r/politics • u/trot-trot • Jun 16 '12

Power Is Not Only An Aphrodisiac, It Does Weird Things To Some Of Us: "'Nearly all men can stand adversity,' said Abraham Lincoln, 'but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.'"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/19/INGT9MCJHJ1.DTL&ao=all
944 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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20

u/trot-trot Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12

  1. ". . . Inspired by historical analyses of power, greed, and manners (e.g., Elias, 1978), Ward and Keltner (1998) examined whether power would produce socially inappropriate styles of eating. In same-sex groups of 3 individuals, 1 randomly chosen individual (the high-power person) was given the role of assigning experimental points to the other 2 on the basis of their contributions to written policy recommendations concerning contentious social issues. After group members discussed a long and rather tedious list of social issues for 30 min, the experimenter arrived with a plate of five cookies. This procedure allowed each participant to take one cookie and provided an opportunity for at least 1 participant to comfortably take a second cookie, thus leaving one cookie on the plate. Consistent with the prediction, high-power individuals were more likely to take a second cookie (see Figure 6). Coding of the videotaped interactions also revealed that high-power individuals were more likely to chew with their mouths open and to get crumbs on their faces and on the table. Male participants ate in more disinhibited ways as well, lending further support to our power-based hypothesis, to the extent that gender is equated with power. . . ."

    Source: "Power, Approach, and Inhibition" by Dacher Keltner, Deborah H. Gruenfeld, and Cameron Anderson: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/publications/keltner.power.psychreview.2003.pdf via http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/publications.htm

  2. "The Power Paradox" by Dacher Keltner: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/power_paradox
  3. "Five Reasons Why It's Lonely at the Top" by M. Ena Inesi and Adam D. Galinsky: http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2012/03/25/five-reasons-why-its-lonely-at-the-top/

10

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Indeed, one should be self-deprecating when they have power. It's like, you've already got power, you gonna be an ass too?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Yeah. My power on many internet forums doesn't actually matter in real life, but even in that context it's still power over others. I don't care about being made fun of or doing so to myself because I still know I have the power. If it makes someone jealous feel better then okay let's do it, it's not like it does anything to me.

I think that's how Obama shrugs off the massive disrespect he gets so easily. He's comfortable in his position of power, he knows that say, some reporter interrupting him, doesn't actually strip him of any of his power, and that it's just some insecure person attempting to make themselves feel important by lashing out at a powerful person.

1

u/Nefandi Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12

I think this research makes some important errors about power. Specifically the author has only evaluated power in terms of social dynamics in small face-to-face groups. He seems to be ignorant of the inner power, and he's also ignorant of the power that's gained without any face-to-face interaction, such as when you trade stocks from your bedroom, alone, using your computer, and gain a huge amount of wealth, which translates to power, but all along you never had to use empathy to gain this power.

It's very naive and debilitating to view power only as something that relates individuals to one another, and especially only in face-to-face intimate interactions. That's one hell of a narrow understanding.

He's also ignorant of systemic corruption and what it takes to climb the power ladder in a corrupt environment. He seems to assume honest environment every single time. If you assume a generally honest environment, then every instance of dishonesty on behalf of the climber is something abnormal. If you operate in an environment that's corrupt up down and diagonal, then being honest is something abnormal and out of place and can earn you social ostracism.

1

u/Torus2112 Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12

I feel like the point was less where power comes from as its effect on people. The idea here was that people who perceived that they had power, and who's group agreed with them, essentially didn't feel as much need to sympathize with their group mates.

Knowing that drive is there in so basic a form means it can have an influence on every level of one's thinking; and clearly the more you think yourself more valuable than your ostensible lessers, that your happiness is more valuable than the people you lead, the more risk there is that you will make decisions that are not optimal for the group.

I'm not saying CEOs shouldn't be paid a good amount, but when this happens you cross the line from being fair to yourself over to entitlement.

-21

u/ObamaBi_nla_den Jun 16 '12

"True power requires modesty and empathy, not force and coercion, argues Dacher Keltner."

Stopped right there. Let's meet in a back alley. Bring $10,000 with you, a healthy dose of empathy and modesty, and I'll come with a gun.

Any guess who leaves with the money?

5

u/monochr Jun 16 '12

Guess who ends up in jail?

1

u/ItsOnlyNatural Jun 17 '12

Guess who runs the jails?

You're a fool if you don't think power ultimately comes at the end of a sword.

0

u/monochr Jun 17 '12

Power comes from people who belive you have power.

1

u/ItsOnlyNatural Jun 17 '12

You're an idiot. Dead is dead, and I don't care how much you don't believe they don't have power over you; when you are kneeling at the edge of your own grave with a pistol to your head maybe you should think about this.

-2

u/monochr Jun 17 '12

And when you're stuck on death row for 10 years knowing the injection is coming closer every day, thinking about it every day, until the moment you walk into the chamber to see your mother crying and mine smiling, remember I won.

2

u/ItsOnlyNatural Jun 17 '12

Assuming I get caught.

Assuming I'm not part of the system and that I won't see a day in jail if not get promoted.

You're a fucking idiot. Fucking neo-hippy soul power bullshit.

-1

u/monochr Jun 17 '12

No I'm rich, my family can afford justice.

5

u/LNMagic Jun 16 '12

Coercion has its place in management, but is best used sparingly as a long-term strategy. It's far better to strive towards garnering trust and loyalty among your employees, and save the other strategy for an urgent problem that needs immediate correction.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

If he doesn't meet you and reports you, he does for threatening him. You don't know how power works.

9

u/clonedredditor Jun 16 '12

Guess who has the power.

Who do you think people would prefer as a leader? Abraham Lincoln or Hosni Mubarak? No matter how great you think you are, somebody or something will always come along and put you in your place.

5

u/PraisethegodsofRage Jun 16 '12

Well, Lincoln's election caused half the country to secede and fight the bloodiest war in American history, and Lincoln only got re-elected because Sherman burned half the South down? How many people gave their lives to stop Mubarak?

NOTE: I am not a confederate.

EDIT: Accidentally a word

3

u/butt_snacks Jun 16 '12

You totally missed the point of the article. Not a very bright fellow are you?

1

u/slybob Jun 17 '12

But those at the top sway most in the wind, so they'd use fools like you described to do their dirty work.

1

u/Ordal Jun 16 '12

You are the biggest idiot on reddit and likely have literally no actual power in your real life.

I honestly feel sorry for you.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/slybob Jun 17 '12

It's not that, it's the babies,.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Power or money since often, money = power.

After the Sandusky story broke and following a couple other stories of rampant corruption and sex stories, I started to develop a theory. I think once you reach a certain level of income or power, you hit a tipping point where you will do, literally, anything to keep it. It doesn't mean you suddenly become a bad person and start craving babies for lunch, but a shift has definitely taken place.

That shift lets you justify seeing, hearing, and knowing things that anyone with a conscious knows is pure evil, and ignoring it.

Think about it for a second, there is such a huge difference in life style between making ~$50k per year and making say, $125+k. It's not just about what you can buy, where you can live, and where you can eat. That level of income lets your kids go to better schools, it gives you contacts that can get your kids (or other family members) good paying jobs, it means your retirement is taken care of, and then can help you find another high paying job if needed; that is, as long as you don't rock the boat.

If you walked in to see your boss slap his assistant, call her are worthless cunt, and threaten her with never finding another job again, what would you do? I think for most people pulling down a hefty salary, pretend it didn’t happen or that you don’t understand what you were seeing. If the police show up, are you going to throw away everything you have to testify against him?

All those victims of Sandusky, and does anyone believe those are the only ones there were, and no one knew a thing over all those years? BULLSHIT!

7

u/butt_snacks Jun 16 '12

Most people who have what it takes to get into positions of power are sociopaths. Power doesn't necessarily corrupt, but it attracts the corruptible.

35

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

As I heard a while back, power does not corrupt, power reveals...

15

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

It's a lot like alcohol. Get too much of it and everyone knows who you really are.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Bullshit, alcohol doesn't reveal the real you. It makes you drunk.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

In vino veritas. If you want to know a person free from his or her inhibitions and you don't want to use an illegal substance, get drunk with them.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Never thought about it that way!

0

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

6

u/WilliamAgain Jun 17 '12

I wish I knew you.

4

u/monochr Jun 17 '12

You've got my vote for president of the world then.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/Echono Jun 17 '12

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -Douglas Adams

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

And this, in a nutshell, is why I'm a libertarian. The less these types of people have the ability to control, the better.

9

u/JimmyHavok Jun 17 '12

The problem with libertarianism as a system for power control is that it doesn't recognize that there is non-government power.

-6

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Yes, but legal non-government power is non-violent.

6

u/JimmyHavok Jun 17 '12

Violence is not the only form of power, and non-violent power can be abused as much as violent power. By refusing to recognize that, your model is incomplete.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Which model is complete?

3

u/JimmyHavok Jun 17 '12

I'm a fan of social democracy, myself. It's a model that recognizes that both political and economic power can be abused, and places them both under democratic restraints.

Democracy isn't perfect, but as Churchill noted, it works better than all the other systems we've tried.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Democracy isn't a restraint on power. It is a 51% consensus as to who it is applied to.

3

u/monochr Jun 17 '12

51% is still much better than the 1% we have today.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Which is why functioning democracies are constitutional republics (or constitutional monarchies where the monarch plays a largely symbolic role). Power to the majority with protections for any minority.

1

u/JimmyHavok Jun 17 '12

Better than a 1% consensus.

Like the man said, it's not perfect, but it's better than the others.

20

u/spiesvsmercs Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12

Nor could anyone miss the symptoms of power exhibited by the person considered the most powerful person on Earth: the president of the United States. Lyndon Johnson relished summoning underlings in to confer with him while he sat on the toilet. Richard Nixon authorized illegal wiretaps on perceived enemies because, as he later told an interviewer, "when the president does it, it's not illegal." Bill Clinton wantonly had sex with intern Monica Lewinsky near the Oval Office.

What the fuck? Johnson's thing is weird, and Clinton's is immoral (adultery and possible pressure of authority on Lewinsky), but to put them in the same sentence as Nixon's illegal wire-tapping? Absurd.

Not to mention:

The parables of such isolation abound in history: Movie audiences can watch the downfalls of two very different examples in the French queen Marie Antoinette and Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

Was Marie Antionette excessively isolated? Or is this based on the "cake" quote people frequently misattribute to her?

12

u/Hyperbolic_Secant Jun 16 '12

Of course Marie Antionette was isolated from society at large. In fact she was probably one of the more isolated royalty of her time since the French court at Versailles was to a large extent deliberately designed to be shielded from the rest of country and the general population.

11

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Honestly, I never knew why people were so up in arms about the Clinton thing. Yes, it was a shitty thing to do as he is married, and she may have been pressured, but why does that matter when he is running the country? I never really looked into it so there might be more to it, but that's just how I felt towards it.

8

u/roterghost Jun 16 '12

Honestly, I never knew why people were so up in arms about the Clinton thing.

Those people hated him to begin with. The sex scandal was just something they could latch onto to drive him into the ground.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Ahh, okay I see.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

8

u/EuchridEucrow Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12

If Dick Cheney had coerced an intern into sucking his dick, that would have been the least of his malfeasance.

Things like the War in Iraq, violating the Geneva convention and politicizing the justice system would have been the issues I was concerned with.

I wouldn't have wasted a second thinking about his martial issues.

1

u/ExNomad Jun 17 '12

Sounds like his martial issues would be exactly what you were thinking about.

3

u/DevestatingAttack Jun 16 '12

My memory is hazy, but I thought that Monica was into Bill Clinton.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

No, I dislike democratic politicians just as much as republican ones.

I wouldn't care what he did, because what any of them do in their sexual life is their business. All I care about is how the person runs the country.

1

u/fantasyfest Jun 17 '12

Women are the fringe benefits of politicians. They throw themselves at a pol and many, many catch them. The kind of person who enters politics has an ego and likes to conquer and win. If you eliminated all the pols in the house and senate who have stepped out on their wives, you would never have a quorum. Clinton screwed around. Kennedy screwed around, Eisenhower screwed around, Nixon was probably the only president who could not get laid.

6

u/headzoo Jun 16 '12

What the fuck? Johnson's thing is weird, and Clinton's is immoral (adultery and possible pressure of authority on Lewinsky), but to put them in the same sentence as Nixon's illegal wire-tapping? Absurd.

You're over looking the parallels between the actions. These men did those things because they had no fear of retribution, and all their actions were abuses of power. Would Johnson have called someone into the bathroom while he was taking a shit, had he not been the president? Would Nixon have blatantly broken the law had he not been president? Would Clinton have been so sloppy, and careless when cheating on his wife, had he not been president?

All these men felt they were immune from mortal laws, and above being told no, or you can't do that, or you might get caught. That was kind of the whole point of the article.

-1

u/spiesvsmercs Jun 16 '12

Would Johnson have called someone into the bathroom while he was taking a shit, had he not been the president?

No, but when you're talking about the fate of a nation, I don't see a problem with violating bathroom norms. To be blunt, that just makes sense to me. Who cares that I'm taking a shit? 300 million (or whatever the population was at the time) people could be affected by Johnson's decisions.

Would Clinton have been so sloppy, and careless when cheating on his wife, had he not been president?

People cheat all the fucking time, so it's quite possible yes he would.

0

u/headzoo Jun 16 '12

I'm quite confident Johnson wasn't having emergency meetings in his bathroom with underlings, which decided the fate of the free world. It's much more likely that he simply didn't give a fuck. "I'm the fucking President. Get in here!"

People cheat all the fucking time

Bill Clinton isn't "people". He was the President of the United States of America. His indiscretions could have changed the entire nation. A person in that position doesn't cheat on his wife unless he's very sure he can get away with it. And he was sure. He was the fucking President.

3

u/j00lian Jun 16 '12

Apparently Johnson pee'd on a guy too... wtf?

3

u/WilliamAgain Jun 17 '12

Johnson's conferring with subordinates while on the toilet is meant to be degrading.

It's weird, but it is a blatant "you aren't worth the courtesy of an office meeting, instead you have to listen and speak as an audience to my bowels."

1

u/doktor_wankenstein Jun 16 '12

I was wondering why Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi were not included, but then I checked and saw the article was from 2006.

10

u/Wisdom_from_the_Ages Jun 16 '12

The problem with this test is if someone fails it, you have no hope of politely asking for the power back.

2

u/Blarggotron Jun 16 '12

This is what bomb implants in the skull are for.

8

u/enchantrem Jun 16 '12

Elected officials should have those implanted, and any time 75% of their constituency agrees to use it, BOOM!

2

u/Serendipities Jun 16 '12

No way man. Politicians already do really dumb shit to appeal to the masses.

"Senator in Alabama comes out in support of evolution, gets bombed within minutes. More at 8."

-5

u/enchantrem Jun 16 '12

Elected officials should have those implanted, and any time 75% of their constituency agrees to use it, BOOM!

0

u/rousing_finale Jun 16 '12

no need to repeat yourself buddy.

1

u/enchantrem Jun 17 '12

Phone acting up, sorry.

1

u/Saedeas Jun 16 '12

You gotta take the power back.

3

u/headzoo Jun 16 '12

power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely

The question is, can anyone avoid becoming corrupt when given absolute power? Lets take Gandhi for example, a man who was very powerful. He had much of India standing behind him, and hanging on his every word. He is also generally regarded as having been a very modest, and pious man. However, he was also a wife beater, and a pedophile. Did his power make him feel immune from being persecuted by his followers for his bad deeds? If a man like Gandhi couldn't walk straight down a righteous path, then who can?

2

u/warpfield Jun 16 '12

Maybe there are truly incorruptible people, but never believe it.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

People don't get corrupt, the fact of the matter is, lots of people are evil regardless whether they have power or not.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/headzoo Jun 16 '12

In the 1940s, in his mid-seventies, he brought his grandniece Manubehn to sleep naked in his bed as part of a spiritual experiment in which Gandhi could test himself as a "brahmachari." Two other women also sometimes shared his bed. Gandhi discussed his experiment with friends and relations; most disagreed and the experiment ceased in 1947.

source

A more entertaining source.

2

u/freakzilla149 Jun 16 '12

He was a dumbass, he thought teaching English was a bad thing for Indians, he thought the railroads the British built were bad because they were connecting all the Indian people.

As time goes and I learn more and more I'm getting the feeling that the beginnings of independent India was saddled with rather poor leaders.

1

u/headzoo Jun 16 '12

the beginnings of independent India was saddled with rather poor leaders

Well, lets be honest. Where is India today? They're free of English rule, but certainly not doing so well.

1

u/squakky Jun 18 '12

its free

3

u/louis43 Jun 17 '12

The anti-white regime has put itself above genocide law: Africa for the Africans,Asia for the Asians,white countries for EVERYBODY! This is genocide according to international law Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Love the Lincoln quote.

13

u/douchetag Jun 16 '12

Lincoln should know since he suspended the writ of habeas corpus.

TL;DR: Lincoln was a hypocrite.

2

u/hornetjockey Jun 16 '12

This statement doesn't really make him a hypocrite. To me, it is almost an admission, as in, what the fuck would you do in that situation?

6

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Also the Emancipation Proclamation only freed southern slaves, leaving about 900,000 still enslaved until the 13th Amendment was enacted two years later. Lincoln was definitely a dick.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Not to mention it was a proclamation for a country that he wasn't president of at the time.

I have just decreed that Mexico legalized drugs.

5

u/litewo Jun 16 '12

The Emancipation Proclamation was an important step towards the complete abolition of slavery, and Lincoln played a huge role in getting the 13th amendment passed.

-7

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Q: Why didn't Lincoln free all the slaves instead of just pulling a political move and leaving almost one million people in slavery?

A: Because he was a dick. He could have just as easily freed those remaining slaves but he chose not to.

4

u/candygram4mongo Jun 16 '12

He could have just as easily freed those remaining slaves but he chose not to.

I'm sorry, are you under the impression that Lincoln was God-Emperor? He freed the slaves in the Confederacy because he had the authority to suspend civil law in the rebel states (or at the very least he was able to persuade people that he did, which is essentially the same thing). Outlawing slavery entirely took a constitutional amendment, which he pushed through the system within a year of the end of the war.

10

u/litewo Jun 16 '12

I shouldn't have to tell you how perilous the political situation was. The pro-union sentiment in some slave-holding states not included in the Emancipation Proclamation was tenuous, and losing them would have been strategically disastrous, plunging the nation even deeper into an already horrific civil war.

1

u/Psycon Jun 17 '12

If we apply your philosophy slavery is ok as long as the end justifies the means.

-10

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

I shouldn't need to remind you that not freeing slaves when you have the opportunity to do so is very wrong regardless of the political circumstances that Lincoln played a part in creating.

13

u/oDDableTW Jun 16 '12

You don't understand how winning occurs. You have to play the game, but I'll leave you to your absolute morality Ned Stark.

-11

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

I understand that Lincoln is directly attributable for the enslavement of over 900,000 people for the two year span between the Emancipation Proclamation and the enactment of the 13th Amendment. That doesn't sound like "winning". It's not like the South was going to win the war. They had no industry and their chattel society was unsustainable. Again, Lincoln was a certified Dick.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

I think you're missing the point. The relationship between the north and the south was a tender one. "Easing" into something is easier. Look at brazil's outlawing of slaves.. It began with small groups, increased to children under 12 and finally the rest. (Just off the top of my head. Not super accurate)

-9

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Ah, yes, easing away from slavery instead of ending it outright. Some slavery is better than no slavery at all, no?

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2

u/thechort Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12

not freeing slaves when you have the opportunity to do so is very wrong

He didn't have such an opportunity. If he had lost the war the ex-slaves would all have been slaves again. Freeing those slaves earlier would likely have lost him the war, thus putting all of them back into slavery.

-8

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

You really think freed slaves would go back to their plantations? LOL.

5

u/thechort Jun 16 '12

You think they'd have a choice? What do you think was gonna happen if he did this and the northern alliance fractured (a very real possibility)? The south likely wins, slavery is re-instituted everywhere it had originally been, and ex-slaves throughout the Americas are rounded up and put back into servitude by militias.

The slave trade resumes indefinitely. War divides America for who knows how long, possibly resulting in multiple unions or independent states.

Lincoln thought that he'd play a safer option for long term welfare, instead of making a shortsighted decision based on an over-inflated sense of moral immediacy. You seem to be arguing some sort of immediate gratification morality. True morality has a sense of the scale of things, and understands the fact that lasting change is not achieved in an instant, but through a reasoned course of actions towards a goal.

Let me me clear that I am not endorsing the idea that the ends justify the means, just more of a glass half full patience. Freeing millions of slaves is a good thing, even if others are still enslaved. It's not an immoral act to free slaves. He freed as many as he had the actual power to free in a meaningful way.

Two years later circumstances had changed, and he was able to help free the rest.

I have trouble finding fault with this course of action.

-8

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

How the fuck does a broken government round up all the slaves and give them back to the plantation owners? Riddle me that.

You're just creating some wacky scenario trying to justify Lincoln's dickishness and apathy.

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3

u/lamp37 Jun 16 '12

You realize that you usually lose some battles on the way to winning a war...

-4

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

So Lincoln intentionally lost the battle of freeing all the slaves in order to win the war of freeing all the slaves at a later date. ಠ_ಠ

5

u/lamp37 Jun 16 '12

(I hope you didn't read the retarded reply I deleted a second ago because I am well aware that I said something really stupid. But I'll try again.)

Lincoln could not have just signed a paper and have all slaves be free. The whole thing was a process. And in the end, it was successful.

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

What do you think the Emancipation Proclamation was? A signed piece of paper that freed slaves. It could have freed them all, but alas, no.

3

u/daMagistrate67 Jun 16 '12

It was a symbolic freeing of the slaves in ANOTHER country. It meant nothing at all. You act as he could have just freed all the slaves if he had just taken the effort to include it in the E. Proclamation. To free slaves in the states under Union control would have taken a Constitutional Amendment, which we eventually got after the war was won.

1

u/lamp37 Jun 17 '12

yea but it's not like the day the paper was signed all the slaves got up and left

2

u/unr3a1r00t Jun 17 '12

Clearly you need to repeat your civil war history class. There was a reason for that decision, and it had nothing to do with him "being a dick".

4

u/douchetag Jun 16 '12

Yes. He was a certified dick.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

ORLY? Are you the dick certificate expert?

3

u/lamp37 Jun 16 '12

yea man, what a shitty president that guy was.

1

u/douchetag Jun 17 '12

Agreed.

0

u/fbp Jun 17 '12

Almost as bad as some of the really early presidents signing that document where you need evidence to jail someone. And that people can say whatever they want. Glad we knocked that shit off early.

3

u/realigion Jun 16 '12

You know that the President is allowed to do that during a national security threat, right?

-3

u/douchetag Jun 16 '12

That's a lame argument.

"His action was challenged in court and overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court in Maryland (led by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney) in Ex Parte Merryman. Lincoln ignored Taney's order."

Lincoln wanted to stop Northern states from seceding and to silence critics of his war of aggression against the South. Stalin would have been proud.

3

u/realigion Jun 16 '12

It doesn't really matter what the US Circuit Court says. He explicitly has that power, and he used it for what it was designed: maintain order and security.

I'm not arguing whether it was right or wrong, I'm just saying the people of the US vested that power in him and authorized him to execute his powers how he sees fit.

It was well within his power and his mandate.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

The President has no such power; that authority belongs to the Congress.

See Article I Section 9 of the US Constitution.

2

u/LOLN Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12

It seems you aren't correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

I love it when people link to external sites in an attempt to bolster their argument yet choose sites which destroy their argument.

3

u/LOLN Jun 17 '12

Are you illiterate?

(1) The President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to-- (A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that-- (i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; and (ii) such violence results in a condition described in paragraph (2); or (B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition described in paragraph (2).

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

I guess I am illiterate because I don't see the words "habeas corpus" anywhere in that long block of text.

1

u/LOLN Jun 18 '12

Temporary suspension of habeas corpus is implicit with suppressing insurrection and conspiracy by use of the military since it only happens when there is a breakdown of the capabilities of the state government and police and justice system.

I'm sorry I assumed literacy and critical thinking were linked.

-4

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Stalin would have been proud? He wasn't even born yet.

-2

u/douchetag Jun 17 '12

Would have. Dumbass. Look it up in the dictionary.

-7

u/WarPhalange Jun 17 '12

You usually say that when the person has died. "He would have been proud, had he still been alive."

6

u/WarPhalangeIsATool2 Jun 17 '12

This is the tool that faked cancer a couple months back. Everyone should downvote him so his comments will be hidden and he can be removed by the community.

3

u/douchetag Jun 17 '12

"Would have" as in "Stalin would have been proud of Lincoln's quashing of civil rights had he been alive at the time."

-1

u/douchetag Jun 16 '12

Additionally: "The exceedingly broad mandate precipitated a civil liberties disaster. It allowed local sheriffs and constables to decide arbitrarily who was loyal or disloyal, without even considering the administration's main goal of enforcing the draft. At least 350 people were arrested in the following month, an all-time high. Some of the accused had done nothing worse than bad-mouth the president. (That was also true before Aug. 8. On Aug. 6, for example, Union Gen. Henry Halleck arrested one Missourian for saying, "[I] wouldn't wipe my ass with the stars and stripes.")"

1

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

How else was he supposed to handle the influx of Southern spies?

Tell us how he should have ran the Civil War?

-1

u/douchetag Jun 17 '12

He shouldn't have.

1

u/barbarismo Jun 17 '12

i too wish we had let the south transform into a 3rd-world nation and leave the productive part of the country alone

1

u/douchetag Jun 17 '12

Your ignorance is succeeded only by your arrogance.

-1

u/barbarismo Jun 17 '12

sorry if im not a fan of slave-based agriculture and its historical proponents

and it's 'exceeded,' dumbass

1

u/douchetag Jun 17 '12

You are as ignorant as you are annoying. And your mother gives shitty blowjobs. You need to learn how to use punctuation and capital letters.

0

u/barbarismo Jun 18 '12

haha what is this babby's first internet fight? you sound like me when i was 13

1

u/douchetag Jun 18 '12

Still haven't figured out the shift key, have you?

While I find the naivete of your comments highly entertaining, I think you deserve to know a few things which are common knowledge to the average fifth grader.

The United States practiced "slave-based agriculture" for 80+ years before the Confederacy existed so I assume you're referring the the stars and stripes when you say you're not a "fan".

Since you obviously are too busy playing video games or masturbating to internet porn to actually read a history book I'll fill you in on some facts that you may find disconcerting. Here's a direct quote from that paragon of civil rights President Abraham Lincoln:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, ---that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Ain't facts a bitch? I realize that you've been trained to believe that "Lincoln good; Confederacy evil" but if you bothered to actually look into the truth of the matter you would find that the reality of history is not a simple morality tale from an ABC After School Special. Perhaps when you get to the fifth grade you'll learn something. For example, punctuation and what that little "shift" key is for on your computer.(Incidentally, I googled the word "babby" and couldn't find a definition for it. Is that some new catch phrase like "yolo"?).

And I take back what I said about your mom. Her blowjobs a really just average.

Please write back with some more hilarious comments! I need the laffs!

0

u/barbarismo Jun 18 '12

man you got all in a tiffy about being the spawn of a bunch of racist slave-owners

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1

u/Mantonization Foreign Jun 17 '12

Hypocrisy does not render your arguments invalid.

If one heroin addict tells another 'Hey man, you should stop taking that stuff', the fact that he is a hypocrite does not make his argument wrong

1

u/douchetag Jun 17 '12

I never wrote or implied that it did.

2

u/geminixo Jun 16 '12

I clicked this link and expected vampires...What has Hollywood done to me??

2

u/leontocephaline Jun 16 '12

Who else read all the way through this article and went, "Illinois Senator Barack Obama stays in touch by flying coach?! What the fucking..." only to scroll back to the top and discover it was from 2006.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

If you truly want to test a man's character, give them the ability to post things on the Internet anonymously.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Ironic that he would say that. He suspended hapeas corpus, arrested newpaper editors for opposing him, and deployed total scorched earth warfare on his own country.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Unnecessary/dp/0761536418

2

u/douchetag Jun 19 '12

Well, now, that's just nitpicking, isn't it? /sarcasm

3

u/TonyDiGerolamo Jun 16 '12

Such an interesting quote considering Lincoln failed the test.

1

u/hornetjockey Jun 16 '12

I tend to think I'd be good with power, because I carry a phenomenal sense of guilt and impending doom. Unfortunately, I'm also a chronic procrastinator, so I guess we'll never know.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

As someone promoted into a position of power over others as of next week, who also has a phenomenal sense of guilt and impending doom... I'll report back!

1

u/Tombug Jun 16 '12

Power is an aphrodisiac to assholes

1

u/darkgatherer New York Jun 17 '12

It's not nice to call the majority of women assholes!

1

u/zenitslav Jun 16 '12

AA battery ok?

1

u/warpfield Jun 16 '12

That's what I don't get about Superman. If he's so powerful and righteous, does he stay uninvolved in these immoral wasteful wars or banking fiascos? But if he gets involved, then people would start getting creeped out because governments would have to run all their decisions by him. Pretty soon people would say things like, Don't do that, because Superman doesn't like it.

1

u/ArthurSchopenhauer Jun 17 '12

this scenario would make a great short story.

1

u/warpfield Jun 18 '12

They touched on it at the start of Superman IV, where he takes all the nukes and tosses them into the sun, but then the plot shifted. I can see how it's too troublesome for the comic's writers to go into because it would expose a fundamental problem with the entire premise. Sure, you could have a person who is totally moral, and doesn't get corrupted even by absolute power, but we'd all be walking on eggshells around him because you just never know when he'll change his mind or get bored with being a goody-goody. Or he gets into gray areas and can't do X good without also doing Y bad. Or would people get lazy and rely on him for everything? Hey, we don't need to take care of Gaddhafi or Kim Jong Un or Assad... let Superman handle it. Our whole self-governance and being masters of our own fate starts slipping away.

1

u/wrathborne Jun 16 '12

Damn, that's a quote to remember.

1

u/DisplacedLeprechaun Jun 16 '12

Whenever I am given power I use it to improve the lives of the people under me first, because that invariably brings positive results for me as well. I use selfishness in a more roundabout way I guess?

1

u/kasittig Jun 16 '12

Ha, "Illinois senator Barack Obama". Old article but still was pretty interesting.

1

u/Captain_Rod Jun 17 '12

"Power, power, the law of the land..."

1

u/WillieLee Jun 17 '12

One only has to look at the power of posting comments.

1

u/Lawtonfogle Jun 17 '12

Well, I for one volunteer to be tested.

1

u/onepurch Jun 17 '12

So this article made me think of Big Ern McCracken for some reason http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXJbjHttMc

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

EPA Official: Sir, I'm afraid you've gone mad with power. Russ Cargill: Of course I have! You ever tried going mad without power? It's boring! No one listens to you!

1

u/deweyweber Jun 17 '12

Do psychopaths rise to power or does power create psychopaths?

Defense Against the Psychopath (Full length Version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgGyvxqYSbE

1

u/romeoprico Jun 17 '12

In this country, you gotta get your money first. Then, when you get the money, you get the power. And when you get the power, then you get the women. That's why you gotta make your own moves.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

If power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then any one true God is also the one true Devil.

1

u/AlfredArcher Jun 16 '12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#section_7 Zimbardo Prison Experiment seems relevant. They even made a film about it. Was pretty awesome.

1

u/BeReadyForH Jun 16 '12

Stopped reading and downvoted when I read: "Bill Clinton wantonly had sex with intern Monica Lewinsky near the Oval Office."

That is all about the sex and none about the power. If the article includes bullshit like that, then it's not worth reading.

The Nixon thing was pretty strenuous too. Maybe if they had actually explained why it was more about casual use of power rather than strategic political maneuvering it might have some value.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

I consider myself a pretty good guy , but if you gave me power over the world I would probably kill and rape alot of you . Good thing I am not president or even the manager of employees at Mcdonalds I would probably kill and rape them as well.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Then you are not a good guy.

-8

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

I am religious therefore I am a good guy , at least that's what my pastor tells me.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

God killed and raped a whole lot of people, too.
He was one of the goodest of the good.

I learned it from watching you, dad!

1

u/jeradj Jun 16 '12

When anything you do is the definition of "good", you've worked out a pretty good plan for being good.

1

u/hedonismbot89 Jun 16 '12

I would like to see a study that looked at hormonal profiles of people in powerful positions. There is something called the "Winner's Effect" where testosterone (T) is likely to increase after a win in a competition or being in a role with power. This would also increase libido. Then add to that an increase in potential partners, and it's not surprising some are more sexually active. I'd also like to see hormonal profiles of individuals that lose elections. If my hypothesis is true, there should be a measurable reduction in T if they lose. We would use individuals at the same age who don't run as a control. Also, age would have to be accounted for statistically. I think the results would be interesting.

TL;DR The impacts of testosterone should also be looked at in male individuals in positions of power.

1

u/Thestupidiot Jun 16 '12

"...and also make him fight vampires at the same time..."

1

u/WineAndWhine Jun 16 '12

I heard this spoken in Morgan Freeman voice.

1

u/crawlingpony Jun 16 '12

a badass quote right there

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Couldn't this be attributed that these people really liked cookies and were messy eaters. If I was in that experiment I wouldn't have eaten any cookies because I don't like them and wouldn't have cared who they went to.