Wednesday 1 December 2010

wikileaks: the truth isn't always easy

(As I posted to a forum earlier today – slightly edited.
I could write several thousand words about the serial impacts of WikiLeaks but this is not the time.)
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Up to a point I understand why people are concerned about WikiLeaks' fairly indiscriminate dumping of information – but find it a real stretch that they are seen to be more a part of a problem than part of a solution.
The keys to a series of secret libraries are now, for the very first time, in our hands.
It might serve us well to remember that these data represent stuff that has happened already. Raw truth.
Not 'policy'. Not ideology. Not terrorism or sedition. Facts.
Information is power! In the case of WikiLeaks, information originally funded by the public purse – then concealed. We own it!
Don't shoot the messenger.

Since when have governments ever occupied the moral high ground?
Why are so many people now defending their non-existent 'right' to be protected from a higher level of scrutiny?
Have we become that compliant? That submissive?

"To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right nor the knowledge nor the virtue.
– Proudhon, Pierre Joseph

Society has adopted centralized, nationalistic government as a default. They get stuff right. They get stuff wrong. Rarely do they perform with brilliance. Rarely do they achieve efficiency.
Realworld justice remains largely a pipedream.
Selectively going to war, bombing villages and killing people is still considered a legitimate, mature course of action.
We bumble along, collectively unable to achieve a higher level of function.

However, just because we can't do any better doesn't mean our systems and our track-record should be protected from scrutiny.

Fiat lux!

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