Beware the passive voice

"It was decided the victims would not be compensated." "Your claim was rejected." "The funds for that program were cut during the last budget meeting."

The wordsmiths of these sentences often intend to create the feeling that underlying decision was beyond human control. Just like, "It rained on Saturday", they would have us believe their decisions that we do not like make themselves, and precipitate down upon us by the caprice of the gods.

On Life and Entropy

A passage from Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson:

"Common as the air" meant something worthless, but Hackworth knew that every breath of air that Fiona drew, lying in her little bed at night, just a silver glow in the moonlight, was used by her body to make skin and hair and bones. The air became Fiona, and deserving--no, demanding--of love. Ordering matter was the sole endeavor of Life, whether it was a jumble of self-replicating molecules in the primordial ocean, or a steam-powered English mill turning weeds into clothing, or Fiona lying in her bed turning air into Fiona.