"The alternative, though cleaner, is leadership by wimps." - What an underhanded way to validate the current power structure. The alternative is not leadership by wimps but a better political and power structure with more inherent fairness for all.
I've always hated that saying. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Nonsense.
Just look at the types of individuals who gain access to absolute power. Either they're ruthlessly ambitious, men for whom the ends always justify the means, or they're born into royalty/nobility and have a distorted sense of their own worth-- and the worth of others.
Yes sir, yessir, yezzir. Exactly what I'm trying to say. :D
(Caution ahead: unnecessary detour...in the form of a light rant)
Correlation is so, so often mistaken for causation. And unlike most logical fallacies, 'correlation vs. causation' seems to know no borders whatsoever. That fact is really very striking to me.
Ad hominem attacks, for example, are extremely prevalent in political discussion, especially on political talk shows, but you'd rarely see one in such forums as medical journals, formal debates, et al.
But 'correlation vs. causation' fallacies seem, to me at least, to be pervasive throughout nearly every-- if not all-- forums of discussion. Sure, it's worse in some areas than it is in others, but it's everywhere. Personally, I'm most annoyed when I see it in magazine and newspaper articles (especially frequent in those on medical studies and surveys and whatnot), not because journalists/writers should be more aware of this fallacy than the rest of the population but because these places are supposed to be our most reliable, most verifiable sources of information available. And they're not just supposed to be, they claim to be as well.
99.237% of the time, I'm a very laid-back guy. 0.763% of the time, I'm reading an article titled "Eating mashed potatoes and gravy causes CANCER?" or some similar nonsense. (Intentionally ridiculous example chosen. Everybody knows mashed potatoes and gravy have no capacity for evil, none whatsoever.)
1. Make that "109.237% of the time." I always go 110%. What's that, you say? Mathematically impossible? I used to think so too. Then one day I slept for 26.4 hours.
2. In completely unrelated web surfing occurring in totally different tabs on the opposite side of my Firefox window, I was searching thesaurus.com for a contextually superior synonym of 'saying'/'phrase'. Plenty to choose from, of course. I was thinking of going with 'aphorism' for a moment, so I switched from thesaurus to dictionary to make certain it correctly fit my context.
On Power is about the scope of political power throughout history. I couldn't recommend it to someone already intimately familiar with the last few hundred years, but as an overview of history that doesn't simply devolve into "story time" (viewing history as a coherent narrative in the style that we are comfortable with; involving heroes, villains, and dramatic tension) it is hard to beat. Since such gross simplification is all most people are familiar with (think the history channel) I recommend it to everyone as a starting point for non-pandering historical analysis.
In addition it is only $11 for a very nice book that will impress others :p
