Lord Acton is famous for his statement that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As a long-time libertarian, then Christian, I have used it to explain a myriad of actions by politicians over the years. How else explain the actions of John Adams or Thomas Jefferson as president, for example?
But today’s political circus is a perfect illustration of its truth. The Clinton machine has wielded political power for a long time now, and the corruptions have become legendary. Few doubt that the corruption will become even worse if Hillary is elected president.
But that should not blind our eye to the fact that a Trump election would inevitably result in the same corruption. This is not a Republican versus Democrat analysis. Nothing tips the hand of the corrupt politician as quickly as the authority to “wipe out” (literally) one’s enemies – whether via clandestine drone strikes, fomented revolutionary coups, or heavy-handed IRS tactics.
Regardless of who becomes our next president, the job of the voters, going forward, must be to be sure another saying by Lord Action is kept in front of our minds. “Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.” We cannot afford to abandon the political scene until the next election. What “we ought [to do]” must be known by us, and demanded of our politicians, for every issue we face. Both vigilance and knowledge are the price of liberty.
[For the quotes, see the Wikipedia article on John Dalberg-Acton.]
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