Goverment Infiltration, “Good Intentions” and our Founding Principles of Government

A recent post on ELA looked at a noted liberal magazine’s blog coverage of a recent John Yoo interview with Jon Stewart, and some points that the magazine’s blog apparently did not feel comfortable allowing its censored readers to see.

Namely, it was suggested therein that John Yoo’s “theory” of Executive power (which drove Bush Administration policies) rendered our Constitution, and its system of checks and balances, essentially moot at the President’s discretion, which was exactly what our Constitution was created in the first place to prevent. It was also suggested that Democrats — most of whom, along with some conservatives, opposed Yoo’s radical theories — did not do a very good job approaching, framing, communicating on, or controlling the issue.

To wit:

..I asked..some media sources to ..come up with one person who could articulate a cohesive theory as to how Yoo’s theory of unilateral presidential discretion even in the face of existing congressional statute and the Bill of Rights in the name of national security would not equally apply to anything else that the president [unilaterally] decided to do, no matter how outrageous, in the name of national security…

No one answered. And I still have not seen an answer. But perhaps if I had some backing on that, instead of all the normal Democratic presumptuousness about what people know, and how the media doesn’t matter or can’t be changed, or how Republicans are “evil,” it could have [been turned into] a public issue instead of the inanities and falsities that the media [has]covered this with….

Along with the noted irony that yet another guest interviewed by Stewart could and should have a similar question put to him regarding the heart of his framing on a critical issue, and the suggestion that showing and supporting the case  is more effective than simply impugning Yoo, or others, with ill motivations, this was something that apparently the censors at the Liberal American Prospect blog “Tapped” did not want their readers to see.

But the question I put for Yoo and the media, still remains relevant today, and as we move forward in history. If the President does have the unilateral discretion to act in contravention of the will of the people as expressed through Congress in the first place (or in contravention of the inherent rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights), what then acts as a check upon it? The determination, after the fact, by “us” that it was “too much”? Didn’t we just do that through Congress, or through the Bill of Rights? Yes, we did. Thus wouldn’t that negate the basic purpose of the Constitution, to prevent precisely the possibility of this type of unchecked, unilateral power, or “discretion” in the first place? Yes. It would.

But that is not the only threat to the basic principles of open, transparent, accountable, and checked government.

Typically such threats seem to come more from the right than the left. Several noted authors have suggested, very credibly, that one of the fundamental differences between Democrats and Republicans is their tendency to accept and even support a greater form of authoritarianism, counter intuitive as this seems to be from a right wing that always seems to be screaming about “big government” while often working hard to give it yet ever more powers, save for the sensible power to regulate to ensure we have true capitalism, and not oligopoly, and to safeguard what we must — along with national defense – all share together; namely, our environment.

But not always.

Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald points out some chilling examples of John Yoo like thinking from the middle Left; whereas, just as with the case of Yoo, all matters of unchecked, “trust us” form of goverment power and even, in the case of this suggestion, outright deception, are good so long as the “intentions” are good. Namely, a suggestion that our government infiltrate what it clandestinely determines to be ‘conspiracy groups” (at least to start, one presumes), covertly, as ostensible sympathizers, in order to teach them.

Our country was founded upon a complete system of checks and balances, and upon a revulsion to the idea of a government of unchecked, or deceptive, yet “good” intentions. In the comment that was blocked by the American Prospect magazine, Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote was duly noted: “In questions of power then, let no more be heart of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. ”

In some ways, what top Obama confidante Cass Sunstein advocated, is more radical that what Yoo — the near Demon to the American Prospect — has advocated.

As I wrote Greenwald a few days ago:

[This] undermines the very foundation of our government (based upon the opposite principle of a “trust us” form of government, and the exact opposite of what Sunstein proposed.) Just imagine a Bush administration with such infiltration methodologies. But what Sunstein and others miss (consider Orwell’s Animal Farm) is that ultimately it doesnt matter. It is the nature of people, and the nature of power, even well intentioned power, that as it [occasions] further and further wrong, it still believes that it is well intentioned.

Some have argued that the point of George Orwell’s Animal Farm was that intentions don’t work when greed and ignorance take root. But that is not the ultimate point. Those bad intentions are almost never present initially, and often the traits themselves are lacking when idealism seeks to institute government based upon good intentions, rather than upon full openness, transparency, and process.

The results manifest themselves, by the nature of mankind, when one group unchecked decides what is best for others and has power over them. Government propaganda is not much different. And government propaganda veiled as confidante insider expression to whatever “the government” deems bad or unacceptable, is perhaps a perfect example of precisely this.

Perhaps if we had a better discussion about Yoo’s radical theories, we could have a better discussion about Sunstein’s extremist idea of the goverment sending undercover propagandists to covertly infiltrate what the government considers extremist or unfounded conspiracy groups, and disseminate propaganda out to them as confidantes.

As an alternative, here is a suggestion for the Obama administration, and for the present Congress: A democracy requires good information to work. Non democracies present the false appeal of seemingly well intentioned or “sensible” heavy handed, and possibly self corrupting and unchecked Government tactics. It is what Yoo advocated; it is what Sunstein advocated. Work on fixing our media instead, starting with rigorously enforcing media anti trust laws, and advocating and passing stronger ones.

Nowhere is the fundamental, overriding principle of capitalism — pure competition and not oligarchy or unchecked replication — more important in a democracy, than when it comes to questions of the media itself. The media is our Fourth Estate. Even consider another Jefferson principle: “If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter.”

Obama himself seems to recognize this idea. At the White House Correspondents Dinner last spring, he repeated this very line from Jefferson about newspapers (or what they represent) being more important than government itself. And if it’s more important than government itself, or even remotely close, we should focus on fixing it.

Government substituting for it, on the other hand, let alone clandestinely, and subversively countering what government itself perceives to be misinformation, is exactly the opposite of what Jefferson had in mind. And the exact opposite of what a free, open, and transparent democracy requires.

It is probably also likely the exact opposite of what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our government, and what, along with suggestions like those of Yoo, they likely feared the most. And for good reason.

We need to revisit those reasons. We can start, with a consideration of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” followed next by this same author’s even more famous work, “1984.”

NY times commentator Paul Krugman, or others, may argue, as Krugman essentially did about Greenwald regarding a related, but lesser, point, that this is essentially over dramatizing the issue, particularly since the intentions are good. (Note, this is conjecture, and it is likely I am wrong about Krugman specifically here — only he can answer that — but certainly others would argue that bringing up “Animal Farm” or “1984″ is over hyping what is merely a program to provide [what is in the governments unchecked, and secretive view] “better information” while essentially infiltrating groups it clearly deems problematic due to ideas.)

But that is like saying that our Founding Fathers overdramatized when they created the Constitution and our system of government, for the reasons that they did in the first place. But more importantly, the idea of using such tactics for “good ends” is ultimately irrelevant. Governments for the most part do not choose to be evil. The entire point of a free and open society is to prevent even the opportunity for those in power, for “good intentions” or otherwise, to be able to choose what is and isn’t, good, bad, or evil, and pursue those ends counter to the open processes that our government is correctly built upon.

Again, Jefferson famously stated “let no more be heart of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Similarly, let no more be heard of government actors “good intentions,” but bind them down from unchecked authority to make such determinations unilaterally, by the open, transparent, and disclosed processes upon which our democracy and system of government correctly rely.