A Short Course on Political Power

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
-- Edmund Burke

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
-- Lord Acton

The second quote is well known, but not the first. Power corrupts people because people are imperfect. Most major religions and any good psychological school knows that people are imperfect and will always be imperfect. Examine this syllogism: Man is imperfect. Gov't is composed of men. Therefore gov't is imperfect. This syllogism will always be true. Of course if you think mankind can be perfected, then you'll probably think gov't can be perfected. And that is a dangerous idea to have. That's what the Soviet Union thought. The so called "New Man." Well, neither man or gov't can be perfected. It is a delusion. We can be better moral smarter people but not a perfect people.
The first quote is just saying that power can be an addictive drug. The more you have the more you want. The more you have the more you think you are god-like. Your ego gets bigger. You also become paranoid. You become obsessed with who has power and who doesn't have power that wants to take your power away even if they don't want to. Hitler killed a supporter because Hitler got paranoid that the supporter was becoming more popular than him. And get this. The supporter was giving speeches praising Hitler.
Abraham Lincoln said this about power: Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. Power is about what you do too another person. It can be for good or for evil. Or as William Hazlitt put it: The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. Actually, "love of ourselves" maybe the wrong way to put it. Being narcissistic is a better term. Sociopaths are narcissistic people with no conscience who get their kicks out of controlling people. Show me a brutal world dictator and I'll show you a sociopath. You know why Satan was tempting Jesus? It was because he was trying to find out how human He was. To see if Jesus could pass up ultimate power or not. Jesus did not fall for the Devil's trick though like most politicians would.

The worth of men consists in their liability to persuasion. . . . Civilization is the maintenance of social order, by its own inherent persuasiveness as embodying the nobler alternative. The recourse to force, however unavoidable, is a disclosure of the failure of civilization, either in the general society or in a remnant of individuals. Thus in a live civilization there is always an element of unrest. For sensitiveness to ideas means curiosity, adventure, change. Civilized order survives on its merits, and is transformed by its power of recognizing its imperfections.
-Alfred North Whitehead

Persuasion is hard. I took a class in it in college. There are several theories of how to persuade someone. All of them involve giving the person a choice to act. Coercion leaves a person no choice to act. True leaders don't need coercion. Using reason, listening, respecting free will, and trusting their fellow country men is all they need. Finally, a warning from founding father John Adams:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the People, who have... a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct [italics are mine] of their rulers. There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free 'government' ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people.

Gee, he sounds sort of like Glenn Beck. Hmmm...