The sayings about power corrupting date back to time immemorial. It's easy to say something is wrong (or right) when you are in no position to meaningfully impa

The sayings about power corrupting date back to time immemorial. It's easy to say something is wrong (or right) when you are in no position to meaningfully impact, or be impacted, by what you're speaking of. It's another altogether different thing when you are in a situation to define the limits of your own powers, or that which even might affect you. This, in many ways, is what made the Founding Fathers so unique. They were in a position to grant themselves effectively any and all powers they might ever desire. Yet instead, they sacrificed all of that in pursuit of a more free and just society, in many cases to their own detriment. In modern times I do not think there's any real comparable examples. Instead it's just endless power accumulation, tempered only by the oft liminal protest of the citizenry.