Daniel Greenfield writes in his blog Sultan Knish, The Limits of Government Power, 10/14/12
Excerpts:
The problems of government have never really changed in thousands of years and the obstacle to depth of control is still the human factor. And the human factor does not change. Technology appears to make human data more accessible, but it does not make human beings more amenable.
Governments strive for depth of control because they distrust breadth of control. Breadth of control is based on organic social codes and not easily amenable to changes by politicians who seek to remake the society they rule over into one that is more responsive to their control. Their campaigns for control lead not to more control, but to more illusory control, and their control is limited to the centers of bureaucracy.
Hubris is the essential human fallacy and the one that brings down empires. Depth of control is the ultimate expression of hubris in the modern age. Past the age of kings, the new folly is not the building of great pyramids or model castles, but the construction of edifices of unlimited political authority that are meant to enforce complete control over the people. Like the pyramids of ancient Egypt, the marble edifices of modern authority that bury a government and its people within their depths for the greater glorification of its rulers.
HKO
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