I do not trust George W. Bush

Mr. Bush wants us to trust him on the Dubai ports deal --- his people have checked this out, he says, and it’s okay. He wants us to trust him on domestic spying --- even though he admits he went beyond the law, we should be reassured that he will only eavesdrop on terrorists or their contacts. {By the way, I wonder if that includes the alleged 50,000 tenured U.S. professors that David Horowitz thinks are terrorist sympathizers?) He wants us to trust him, rather than that nasty media, and believe things are really much better in Iraq than they seem to be. In other words, there are lots of specific reasons why I do not trust George W. Bush.

However, there is another even more important reason I don’t trust George W. Bush. It’s because I don’t trust anyone in power, especially political power. Indeed, the so-called Founding Fathers of our country, the folks who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, particularly the latter, felt the same way.

They assumed that political power would be abused. Why? Because just about every political regime in history has abused its power in one way or another. The Founding Fathers remembered well the histories of their native countries --- the kings that had exercised capricious absolute power, the parliaments that had gone out of control, the religious majorities who had persecuted those whose beliefs weren’t in line with theirs.

In other words, the Founding fathers were, rightly so, afraid of too much political power.

The Declaration of Independence is a manifesto declaring just that point. The Declaration is about a political regime that had abused its power, at least in the view of the Founding Fathers.

The U.S. Constitution that the Founding Fathers hammered out with much agonizing is about limiting political power. Its carefully crafted system of checks and balances between the three branches of government are specifically intended to limit the powers of government.

Maybe George W. Bush can be trusted --- although I personally doubt it, but that’s neither here nor there, because this isn’t just about George W. Bush --- with so much political power. But even if he can be trusted, his successors, whoever they might be, cannot be trusted. Because sooner or later a right we give up today in good faith will be used against us. It’s inevitable.

Lord Acton, the British historian, said it perfectly: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.”