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I'm a life-long New Englander, father of 4 challenging kids (I know: I'm supposed to say "wonderful", but while that'd be true, technically speaking, it'd also be misleading), and fortunate husband to my favorite wife of more than 20 years. I've got over 20 years experience breaking things as a test engineer, quality engineer, reliability engineer, and most recently (and most enjoyably) a Product Safety / EMC Compliance Engineer. In the photo, I'm on the left.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

We've Come a Long way, and Gone Nowhere at All

You know the proverb 'The more things change, the more they stay the same'? Well, that is certainly true, as this quote demonstrates:

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
~Aesop

I've mentioned of late how I feel about politics and politicians, and by the responses that I saw, we're all of a pretty similar mind. So, too, it seems, was Aesop.

And one thing that I know about Aesop is that he was an observer of humanity, and this tells me that he arrived at this conclusion by looking around. And seeing (to one of Yogi Berra's oft-repeated points).

Aesop lived about 2,600 years ago, and by this particular observation, I'd say nothing has really changed in politics in that time. I guess in many parts of the world, if not most of it, civilizations did evolve out of governments in which people were voted into and out of office - to governments of caste and ruling class...royalty or warlords or whatnot - back into elected government.

Seems like we're faced with a lose-lose proposition, and we always were.

5 comments:

  1. I don't think an incorruptible government has ever existed.

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  2. No good can come from one small body of individuals having ultimate authority.
    The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
    - Ronald Reagan

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  3. In some ways, a benevolent dictator would probably do less damage. Sad isn't it?

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  4. Benevolent dictatorships and Sole Rulerships work well when you have a decent person at the top, but that never lasts either.

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  5. "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

    ~Sir Winston Churchill

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