I was recently asked to respond to the government's position that if I have nothing to hide then I have nothing to fear. The questioner had a genuine dilemma over this as government propaganda over their sinister surveillance of everything we do is attempting to convince people that this surveillance is necessary and is designed to protect us, and many people are persuaded when their government make claims like this.
The first point to make is that having something that is private to you that you don't want other people to know about is a fundamental human characteristic and is miles apart from having a secret that you feel guilty about. All of us have things that we wish to keep private and it is our right to do so. What the government wants is that you also feel guilty about this and therefore don't complain when they demand to know your private world. We all have thoughts that make us feel ashamed and feel guilty about. Fantasy is a perfectly legitimate human activity and, as you get older you realise that you had nothing to feel guilty about in the first place. In addition, you may do something that you feel guilty about and don't want anyone to know, but, the important point is, that if your activities do no harm to any other person then it is no-one else's business.
The second point is that the government's position is a demonstrable lie as many people who have nothing to hide in our society have been given plenty of reason to be afraid of the government, police and security services, who, if they wish to get you for anything will have no hesitation in inventing something. The police have been demonstrated as being completely without scruple when it comes to fitting people up and lying through their teeth. The security services are equally as culpable.
But the most important point is that breaking the law is a fundamental human right, as long as you are prepared to take the consequences. No-one has an obligation to obey any legislation they feel is fundamentally wrong or corrupt, unless what you are doing will harm someone, such as driving on the wrong side of the road. In some cases it is a moral duty to break the law, such as the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany that required people to openly persecute other people. Laws are simply human artefacts and too many of them simply institutionalise what people in power like or dislike. Law is vital in human society and we must be bound by law and governed by law, but that does not mean that every law is essential or that every law is good or designed to protect us. Too many laws are designed to protect particular sections of society to the exclusion of the rest of us, as Thrasymachus the Sophist tells us; justice is the interests of the strongest. So, we must not be conned into believing that we must always obey the law. Making something legal does not make it either moral or right, and making something illegal does not make it immoral or wrong.
If no-one challenged bad law then we would never have meaningful social change, for example, witchcraft would still be illegal and slavery would still be legal. If we lived in a society where we were incapable of breaking the law, then it would not be worth living in it, it would be completely totalitarian.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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