Govt as God - Updates

There's a lot of frustration out there about the demise of Government as God.  A few articles that caught my eye recently:

•  Qaddafi as God - this NYT article is a good summary of his rule.  Although the following quote is characteristically arrogant, I can't help but wonder how many people in our government feel basically the same way about it:
  "I am a glory that Libya cannot forgo and the Libyan people cannot forgo, nor the Arab nation, nor the Islamic nation, nor Africa, nor Latin America, nor all the nations that desire freedom and human dignity and resist tyranny!" Colonel Qaddafi shouted in February.  "Muammar Qaddafi is history, resistance, liberty, glory, revolution!"
• Once Upon A Time In America - I don't always agree with Peggy Noonan, but she has a sharp eye and a sharp pen.  Her critique of Narrative-focused politics in this column is especially sharp ... though I would have liked it better if she had tied Narrative to Identity.  Regardless, this "reality-mugging" quote is dead on, even for folks like me who are perhaps overly sensitive to the limits of pragmatism:
  "Here's the problem: There is no story.  At the end of the day, there is only reality.  Things work or they don't.  When they work, people notice, and say it."
• Scorn for Vote Grows - an interesting NYT article on the growing disillusionment with Government as God around the world. I keep looking for an emerging awareness that the only solution is decentralized & deformalized power & responsibility ... not seeing it yet.
• Robert Gates Speech - a typical analysis expressing frustration that highly centralized and pervasive power has become polarized and divisive.  I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this sort of thing ... it's much closer to history repeating itself than to history rhyming ... this aspect of power is fundamental and unchanging.  If you want to localize divisiveness and gridlock, then you have to localize/decentralize power.