North Star Writers Group

Celebrated and demonized, Karl Rove in a few days leaves his post as George W. Bush’s top adviser and the principal enabler of Bush’s political career.

Few presidential counselors have ever had such clout over national policy as well as partisan politics. Rove bandied his power about with all the finesse of a flame-thrower.

His ballyhooed departure prompts a meditation on the nature of power. If, according to Lord Acton, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then surely power is also boring, and absolute power a hell of tedium. After a while, it must get downright wearisome for others constantly to bow and scrape or hop to at our every whim or gesture.

Think about it. The utter monotony of absolute power is probably why God decided to grant free will to all of creation. By doing so, our creator avoided a dreary eternity of wiping our noses and tying our shoelaces. It may also have been that God loved us enough not to want to keep us perpetually dependent children, desiring for us instead the right and the freedom to grow up and exercise our own self-determination in our lives and our beings.

That priceless gift of free will (self-determination) is strikingly similar to the vision of the founders of this nation, who wanted citizens of the United States to exercise self-determination in their government. While not rooted in any particular religious creed or any one political viewpoint, this parallel is the true spiritual justification for this country’s existence. Our founders did their best to establish a political framework that subscribes to and sustains on Earth the spiritual precept of self-determination/freedom.

This principle is anathema, of course, to those who insist on either more – or less – than their legitimate measure of power. Human history is cluttered with and scarred repeatedly by power-grabbers and the Karl Roves who serve(d) them. The well-known litany is as dull as it is depressing.

But what about the power-dodgers – those who covertly disavow self-determination? Fearful, confused, distracted, exhausted, such souls are more than willing to cede to others even their rightful power over their own lives and beings in order to avoid possible blame. After all, something invariably will go wrong.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Wherever/whenever there are power-dodgers, there will always be power-grabbers. The former, however inadvertently, enable the latter. Power-grabbers are by no means limited to politics. In the workplace, at home or school, even in houses of worship or personal relationships, there are always power-dodgers and the power-grabbers who gravitate to the resulting vacuum. Hence the games people play.

Our only protection from this dance of death is to embrace self-determination and exercise it constantly in our thoughts, beliefs, feelings and actions. With a measure of wisdom comes a deeper recognition that none of us knows how to exercise self-determination perfectly and that furthermore, perfection is not the point. We won’t be judged or damned for trying, even when we make mistakes. God’s unconditional love assures us of that.

The alternative is untenably demeaning. In refusing to exercise self-determination, we rob ourselves of our dignity and leave ourselves wide open to abuse from those who would strip our power and freedom from us, all too often under the rubric of “for our own good,” or “for our safety and security.”

Save us from ourselves? Not a chance. That’s our job.

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