No, "power" itself doesn't corrupt -- as you point out, having a gun doesn't corrupt you, for instance.
Power with a capital P, however -- Power as Tolkien used the term, which is to say Power to COERCE with impunity -- Power as embodied in Government; Power that even the Mafia doesn't hold -- that is something else entirely.
That type of Power absolutely DOES corrupt, and for that matter it ATTRACTS the corrupted. It draws pathological personalities like flies to offal, and it is hellishly addictive (one of the major reasons I hold President Washington in such high regard is that he voluntarily gave up the Power of the Presidency, even when many were urging him to retain it).
No, "power" itself doesn't corrupt -- as you point out, having a gun doesn't corrupt you, for instance.
Power with a capital P, however -- Power as Tolkien used the term, which is to say Power to COERCE with impunity -- Power as embodied in Government; Power that even the Mafia doesn't hold -- that is something else entirely.
That type of Power absolutely DOES corrupt, and for that matter it ATTRACTS the corrupted. It draws pathological personalities like flies to offal, and it is hellishly addictive (one of the major reasons I hold President Washington in such high regard is that he voluntarily gave up the Power of the Presidency, even when many were urging him to retain it).
All of human history shows this. For references, I suggest R.J. Rummel's Death by Government (or his website) and The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression.
NOTHING commits and enables mass murder like government, and murder is only the most serious of its many crimes.