Rebels without a cause
David Goodhart, writing in Prospect magazine, accuses Liberals of over-reaction that makes it harder to have a rational debate about the database state:
It might be useful if we started to see our data as similar to tax, something we willingly surrender to the authorities in return for various benefits, but over which there is also a political negotiation about how much to surrender. The liberty lobby, in this analogy, becomes the Thatcherite Taxpayers’ Alliance of the database state — wanting individuals to hoard their data and leaving the state powerless to serve citizens as it could.
Moreover, by turning these complex, technical debates into a story of noble defenders of liberty versus cynical, power-grabbing tyrants (whether politicians or officials) the liberty lobby reinforce the lazy anti-politics of the age—a sort of UKIP for the chattering classes.
March 26th, 2009 at 09:26
[...] Via NO2ID an article by David Goodhart on the database state. It starts badly and goes downhill from there on in. [...]
March 26th, 2009 at 10:11
The article is totally wrong-headed. I’ve responded here: http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2009/03/big-tax-big-government-big-brother.html
March 26th, 2009 at 12:04
Well like any other issue, there is a range of opinions represented in those opposed to the database state. It is utterly absurd and dishonest for Goodhart to claim that ‘liberals’ all take the most radical positions on the database state. He commits the same sin as those who see the government as ‘cynical power-grabbing tyrants’ by caricaturing his opponents.