I read an interesting article the other day. It was about the Freedom of Information Act. We now take this for granted, but getting it passed was a
huge ordeal. It dramatically strengthened the accountability of government and gave citizens one of their strongest tools available. It was, unsurprisingly, vehemently opposed by both major parties and nearly every form of the US political establishment. It would eventually go on to be passed in 1966 after an extensive campaign in support of it.
Anyhow, the point. Check out this [1] snippet, which was published as part of said campaign. More important than the snippet is who it's written by. A young exceptionally popular congressman from Illinois by the name of Donald Rumsfeld, who was also critical about the senseless US involvement in Vietnam. His is a name, which if happens to be before your time, would later come to be synonymous with the Iraq War, US ABC agencies torturing people, and of course the complete fabrication of evidence to justify the invasion Iraq.
And he's not especially unique. I think it all comes down to a simple problem. Imagine you happen to be pro-choice. If I paid you $10,000,000 would you become an advocate for pro-life? For the overwhelming majority of people, the answer there is going to be yes. But of course you and I are relatively irrelevant, so nobody's ever going to really try to change our values. But if you or I gained power, such hypotheticals suddenly become entirely real. For a man to be surrounded by such possibilities, yet remain true to his own values - he's going to need to be rich enough that people can't afford to bribe him, or some once in a millennium Aurelius like man of true character.
[1] - https://acsc.lib.udel.edu/files/original/edbab7cd2d0e82f8e19...