Authority.

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority." - John Dalberg-Acton

Never have I ever meet someone in a position of authority that was truly deserving of respect. It doesn't matter how small the power they have been given, the result is always the same. As a child, I saw this over and over, and at the time I didn't know why this was the case. As an adult I now know it is the weakness of the people that seek to have control.

It started with my father. He was a terrible man. He desired to control every action and thought of everyone around him. Self-centered, narcissistic, bullying, he has always been my example of what kind of man not to be. However, this was an early warning of what to expect of people that might hold authority over you, and sadly I have yet to be disappointed in this.

My second lesson in the nature of authority came from school. It was here I found that teacher are sad, bitter, self-hating people, that take every ounce of their misery out on the children in there care. I get that teaching is not the first choice for anyone, but there unfulfilled dreams aren't the fault of the children. It seems that at some point they start seeing hope and they feel they must crush it. As a child, I didn't know what I might do in the future, but I knew I couldn't become like these poor bastards.

Now as an adult you deal with less direct authority, but you still deal with it. The cop that got 34 "C-"s in high-school. The middle manager that knows he will never advance. The guy at the any government office. The moderator on any given internet forum.