Words Fail Me
An article in the on-line version of the National Post discusses an Angus Reid poll that says, among other things, that 63% of Canadians believe that “the need for safety trumps individual privacy rights“.
Have Canadians always been such a nation of Nervous Nellies? At what point did we arrive at this particular place and time where a majority of us actually want others to watch where we go, and what we do when we get there?
Maybe it’s time to enter into a national debate about whether or not the humble and hard working beaver which does value its’ privacy should continue to be our national animal.
Line 50 people up and ask what sound a beaver makes and you’ll probably get 49 different noises but the cry of the Lesser Canadian Nervous Nelly appears to be known by many…… imagine it at public venues everywhere, ringing through the streets, and the hills, and across the vast expanse of the Prairies and the Arctic barrens - “if you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear, if you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear“.
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Stageleft, it was a VERY poorly written polling question. Compare the two questions.
OR
Note the use of the word “always” in the second options, NOT present or even suggested in the first option. I can think of a few situations in which safety concerns come before individual privacy rights; therefore, even though my opinion is MUCH closer to response than response 1, I can’t accurately respond (2).
Poor wording or not, my sense is that people are generally willing to sacrifice privacy for a perceived increase in safety. I think Canadian society — and probably western as well — is more and more reluctant to accept even modest risk.
Anecdote 1: Video camera’s proliferate in public spaces.
Anecdote 2: The 8 year old came home the other day and instructed me that she needed a new bike helmet The helmet police had been to her school and told the auditorium full of kids that if they dropped their helmet it damage it and it wouldn’t help them and they would die.
Anecdote 3: All gas stations in BC require by law that you pre-pay for your fuel because some kid was run down while trying to take down the license plate number or a gas and dash jerk. Everyone in the province is subjected to a small inconvenience to eliminate the infinitesimally small possibility that a gas station attendant will get hurt.
I think the willingness to subordinate privacy to improved security is an example of a broader trend or not allowing people to be exposed to risk — even if they’re adults making an informed decision.
It doesn’t bother me that some people are willing to give up their privacy to gain more safety. What bothers me is that they’re so willing to give up my privacy!
“All gas stations in BC require by law that you pre-pay for your fuel… ”
And do all grocery stores require pre-payment before shopping? Surely some “grab and go” grocery shopper would pose a danger to a clerk rushing out to get the thief’s license number.
Assinine.
A compelling reason to never visit BC. I’d not have a place I’d be willing to gas my car. I won’t do business with people who automatically assume I’m a thief. Apparently, the people of BC (in the persons of their elected officials) assume everyone is a thief and that every gas station attendant is an idiot. I don’t know enough BC inhabitants to assess the liklihood of either, but if this is what/how BC inhabitants think, I see no reason to even pass through.
balbulican: Poor wording or not those are the numbers that various levels of government will quote and use to justify the next round of privacy invasions.
Chimera: And that is the problem, the Nervous Nellies are not only willing to give up their own privacy but, in their fear, willingly hand over mine and yours as well.
David: I recall two summers ago when gas prices here went through the roof for a while and the gas station I usually frequented decided to go with a “pay before you pump policy“. Customers found out when the fuel didn’t flow and they went in to ask why - they lost my business the day it happened to me.
I suspect this poll was poorly worded on purpose. This is a Frank Luntz trick that guys like Pierre Polievre know very well…word the question to get the answer you want, that supports your position, whether its true or not is irrelevant.
Check out this from Penn and Teller Bullshit to see what I mean
I believe the poll. It’s horrible. Canadians also believe other silly things like: democracy is the most important ideal (above civil rights), that multiculturalism is the same as acceptance of other ethnicities and races, etc.
In fact, this poll proves why democracy is often such a horrible thing… Most people also support the death penalty. But majority is not the same as right.
Democracy is actually a horrible system. The worst accept all others, to invoke Churchill. It’s only tenable because we balance it against individual rights. People make the erroneous mistake that Democracy itself enables individual rights, when it reality, it only enables majority rights, to the great exclusion of others.
It’s easily demonstrated by simple, dumb, examples like: if 99.99% of Canadians voted in a referendum to kill all third-born children at age 10, is it right?
Of course if a plurality of this size existed, constitutional law would probably be moot, but that’s another story.
The point is we strive for the protection of individual rights. It’s why I am against Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and other measures by which we invade the sanctum of liberty.
Sure, if we ran a poll, I have no doubt that 60% of people would support limiting “hate speech”, if not more. But 60% of people shouldn’t get to decide what the other 40% get to say, even if we find no utility in the nature of their speech. It’s not our right to decide that either.
I appreciate your libertarianism stageleft, and I have great respect for it. I am usually in agreement with you on most of the posts you right around the subject of liberty. We could seriously share some common causes, I think.
@David-
Get ready for it in your own province. The crusade has already convinced legislators in several other provinces. Ontario is next I think.
All one needs to do is look south of the border to see how far people are willing to go for “safety.” Warrantless wiretapping? Sure why not. Listen in. As long as I feel safe. Look at Britain, where you are on camera several times a day (In London at least). As long as we’re safe right? How far away are micro-chips? Retina scans? Scary shit.
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