05-14-2008, 11:42 AM
This is a version of the very popular “The innocent have nothing to fear” argument, which is wheeled out whenever authorities wish to bring in new measures which increase surveillance or limit freedoms in the name of increasing security. For example, someone demands to search your luggage. You object to this intrusion on your privacy, but you are told that if you are innocent, you have no reason to object. After all, what are you trying to hide?
The argument is a particular species of false dichotomy. You are presented with a simple either/or choice. Either you’re guilty, and so should be exposed; or you are innocent, in which case nothing will be exposed, and so you have nothing to worry about. Either way, you have no legitimate reason to be concerned. Like all false dichotomies, the problem is that there is at least one more option than the two offered in the either/or choice.
You think you’re so innocent, try proving it. That’s what “nothing to hide” is about: destroying the notion of innocent until proven guilty, meant to protect we the people from abuse of power, and instituting the barbaric notion of guilty until proven innocent, where anyone can be searched, anyone can be seized, and sometimes, even the trial can be dispensed with. It’s about getting Americans used to the idea of proving their innocence at every opportunity, putting them on trial at the airport or at the roadside. After all, anybody who doesn’t want to prove their innocence must be guilty of something.
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this is more for those reading, than you WH2 - you and braz are lost causes fer sure, you both would have made great nazi's
sm
[signature]
The argument is a particular species of false dichotomy. You are presented with a simple either/or choice. Either you’re guilty, and so should be exposed; or you are innocent, in which case nothing will be exposed, and so you have nothing to worry about. Either way, you have no legitimate reason to be concerned. Like all false dichotomies, the problem is that there is at least one more option than the two offered in the either/or choice.
You think you’re so innocent, try proving it. That’s what “nothing to hide” is about: destroying the notion of innocent until proven guilty, meant to protect we the people from abuse of power, and instituting the barbaric notion of guilty until proven innocent, where anyone can be searched, anyone can be seized, and sometimes, even the trial can be dispensed with. It’s about getting Americans used to the idea of proving their innocence at every opportunity, putting them on trial at the airport or at the roadside. After all, anybody who doesn’t want to prove their innocence must be guilty of something.
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this is more for those reading, than you WH2 - you and braz are lost causes fer sure, you both would have made great nazi's
sm
[signature]