COLUMN: ‘The people’ need to know

    In my last column, I opposed Obama’s involvement of the United States military in Libya. My chief grounds for this opposition were based on principles held by Obama himself. I called on Obama to tell the American people why he thought Libya was not “a dumb war,” as he had called the Iraq war. An anonymous commenter objected to my opposition, arguing that “we have no idea the kinds of things that are going on behind the curtains.”

    I am frightened by how prevalent this thought seems to be. It is a sentiment that stands in stark opposition to the ideology that that the government is, in former president Abraham Lincoln’s words, “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

    Lincoln’s statement is itself an unraveling of the beginning of the Constitution: “We the people.” This is the chief principle of the practical organization of the government: That the people are capable of, and ought to, rule themselves. Such a form of government opposes those that rest on the idea that the people are not capable; that they must instead be ruled by an elite class or individual who is unique and exceptional. Such forms of government base their authority either on physical power, such as modern-day despots like Gadhafi, or a higher power, such as God.

    Representative governments, on the other hand, are based on the consent of the governed. By consent, we mean un-coerced consent. The people agree that they will be better off if they band together to establish a government, even if individuals frequently have to submit their own will to that of the government as a whole.

    In order to believe that such a government can be effective, we must believe that the people as a whole are intelligent enough to rule. To do so, they must have access to information. The idea that we must trust our leaders to make important decisions, based on information that we do not have access to, takes away our role in the government. The notion that the president is beholden to information from “behind the curtain” stands on the same side as authority being derived from God. The king in that system has special access to God, so the people must succumb to his authority and inspired wisdom. Non-representative governments derive their power elsewhere than from the people. To trust our leaders from “behind the curtain” is to place the source of power in information, rather than in the people. To do so is to turn representative government on its head.

    I do not mean that everyone in the United States needs to know every little thing about every government action and policy before voting for their leaders. In a representative government, people vote for politicians they believe have the same general set of principles they do.

    However, for a representative government to function effectively, it is vital that the people know what their leaders stand for; that they are able to evaluate how effectively their leaders implement their principles. If we can’t evaluate our leaders we cannot make intelligent decisions regarding who to vote for.

    With President Obama, the election of principles seems to be quite clear. We elected the rather abstract ones of “hope” and “change.” We also elected a man who, as senator, had opposed American involvement in Iraq. He gave a clear, principled statement of why he opposed that involvement. When it comes to foreign policy, we elected a principle of non-intervention, except when a foreign power poses “imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to (the foreign power’s) neighbors.”

    Obama’s own secretary of defense, Robert Gates, stated that Libyan intervention is not vital to American interests. Either Obama seriously disagrees with his own secretary of defense, has changed his principles, or has no real principle on the matter at all. Either of the first two situations is acceptable. Intelligent people are open to changing their minds when exposed to new information.

    But if Obama disagrees with Gates and believes that Libya poses this threat, he must make his case to the American people. Or, if his principles have changed, he must tell us why. It is absolutely necessary as the leader of a nation built on the principle of “we the people.” To not do so, to rely on us to trust him blindly, is to show the same respect for the citizens of this nation that an absolute monarch has for his subjects. Trusting a leader due to his specially-held information is the same thing as deriving the source of government power from “behind the curtain,” not from “we the people.”

Charles Major is a graduate student studying business. He can be reached at charlesrmajor@gmail.com