Mark Tapscott Quotes
Why does the White House sometimes seem so determined to close the door on the people's right to know what their government is doing?
Mark Tapscott, Director of The Media and Public Policy Center, The Heritage Foundation, The Washington Post, November 20, 2002
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had released an unclassified Summary of the Committee Report on the CIA using torture and perverse treatment of suspect terrorists in the aftermath of the 9-11 attack on New York. Most Republicans argued vehemently that the Report should be classified and kept secret as the CIA behavior was so egregious, unpalatable, and morally reprehensible that there would be negative consequences including perhaps demonstrations and attacks against Americans in foreign countries. Moreover, Terrorist organizations would use the heinous CIA behavior as a recruiting tool for anti-American terrorists. McCain, who had himself been the victim of North Vietnamese torture cited the moral and ethical reasons to prohibit torture but also explained what has been proven over and over again that torture victims will tell the torturer any nonsense that they think the torturer might believe just to get obtain relief from the agony of the torture.
The next article itemizes a few exceptions such as national security, but by and large government documents are accessible.
The Green Party and The Socialist Party had combined in an alliance. This was their publication. In addition to showing that the right to know and freedom of information was a major issue in other industrial democracies as well as the United States, the quotation is particularly interesting because the title of the article was used over 200 years before by none other than the American patriot, Patrick Henry. See {60328}. The phrase has been used many times in many lands since.
He was criticizing the George W. Bush Administration of his own party.
Before the Communists, the Nationalist Chinese government controlled the press even more so than the Communists did. And the Chinese Emperors before the Nationalists had a well educated elite of administrators who ran the government but the great mass of the people knew virtually nothing other than what the rulers wanted them to know. With mass illiteracy, there was no efficient way to communicate with the masses anyway. China, with a history of great intellectual accomplishment, has had the most ignorant people in the world by virtue of its size and general illiteracy.
