Government: The Fatal Flaw

The main reason we need government, of course, is that the human creature by nature is wayward in its behavior.  He often does what he ought not to do, and fails to do what he ought to do, and that's when government steps in either to coerce those who wish to avoid punishment, to punish those who do not, and to extort resources for common purposes that, in a perfect world, would be given voluntarily out of a sense of responsibility toward one's fellow beings.

But, if man is wayward by nature, of what is government itself comprised?  Of those very same wayward men, of course.  And this is particularly so in representative forms of government in which those in government come to power not by virtue of their character, but by the choice of wayward people, whom they are then expected to govern in a manner pleasing to those wayward people!

Is it reasonable to hope that inherently flawed and corruptible beings, having entered the chambers of government, will not eventually (and perhaps sooner rather than later) corrupt the instruments of power to their own benefit?  And is it reasonable to hope that those who elect the government will choose leaders who will do the right thing, even when that course of action is contrary to their own perceived self-interest?

Of course, neither of these is a reasonable hope, and that is why we find ourselves now in this sorry state.  The American government began to be corrupted from its very inception, and the decay has proceeded apace over the hundreds of years that have passed.  Growing ever larger, amassing powers to itself that it was never intended to have, the government no longer rules "by the consent of the governed" but by whichever of several warring factions, each comprised of a shockingly small number of powerful elites, manages to defeat the others until the war breaks out all over again.  We call these wars "elections", but they're no such thing.  They're just window dressing on the corrupt process that lies (barely) beneath the surface.