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Hopelessly naive, yes.

What you're more likely to find is a situation where the less evil governments of the world (Canada, Britain, the US) have to live in glass cages while the more evil governments of the world (China, Russia, North Korea) can continue in secrecy. This I can only see being bad for the citizens of Canada, Britain and the US. All cynicism aside, changing the balance of power in the world away from the US Government and towards the Chinese Government is unlikely to be a positive move for the citizens of the US.




> less evil governments of the world (Canada, Britain, the US) have to live in glass cages while the more evil governments of the world (China, Russia, North Korea) can continue in secrecy

A main reason those governments are less evil is because they already live in glass cages.


That's right; they live in glass cages to a precise extent defined by democratically-formed law. If I wanted the government of my country to stop keeping secrets, I could form a party and run for parliament on a platform of radical transparency (all government data to be made public, from sensitive diplomatic communiques and military research to your next door neighbour's tax returns) and if people actually wanted that they could have it.


But you would never, ever win.

People care about their local school. Their rubbish being collected. Their job being secure.

Abstract stuff like radical transparency is too complicated a platform to run on and not only that it's a single issue that can't win votes.

That's why democracy's pretty weak compared to an altruistic dictatorship. But better than any other form of realistic government out there.


Leaving aside the problem of single-issue parties, the point remains that if radical transparency were a vote-winner it would get implemented. But it's not a vote-winner because people don't want it; not only does no political party advocate it, but there's no grassroots movement calling for diplomatic communiques and tax returns to be made public. It's just not an idea which anyone takes seriously or wants.


So, you answer is to let all the governments be more evil? Following the same logic, sweatshops should be made legal, so US can compete with China's cheep labor.

Do you really think that less secrecy equals less power? It is not the power I would want my government to have.




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