Well, I'm mainly referring to the quote near the beginning of the Thompson article regarding the number of new secrets each year(and day), but overall, Thompson brings up a lot of good points(and some desputable ones) that really don't surprise me in the least. Accountability has always been an issue in this class, and again it's back. Being a democratic society, shouldn't we only depend on those policies which we have a say in, or are we justified in saying that the officials we elect to represent us can count as us, and if they know, then it's cool and legit? However, what if they don't know, do we take it one step further and say that we elected someone who gave this person a job, and because we trust that our representatives actually represent us, we would have given the job to the same person anyways? It just seems like a never-ending dilemma of what you can attribute to accountability in terms of justifications for it. On page 130, Thompson states "these policies and processes may well be ones to which citizens would consent if they had the opportunity", which I think really solidifies this dilemma.
One secrecy form stuck out to me as, well inefficient and unjust, and that was the example including the "don't ask-don't tell" military policy. There's a lot of inconsistencies with this, and as Thompson stated it doesn't really please any side, so why are we using it? The concept itself doesn't make much sense, that a law would only become illegal if it was uncovered. Maybe that is what Thompson is actually trying to show though, that we are not consistent in our beliefs. We might believe that it is wrong to keep secrets if they would not be accepted by congress, but doesn't the fact that this becomes illegal hint at the fact that it might not be right?
However, there has to be a line to draw, somewhere. It is ridiculous to think you should have the right to know everything that the government is doing, at any moment. It seems that that was the point AAPS was trying to make against the task forces. Sure, this is an issue of health care but can't you just let the government work its way through this? At least it was an attempt at universal healthcare, there's no reason to ruin a perfectly good thing. And sure, this IS a democracy(whether some like to believe it or not), but that does not entitle us to every spec of information for any purpose, or even every spec of very important information, because there are some things better left unsaid, unrevealed. Classic example of this: Cuban missle crisis. We all know what would've happened(or at least what probably would have happened) had we known what was going on. Isn't the point of our current democracy to trust in persons to represent your opinion because a direct democracy fails in so many aspects? I guess with some public officials' track records it might be hard to do so...
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The whole "don't ask, don't tell" situation bothers me, too. One side is saying, "sure, we'll tolerate you, as long as you don't identify yourselves," and the other side is saying, " ," oh, wait, the other side can't really saying anything, can it? Those who might speak up risk being taken as illegitimate participants if they are in the military.
ReplyDeleteAs Thompson points out, what's odd about this particular case it that it technically falls under the category of the kind of governance we generally accept: it's partial secrecy/non-transparency, and is therefore "consistent with democratic accountability" (139). Even so, many people find it to be discriminatory. Thompson says that the people who define it as such are those "sympathetic to gays" (138), but really, you could be neutral as far as gays are concerned and it's still discriminatory because it's a situation where one group is singled out and not treated as equal to other groups.