I commend your intellectual rigor for examining your previous belief system in what I am certain was a painful lesson (as changing beliefs is always painful[1]). My point was not that I was any sort of clairvoyant, or had a brilliant insight into the president's soul; it is only that all the politicians are acting under the same incentive system, and unless you have good reason to believe that one acts differently under the same incentives, real substantive change is unlikely. Even if you do believe that you can 'pick' better than most other people, investing large amounts of power in a system which will be run by your opponents/enemies about half the time is not a particularly good strategy.

I invest my energies in divesting the government of power, to reduce the impact of abuse and poor decisions; but you may find a different way to change the system for the better, and I hope you do.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed

>I commend your intellectual rigor for examining your previous belief system in what I am certain was a painful lesson (as changing beliefs is always painful[1]).

It was.

Coincidentally, I read Koestler's essays when I was a teenager, along with some of Orwell's writings with the same theme (Homage to Catalonia for one). Wish I'd paid a bit more attention to the underlying message.

But I think some things you have to experience to learn.

>I invest my energies in divesting the government of power, to reduce the impact of abuse and poor decisions;

I do the same now. I'm a very different person politically than I was back in 2007. And lack of trust in my own political instincts is only one of the reasons why I no longer vote in national elections. As proof, I'd show you all my commits to open source projects that at least partially aim to reduce government power by promoting privacy and peer-to-peer interactions, but I wish to remain at least somewhat anonymous.