Matt Bevin Quotes
It's a question of whether or not we the people are still in charge. And by 'we the people,' I mean, is this truly a government of and by and for the people.
Bevin, Matt. Campaign Speech. The Courier-Journal, Gannett, 2014.
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For many people the implication of this quotation is that there should be no government secrets withheld from the citizens who have the right to examine. Others argue that government may have temporary secrets to protect against foreign enemies for example, but that these must be declassified very promptly so that the citizens can examine the actions of their government in time to replace the government if they are not satisfied. Almost all government officials tend to reject the first implication out of hand, and grudgingly accept the second with their discretion controlling when declassification should take place. The problem of America is twofold. There is much over-classification (material kept secret that should not be at all), and the time till declassification is long in general and truly absurd in many cases. For example, there are documents from WWII that by 2013 had still not been declassified. See {591444}, {641317}, and {589105} for exemplar views. William Jennings Bryan introduced this principle into the American political dialogue. See {641027}.
This quotation had a close proximity to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (see linked quote). Although this was probably Lincoln's most famous line, it was not totally original. John Adams came close in a 1774 proclamation (see linked quote). As did John Marshall in his McCulloch v. Maryland decision (see linked quote). There was also Thomas Cooper in 1795 (see linked quote). But the earliest close phrase use appears to be the English cleric, John Wycliffe, in 1382 (see linked quote). It is not known with which of these Lincoln was familiar.
See Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland for a similar view.
See Edmund Burke and Franklin Delano Roosevelt for a similar view.
The view was considered so radical at the time that Fox's name was erased from the Privy Council.
Matthew Griswold Bevin is an American businessman and politician who served as the 62nd Governor of Kentucky, from 2015 to 2019. He was the third Republican elected Kentucky governor since World War II, after Ernie Fletcher (2003–2007) and Louie Nunn (1967–1971).
