Common Sense: An uncommon book review(Part 4)

This part of the review will be a very short look at a couple of quotes that I would like to highlight.
As context for the first quote, it is important to remember that Paine wrote this as a critique of the English monarchy, but what is interesting is that it still applies to our ruling class today which, if left unchecked, will accord to themselves monarchial prerogatives.
"There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy;  it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required.  The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly."  In the very same way, we, as Americans, have allowed our representatives to resemble the monarchy described here by Paine.  Every time we do not hold our representatives accountable for the things they say, their voting record or even when they exempt themselves from laws they create, they are emboldened in their activity.  When we allow these people and their support staffs to remain entrenched in Washington D.C. away from the impact that their decisions wreak on the real world, then it is no wonder that these rulers act with the most faltering judgment when what is needed is the highest of purpose and insight.
In the second quote, Paine is once again making a statement about the English monarchy that can be fitly applied to our civil government leaders.  He states, "for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern: and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual:  The first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied in time."  To paraphrase what Paine is saying, the problem with government is that, despite whatever checks and balances are put in place, there will always be a force greatest in that government that, despite occasional check in its momentum, cannot be stopped in its efforts.  Now, some may say that this applies most readily to the President, and they may be right on a given issue.  In some cases, it is Congress that holds sway and in others, it could be well said that the Supreme Court packs the most punch of the three branches.  My thoughts on this is that, in accordance with the first quote above, it is not necessarily a branch of our government, but the entire edifice that move towards its own ends, ends that stand opposed to the will of the citizen.  Sure, at one time each of the branches may have the upper hand on one another, but at the end of the day, these are trivial sideshows compared to the gradual but steady crumbling of citizen's rights under the weight of an overly oppressive civil government.  Unfortunately for the private citizen, we are the ineffectual clog of the government''s endeavors and that first moving power from Washington D.C. is determined to have its way.