why politicians are crazy

I had originally proposed a long essay on the nature of government and it's corrupting influence. However, upon much reflection and more than a few aborted starts, I realized that the question can be boiled down to a simple concept: power. Governments entail a purposeful restriction upon our autonomy to provide for things we cannot provide ourselves. The first and foremost of these things provided is protection of our rights. But, essentially, gov't is about power. The power to enforce and to shape laws.
Ultimately, that power devolves into two seperate manifestations, the power to tax and the power to punish. It is no surprise that Lord Actum's saying "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is so universally true. People are imperfect creatures and after awhile create reasons why they deserve this power. They delude themselves into thinking that theirs is a higher purpose, and that any sort of malfeasance is justified in the name of their goal. The consent of the governed is lost very quickly in the rush to justify one having power to shape society, jail human beings and make laws. That is why limited gov't is indeed best. The temptation to weild power is lessened when the power is lessened. The rationalizations explaing having to make decisions costing billions of dollars and affecting millions of people become less fantastical and byzantine. Most importantly, a sort of humility is convey to the politician, who not having to inflate themselves to ubermensch proportions can simply consider themselves servants of the people in the grand tradition of Harry Truman. I sometimes think that humility is the most important and most gallingly lacking attributes in politicians. Perhaps we have raised the stakes so high and made the decisions so powerful that we are stranded with the power-hungry, the venial and the corrupt?