Arguments For Limitation of Political Privacy
One response to the issue of political privacy as such is that any political privacy outside the expression of voting is inappropriate. Bernard Crick, for instance, a notable advocate of politics as the necessarily-public form of ethics, defined politics itself as "resolution of moral conflict, or ethics, in public". From this point of view, one may have no right to political privacy, and even such measures as a secret ballot may be denied based on the grounds that political differences between neighbors or friends must be open, in order to avoid over-empowering some central authority.
Fear of such a central authority, that argument goes, is the problem, and knowing there is no political privacy, people become maximally motivated to ensure that the central authority has no arbitrary power. Junius said that "the subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures." Knowing that such measures might be directed against oneself may be the strongest possible motivation to avoid advising them against others.
Read more about this topic: Political Privacy
Famous quotes containing the words arguments for, arguments, limitation, political and/or privacy:
“Compared to football, baseball is almost an Oriental game, minimizing individual stardom, requiring a wide range of aggressive and defensive skills, and filled with long periods of inaction and irresolution. It has no time limitations. Football, on the other hand, has immediate goals, resolution on every single play, and a lot of violenceitself a highlight. It has clearly distinguishable hierarchies: heroes and drones.”
—Jerry Mander, U.S. advertising executive, author. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, ch. 15, Morrow (1978)
“Because a person is born the subject of a given state, you deny the sovereignty of the people? How about the child of Cuban slaves who is born a slave, is that an argument for slavery? The one is a fact as well as the other. Why then, if you use legal arguments in the one case, you dont in the other?”
—Franz Grillparzer (17911872)
“The French are certainly misunderstood:Mbut whether the fault is theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with that exact limitation and precision which one would expect ... or whether the fault may not be altogether on our side ... I shall not decide.”
—Laurence Sterne (17131768)
“What drivel it all is!... A string of words called religion. Another string of words called philosophy. Half a dozen other strings called political ideals. And all the words either ambiguous or meaningless. And people getting so excited about them theyll murder their neighbours for using a word they dont happen to like. A word that probably doesnt mean as much as a good belch. Just a noise without even the excuse of gas on the stomach.”
—Aldous Huxley (18941963)
“Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more private and familiar, and at the same time, a more public and universal word, than is spoken in parlor or pulpit nowadays.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)