Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the reason the worst people on Earth rule the planet, is because of the incentives of government. Government puts opaque power in the hands of corruptible people. Then we stand amazed that they become corrupted. Moreover, after generations of opaque power in the hands of ever more corrupted people, we pretend that Epstein Isle, UK rape gangs, and elite pedophiles, are exceptions. Then the elite exploit law to destroy Alex Jones with lawfare for blurting out uncomfortable truths. The Holy Bible itself says that the Nephilim were angels. If even angels themselves are corruptible, how much more corruptible is a mortal human being? If we agree that some government is needed, then we must agree also to minimize the incentives to corruption in government.
Others and I have talked endlessly about the problem of unlimited power. Lord Acton underestimated the corrupting influence of power when he said, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I believe unlimited power corrupts not only the mind, body and soul, but even one’s works. Because it allows us the ability to unleash our dark side without temporal consequences. So why follow any laws, except in public? This means any virtue in the politically entrenched is nothing but a veneer. A pretty covering designed to hide their corruption from the world. So they can continue in it. The longer held and more unlimited in scope the power the greater the corruption. To argue otherwise would be claiming, cooking soup in sewage doesn’t pollute it, because we all need to eat.
One way to look at human history, is a struggle between those who seek limited government, and unlimited government. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates and Thrasymachus vied. Socrates arguing for a warped form of limited government, that serves the whole of society. Even as Thrasymachus argued for an absolutely corrupt government, that only serves the elites. Which is the natural evolution of government. History is unambiguous on this point. Governments, societies and civilizations all rise in virtue, and fall in corruption. Sparta was unstoppable until they stopped minting money in iron, Rome conquered the world then collapsed in corruption, even as the Mongol Empire ransacked Asia and in a generation lost it all. History is a list of struggles between unlimited and limited power.
Each incarnation of government adds measures to limit the power of government and thus the elite. The Greeks used Ostracism and democracy to limit the powerful, but Pericles with the misshaped head manipulated those to his benefit. Leading to the entitled… Alcibiades. Who was a toxin wherever he went. Leading to the collapse of ancient Greek civilization. Rome tried two consuls who were elected to short terms of office. Which worked pretty well for a few centuries. Until the troubles with Marius and Sulla. Which led to the Empire phase and its collapse. Then there are the multitudes of other attempts to force the elite to rule for the benefit of society, instead of themselves only, like Constitutions. A contract between the ruled and the rulers. Yet every attempt has fallen short.
We have an entrenched elite who’re capable of anything. Even Trump’s executive order requiring only citizens vote, (the plain wording of the US Constitution), is challenged as unconstitutional by State attorneys general. (Who have standing while in 2020 no one did). Proving again that constitutions are insufficient. What’s the answer then? I say, we need absolute transparency, as the default, a bureau to enforce it, as well as all laws on the elites and be a government complaint department. I call it a Numa. It must have Constitutional authority or else the elite would ignore it. Moreover, its operations would also have to be absolutely transparent. Because even the power of enforcing laws is corrupting. That’s why the worst people on Earth rule it, and why we need better solutions.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
