“Fortunately, in constitutional and preferably democratic states under the rule of law and with a free press, there are some countervailing forces. In systems of absolute power there are none, even though eventually conventions of power-limitation may develop, if only for the sake of survival and because the use of total power may be self-defeating. Paranoia is its logical end-product.”
Eric Hobsbawm
schiefblog.wordpress.com 