Complacency

[Tom]

On Tue, 3 Jul 2001, Jeff Bone wrote:
--]
--]I'll take the admittedly perhaps antiquated wisdom of our forefathers
--]rather than this neuvo-geek-cool "it's not a bug, it's a feature"
--]bullshit.
--]

The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors
will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To
punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard
of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions
of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro' the
channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should
penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being
the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that
right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a
government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should
not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every
man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them. I am
convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without
government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of
happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the
former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as
powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of
governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves &
sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish
therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not
be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If
once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress
& Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves.

Thomas Jefferson To Edward Carrington
Paris, Jan. 16, 1787

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=52&division=div1