Whose News to Trust, or The Dangers of Too Big a Government

A reply often given to concerns raised about current political issues is that the news source cited can't be trusted. Yet in this day and age it is nearly impossible to find an even remotely unbiased man, let alone a trustworthy man who has the facts firsthand. Not that some aren't more trustable than others, but the level of bias, the complexity of information and the number of different people through whom information passes to get to anyone is immense. The fact simply is that I have no choice but to ask once in a while, "Well then who is a trustworthy source?"

This problem, or at least a good part of it, was foreseen but never protected against.

When the Anti-Federalists were arguing that the Constitution should not be adopted without severe fixing up, one of their concerns was that such a centralized government would be less answerable to the people.

If one sees a possible problem with the local city's actions, it is much easier to track down what is actually going on. News reporters can in many cases be bypassed if necessary, and in any case would be more personally known to their audiences. Thus the only danger left to knowing what goes on is bureaucratic messiness and lawyer-speak. The closer government will also be easier to redirect than that which is only vaguely influenced from afar. This principle makes it easier for people to push for cleaning up the bureaucratic messiness. Thus lawyer-speak itself is the only obstacle left to keeping the government in union with its subjects when the government is as local as possible.

At least one step further must be taken, of course. That is why the States exist. There are numerous issues faced by government that simply cannot be as local as a city because they by their nature defy such locality. The law of the road between cities is one good example. Another step must be taken further where there are matters of national unity beyond any individual State. When I used the city as an extreme and thus obvious example of the way more local government is answerable to its people, I was not saying it is the only way government may validly be done. My point is that the closer to the people a government is, the closer it is to being directly answerable to them.

So it was that the Anti-Federalists were very concerned that the power of the Federal government be such that it would remain in check and minimized: in order, among other things, to keep as much power as possible answerable to the people and keep that which was further off more easily answerable through there being less of it to complicate.

The modern near-impossibility of actually determining to a reasonable degree of certainty what the Federal government is really doing proves the Anti-Federalists' point on the matter of the powerful government being too far removed from the people.

Hopefully now you can see why I favor Ron Paul, someone who (while also not supporting anything I believe my vote must not support, I should say lest any fear I would ever give up the non-negotiable issues) strikes a strong cord with the Anti-Federalist concerns I see validated today. I am not deceived by some rhetoric or modern take on things. I have seen proof today that the concerns of yesterday are real concerns. Having seen this, and seeing that these are concerns that pertain to the whole issue of government (and thus any and all issues brought before government), I share the concern. It is thus from the mouths of those who spoke yesterday, through the reliability of untrustworthiness today in accord with yesterday's speeches, that I believe someone like Ron Paul is necessary to secure the future.