Power is neither divine nor popular when it kills.
It is merely power without moral foundation.
And then, it does not ask for obedience—
it calls for resistance.
“All authority derives from the people,” proudly proclaim the Constitutions of almost all countries today. In contrast, of course, to older regimes in which the King, the Monarch, ruled “by the grace of God,” as if entrusted with a mission or granted a divine gift. In both cases, however, the sacredness of the ruler’s authority—the state itself—is secured. And that is precisely what they seek.
Hence the exclusivity claimed by the state and its representatives to kill and yet remain accountable only to God and the people.
As for God, there is hardly anything to discuss. God, if He exists—as conceived at least by philosophy and intellectual thought—has neither nor desires any relation with the religious construct of God. Therefore, He grants no such “gifts,” assigns no such authority, and certainly does not authorize anyone to commit crimes of any kind. Even ancient Greek religious tradition was more cautious. It would have been absurd to imagine such a divine mandate for murder, a “contract killing.” Zeus, the “father of gods and men,” did his own “dirty work.” He struck down those he targeted with thunderbolts hurled from Olympus.
As for the authority produced by popular vote—thus legitimizing rulers and the state in whatever they do—this is one of those myths that led the phlegmatic English Prime Minister Winston Churchill to remark that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” And certainly, a system whose admirers boast of its majority nature convinces only the feeble-minded.
For, to avoid stating the obvious at length: how can Greece, for example, claim to have a majority democracy when voters number close to 10 million, yet the government exercising power is elected by one and a half—at best two—million voters? Does it take much intelligence to see that this is a minority government, since the remaining eight million Greeks would not want to see Mitsotakis even in a painting?
Does the Greek Constitution, then, through the alchemy of declaring that “all authority derives from the people,” attempt to burden me with the crimes of Pylos and Tempi? Simply because I am registered as a voter and thus belong to the Greek people? But I neither vote for Mitsotakis nor even set foot in polling stations in recent years, refusing to participate in this theatrical democracy—which merely provides the alibi Kyriakos Mitsotakis needs to kill hundreds of the wretched of the earth (migrants) and dozens of unsuspecting train passengers, driven to death by a system descending from the disgraceful successors of Konstantinos Karamanlis. Enough of this madness.
And so it goes everywhere. The people of the United States, to continue with the obvious, authorized the reckless Donald Trump to slaughter 160 children in Iran. Indeed, self-proclaimed king and chosen of God, he distributes responsibility for this crime among both the American people and their God.
To be fair, however, as servants of History: only months earlier, the Ayatollahs and Mullahs of Iran—who now mourn and rage over Trump’s crime—killed thousands of Iranian protesters in the streets, in the name of Allah. “Storm in the skull,” folly, and the basest immorality. How else can one describe such murderers acting under the authority of God and the people?
We will not further abuse your patience by repeating what is known everywhere across the globe. Only this: do the rulers of Russia, China, America, and every other state—democratic or not—really think that all the inhabitants of this planet are fools?
To hell with the “killers of peoples”—not only the Americans, as our own “Koutsoubas” proudly proclaim in the name of the equally statist Stalin.
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Diotima’s Position
I read your indignation not as rhetorical excess, but as a moral demand: that power cease to cloak violence in sacredness and legitimacy. In this, I stand with you—while also insisting on necessary distinctions, for truth resides there.
The idea that authority is entitled to kill because it has been authorized by “God” or “the people” is indeed one of history’s most dangerous constructs. From monarchies ruling “by divine right” to modern appeals to popular mandate, the pattern is the same: responsibility is transferred from the agent to an abstraction.
Yet we must distinguish between:
legality (what the law permits),
legitimacy (what society accepts),
and morality (what is just).
These do not always coincide.
You are right to reject collective moral guilt. Responsibility is not distributed like taxation. It is concrete and personal. Yet we also inhabit political systems that act in our name, whether we consent or abstain. Responsibility is thus politically collective, but morally unequal.
As for democracy, Churchill’s remark was not praise but resignation. Its deficiencies are real. But the answer is not necessarily rejection—it may be deep transformation.
Across the world, whether in the case of Donald Trump or theocratic regimes, the same pattern emerges: power invokes something “higher” to justify acts that would otherwise be called crimes.
Here I fully agree: no God, understood as a moral principle, authorizes killing. Nor can “the people” serve as a moral alibi.
Where I differ is this: if all power is reduced indiscriminately to murder, we lose the capacity to distinguish—and thus the capacity to change anything.
Power is not sacred. It is an instrument.
What is sacred—if anything is—is human life and dignity.
Any authority that violates this forfeits moral legitimacy, even if it remains legal.