“The principle is this: good government is rare. It is to be cherished. When grubbing for political power takes precedence over that principle–when lust for political power takes top priority–then it threatens good government.” –Dr J.E. Pournelle
"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Problem is, at this point in human history, we have essentially no examples of “good government.” If we were to go strictly by the available evidence, we would conclude that “good government” is too unlikely to risk betting the freedom and well-being of actual human beings on. And no, I’m not happy about saying that.
We do have some scraps of “good government” to refer to here and there, some as recent as in the last couple of hundred years (discounting Washington’s despicable actions in the “Whiskey Rebellion” and Jefferson’s deliberate, witting overstepping of executive authority on occasion, etc., as well as some State and even local abuses of power). When subsidiarity and accountability were more commonly practiced and what happened at local town hall meetings eclipsed what happened in Washington D.C. in both importance and authority, “good government” was perhaps closer to realization than at any time in Western Civilization’s history.
But folks don’t seem to want to go back to the days of subsidiarity and accountability, when the most important law enforcement officer, for example, was the elected county sheriff, who was DIRECTLY responsible to local citizens for his behavior, and the single most important elected official in most folks’ lives was likely to be the town mayor. No, we apparently want Ruby Ridge, Waco, and all the other misbehaviors of overweening National Government, otherwise the “feddle gummint” murderers in those cases would have been long since put to death.