being unable to remain true to their own values, which is what my parent comment was worrying about.
      - johnchristopher 3y ago
        That's really idiotic.

somenameforme 3y ago

I read an interesting article the other day. It was about the Freedom of Information Act. We now take this for granted, but getting it passed was a huge ordeal. It dramatically strengthened the accountability of government and gave citizens one of their strongest tools available. It was, unsurprisingly, vehemently opposed by both major parties and nearly every form of the US political establishment. It would eventually go on to be passed in 1966 after an extensive campaign in support of it. Anyhow, the point. Check out this [1] snippet, which was published as part of said campaign. More important than the snippet is who it's written by. A young exceptionally popular congressman from Illinois by the name of Donald Rumsfeld, who was also critical about the senseless US involvement in Vietnam. His is a name, which if happens to be before your time, would later come to be synonymous with the Iraq War, US ABC agencies torturing people, and of course the complete fabrication of evidence to justify the invasion Iraq. And he's not especially unique. I think it all comes down to a simple problem. Imagine you happen to be pro-choice. If I paid you $10,000,000 would you become an advocate for pro-life? For the overwhelming majority of people, the answer there is going to be yes. But of course you and I are relatively irrelevant, so nobody's ever going to really try to change our values. But if you or I gained power, such hypotheticals suddenly become entirely real. For a man to be surrounded by such possibilities, yet remain true to his own values - he's going to need to be rich enough that people can't afford to bribe him, or some once in a millennium Aurelius like man of true character. [1] - https://acsc.lib.udel.edu/files/original/edbab7cd2d0e82f8e198e772f5f57729.jpg https://acsc.lib.udel.edu/files/original/edbab7cd2d0e82f8e19...

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> For a man to be surrounded by such possibilities, yet remain true to his own values - he's going to need to be rich enough that people can't afford to bribe him, or some once in a millennium Aurelius like man of true character. Not really. The easiest way to be rich enough that you don't need to take bribes to betray your core values is to take a bunch of bribes over issues you don't really care about.
- johnchristopher 3y ago
  That doesn't solve the bribe problem though. (Or did you forget the /s ?)
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    It solves the problem of people in power being unable to remain true to their own values, which is what my parent comment was worrying about.
    - johnchristopher 3y ago
      That's really idiotic.