Keeping political power in check
My favorite father-in-law (yes, there have been more than one) once told me that if I ever went fishing make sure that I took two ministers with me. So, I took the bait, “Why is that, Dick?” And he reeled me in, “Because if you take only one, he’ll drink all the beer.”
Besides being just a joke of dubious quality, the more I thought about it the more wisdom I saw in it. It’s easy to succumb to temptation if nobody’s watching, but if there is someone else there, well, people behave a little better. When the café closes at the end of the day, two employees count the till. When the ballots are counted after an election two (or more) do the counting. It’s not just because people are not always honest, they also make mistakes. As President Reagan put it, “Trust, but verify.”
So, if something is important enough to safeguard, it’s important to have a process to keep it honest, and that’s where what we call the “checks and balances” in the United States Constitution has an important role. Bankers deal in money, ranchers deal in cattle, but politicians deal in power, that is their stock in trade. And, if, as the saying goes, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts completely,” it is important to prevent people with power from cornering the market on it.
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