Posted on 06/16/2013 6:54:20 AM PDT by newheart
Big Brother, The All-Seeing Eye of Sauron, The Panopticon, The Observers, The Watchers, The Surveillance State, The NSA. Whatever name we use to refer to it there is a fundamental urge to assume that being spied on is bad. (I agree.)
However, in every discussion of the problem there is always someone who will pop up with an off-the-cuff remark that goes something like this,"If you have nothing to hide, who cares?" or "I'm not doing anything wrong, so what difference does is make?"
On the surface that sounds reasonable, right? Those who are not guilty have nothing to hide, right?
I am particularly interested in the "Christian" variation of the argument that uses Luke 8:17, "There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed," so what's the big deal?
Here are my questions, submitted to the all-knowing (if not all-seeing) Freeper community.
1. Fundamentally what is wrong with being spied upon?
2. What is the problem with the "I have nothing to hide, who cares?" argument? (Or, if you prefer, you are most welcome to defend that position.)
Freepontificate to your heart's content. Remember, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. (But of course no one is really listening?) I'm off to church to worship the only true (and trustworthy) omniscient being.
You seriously have to ask that? How old are you?
Probably older than you, Toad. We all have an intuitive sense that it is wrong, but intuition is seldom a good basis for action or for law. Just trying to work through the premises regarding privacy with the great minds of Freepdom.
We have the right as Americans to be secure and protected against illegal search and seizure.
I want to know what their probable cause was to gain access to MY phone records, CC transactions, FB info?
Give the government an inch and they take a freakin mile...every single time. That includes local, county, state and federal.
It's time to scale back the size and scope of government.
Damn, this pisses me off. I'll get off my soap box now. Anyone gotta cigarette? Oh wait, can't have one, Uncle Sugar say’z it's bad for me.
Geezzzzz
It is indeed easy, but sometimes in these discussions we jump over the obvious when it may not be obvious to all.
Very true, but I think we have moved beyond Orwell.
Jacques Ellul argued in a book called The Political Illusion, that governments suffer from the same flaws that any organization does. Every bureaucracy faces a moment that might be considered a quantum moment (my words not his), when the ideals it was founded upon begin to take second place to the principle of survival. At that point—and I have no idea when it occurred, but it was long before Obama—all those wonderful truths in the Constitution became essentially irrelevant, window dressing that can be paraded when it is convenient, ignored most of the time, and fought against when the population starts to get angry. All governments evolve toward totalitarian states because of the need to control.
You are not the only one. But don't put away the soap box just yet.
If so then why don’t you know from right and wrong? Why do you have to even ask such a question? We’re so concerned with being liked by everyone we are afraid to discipline anyone.
Simply put: Spying is taking something that doesn’t belong to you. What we know about that subject we were supposed to have learned in kindergarten.
We are not there yet, and the courts continue to be a bulwark in defense of the Fifth Amendment.
It’s pretty damned obvious what the problem is. This administration believes in punishing its’ enemies (out of Valerie Jarrett’s own mouth)....eliminating its’ opposition...and targeting anyone on the right or anyone that doesn’t slurp the Obama kool-aid lovingly. In plain English....this administration will go after anyone on the right that it deems a threat to Obama’s leftist agenda.
Anyone that has to ask the question, therefore, must be a total moron or an Obama supporter (same thing, actually).
Just sayin....
>>> I have heard it argued that it is not based in a trust in government, but a trust in God. Personally I find that naive. Trust God,. Never the government.
Thanks... One sidenote though...
Submission to and trust in are two different things.
We are commanded to submit to worldly authority... not worship it.
Although I am not familiar with the work that you referenced, I would agree that all organizations are ultimately driven by survival or self-preservation.
The irony is that organizations in the private sector which have not been deemed "too big to fail", must downsize and must become more efficient and effective in order to survive.
Bureaucratic governments of the New World Order go in the opposite direction as they grow uncontrollably because they become less effective and less efficient.
As far as the Constitution goes, it is a worthless document and always was. The Constitution only has value when the law and body of government which is produced from its blue print is embodied by that uncommon spirit of independence provided by Our Declaration. Any law or or any government office that does not embody the spirit of Our Declaration is worthless.
The Protestant Reformation was the first wave of independence that overthrew the totalitarian traditions of the Old World.
The second wave was Our Declaration that made it clear that the Old World monarchists would be as unwelcome on these shores as the Old World papists and the followers of Archbishops of Canterbury.
The traditions of the Old World have rebranded by the bureaucratic monstrosities of the New World Order.
Our Constitution is as worthless as the lawyers and lawmakers who are in current possession of Our Constitution.
Our only hope is that the citizenry stops looking for redress in Our Constitution and starts looking to Our Declaration for the imaginative means to reclaim what remains of what was once a Free Republic.
I don’t quite understand your hostility, CT.
So to make sure I hear you correctly, what you were told in kindergarten is enough for you? That is an appeal to authority that only works depending on the character of the authority. So, if you went to a government school you might have been indoctrinated with a few things that many of us would find wrong. As an adult I prefer to think through the issues a little more thoroughly. The mere fact tha t I like to have a basis for my understanding that goes beyond kindergarten authority is not sufficient grounds to accuse me, or anyone else, of not knowing the difference between right and wrong or that I am worried about being liked.
So is privacy a “thing” like your watch or your car that can be taken from you? To me the notion of stealing is insufficient because, while someone can steal a thing from you, you ca n usually go buy another to replace it. Privacy is not something you can replace at the mall, and seems like something much more personal, the violation of which is more like rape, than theft.
“Anyone that has to ask the question, therefore, must be a total moron or an Obama supporter (same thing, actually).”
I am pretty sure I am neither. Of course I also don’t have the wisdom or super-powers of a warrior princess.
“We are commanded to submit to worldly authority... not worship it.”
I agree with you with one caveat. There are limits to submission.
Because it’s contrary to the Fourth Amendment. Beyond that, there’s no need for any further explanation, nor is any required.
Period.
Right. No one should be walking around saying obama is the greatest thing ever.
“Our only hope is that the citizenry stops looking for redress in Our Constitution and starts looking to Our Declaration for the imaginative means to reclaim what remains of what was once a Free Republic.”
That is a pretty serious position.
:-)
You aren't the one deciding whether or not you have something to hide.
Excellent answer. Put another way, “define ‘something to hide.’”
The most concise explanation (that wasn’t just a mindless quip) of the entire thread. Good job.
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