0151B: While Walking the Cobblestone Streets of Ankh-Morpork

One of the books that I'm currently reading is the Discworld novel Snuff by Sir Terry Pratchett. It's always a pleasure to dive into another Pratchett novel since he is quite the brilliant writer. He has a particular way of balancing humor with some pretty serious concepts that, quite frankly, I envy. Humor is hard to manage and it's amazing how easy Pratchett makes it seem.

There are various recurring story arcs in the Discworld novels, this book is one that follows Samuel Vimes and the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. At first I didn't expect to like these particular stories but in the long run they happen to be some of the more insightful books in the series.

A lot of that has to do with Vimes himself and his rather distinct principles when it comes to the Law and his role as a policeman. And yes, that's Law with a capital L - Pratchett is sort of into discussing such concepts with bigger letters. It does a lot to give them more weight, in a manner of speaking.

The news this week has been rather...annoying. We've had a lot of senseless drama and posturing in the Senate. We're still struggling to get the guy behind the Aman Futures ponzi scheme. And we're still not making any progress related to certain key pieces of legislation like the Freedom of Information Bill. And we go around and around this particular political merry-go-round.

A clearer understanding of the Law and what truly needs to be done for the betterment of the country would certainly benefit a lot of folks around here, but of course I don't see supernatural representatives of Order coming down from on high to save the country. The saying about power corrupting those who wield it is sadly true. There's just too much temptation that comes with the reins of government office or any other position of power and the tendency towards abuse is sadly inevitable.

I guess that's part of the reason that I'm so jaded about government, I suppose. I think I've read too many stories like Dune and others that constantly remind us how politicians are inevitably corrupted and the true power of democracies are severely limited. And while writers like Pratchett can remind us of just how good things can be in their somewhat idealized states, fiction is sadly still fiction.

In the meantime we continue on with our daily lives. And fiction also reminds us that this is the secret to government. They can get away with a lot of things as long as they don't shake up the status quo too much. As long as the masses remain content, then there's no true motivation for people do anything about anything with any significant effect. Or so the theory goes.