I think you're right, Ebbie, that many people go into politics with high ideals. They hope to change things for the better, to make a difference. Then the $ySStem gets hold of them and it grinds them down and beats them into submission. It forces them to compromise themselves. The problem is the $ySStem itself, not the individuals who go into politics.

The $ySStem is a living thing (like all organizations). It was made artificially by people in the first place, but it's alive...like a computerized robot that never turns off. It operates to preserve and enlarge itself. It uses the various people who enter it the way a machine uses a pulley or a gear, and replaces them when they are worn out. The $ySStem lives longer than any of its human servants.

The problem is that the $ySStem has no heart, no soul, no real intelligence of its own...it simply has an appetite, and it has the will to perpetuate itself by whatever means possible. It's a mindless animal, in other words, and a dangerous one.

This is probably true of all large humanly-created institutions (governments, corporations, professional associations, churches, armed forces), and it is the bane of those idealists who attempt to work within them.