Shhhhh

There seems to be much ado in Washington concerning the conduct of the office of the Vice President these days. It seems just one more branch of a larger effort to dismantle anything of the Bush way, regardless of its long term result.

The commentators are screaming about the incredible secrecy of this Vice President, and indeed, of the whole administration. One reporter went on and on at length about how secrets are the enemies of Democracy.

Some reporters and commentators and other talking heads would essentially have a fully transparent government -- and that no actions of that government could be hidden. This, or anything remotely approaching it, is ridiculous.

Government secrets must exist. They are just part of the larger issue of the restriction of liberties in exchange for security. We in America get particularly itchy on this point -- but I believe that is not thanks to our democratic ideals, but rather to liberal mantras. That idea of an exchange seems to go against everything that we as Americans have always held dear as ideals -- Liberty, Freedom, and a certain distrust of government (distrust of government is one thing -- hostile reaction to it's existance is something else).

But applying those ideals to the matter of government transparency in the broad, sweeping way it is being done is absurd. In fact, that exchange, the give and take of liberties and securities, is what government is. Let's remember our Hobbs and Locke here. Total liberty and total freedom are simply the absence of any kind of government at all. The minute men come together and form a government for the purpose of regulation, security, and defense, they must relinquish some level of self-governance.

As soon as we might say that secrets are the enemy of democracy, we might say that liberties are the enemy of security.

There is, undoubtedly, a spectrum along which these things lie -- it is not simply one or the other. There must be some kind of balance. But I don't believe the media when they claim that there is a shifting balance. American accountability over its government has never been more thorough, and perhaps, never quite so self-damning. What is going on is a political group trying to form a delicate, under-the-table putsch, using the language and concepts that are so near and dear to us, ignoring the fact that as they do so, they are inevitably eroding the principles that truly make Western government, and I would go so far as to say Western Democracy, so powerful.

(Certainly there seem to be coming to light things and actions in the administration, particularly in the VPship, that have been, considered well, ill-considered or unwise. I'm not talking about the issues specifically, though I think that they were almost certainly motivated by an intense desire to do good, and nothing else.)