Friday, February 17, 2006
Apologies
I apologize to my readership (all two or three of you ;) ) for the light posting ... so many things are going on in the world ... so many interesting things in the Torah portions to comment about -- I could be posting up a storm.
But instead, I am rushing to finish a draft of my dissertation so it can be ready when I defend in a little over a week.
Anyway -- just a little something I'm not sure anybody has caught regarding how un-democratically minded the people in charge of our country are.
As has been widely reported, Dick Cheney complains one problem with our government is our lack of ability to keep secrets.
Aside from the self-serving "piss in the wind and say it's raining" aspect of this quotation (coming from someone who may very well be behind one of our most damaging leaks in recent years -- the revelation that Brewster-Jennings was a CIA front) and the scary (and for the admin ultimately self-destructive -- so maybe not so scary for us) "when do they call in the plumbers" aspect of what Cheney may wish to do about it, there is a little matter of the following quotation, which used to be a favorite of even certain "get the gummint off my back" conservatarians:
Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government. - Jeremy Bentham
As some have already asked -- if, as Bush & CO defenders on wiretapping are wont to point out, "if you are innocent, what do you have to hide?", then shouldn't Bush & CO be more forthright about their energy policy meetings, etc.? Unless they are not so innocent, in which case their reckoning will come, even if it may be dangerously delayed.
But instead, I am rushing to finish a draft of my dissertation so it can be ready when I defend in a little over a week.
Anyway -- just a little something I'm not sure anybody has caught regarding how un-democratically minded the people in charge of our country are.
As has been widely reported, Dick Cheney complains one problem with our government is our lack of ability to keep secrets.
Aside from the self-serving "piss in the wind and say it's raining" aspect of this quotation (coming from someone who may very well be behind one of our most damaging leaks in recent years -- the revelation that Brewster-Jennings was a CIA front) and the scary (and for the admin ultimately self-destructive -- so maybe not so scary for us) "when do they call in the plumbers" aspect of what Cheney may wish to do about it, there is a little matter of the following quotation, which used to be a favorite of even certain "get the gummint off my back" conservatarians:
Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government. - Jeremy Bentham
As some have already asked -- if, as Bush & CO defenders on wiretapping are wont to point out, "if you are innocent, what do you have to hide?", then shouldn't Bush & CO be more forthright about their energy policy meetings, etc.? Unless they are not so innocent, in which case their reckoning will come, even if it may be dangerously delayed.
# posted by alberich @ 9:41 AM 
