The great 19th-century historian Lord Acton said it best: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Acton was building on the teachings of his mentor, Homer Simpson, who put it more plainly: “The more power you have, the more you can mess things up. Woo-hoo!”

And many in Colorado’s political elite have studied under the original oracle of power, Eric Cartman: “Respect my authoritah!”

If there were a motto for the progressive machine that now rules Colorado, it would be simple: “Because we f***ing can, that’s why.”

Ethics don’t matter. Consistency doesn’t matter. Respecting the will of the people, or even the institution of democracy itself, doesn’t matter.

Raw political power to impose their will — that’s all that matters.

Maybe if Republicans had this kind of unchecked power for this long, they’d be just as thuggish. Maybe. We’ll never know.

It started, as these things do, by avoiding consent. TABOR refunds? They stopped even pretending to ask. They know their “fees” wouldn’t survive a vote of the people. Not one of them. So why bother with democracy?

The elite know what’s best.

And when the rabble express themselves at the ballot box, their will can be… corrected.

Voters rejected mandatory setbacks for oil-and-gas drilling. The response from the machine? “That’s adorable,” we’ll pass Senate Bill 181 to do it anyway.

Twice I put flat-rate income tax cuts on the ballot. Twice they passed overwhelmingly. So, the legislature moved to make sure voters could never do that again.

They added “poison-pill” language to future tax cut initiatives. The ballot must now read: “Voting for this tax cut will cripple small children, steal old ladies’ wheelchairs, and cause cancer in laboratory animals.”

When President Donald Trump helped ignite the modern gerrymandering wars, Colorado’s progressive choir howled in outrage.

Now Colorado’s progressive machine is using the same trick.

The Front Range Rail Authority wants a choo-choo tax. But first, it conveniently trims conservative-leaning counties out of the voting pool.

Even Chicago would slow-clap that move.

We’re told Trump is a threat to democracy. Maybe. But as far as I know, he hasn’t stripped elected offices away from voters.

But our legislature is.

The Regional Transportation District is Colorado’s fourth-largest government, run by a 15-member elected board because…the people voted for it to be that way. Senate Bill 150 would gut two-thirds of those elected seats to replace them with insider appointees.

When Trump does something heavy-handed, it’s “no kings.” When Colorado’s ruling class does it, it barely earns a shrug. I mean not even a lame fake excuse why it’s not hypocritical.

And then there’s the lying.

When Trump lies, it’s a five-alarm fire for democracy. But when our elite lie to get what they want, it’s just Tuesday.

Senate Bill 135 sends a measure to the ballot to take your TABOR refunds permanently, handing the legislature a blank check. Yet the ballot language conveniently says it’s for “teacher pay” and “smaller class sizes” and, of course, “without raising taxes.”

As the state Title Board proved last week, there is no guarantee the money will be spent that way, and 85% of the cash goes straight to lawmakers. Translation: We’re taking your money, but we’re not telling you where it’s going.

Lying isn’t an exception anymore. It’s standard operating procedure.

And if you want to see Acton proven in real time, look no further than the legislature voting to exempt itself from Colorado’s open meetings law.

Read that again slowly — raw power grabbing more power.

They’ve decided the transparency rules apply to you, not them.

Their confidence has grown so unchecked they now believe they can legislate physics.

The governor is expected to drop a last-minute bill, with no time for debate, to move Colorado to 100% renewable energy by 2035.

With a stroke of a pen, a state that gets two-thirds of its energy from fossil fuels will do what no state has ever done and do it in nine years.

I’ve seen drug-fueled homeless in Denver violently arguing with imaginary people who felt more grounded in reality.

And because lording over us is such a burden, Senate Bill 87 would require private employers, at their own expense, to hold jobs open for legislators while they’re off playing Nobles.

In other words, someone else should cover my job while I’m busy playing Lord Acton.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts “The Devil’s Advocate with Jon Caldara” on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.