Word: tyrants
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Having just revolted from an unimpeachable King, early Americans had passionate feelings about the subject of impeachment. They feared that an untouchable President would turn into a tyrant, yet worried that making him subject to impeachment would destroy his ability to govern. Said Virginia's Colonel George Mason at the Federal Convention: "No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above justice? Above all, shall that man be above it who can commit the most extensive injustice?" South Carolina's Charles Pinckney countered that impeachment would enable...
...diminishing utility because, over time, it drives people quite mad, causing them either to work badly because of sheer boredom or because of active hatred. Either way, the line becomes a target for industrial sabotage of an order previously known only in places being occupied by a tyrant enemy...
When Julius Caesar was the legally appointed Dictator of Rome and secure in his power, he puzzled his supporters by granting amnesty to conspirators and forbidding torture (except with his express permission) to prove how liberal a dictator he was. George Papadopoulos, sometime colonel of artillery and, since 1967, tyrant of Athens, is no latter-day Caesar. But last week, apparently feeling secure after obtaining a 78.4% majority in an unopposed "election" for an eight-year term as President of his recently proclaimed Greek republic, Papadopoulos, 54, surprised his critics with an uncharacteristic Caesarean gesture. He declared a sweeping amnesty...
...mysterious calling card-and the heraldic salamander inscribed on it-found under the general's bed? What if Matucci's own boss, the country's security chief, is actually part of a right-wing plot figureheaded by the dead general? What if a second apprentice tyrant is being groomed in the wings for a colpo di stato...
...succeeds, Kott implies, he becomes the new tyrant. If he overreaches himself and fails, he becomes a scapegoat. In either case there must be a letting of blood, a climax of cruelty. Sons will devour fathers or fathers will devour sons. Call it cannibalism or call it sacrament, a ritual will take place, and out of that moment of utter darkness there will come a light: the illumination that turns ritual into drama...