Good, Bad, and the Capacity for Both, Part 2

There is an idea that popped into my head a few years ago that I’ve only seen more & more support for in the world around me.

The greater the capacity for good, the greater the capacity for bad.

Power is not good or bad, power is amoral. What determines its morality is the person wielding that power. The other side to that idea is the one I’m trying to explain: The more power you give to someone to do good, the more bad they can do with it.

I’m sure there is a more elegant way to say it, but that’s how I understand it. Since governments and laws are how the vast majority of us interact with power on a daily basis, I find it easiest to explain this idea with some examples of governments.

Let’s pick up where we left off last time.

Example 3: A Governance of The People by Some People.

A republic. A set of representatives that are taken from the general population (usually by a democratic vote) who themselves vote in a democratic way. The two instances I am most familiar with of this type are Rome and The US. Both, interestingly, have/had constitutions upon which they operate. The US’s constitution was drafted as the founding document of the nation and her government. Rome’s constitution seems to have been gradually introduced over time as an ad-hoc set of rules governing the governing bodies.

While reading about Rome’s constitution, and how it evolved organically and haphazardly over the centuries before the fall of The Republic, it really seems like each new aspect of it was created to wrest power from one group or another, with more & more being returned to the plebeians (non-royals, or low born). Take a look at this map of checks & balances. It’s a mess!

The US Constitution, on the other hand, was all laid out from the beginning. It was based off the Roman constitution in theory and as a better alternative to a pure democracy and its inherent tyranny of the majority. Compare the maps of checks and balances between the Romans and the Americans

One very large difference between the two constitutions that I should make clear is that the Romans did not have, to my knowledge, anything like the US’s Bill of Rights. The Romans had nothing that guaranteed any sort of rights to any citizens as being beyond the reach of their lawmakers. The story of the US’s Bill of Rights backs up this belief, as it was added at the end to appease some founding fathers who didn’t think that each man’s rights were protected enough with the original wording. If there was anything of that nature in Rome, it was probably piecemeal and scattered across many different individual decisions by the assemblies. It could have also been repealed at any time with no special circumstances required, unlike US amendments require.

The Speed of Decision Making

I’m actually not that against the Romans’ constitution. It is convoluted and complex, and I think that’s a benefit. The problem with power, as stated previously, is that when one person has enough to do a lot of good, they have enough to do a lot of bad, and that includes the speed at which they can do it. It’s not that speed itself is a problem, but the faster a bad law or policy can get implemented the less time there is to prevent it. It also serves as a kind of bell-weather for concentrated power.

In Example 1, a king/queen/emperor can make a decision and that decision is now law. The amount of time between an idea’s inception and implementation could literally be as little as what’s required to speak it aloud.

In Example 2, a majority vote is required. The time between inception and implementation will increase. How much it increases will depend upon the skill of the speaker addressing the crowd, the skill of his opponent, and the receptiveness of the crowd.

In Example 3 (I’m going to use the US since I’m no Roman historian), the time between inception and implementation is months in the best circumstances, but is usually years, and that’s for the 0.1% of bills that actually make it into law. There is one glaring exception to this that I’m going to use this as a sort of case study to illustrate some points. The “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001”

The U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act

The Patriot Act was a wide-sweeping set of changes designed to “strengthen national security” by way of allowing the federal government to ignore a lot of the Bill of Rights I mentioned a few paragraphs above. That’s not just my opinion, either. “Since its passage, several legal challenges have been brought against the act, and federal courts have ruled that a number of provisions are unconstitutional.” The Patriot Act took power from the people, concentrated it in the federal government, and sold it to the American public as a way to protect them. The name itself is especially aggravating.

The Patriot Act is also very telling because of the speed at which it was passed. The terrorist attack that it is supposedly in response to happened on Sept. 11th, 2001. This act was passed in the House of Representatives on Oct. 24th, in the Senate on Oct. 25th, and signed into law on Oct. 26th, 2001. That is inception to implementation in 45 days!

The last thing I’ll mention about this particular piece of legislation is the votes it received. It passed the House with a vote of 357 to 66, and the Senate 98 to 1. That is 85% and 99% support, respectively. The whole point of having multiple people to vote on something doesn’t really matter if they all vote the same way.

Wrapping Up

I know that I said this wouldn’t just be about governments, and it isn’t. It just kinda looks that way for now. The problem is that power is inherently tied to politics, and that realm is dominated by governments. The ideas and concepts I’m trying to pin down are far more applicable than the scale I’ve written on so far, and I’ll try to show that more later.

Stay suspicious. I’ll see you next Friday. -S_S