The old “I’ve got nothing to hide” excuse

I really try to stay away from talking about my family but this item is the height of selective blindness. It is this: my family finds absolutely nothing wrong with the fact that the government is reading their mail, listening to their phone calls, following them on the Internet or has the ability to break into their house and arrest them, take them to jail, not let them have access to an attorney and, basically, disappear. This is cool. It’s part of the two Patriot Acts and the Military Commissions Act. Those are laws of the land. Nothing wrong with that. Why is it okay with my family? Because, “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
I think this is ignorant. Worse, they are ignorant of their ignorance. I guess they’re waiting for Eve to bite into the apple, which is both the fruit of the tree of life and the fruit of love. Interesting pairing, that.
But let’s put aside my prejudice and look at their excuse: I’ve got nothing to hide.
It is selfish. It is only concerned with them, themselves. As if to say, to hell with anyone else. This is, of course, the ultimate in individualism, as it has been re-interpreted since Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists brought it up. For Emerson and the Transcendentalists, no individual is separate from the community; the community helps define the individual. That is, to be totally, 100% an individual is antithetical to social stability. It is anarchy; that is, everyone doing what they want regardless of the effects it may have on anyone else. Some might say it guts the social contract. It is, indeed, a denial of social responsibility. It is a denial of involvement. It is irresponsible behavior. It is utter chaos. Of course, if you’re part of society, you are part of what society does and the repercussions of those actions. As Karl Jaspers noted in A Question of German Guilt, everyone is guilty. Everyone. He does not exclude himself, even though he ran from the fascist regime.
So, to claim total independence from society via one’s claiming individual choice is irresponsible.
My family, too, believes it is making its own choice, without bias or forethought. They read the conservative Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal and then, I’m told, make up their own minds what to believe. To someone of little brain like myself or Winnie the Pooh, this sounds a little like they’ve made up their minds before they begin. That is, they’ve chosen ahead of time which information outlet to pay attention to, ignoring all the rest, before they “make up their own minds.” Another word for this is “prejudice,” I think. As my family are self-proclaiming Christians, I can see where they get this kind of logic.
But, here, with their professed Christianity, there is another conundrum–dare I say contradiction? Paradox? Christianity is supposed to be a religion of love and respect for your fellow man, even your enemy. Yet, in the “I’ve got nothing to hide” syndrome, there is no love nor no respect or consideration for their fellow men. As long as they are home free, everything’s hunky-dory. It is saying, as God’s chosen are wont to say, I’m good but y’all are sinners. I’m better than you are, na-na-na-na-nah! Wilhelm Reich has pointed out this is fascist thinking, maintaining all religions are this way: my way is right, so yours is wrong. [The Mass Psychology of Fascism] This means, of course, that you, the wrong one, can die because, being wrong, you can’t be saved, you’re not one of us, you’re expendable. Ergo, “I’ve got nothing to hide” means I’m right, you’re wrong and so you deserve what you get.
There is an inherent superiority in this, a kind of hubris. I think the cliché, coming from ancient Greek, is “pride cometh before the fall.” Such a tragedy.
But. . .do they have nothing to hide? Are they sure they have nothing to hide?
To maintain “I’ve got nothing to hide” means that they know, for sure, what the government is looking for. That is, they can read the government’s mind. Like some women can read the minds of all men via “that look in their eyes” and Christians know God’s plan even though God’s ken is way beyond a human’s ability to comprehend. Truly, how sure are they?
In fact, it doesn’t matter whether they’ve got nothing to hide or not. If someone else is nailed and they have a connection with a member of my family, my family is implicated and disappeared. If the other person bears a grudge, of the sort found with Montressor for Fortunato [Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amantillado], then my family’s name will fall off that other person’s lips like drool from a toothing baby’s mouth. Also, their being picked up puts me in dire straits and I’m not even in America. Their “I’ve got nothing to hide” that got them into trouble by someone else’s say-so–commonly called hearsay evidence–screws me. That they feel no guilt over this possibility is frightening, though not out of line with prior behavior: when the ICU wanted my next-of-kin and I sent a friend to contact my family, my family did not respond. How unfortunate for my family that I survived.
But let’s assume, just for kicks, that the person disappeared is someone they do like, someone close to them that they respect. When he’s disappeared, do you think they’ll look into the matter, call up to find out where he is? Run on down to his house to see where he’s gotten to? He’s not been seen for so long. Do you think they’ll stand up for the disappeared and maintain his innocence? Do ya, huh? I don’t. I think they know better than to step out of line and be honest and upright and, as they will be more than likely to say, stick their nose into business that isn’t theirs. After all, who’s important?! This is fear. This is the fear their government wishes to instill in its subjects–er, citizens. This is the fear they’ve snapped up like that fly the frog ate for dinner. This is the fear that makes them forget they’re human and they’ve got friends.
If you can’t trust no one, who can you trust?
So. . .they are inconsiderate, inhumane, innocent, irresponsible and ignorant yet. . . they have nothing to hide. And they have an ethics problem. Stephen Pepper would consider them psychologically diseased, seeing some people as expendable and themselves not. [World Hypotheses]
I may be over-reacting here but I’m frightened of these people. They know not what they do. And. . .they know not what they say. And they don’t give a damn, just as long as they’re left alone. I’m innocent! I’m innocent! I ain’t done nothin’!
Let me see if I can make my family clearer for you. . .”I didn’t know why they were cramming all them Jews into them box cars at machine gun point.” And, “I ain’t never heard o’ no concentration camps. Ain’t that whar ya larn how to thank real hard?”
My family’s about as clever as Br’er Bear:
Well, Brer Fox, he was plenty mad that he’d worked so hard on those peas only to have them eaten by someone else. He suspected that Brer Rabbit was to blame for this, but the rascally rabbit had covered his tracks so well that Brer Fox couldn’t catch him. So Brer Fox came up with a plan. He found a smooth spot in his fence where a cunning rabbit could sneak in, and he set a trap for Brer Rabbit at that spot. He tied a rope to a nearby hickory sapling and bent it nearly double. Then he took the other end of the rope and made a loop knot that he fastened with a trigger right around the hole in the fence. If anybody came through the crack to steal his peas, the knot would tighten around their body, the sapling would spring upright, and they would be left hanging from the tree for everyone to see.
The next morning, Brer Rabbit came a-slipping through the hole in the fence. At once, the trigger sprung, the knot tightened on his forelegs, and the hickory tree snapped upright, quick as you please. Brer Rabbit found himself swung aloft betwixt the heaven and the earth, swinging from the hickory sapling. He couldn’t go up and he couldn’t go down. He just went back and forth.
Brer Rabbit was in a fix, no mistake. He was trying to come up with some glib explanation for Brer Fox when he heard someone a-rumbling and a-bumbling down the road. It was Brer Bear, looking for a bee-tree so he could get him some honey. As soon as Brer Rabbit saw Brer Bear, he came up with a plan to get himself free.
“Howdy, Brer Bear,” he called cheerfully. Brer Bear squinted around here and there, wondering where the voice had come from. Then he looked up and saw Brer Rabbit swinging from the sapling.
“Howdy Brer Rabbit,” he rumbled. “How are you this morning?”
“Middling, Brer Bear,” Rabbit replied. “Just middling.”
Brer Bear was wondering why Brer Rabbit was up in the tree, so he asked him about it. Brer Rabbit grinned and said that he was earning a dollar-a-minute from Brer Fox.
“A dollar-a-minute!” Brer Bear exclaimed. “What for?”
“I’m keeping the crows away from his goober patch,” Brer Rabbit explained, and went on to say that Brer Fox was paying a dollar-a-minute to whomever would act as a scarecrow for him.
Well, Brer Bear liked the sound of that. He had a big family to feed, and he could use the money. When Brer Rabbit asked him if he would like to have the job, Brer Bear agreed. Brer Rabbit showed him how to bend the sapling down and remove the knot from his forepaws. When Brer Rabbit was free, Brer Bear climbed into the knot and soon he was hanging aloft betwixt heaven and earth, swing to and from the sapling and growling at the birds to keep them away from the goober patch. [Bre'r Rabbit Earns A Dollar A Day, Joel Chandler Harris]

Or, maybe, they’re suffering from George Warren’s little canary, Chippie, syndrome:
Once there was a parakeet named Chippie. Chippie loved to sing because he didn’t have a care in the world! Chippie had a wonderful life in his birdcage until one day something happened to bring all of that to an end. It was the day his owner decided to clean the cage floor with her canister vacuum cleaner. She put the nozzle in the cage and started vacuuming the floor of the cage, and at that moment her telephone rang. She turned around to pick it up, and inadvertently pointed the nozzle up into the air–right at Chippie! She sucked poor Chippie into the vacuum cleaner, head first! Well, she panicked and threw down the phone, turned off the vacuum cleaner and quickly opened up the bag. And sure enough, there was Chippie on the inside–dazed and stunned and covered with dust. She quickly grabbed him and raced off to the bathroom and washed all the dust off, but then the tiny bird began shivering, soaking wet. And so, she did what every compassionate bird owner would do. She reached for her hot air drier and turned it on and blasted poor old Chippie with hot air! Well, a few days later, the friend on the phone called to see how Chippie was doing, and I love the woman’s reply. She said, Well, I’m not sure. He doesn’t sing anymore. He just sits here and stares! [When Your World Is Falling Apart, Look Up]

Tags: christianity, family, government, hide, military commisions act, patriot act, secor