James Madison, known as the champion of open government and the philosophical father of the Freedom of Information Act, has oft been misquoted.
Michael Doyle, writing in a July/August 2002 article in the magazine Legal Affairs suggests, “The misquoting of Madison illustrates the limitations of legislative history, the propagation of literary error, and the dangers inherent in one of the fundamental elements of argument in the law—the lifted quote.”
In 1965, the Senate Judiciary Committee dusted off one such Madison pronouncement in its report supporting the original Freedom of Information Act. What Madison was actually talking about was not government information, but reading, writing and arithmetic.
This awkward reality aside, these lawmakers summoned the quote as expert testimony from a founding father–an effort, I assume, to sprinkle constitutional authority–as would Supreme Court justices in their subsequent interpretation of the act–which President Lyndon Johnson signed into law in 1966.
The quote, “lifted” from the opening paragraph in Madison’s August 4, 1822 correspondence on the subject of education (penned thirty-five years after the constitutional ink had dried), reads: “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
Political theorist and founding father, Thomas Paine, who died ninety-six days into James Madison’s first term as president, reflected, “I have found [those] who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by [self] importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large [living in different truth universes], that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests.”
Rhonda Bletner, editor of The Mountain Press in Sevierville, Tennessee, writing in a March 16, 2017 article, “Openness, transparency and frankly, to be honest,” states, “The more accountable officeholders are, the more mindful they are of their relationship to ‘the people,’ the more transparency they can achieve.”
Accountability itself is a tricky thing. People react to being held accountable in different ways in different situations. One would think that having to answer to someone for your actions or your decisions would make you think more carefully about whether you’re doing the right thing.
According to research done by Philip Tetlock, a professor of psychology and political science at the University of Pennsylvania, “It sometimes does make people engage in more ‘ exploratory thought’ before making a decision. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it just inspires people to defend more stridently what they already believe. Sometimes it motivates people to conform with the views of the audience to which they are accountable; what we call ‘elastic-band shifts,’ when people move to where the audience is, but when the audience disappears they snap back. They’re very good at impression management. They’re very good at spinning things . . .”
Philanthropist Ray Dalio believes, “Radical transparency fosters goodness in so many ways for the same reasons that bad things are more likely to take place behind closed doors. I believe in radical truth and radical transparency to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships.”
As Ivan Krastev, contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times, pointed out: “Transparency is the politics of managing mistrust.”
As I expressed in a June 23rd, 2018 column, too much effort is being invested by the present local governing body in attempts to control information. I only wish the same could be said about spending!
Glenn Greenwald, a fellow who interviewed Snowden on a number of occasions, observed: “Secrecy is the linchpin of abuse of power, . . . its enabling force. Transparency is the only real antidote. Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise public power. Privacy is for everyone else.”
This past Tuesday, May 14th, the Schroeder town board passed a resolution encouraging Cook County commissioners to video record all meetings where a quorum (three or more commissioners) meet to discuss county business; citing, there are a number of individuals who cannot attend board discussions on important issues that affect their lives.
I’ll wrap this week’s column up with a substantiated-straightforward James Madison quote, “The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon . . . has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.”
Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.
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