“There has been an unholy alliance between those on the Left, who believe that man is endowed with rights but no duties, and libertarians on the Right, who believe that consumer choice is the answer to all social questions, an idea eagerly adopted by the Left in precisely those areas where it does not apply. Thus people have a right to bring forth children any way they like, and the children, of course, have the right not to be deprived of anything, at least anything material. How men and women associate and have children is merely a matter of consumer choice, of no more moral consequence than the choice between dark and milk chocolate, and the state must not discriminate among different forms of association and child rearing, even if such non-discrimination has the same effect as British and French neutrality during the Spanish Civil War.” Theodore Dalrymple

I don’t agree with everything Roger Scruton has to say on the matter but I think he has some very important points. He believes people, generally (and that’s crucial) need continuity to form identity, embedded in community, customs, tradition (not absolute and inmpervious to change) Edmund Burke, he’s your man.

“Plans to store information about every phone call, email and internet visit in the United Kingdom have in effect been abandoned by the Government.”

– http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/big-brother-database-cancelled-by-ministers-1817708.html

Detail: Conservatives tend to think that government has insufficient power to deal with actual criminals: robbers, rapists, murderers, terrorists. This isn’t really about government power. Conservatives also tend to think that individual people have insufficient power to deal with actual criminals. They are horrified by tales (often from England) of honest citizens being severely punished for defending their homes, when what they deserve is a medal and a parade.

Since they distrust government, they are presumably not unaware that handing over more power to government to deal with criminals can backfire, but it’s an imperfect world. The point is, sure, government is a problem. But criminals are also a problem. And the main responsibility of government is, after all, to keep the peace.

Anti-gun liberals are similarly concerned with keeping the peace, but they have a different idea of how best to go about it. They believe in preventing violence not by the disincentive of the prospect of being captured and punished, but by preventing people from having either the capacity to do it (in the form of weapons) or the initial incentive to commit a crime in the first place.

The people and organizations that have high stakes in the issue of privacy pay them to make privacy concerns “near”, and they hopefully work on the issues proactively, so we don’t have to.

I’m not certain how well it works, but I think it’s our best shot.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by apanizza: Robin Hanson on privacy or the lack of it ( in the UK now) http://bit.ly/629ufA...