Edmund Burke: "The fault of human nature is not of that sort."

This made me laugh (in recognition). Burke is talking about the American Colonies (the lesser power) and Great Britain (the greater power ):

"When any community is subordinately connected with another,
the great danger of the connexion is the extreme pride and self-complacency of the superior,
which in all matters of controversy will probably decide in its own favor.

It is a powerful corrective to such a very rational cause of fear, if the inferior body can be made to believe, that the party inclination or political views of several in the principal state, will induce them in some degree to counteract this blind and tyrannic partiality.

There is no danger that any one acquiring consideration or power in the presiding state should carry this leaning to the inferior too far.
The fault of human nature is not of that sort.

Power in whatever hands is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself."

What I hear:

People-in-charge decide things in their own favor, mostly. (Their pride and complacency, which leads them to do this, is dangerous to everyone.)

Among the people-in-charge, some might be "a useful ally" to people who are not-in-charge.

But those allies won't go tooooo far in their support, because that's not how people are.

The lesser party may "obtain influence" through giving favors that the rulers feel obliged to return, sometimes.

"Every hot controversy is not a civil war."

But some are.