Our Founders intended this as a representative democracy, not a popular democracy. We elect people to represent our interests. Popular opinion is not supposed to be informed about every aspect of national security, because the People are supposed to be free to put their efforts into a robust private sector generating commerce.
The grassroots also rely on leadership networks to winnow contenders for office and help the People to elect someone whom they want to lead, in the direction that person has promised, such as how Trump in speech after speech promised to appoint hard-nosed military and defense advisors, strike hard and fast, clean up the ISIS mess and employ the element of surprise in dealing with targets.
Sorry if that disappoints you, Garth. How about running for Congress and getting yourself appointed to committee, since you want to tweak the defense policy that many of us voted for?
Popular opinion is not supposed to be informed about every aspect of national security, because the People are supposed to be free to put their efforts into a robust private sector generating commerce.
No one has said the people should be informed of every aspect of national security, Albion. Obviously there are matters that must be kept secret - but matters that affect the nation should be discussed by the people and the people should be kept informed of these matters so the discussions will not be led astray by falsehoods. Nothing is more conducive to truth than full information. Lies and deceit hide in the darkness and wither in the light. Your idea that since we are a representative democracy and not a popular democracy and therefore
"Popular opinion is not supposed to be informed" is exactly the opposite of what our Founding Fathers believed.
The Founders believed that the right of the people to freely assemble is one of our most important rights. They knew that when the people are free to come together and discuss matters important to them, and to the nation, the people will spread knowledge among themselves and the lies and corruption and treachery of politicians will be exposed by the people. Have you not wondered why dictatorships go to such great lengths in keeping their subjects apart? It is hard to spread the knowledge among ourselves if it is being withheld from us by our leaders. We will still get the job done but it will take longer and we run the risk of events outrunning our knowledge. A dangerous position for a people to be in because, as Thomas Jefferson says:
"Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."
The Founders believed that another right, the right to petition the government to redress wrongs, is also one of most important rights of the people - but it would be quite difficult to ask for wrongs that are kept secret to be righted, now wouldn't it? Keeping information from the people (as Molly insists should be done because we are now too ignorant to be able to reach an informed consensus as a people) should be kept to an absolute minimum and if errors are going to be made they should be made on the side of more widely disclosed information - which we as a nation wisely do by ensuring the freedom of the press and strictly limiting prior restraint on the dissemination of information. All three of these rights I have just gone over are listed in the
FIRST Amendment to the Constitution. There is a reason for that.
I appreciate your joining the conversation Albion but I think you have a flawed understanding of the peoples' place in our
own governance. Maybe my biggest disagreement with you is with your assertion that the people are not supposed to be informed
"because the People are supposed to be free to put their efforts into a robust private sector generating commerce." We are an industrious people and have no problem with getting our jobs done AND taking care of our nation's business too. It is after all
our job to govern ourselves. Government of the people, for the people and by the people Albion, not just "of the people."
Molly thinks we should not be informed because we are too ignorant to make use of the information. You think we should not be informed because we need to be spending our time at our jobs. Just to keep with the tradition of swapping quotes that Molly and I have been following, I will leave you with one from our Founders that illustrates their disagreement with your point of view, so here you go:
The love of power, like the love of money, increases with the possession of it; and we know in what ruin these baneful passions have involved human societies in all ages when they have been let loose and suffered to rage uncontrolled - There is no restraint like the pervading eye of the virtuous citizens.
- Samuel Adams
It seems like old Sam agrees with me that the watchful eye of the citizen is very important in keeping our leaders on the proper path. That would be very difficult if we allowed them to keep us uninformed, now wouldn't it?