There’s a reference book called the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, which is how I know that it was some five-and-a-half centuries ago that a book first declared, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Actually, in that 1576 book, Petit Palace, attributed to someone named G. Pettie, the phrasing was, “So long as I knoweth it not, it hurteth me not.”
Either way, it’s bunk. We are constantly harmed by what we don’t know – endangered by the darkness that surrounds a lot of life. That’s especially true nowadays, I’d say, when you consider the power of government over our lives – power to defend us, tax us, punish us, and, in its better moments, to sustain and empower us. If we are kept in the dark about what government is doing in our name, that ignorance leaves us at risk.
That’s why citizens, especially during the second half of the 20th century, insisted that open government laws be enacted at the local, state and federal level. And they’ve been a real success story in government. The laws vary, and they are weakened by exceptions, but they generally require that public bodies conduct open meetings and that public documents be available for our inspection…