Public Disclosure

I feel that I must correct this statement.

Fundamental ideas of Liberalism are constitutions, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, capitalism, free trade, and the separation of church and state. This is a match to modern American libertarianism. American Democrats are more in line with European Socialism than Liberalism.

An example of what I mean is. Socialism dictates "public ownership" of production. Many great Progressives such a Teddy Roosevelt have advocated that businesses should be regulated by the community in which they reside rather than allowing the owner to exercise their property rights on their own property. If you desire another example feel free to pm me.

Now onto the topic at hand.

Gates: "No sensitive infor was in the leaked documents.

I am a huge proponent of a glass door government. I believe everything the government does should be broadcast-ed and monitored in an Orwellian sense. There should be no room (except the rest rooms obviously) that we do not have access to. Everything committee meeting should be on C-SPAN with a small army of reporters notating everything that is said. The only exception in my personal opinion to this should be list of Active operations,names of active CIA operatives, planned offensives in combat zones but, the documentation should be released upon the retirement of the operative (they can change the operatives name once they retire from the CIA to protect them from retribution from foreign governments or organizations. As far as Military operations are concerned the government should release the documentation after the operation has completed (redacting informant names or other sensitive names).

Another thing I believe should remain secret would be T.S.A guidelines for passenger screening, etc.

tl:dr Glass door government with prudent use of black sharpie.

you know i gotta say, with all the reasorces of the cia, nsa and fbi. it seems to me that if we REALLY wanted to keep these secret we would.

Do you see that as a dream or a tangible prospect (in terms of workability, not implementation)? There are inevitably plenty of decisions whose reasoning would not be easily communicated, and would be easily sabotaged a la 'death panels' etc. Governments cannot simply stop making tough decisions, and opening every nuance of every action to public 'debate' in the US would result only in a cycle of massive midterm losses for the incumbent party, and thus two years of polarisation and policy reversal. I don't see how government can function effectively under total and perpetual scrutiny.

Capitalization would do you some good, but otherwise I concur.

A lumbering bureaucracy could not function but, a small, efficient government could. This also requires an intelligent and informed population. Sadly, due to the burdensome size of our government and the level of celebration of ignorance amongst our population, this is nothing more than a dream.

Considering my libertarian/anarchist roots, I would prefer congress to move at a slower pace to analyze all the data and to allow healthy public discussion of the topic rather than trying to cram a 1,000 page bill down our throats (i.e. "obamacare") if congress wasn't so hellbent on forcing it through then maybe somebody in congress would have had the time to read damned thing! The population would have had more time to read the bill themselves thus reducing the hysteria. Also the U.S. population would have had ample time to address their concerns though their representatives but, as it stands that bill is nothing more than the government using the power of deadly force to force you to purchase a product or service you may not want or need. So basically, the corporations used their influence to cause panic amongst the population leading to utter chaos and no discussion of what truly was in the bill leading to a massive confiscation of wealth from the American population and redistribution to Government and Corporations.

If we had taken things slower and actually discussed the bill publicly then we would have had true reform and not wealth redistribution from American lower and middle class to the top echelons. Also the corruption such as the Cornhusker kickback, the union "exemption" from Obamacare until somewhere around 2020 (can't remember off hand).

While we would have more polarization the access to more dialogue would eventually even this out. Most of the polarization exists because of fear mongering amongst both parties being allowed to take certain stage in a fast paced political/media atmosphere (see drive by media). So, because we can't sit and discuss the issues we have fear mongering, ignorance and constant misunderstandings (a la death panels). We need to slow down, catch our breath and find our bearings then we can have truly productive governmental policy rather than knee jerk reactions to every shadow on our wall.

ugh, this leak pissed me off for two reasons.

One, it is about actions committed during war, and is being sent to and interpreted by people who are not in, and have most likely never been in, war, and have no way of understanding the motivations or rationale of the vast majority of wartime actions.

Two, with so much info, something is bound to be in there that is harmful to our military for an enemy to get its hands on, but the idiot published it anyway, because "everyone should know the truth, and if our government is ashamed to admit an action, it shouldn't have done it!" [Note: the previous quote should be thought of as in a whiny, nasally voice, in the most annoying and self righteous tone possible.]

Thats why people said secrets are best kept secrets. This is another fool but drastic example.