Governments & Evil

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." 

James Madison: Federalist 51:

Government has always been considered by many to be a necessary evil. Because of the natural tendency of human beings towards misdeed and the fallibility of our nature, government exists as an attempt to manage and direct its subjects toward acceptable and productive behavior. 

     Unfortunately, the government is run by people just as fallible or corruptible (if not more so) than that of the governed, which is why you check power and put a leash on the powerful. The quote above reflects that fallibility of humanity and the hypothetical infallibility of the divine. 

Such propensity towards mistakes and corruption is why the founding fathers tried to design a system that contained, controlled, and restricted to an extent the power of the powerful. 

 Unfortunately, that system can only work to its fullest potential if the people who put the powerful in power are informed, aware, and mostly morally sound. 

This is not the case in the United States. The electorate is misguided, confused, and even dumbed down to an extent. No democracy can work if the population is reduced in its education, rationality, and its moral and ethical priorities are distorted and warped. 

Republican form of government can't sustain itself effectively or efficiently for a long period of time under these circumstances. Eventually it fails and succumbs to demagoguery and the system can be hijacked by authoritarianism. We're almost to that point, if not already there.

     Government as a necessary evil rings true, but evil should never be necessary, nor should it be justified. The only way to reduce the scope of government and its disposition towards micromanaging and authoritarianism is to have a more informed, more intelligent, and more morally sound population. Small government is only possible when the vast majority of the people are informed and have a solid moral and ethical foundation. 

 If the intelligence level and moral fiber of a society is eroded and degraded, the society will start to suffer an expedited decay, and authoritarianism will have more room to hijack the system and destroy liberty. 

 This is why education is so important, and this is why a dumbed down population is so dangerous. It cripples the longevity of a nation when intelligence and morality are degraded. When this starts happening, the blindness that leads to atrocities like genocide, slavery, and other egregious sins start gaining more traction and more potency. 

   Atrocities are only possible when a people are blind and morally bankrupt. We're pretty much there at this point.  

    Governments suffer from the same potential for blindness and misguided thinking. When the blindness of greed, hate, prejudice, and fear take over the powerful, death, slavery, and oppression won't follow too far behind. 

   Don't kid yourself, the United States government has committed atrocities and crimes against humanity, its just much of it is shrouded in secrecy and ambiguity. One of the primary reasons for keeping secrets is to contain the public relations fallout of illicit and criminal behavior. I can almost guarantee this has happened, because the blindness that leads to such things has infected our government just like it has infected much of our society. 

No country is innocent. No government is either. The blindness of ignorance, fear, and hate have perverted humanity since our inception. This blindness is both a natural occurrence of lack of knowledge and simple thinking, as well as an intentional and willful act of evil people and evil things. Our government has much of this. Just like our people do.

     If our nation can greatly increase its moral, ethical, and intellectual sophistication in a massive majority of its populace, government would be greatly reduced in its need and necessity, or over time it can become no longer necessary. The latter is truly an idealist, utopian concept and highly implausible...but not impossible. 

 Unfortunately, to the powerful, such an optimistic and beautiful improvement to the system would be a threat to their power and authority, which makes even an attempt to do such a thing highly unlikely, but such an attempt would improve our nation's stability and increase its longevity almost indefinitely.

What a beautiful thing that would be.