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Here's a philosophical (?) topic I would love to hear opinions on the occasion of remembering Ellsberg's contributions. Some would say that the transparency of

Here's a philosophical (?) topic I would love to hear opinions on the occasion of remembering Ellsberg's contributions. Some would say that the transparency of revealing the Pentagon papers caused us as a people for the first time (debatable of course) to not fundamentally trust that the government usually does the right thing. (In the general public perception sense. There were and always would be groups discontent or not trusting the state was acting in their interests on specific issues. But this was a large scale violation of people's beliefs, some might say.) But for the first time (again, debatable), the government was shown to be covering up the national disgrace of the very important and big topic of Vietnam for face saving, and sacrificing lives in the process. And that this was just people at the top muddling through really important topics. And this was important for a people to know, and understand that they could check government like this. So... however -- I wonder, is there something such as too much transparency for a country's people, in the face of the reality of who your international competitors are, in a modern information age? When governments can control information, they are much more able to sweep certain things under the rug, unify a people with partial information, and embark on war, other issues that dismiss or hide the many layers of truth or actions. And every issue is always complicated by who it helps and hurts. In a huge democracy, there will always be someone hurt by some decision. When you have competitor countries who are not committed to such whistleblowing, sharing of information, freedom of press, and their people are able to be unified towards some goals while smaller issues are swept under the rug. Is our country by comparison paralyzed from doing great things, because any great thing will have endless "complainers" once all the details are known because of our freedom of information and above mistrust of government? Basically, is there conceivably a bad or unintended consequence of so much freedom of the press to check government? Has too much democracy been a hinderance (or will it be when some important issue presents itself) to the progress of a democracy?

avgcorrection 3y ago
No.
pphysch 3y ago
In a democratic system, the point of whistleblowing and journalism is not to expose secrets that could put lives at risk, but to hold powerful people accountable for their actions. The latter people spend a lot of resources conflating the two. They manufacture the illusion that they are necessarily operating for the public interest, and therefore the only reason why their secret operations are secret is to keep people safe. By extension, guys like Assange are clearly criminals for violating that secrecy. In reality, in the cases of Ellsberg, Manning, Snowden (et al.), we learned that our governments were not operating in the public interest. The Vietnam and Iraq invasions were insane and wasteful, enriching the pockets and hegemonic fantasies of a tiny elite at the cost of real American lives (and countless other lives).

avgcorrection 3y ago

No.

pphysch 3y ago

In a democratic system, the point of whistleblowing and journalism is not to expose secrets that could put lives at risk, but to hold powerful people accountable for their actions. The latter people spend a lot of resources conflating the two. They manufacture the illusion that they are necessarily operating for the public interest, and therefore the only reason why their secret operations are secret is to keep people safe. By extension, guys like Assange are clearly criminals for violating that secrecy. In reality, in the cases of Ellsberg, Manning, Snowden (et al.), we learned that our governments were not operating in the public interest. The Vietnam and Iraq invasions were insane and wasteful, enriching the pockets and hegemonic fantasies of a tiny elite at the cost of real American lives (and countless other lives).