[liber8]

Our Elites have always stunk. Even during perhaps the most creative, innovative, and groundbreaking period in the history of political science (the time around the American revolution), our leaders ran smear campaigns, created laws to freeze out their competitors[1], and even killed each other[2].

But, those great men actually realized, at least to some extent, how much they stunk. They crafted a limited government because they recognized how easily corrupted people in power are.

This fantasy that everything will be okay if we simply pick the "right" elites has been persistent since FDR's administration. There's no such thing. Brooks argues that we just need to inject some ethics into the process. Good luck. If you can figure out how to do that, we don't need prisons, we don't need 99.9% of the laws we have, and we don't need 99.9% of the government we have. Of course, humans don't work that way. Which is why our government was set up the way it was in the first place.

[1] Our beloved Ben Franklin became postmaster just so he could scoop other peoples' stories for his own newspaper.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_burr

[freyr]

"Of course, humans don't work that way."

Whenever I find myself in doubt regarding liberal viewpoint, it usually can be traced back to this, a fundamental disconnect with the way the majority of humans actually behave.

In fairness, strong conservatives draw from an even crazier palette of false assumptions.

[liber8]

The problem is definitely on both sides. Some of the most visible and hilarious examples come just in the last four years. Obama the constitutional scholar (rightly) lambasts the Bush administration for accumulating unauthorized and unchecked executive power. Of course Obama the president doesn't view those newly acquired powers as such evil things. Why would he? Once those powers are in the hands of the "good guys" or the "right elites", it makes it so much easier to do "good". No need to deal with any of the bureaucracy and red tape that would otherwise exist.

And of course the right is now "terrified" that the same powers they enjoyed so freely just four years ago are in the hands of the "bad guys" or the "wrong elites".

It's easy to disconnect yourself with the way humans actually behave when you're the one in power because you believe you won't act the same way that everyone else would.