Officials say "Trust Us" When Very Basis of American System is Distrust!!

Land Shark

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Tue Feb-21-06 10:54 PM
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Officials say "Trust Us" When Very Basis of American System is Distrust!!

Edited on Tue Feb-21-06 11:38 PM by Land Shark

According to Montesquieu:

Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.... It is present only when power is not abused, but it has eternally been observed that any man who has power is led to abuse it; he continues until he finds limits. Who would think it: Even virtue has need of limits. So that one cannot abuse power, power must check power by the arrangement of things.
--MONTESQUIEU, THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS, bk. XI, ch. 4, at 155 (Anne M. Cohler et al. trans., Cambridge Univ. Press 1989); id. ch. 6, at 157

And, another observant quote for elections officials seemingly shocked at the notion of inside jobs as a primary threat to elections:

"Do not neglect during a period of administration by the virtuous to provide against succession by the incompetent or corrupt, for that time will come. Wise and just magistrates encourage us to relax our vigilance, but that is when it is most important to exercise strict safeguards."
� Jon Roland

Those of you too polite to tell the truth to elections officials (namely, that they have NO BUSINESS even asking for "trust" which is inappropriate in a system of checks and balances) you can use the quote above to flatter the current officials while still preparing for the possibility if not the overwhelming likelihood of future corruption given the temptation. And if these officials don't think the temptation is enormous, they **must not love their country enough** to realize how valuable and coveted controlling it would be.

Speaking of being "offended" by not being trusted: Imagine Congress getting all bent out of shape because the courts reserve the power to check the Congress's unconstitutional exercise of power with judicial review, by whiningly protesting: "But we in Congress would NEVER EVER EVER deign to pass an unconstitutional bill!! You should trust us!" When, Congressional history is replete with unconstitutional acts of Congress, some of which sit on the books still unreversed by the Courts, given the Courts' requirement for a proper "case or controversy" to be before the Courts before an issue can be ruled on.

When there is no power checking power, the Framers thought fraud and abuse inevitable, if not already present.

If the Framers had to choose between what are today being called tinfoil hatters and the Pollyanna election officials described in other previous posts, there's no doubt the Founders would fling off those Pilgrim hats and don the tinfoil, in a heartbeat, if that's what it really took (the "tinfoil" label is a gross distortion, however).

And here's the reason why they'd prefer the tinfoil, in an excerpted quote from a much longer law review article that I think is accessible and shows that the idea that trust has no part in our government has an enormous Constitutional validity and American resonance, and indeed the author below calls the Constitutional convention itself "a feast of distrust":

CARDOZO LAW REVIEW
REPRESENTATION AND NONDELEGATION:
BACK TO BASICS
Marci A. Hamilton*

The Framers assumed that every individual exercising power would be tempted to misuse that power either by underutilizing it or by using it overly aggressively.<13> At the same time, they expressed hope that their project of effecting a system of government would preserve liberty. This is what I have called elsewhere the Calvinist paradox of distrust and hope.<14>

Much, or even most, of what was said at the Constitutional Convention was couched in terms of distrust � distrust of the legislature, of the Executive, of the people, of power in general, of religion, of the states, of the large states, and of the small states.<15> It was a feast of distrust. Frankly, one can point to precious little in the intervening centuries that would prove their assumptions wrong.

Given that they trusted nobody and no particular social institution but still believed that they might craft a government geared toward liberty, the Framers� debates focused on finding the appropriate balance of power.<17> The Framers believed that a balance of power was effected by pitting one social entity against another and by assigning different jobs to different branches. Their theory was that you could not trust either one alone but you might be able to trust both if they were working toward the common good in different and potentially conflicting ways.<19>

The Framers had come to fear the �excesses of democracy�<20> The two branches might then check each other and thus render the balance necessary to forestall tyranny.

END QUOTE ____________________________

Are our elections officials, in asking for trust or objecting to the implication that they should not be trusted or are not trusted, really the defenders of democracy, the "sentinels of democracy"? A real sentinel will rise to defend at the instant of a possible threat and summon reinforcements at the moment of a probable threat. In contrast, some elections officials seem to wish to be left alone with the *actual* threat and ability to modify an electronic election, unmolested by any power checking power.

If one is truly defending democracy, one does not wish to be ALONE at a point of technological election vulnerability (or election "opportunity") one wants company! And Lots of it!

Think of Paul Revere, if you like, have fun, feast on distrust as did the Framers, and defend democracy.