“Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral
reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal - else a balancing
takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal
potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold
a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with
blind idiocy. The unlimited democracies were unstable because their
citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted
their sovereign authority... other than through the tragic logic of
history... No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially
responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority. If he
voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead - and
responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him
and his foundationless temple.”
―
Robert A. Heinlein,
Starship Troopers
