Dissenting voices worth a listen

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, August 22, 2007 9:12 PM PDT ∞

Kevin Keenan and I share an unfortunate character trait.

We both tend to tilt at windmills -- no matter how little traction our arguments make with our neighbors.

Keenan, who heads up the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, has taken the lead in trying to get North County cities (among others) to stop installing public surveillance cameras.

My arguments against human embryonic experimentation -- taking place quietly throughout many of the area's biotech labs -- are equally quixotic.

Both surveillance cameras and human stem cell research are popular with the public, despite Keenan's and my respective arguments that these technologies are taking away something fundamental to our lives.

Keenan's argument about cameras is that while there may be the appearance of short-term gains against crime, the evidence doesn't prove that. Not yet, anyway. Might not ever prove it.

Further, Keenan and the ACLU argue that the presence of the cameras is eroding our collective sense of privacy -- that we're voluntarily giving away our right to privacy, a right that once ceded is unlikely to be restored.

And yet, despite these powerful arguments -- which opponents of public surveillance cameras have been making since they first made an appearance a few years back -- public support for the cameras remains strong. They're a fact of life in much of Britain now, and proved popular when introduced on a large scale in Baltimore a few years back.

With people feeling increasingly vulnerable to crime (despite the fact that crime is no worse today than a generation ago), an immediate feeling of safety would seem to be carrying more weight than a less tangible worry about lost privacy.

Similarly, the claim that embryonic stem cell research may lead to cures for such frightening diseases as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and cancer has the public solidly in support of such research. Not a single line of research on embryonic stem cells has borne fruit yet (although adult stem cell research has already shown real promise), but people are afraid. And talking about creating a class of disposable humans -- which I strongly believe embryonic research to be -- just doesn't resonate the way talk of a cure for frightful diseases does. Embryos don't look like the rest of us, and so their rights don't seem to be our rights.

What's most disquieting about all this isn't that people don't agree with me (having teenagers has cured me of any illusion that I can argue the world into submission). Rather, it's the oft-stated belief that folks like myself and Keenan should simply shut up once it's clear majority opinion isn't with us. We see this same belief that only the majority position need be heard expressed on issues ranging from the war in Iraq (where the majority's position has changed with time) to immigration, the death penalty to abortion.

Here's the thing: Even though I don't share Keenan's opposition to public surveillance cameras (and I don't believe he agrees with my opposition to embryonic stem cell research), I'm kinda glad he's out there criticizing them, taking on the majority view.

Any opinion that can't withstand a little scrutiny, that feels threatened by a dissenting view -- well, that's probably an opinion that needs revisiting.

Contact columnist Jim Trageser at (760) 631-6628 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.

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