4 ms·
I hope I'm not the first to break it to you, but it's not just America. That's the nature of the beast, I am constantly confused as to why people are surprised
by etherael 13y ago
I hope I'm not the first to break it to you, but it's not just America. That's the nature of the beast, I am constantly confused as to why people are surprised when they centralise all power under the control of a small group of people and that power is co-opted by other forces they likely initially sought to guard it from. There's just no getting around that, it's like shoveling earth into a pool and wondering why the water level rises.
You want to stop the flooding? Put the shovel down.
- mcdougle 13y ago"absolute power corrupts absolutely." I don't know where that quote is from -- I grew up hearing it from my father.
- phaemon 13y agoIt's part of a quote that's generally rendered as: "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." It's from a letter written by Lord Acton to Bishop Creighton in 1885. A more complete quote is: "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."
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- obviouslygreen 13y agoI hope I'm not the first to break it to you... You most certainly aren't. I normally cite this as an international phenomenon, but it's gotten to the point where either people know that or they've had their heads buried in the sand, so it's hardly worth belaboring the point any more (not that it'll stop me, but I no longer feel quite so tied explaining it over and over).