”Folly and presumption” seem apt words for anyone who proclaims that he can shape events — that is, people’s lives — in the Middle East.
Mitt Romney, whose bid to unseat Barack Obama looks more desperate every day, senses he’s found a weakness in his rival. In a foreign-policy speech the other day, he blasted Obama over the upheaval in the Arab world, saying, “This is a time for a president who will shape events in the Middle East.”
Romney is making two claims: that Obama has failed to shape events in the Middle East and that he, Romney, will succeed.
Could the hubris of a man seeking power be plainer? Does anyone with even a minimum ability to think clearly believe that Romney could “shape events” there?
We have many reasons to distrust power. One is that it inevitably violates individual rights through the legalized use of aggressive force against peaceful people. The naked power of tyrants is obvious; but the governments of democratic republics also aggress against their subjects, for example, when they tax them to provide subsidies and bailouts and launch offensive wars
It is no surprise that power attracts the sort of unsavory people who see themselves as qualified to wield it. In a different context Adam Smith wrote that power “would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. “
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