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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Friday, November 15, 2002 :::
Kate Malcolm brings to our attention a column by Bill Safire, who supports privacy rights as usual. I've been reading recently a book called The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, covering the better part of the second millenium -- the period of European ascendency -- and exploring the reasons Europe was so ascendent. One of the things one notices is that, over a long period of time, repression of new ideas and private initiative stunts growth. (This will come, of course, as a great shock to those of us who have been arguing for years for Big Brother and central planning.) Spain hit its apogee as it became less tolerant of dissent, after which it began its descent. China was institutionally afraid of new ideas long before that.That's not exactly what's going on here, but there is the expectation that the invasion of privacy will lead to a reluctance to explore certain kinds of ideas, and it is probable, for our long-term good, that many of them should be allowed to be explored. There's a certain risk-aversion here that strikes me as peculiarly -- well, I want to say "unAmerican", but I know that's going to be taken less literally than I mean it to be. It stands in contrast with the character of the country noted by de Toqueville; is that better? I don't think we should do nothing, and I do think more synthesis of public information is a good idea, but I think we should be in less of a hurry to make private information public. It has famously come out that we had, in different portions of our intelligence apparatus, the information we needed to see September 11 coming; better synthesis may be all we need.
::: posted by dWj at 11:13 AM
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