OK, so I found an interesting Thought on this page which is part of this blog, which is extremely cool. I thought about the Thought, which is this:

Well, no. I was with you up until that point, but this one doesn’t jive with my observations. Power cannot be taken unless it is given. This is borne out by the whole history of passive resistance and capitulation to power. Moreover, no degree of power can be taken beyond that which is given.

I was watching CNN today, and saw a young Army lieutenant, sent home to heal from a gunshot through the hand. Has two purple hearts. He can’t wait to get back to Iraq to complete his mission. He has succumbed to the influence of power. And no one from CNN asked him, his tearful parents, or his little child, to define his mission.

Now I’m defining power essentially as the ability to make people do things they don’t want to do, or at least the ability to make people want to do things they wouldn’t want to do otherwise. If the author of the Thought above was referring to creative power, I could be totally wrong. I’m not sure I understand all I know about that. To me, power is active, not passive. Power has to act to prove it exists. Witness George W. Bush.