Power and responsibility

If there is anything I have come to realize, sadly, from this period, it is that power, far too often, is an explicit exercise in escaping responsibility, much of the time. It is about blaming someone else for the mistakes of those who have it. It is about the absence of integrity, far too often.

Not always. But too often to count.

That is why Lord Acton was so skeptical of it and those who have it. And he was right. And that kind of corruption does not discriminate based on ideology or party or any other factor other than the independent integrity of those involved. And even that is not too difficult to compromise with enough muscle. Which is why people do it. No matter how much it builds dishonesty - dishonesty, especially, about the effectiveness of governing efforts - into government.

It doesn't have to be that way. But we'd have to get more honest for it to change. And the most important bit of honesty would be admitting the limits of power to improve our lives.

One day, perhaps. Until then. We get the government we vote for.

And thank our lucky stars that we have opposition parties, checks and balances, and all the ways that we can check and challenge power in liberal democracies to make them more liberal and more genuinely democratic, as we move forward more honestly.

In the meantime, we live with the consequences of the lies we tell ourselves and one another in lieu of something more honest.

And we move, hopefully, toward a day when we can be more honest and compassionate, and everything that is entailed with more genuine progress.