thorn in your side

[chjones21]

It is a very interesting psychological attribute. How many people when given power are able to remain tolerant with it?

So many people presume that if they had power - they would never abuse it but it is not the case and that runs from every little tiny thing to the most enormous injustices. It runs from the very beautiful girl making her date wait forty minutes whilst she gets 'ready' - to administrators closing threads which implicitly criticise their actions - to a father yelling 'it's because I say so' - to a full on dictatorship with secret police and gulags and so on and so forth. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said if you want to test a man's character do not give him obstacles, give him power.....

One of the most positive things about the UK is the way the balance of power is the way that power is divided between judiciary, politicians, monarchy - each trying to be an effective counter-balance to the other.

Where you have new 'democracies' in countries in Africa for example their traditional ways of balancing power through their ancient and long-held tribal systems are turned absolutely upside-down with the importing of a Western-style democracy .... this leads constantly to examples of dictatorship because the moment one takes away the inbuilt checks and balances to power --- people find it very hard and difficult to resist being totalitarian. It takes an enormous ethical and moral strength to maintain equanimity whilst being given any level of unsanctionable power!

 

[justMe7]

*edit* i guess you want to talk around the issue instead of at the issue. I'll just remove my post

 

[LightInTheDarkestNight]

Power can certainly corrupt and be abused there's no doubt about that. Evil is exercising power in a way that hurts someone, in some way shape or form, whether it be mentally, physically or mortally.

On the topic of tests of a man's character(or a woman's) I've that a good one is seeing what someone would do if they know they wouldn't get caught or there would be no punishment.
Would you rob a bank, steal from someone, or even take things further causing serious damage to someone possibly even murdering one of your enemies or someone who has harmed you.

Many evil things are done in order to gain or maintain power your example of African countries is a good one. In Libya they would mutilate and execute people who were in oppositional political parties. In other countries people who would speak out against their country due to certain injustices their family members back home have been taken and executed in retaliation. This is their way of maintaining power and keeping things 'under control'.

Take the Mexican drug cartels they use violence to control their power. I even read about a case in Canada where there was a drug ring and a shipment was lost and they were planning on kidnapping the man whom they felt was responsible for the lost shipment. Even a police officer was discovered to be working with this gang. Money and power are the main thing people involved with drugs and gangs care about and the way they go about enforcing that power is through violence often leading to murder. Violence has a tendency to create more violence and escalate.

Balance of power does help in many western countries. You even need people to police the police so to speak as you can't give anyone a free reign to do as they please or there are always bound to be cases of abuse of that power.