Posted on 05/06/2008 12:39:02 PM PDT by vmorgs
It’s no secret that elected officials are prone to viewing the world through the distorted prism of their own indispensability.
In fact, an old Washington, D.C. proverb maintains that “every Congressman looks in the mirror and sees a Senator – and every Senator looks in the mirror and sees a President.”
Appropriately dubbed the “mirror syndrome,” this tendency of politicians to regard themselves as transcendent figures doesn’t stop at the banks of the Potomac. Sadly, it extends to state capitals and seats of local government all across our nation.
In last month’s New York Times, for example, a Nebraska State Senator arrogantly asserted that the movement to establish term limits in that state was undertaken for the sole purpose of removing him from office...
(Excerpt) Read more at getliberty.org ...
Actually, this is true (about the Nebraska Senator). We even changed it three times to do that. It was struck down by the Nebraska Supreme Court twice.
And it’ll just get worse as this year will be the first time in a very long time that a US Senator goes from the Senate directly to the White House, no matter who wins.
People attracted to political office, especially higher office, are generally not of sufficient character to discharge the duties of said office. This has been true forever. The ancient Greek historians talk about this constantly, hubris, memesis, human nature, etc. The central Roman political issue was the collapse of virtue.
The same cause, that is, human nature, destroys democracy when the people come to refuse to distinguish between good and evil. That time always comes. Fantasy replaces reality and lust replaces responsibility.
For “memesis” read “nemesis”, of course.
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