The Secrecy Syndrome
Feb 25, 2016 8:10:57 GMT -5
Post by Michael Downing on Feb 25, 2016 8:10:57 GMT -5
bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-secrecy-syndrome.html
The Secrecy Syndrome
Many are the areas of human activity where governments seek to pierce our privacy. However, their concentration will always be on those things that support the free action of private citizens:
•Weaponry;
•Communications;
•Money.
The citizenry can resist State coercion, if it has the resources with which to educate itself, acquire arms, and organize for resistance. But to be effective, resistance must be directed at the proper targets: i.e., those that seek to shackle us. A spirit of resistance that remains merely a targetless desire not to be coerced has very little prospect for success over the long term. As the saying goes, no one ever won a war by playing defense.
When the State succeeds in penetrating the privacy of the citizen, it forearms itself against efforts to resist it. If it can shield the identities and activities of its own agents, it is largely immunized against counterattack. Under a regime that succeeds at both those things, there is very little prospect for freedom.
The 88,000 governments – federal, state, county, municipal, and local – in these United States have proved adept at both tasks. In aggregate, they employ many millions of persons and spend more than $6 trillion per year. The most important details of our lives are laid bare to them. Yet, except for the half-million officials we elect to those governments, we know almost nothing about those who claim to act under their authority.
It’s appallingly clear that a secret law is an instrument of tyranny, intolerable on its face. Why isn’t it equally clear that secret law enforcers are tyrants in their own right?
Think about it.
The Secrecy Syndrome
Many are the areas of human activity where governments seek to pierce our privacy. However, their concentration will always be on those things that support the free action of private citizens:
•Weaponry;
•Communications;
•Money.
The citizenry can resist State coercion, if it has the resources with which to educate itself, acquire arms, and organize for resistance. But to be effective, resistance must be directed at the proper targets: i.e., those that seek to shackle us. A spirit of resistance that remains merely a targetless desire not to be coerced has very little prospect for success over the long term. As the saying goes, no one ever won a war by playing defense.
When the State succeeds in penetrating the privacy of the citizen, it forearms itself against efforts to resist it. If it can shield the identities and activities of its own agents, it is largely immunized against counterattack. Under a regime that succeeds at both those things, there is very little prospect for freedom.
The 88,000 governments – federal, state, county, municipal, and local – in these United States have proved adept at both tasks. In aggregate, they employ many millions of persons and spend more than $6 trillion per year. The most important details of our lives are laid bare to them. Yet, except for the half-million officials we elect to those governments, we know almost nothing about those who claim to act under their authority.
It’s appallingly clear that a secret law is an instrument of tyranny, intolerable on its face. Why isn’t it equally clear that secret law enforcers are tyrants in their own right?
Think about it.