Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
The declaration of independence was a good thing. The constitution less so, mainly for it founds the belief that the people must be governed by a government (that there must be a general state).
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I see your point, but for them it was more than just a belief. They were faced with the reality of three major powers (Britain, France and Russia) who refused to make trade treaties with the individual states. They had to have some kind of central power just to deal with foreign governments, or else face the possibility of separate States making their own deals and possibly being swallowed up by those powers, leaving the rest surrounded and outnumbered. For them it was an absolute necessity. Franklin's statement from the signing of the Declaration, "We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately", was a very real concept, and one which affected the next generation, which accounts for Lincoln's belief that the Union had to come before all. Right or wrong, that was the bogeyman they saw awaiting them if they didn't create a strong central government.
As for the monitoring question, that is something that is always there as well. They had their own arguments, hence the battle between Hamilton and Jefferson over the National Bank. They couldn't concieve of modern technology and its problems. On the other hand the fact that this has come to light at all shows that the invasiveness of such technology works both ways. In this case the people really are the monitor. Yes, it was done, but it has been brought to everyone's attention and it is the government that is on the run because of it. It will continue to happen, and all we can hope for is that we can keep up with them, if not ahead of them. The beauty of it is that the technology involved is available to everybody.