{"id":9773,"date":"2014-08-14T09:49:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T13:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=9773"},"modified":"2014-10-17T08:27:34","modified_gmt":"2014-10-17T12:27:34","slug":"why-open-government-matters-vdt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/why-open-government-matters-vdt.html","title":{"rendered":"Why open government matters –VDT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nMaybe the Lowndes County Commission should have read these quotes\r\nbefore it approved that\r\n\r\nunbudgeted no-bid not-discussed-in-the-retreat\r\nsecond water treatment system purchase<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nUpdate 17 October 2014:<\/strong> Fix date of editorial<\/a>. -jsq\r\n

\r\nVDT editorial 12 April<\/strike> August 2014,\r\n\r\nWhy open government matters<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“The same prudence, which, in private life, would forbid our\r\npaying our money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the\r\ndisposition of public moneys.” — Thomas Jefferson.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe same year of 1808 he\r\n\r\nwrote that to Shelton Gilliam<\/a>,\r\nPresident Jefferson, in his last\r\n\r\nState of the Union address<\/a>,\r\nnot only personally summarized the government’s accounts and promised\r\n“a correct statement” of “accounts of the receipts and expenditures”:\r\nhe also asked the Congress and the people what to do with any accumulation\r\nof surpluses, well in advance of actually needing to decide.\r\n

\r\nThe VDT includes many more quotes from other well-known figures,\r\nand concludes:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe fundamental and underlying principle of our form of government\r\nis that government belongs to the governed and not to the governing.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nOpen government is good government — or at least it is better\r\ngovernment.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLocal government can only be “of, by and for the\r\npeople,” when it is before the people and not hidden behind\r\nthe closed doors of an executive session or in concealed documents.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThat’s why we care about open government.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAnd, more importantly, that is why you should care about open\r\ngovernment and why elected officials should be committed to doing\r\nall the people’s business out in the open.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nOh, and yes, please\r\n\r\nsubscribe to the VDT<\/a>.\r\nIt’s the newspaper of record around here and it frequently\r\ncarries important stories and editorials.\r\n

\r\nAnd LAKE is\r\n\r\nhappy to accept donations<\/a> to continue investigating things the VDT\r\ncan’t cover, often before anybody else covers it.\r\n

\r\nAfter all, the other side of open government is the ability of the\r\npeople to speak up and the press to report.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThis is true Liberty when free born men\r\n
\r\nHaving to advise the public may speak free,\r\n
\r\nWhich he who can, and will, deserv’s high praise,\r\n
\r\nWho neither can nor will, may hold his peace;\r\n
\r\nWhat can be juster in a State then this?\r\n
\r\n—Euripedes, The Suppliants 437-440<\/a>,\r\nquoted by John Milton in his\r\n\r\nAreopagitica, For the Liberty of unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, 1644<\/a>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe the Lowndes County Commission should have read these quotes before it approved that unbudgeted no-bid not-discussed-in-the-retreat second water treatment system purchase. Update 17 October 2014: Fix date of editorial. -jsq VDT editorial 12 April August 2014, Why open government matters, “The same prudence, which, in private life, would forbid our paying our money for […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,19,88,733,3,133],"tags":[7799,3346,8701,8699,8709,7798,8702,12,7,8799,4930,3057,7800,4049,8700,6,2900,8742],"class_list":["post-9773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-history","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-media","category-transparency","category-vdt","tag-euripides","tag-freedom","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-history","tag-john-milton","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-media","tag-open","tag-press","tag-theseus","tag-thomas-jefferson","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-daily-times","tag-vdt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-2xD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9773"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10912,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9773\/revisions\/10912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}