Make transparency proportional to authority (was: Health Care: USA, Iraq & Canada)

From: James (james@lab6.com)
Date: Sat Aug 09 2003 - 16:04:23 MDT

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    On Sat, Aug 09, 2003 at 03:15:55PM -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:
    > It's Rousseau's cautionary note on representative
    > government: "How do you keep the representatives from
    > serving themselves at the expense of their
    > constituents?"

    and:

    > And regarding accountablity, I have a dream. Take all
    > the corporate and government rat bastards and put them
    > in a fenced in (as opposed to gated) community.

    Here's a crazy idea: make transparency proportional to authority.
    Elected representatives have absolutely no privacy, save for
    bathroom breaks. You don't have to worry about shady deals because
    there's a camera crew following them every second of every day.
    Every person they speak to is the business of the nation; we have a
    right to know *exactly* what they're doing with their power.

    This would make the jobs of senators, ministers and presidents extremely
    unattractive to most people. Only those who have nothing to hide will
    want or be able to do it.

    Two problems:

    a) There's no way in hell the current [1] administration would vote this
    in. Too many skeletons in the cupboard.

    b) Transparency is useless without an attentive media to chase up the
    wrongdoings. [2]

    There are loopholes and edge cases (e.g. secret meetings still need to
    be secret), but the majority of representatives have no legitimate use
    for privacy. If they wanted a private life, they shouldn't have got a
    public job.

    Douglas Adams said it best: "It is a well-known fact that those people
    who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do
    it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should
    on no account be allowed to do the job."

    [1] I'm not talking about the USA; *no* government would
    want this. [3]

    [2] Now I am talking about the USA.

    [3] Kind of kills the whole idea really...

    -- 
    James <james@lab6.com> <http://james.lab6.com>
    


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