Palin vs. Caligula & Heliogabalus

As regards my concession the other day that, offended though I am by Palin being treated as a legitimate politician, I’d rather have her in charge than Caligula or Heliogabalus, a friend just wrote to remind me that those guys never had any nuclear codes under their control.

True enough. Though I’d probably still rather have Palin in charge of the nuclear codes than Rome’s most psychotic Emperors.

It’s something I’d never thought of before… To what extent does the existence of weapons capable of destroying the world create pressures to favor mediocre but basically stable rulers over more colorful/entertaining but risky ones?

Ortega y Gasset once had the interesting idea that existing forms of government would not be able to survive advances in psychology. He never really developed the idea, but it’s an interesting one.