Views On Government

Several months ago, at a Town Public Hearing, Conservatives and Republicans were derided for mistrusting government. In point of fact, we do not mistrust the institution of government as much as we recognize from an analytical examination of history that, as British historian Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The greater the power granted to a person or body, the longer that person or body wields that power, the greater the likelihood and degree of corruption.

By corruption, we are not necessarily speaking of bribery or influence peddling. Far more likely is the slow, unnoticed self-corruption a public official experiences simply through the ability to affect the lives of others. Public officials tend to feel that they are above the people they should be serving. A sense of self-importance develops and this sense grows stronger over time evolving into arrogance and even abusiveness without the official even realizing it.

The abuse of power fostered by self-corruption becomes self-perpetuating. Abusive public officials congregate with other like minded people and exclude those who disagree. They find ways to sanction and punish those whose views are in opposition to theirs. eventually, if left unfettered, their abusiveness rises to the level of tyranny and dictatorship.

History holds out many examples of such abuse:

• Augusto Pinochet's late night abductions of the political opposition
• The Myanamar (Burmese) government's placement of Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest
• Panamanian strong man Manuel Noriega's drug empire
• Hugo Chavez's continuing nationalization of Venezuelan industry
• Fidel Castro's torture and execution of those he found to be less than loyal to him
• Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in China
• The persecution of religion throughout the former Soviet bloc and into Vietnam and other, more distant Communist satellite states
• The attempted genocidal elimination of large groups of people who threaten the power base in places like Cambodia, Sudan, Tibet and Iraq, to just name a few.
• Polish dictator Wojciech Jaruzelski's clampdown on the Solidarity trade union

And the list goes on.

Trust government? Not me. There are things that government must do, it certainly has its proper place in society. However, we must be the ones to keep a watchful eye and make sure it never, ever steps beyond that very minimal role. Otherwise, we end up with a monster at our door, one which it will be all but impossible to vanquish. With proper pressure, applied steadily, constantly and judiciously, government need not become such a monster. That pressure is ours to apply.