There’s a lot in that short sentence to unpack. I am perfectly fine in stating that I can generally govern myself properly but who amongst us can say we can do so ALL the time and do it well?
If we are really truthful, most of us would raise our hands at the “mostly” time. A lot of us might even raise our hands at “sometimes?”.
Now step up the number to our families – trust me, having three others with “issues” wasn’t easy at all and, truth be told, at that stage of life, I’d be hesitant to have raised my hand at “Kinda”?
“It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.”
-Lord Acton ( Essays in Religion, Politics, and Morality)
Being an engineer/project manager, trying to deal with the “Oh, look – a bird!” (if you’ve been through this, you know what I’m talking about) and other acts of irrationality made it clear that it was/could be hard to “govern others” when, at times, I could barely keep my family together. But somehow, we mostly made it through (but I certainly and fully understood the engineer’s definition of “interesting” during that time AND the remnants of it even now).
Yet, there are those that believe, like King Canute attempted to teach, that all they have to do is “speak the words” and have the “thus it shall be done” actually would happen. Remember, absolute Power corrupts absolutely. A GraniteGrok commenter also made the observation that those that lean to be corruptible are also drawn to such Power over others. And thus, we get what we get:
People how can’t govern themselves end up ruling over the rest of us. It’s almost like you want the person who most doesn’t the position in that position knowing he wants to work himself out of the job.
Thus, I have always like the model that Sarah Hoyt would use in determining who should govern:
Taking over the world and leaving it ruthlessly alone
Heh!
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
