against mysticism

at cafe hayek, don boudreaux explains my sentiments better than I ever could:

Too many people, including otherwise very smart people, believe in secular magic. They believe that words written on paper by people, each of whom receive a majority of votes on certain days of the year of adult citizens living in certain geographic areas, and who utter ritualistic pronouncements under marble domes in buildings conventionally called "capitols," are somehow endowed with greater understanding of society's complexities and with superhuman capacities to care about the welfare of strangers. These priests preach devotion, dedication, and sacrifice to the One True State (your own government), even while each recognizes that legitimate disputes about the details of the dogma divide various cliques of the secular clergy. When they speak and act in their official roles, they expect - usually correctly - that the laity pay their words special heed as if these words have extraordinary power.

he goes on to wonder why people find a president's expression of empathy toward tragedies more comforting than the sentiments of a leader in the private sector. he proposes that it's this same mysticism that endows government officials with magical powers. i'd also add that these figures are looked up to in almost a parental, unifying, way, so their expressions of empathy mean even more. it's our president, but it's not our president of microsystems, inc. the president has a direct influence on us all, but the president of microsystems, inc. doesn't necessarily.
it's amazing to me that the same people who see greed and selfishness as having the power to subjugate and destroy in the private sector don't necessarily follow this skepticism into the public sector. the alternative to having human nature run affairs in the private sector is having it run things in the public sector, but this time with the police behind it.