Forum:Critiques of Government Transparency

From Campaigns Wikia

First and foremost, the essay raises the question "Why trust the government?" This immediately creates in the mind of the reader the illusion of two truths, which are as follows

• The Government is a mystical entity wholly seperate from you in whom trust can be bestowed or withdrawn
• The Government obtains its powers (and therefore, sovreignty) in a similarly-mythical manner, and it is the duty of Good Citizens to remove it

[edit] False Dilemma

The essay is written from the point of view that somehow a government and its population are separate entities. While this might be true for Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, this is hardly a fair argument for any democratic nation. Every U.S. Citizen 18-years or older (subject to some restriction, i.e. felon status, etc.) is eligible to participate in the voting process. These folks not only participate in government--they make it up. Government is not some abstract third-party sitting in D.C. somewhere, they're made up of real, flesh-and-blood people, like you and me. "Can you trust your government" should be rendered "Can you trust your community" in any Democracy. Whilst that may not appear to be a large distinction, when dealing with matters of privacy (see below) it becomes one.

[edit] Sovreignty

Secondly, Locke's Contract Theory of Government, upon which all Democracy is based, teaches us that a government's authority comes directly from the people. This was a revolutionary idea at the time; previous political theories involved either power stemming from a secular monarchy or from some Deity.

According to Locke, the People Giveth and the People Taketh Away. In this respect, 'transparency' is inherent in any Democracy--if the people become aware of some action by a government which they do not like, they will withdraw power from that government to act. In modern democracy, this takes place in elections: If a politician performs some action against the will of most of his political base, his political career will come to an abrupt end. No additional regulation is required for this. No additional laws are required for this. All that is required is the continual function of the Democratic system.

It is roughly analagous to a drug store. If one walks into Walgreens and buys a pair of sunglasses, it's perfectly possible that one could decide said purchase was a bad decision. One could walk into Walgreens and demand a refund, and in any reasonable consumer store, one would receive it. However, one does not (except as part of a fad) proceed to return all or even most of the purchases one has ever made at a Walgreens store in one's lifetime.

In the same way, we grant government (read: ourselves) certain authority, and in some cases we may decide after a political issue or two that perhaps it was a bad idea to grant a collective body authority over this particular issue, and we want a refund. In any functioning Democracy, we get it. But it's absurd to run around pandering about the evils of Government and how much power 'they' have--after all, we gave it to 'them' in the first place.

[edit] Privacy

Increasing regulation ('transparent government') has a chilling effect on personal privacy, at least in any Democratic country. At first our actions appear noble: we are seeking out corruption in government and eliminating it. We'll force government to be transparent--we must know about all government activity, as you never know when you'll catch a corrupt senator. We start monitoring campaign donations, and the companies and rich people that donate to campaigns. After all, multi-million corporations don't deserve privacy--they're as corrupt as the governments. And now look at all of these people paying these corrupt corporations. Why, Joe, you spent $20 on your [insert-company] telephone bill last week! Are you aware that your money paid for a corrupt and incompetent political party's illegitimate rise to power?

It turns out that all we've done in trying to motivate government to be transparent is to become transparent ourselves. This is for the simple reason that, in any democracy, the people are the government.