Limits of power, limits on corruption?

A correspondent shared this piece of reporting and his thoughts on it recently:

Senate bill would force POTUS to share intel with Israel.

His thoughts: A few years into the future, breast beating Christians and others will be wondering how things have gotten so much worse economically and with respect to security and liberty in this country. Just as they do now about [many such political and moral] problems that they ignored at the very time that called for opposition.

As we have seen now for 50+ years, Libertarians in particular have tried to use the political election process to bring sanity to public affairs and restore at least some liberty. This “solution” has failed.

Others, including libertarians (lovers of liberty), at times, have tried the protest and petition route to get changes made. Once again, that “solution” has failed.

Our thoughts, here at TPOL, on P’s comments:

You are right; we can expect more of this in the near future. It is not just people like the man who is likely to replace Maine’s Collins in the Senate. (She’s bad, but he appears to be even worse.) It is people in both old parties who continue to demonstrate the truth of Acton’s Dictum. As a calculus equation, the upper limit of power is infinity, so the corruption is also unlimited.

We have surrendered power for more than a century and a half to the parasites (elected and appointed) in DC and fifty State capitols and thousands of local jurisdictions. We have given them power over our minute-to-minute lives that I think it is safe to say that few nations and societies in history have ever held.

Yet we continue to claim that we are free, in this Anno Libertatus 250.

Yes, we have won a few victories, in a number of States, and sometimes at the FedGov level. But while we celebrate those victories for a few essential rights we often fail to understand the significance of the creeping loss of many, many more.

Worse, we fail to see and understand why these liberties are being stolen away. Too many of us continue to recognize the immorality (by any rational and natural standard) of the men and women who push these things. Who pick at every facet of society, of civilization. From the bottom up, all too often. The foundations of our liberty, our freedom to live our lives and govern ourselves, have been, and continue to be, undermined.

Why? Because we have lost the battles inside our minds and our souls. Battles we may not even have realized we were engaged in. As a result, we have failed to edify (build up, encourage, inform) one another. It is not new, but in recent decades, it has become more critical as we have gained more ability to communicate (yet have failed to truly do so), as we have mastered so many physical challenges to make our physical conditions better than humans have enjoyed – for millenia. Yet we (as a people, as communities) been unable to use that power ethically and wisely. And sought “solutions” which solve little and do an incredible job of creating many more new problems.

The solution is to edify ourselves and one another. No, not just educate. But encourage, build up, strengthen, and above all provoke one another to understand and do the right thing. Holding not just politicians and bureaucrats and corporate officers and shareholders accountable. Holding ourselves accountable.

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