I would like to draw attention to my Politics page, where I have this beautiful essay:

 

Transparency as Truth

Bernard Lipat

 

The creation of political systems bore a prerequisite of transparency and integrity to counter the authoritarian tendencies of imperfect men: James Madison, in Federalist No. 51, writes, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Nonetheless, imperfect men govern imperfect men. It is thus that the role of open government is the pure and true representation of the desires of society.

The people form the fountainhead of political organization, and they thus have the inherent right to a transparent government. Indeed, it is government, devoid of rights, that subsist on the voice of the people. Because “the people are the only legitimate fountain of power,” Madison writes in Federalist No. 49, “a constitutional road to the decision of the people ought to be marked out and kept open.” It was Madison’s concern for the transparency and integrity of government that drove him to author both the Constitution as well as the Bill of Rights, in which are contained the fundamental principles whereby open government functions as a bulwark against the “dangerous propensities” of monarchical rule: separation of powers, representational democracy, and federalism. Even Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence identifies the role of open government, “That to secure these rights [of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Hence, because government derives it powers from the people, the will and consent of the governed dictate that political constructs be open to the enlightened view of man.

Therein lies the basis for the philosophical origins of open government. The state of nature from which man originates is, as Thomas Hobbes writes in Leviathan, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” In essence, it is a perpetual state of anarchy in which there exists a “bellum omnium contra omnes,” or “war of all against all.” However, man concedes some of his free will to the collective in order to ensure the protection of life, liberty, and property which, in the state of nature, are neither guaranteed nor provided. Therefore, because government derives its power from the free will of the people, it is inherently obligated to serve openly as the functional arm of the will of the people. “Government has no other end than the preservation of property [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness],” John Locke writes in his Second Treatise of Government. Government, as a societal construct born of the needs of man, answer always and only to man.

In a democratic society, democratic government exists “of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln eloquently stated in The Gettysburg Address. The democratic republic of the United States requires transparency so as to serve the will of the people accurately and efficiently. There is no government but open government, lest men subject themselves to tyranny.