When you hear the word transparency, what comes to mind?

Chances are that you associate the word with a lot of good things, like openness, honesty,

accountability, and maybe even integrity. In a better world, those associations would be

accurate, but in the world of the progressive left, transparency means something very different.

And you need to be aware of that meaning or you risk becoming a victim of it.

Everybody on the left and the right agrees that transparency in government is a good thing.

With the exception of issues involving national security, the government should be transparent

in its dealings. The public has a right to know what the government is doing with your tax dollars.

But transparency means something completely different when it comes to the private,

non-government realm. Take, for example, where you choose to donate your money. Transparency in this case

means that there is a public record of your donation. Now, this might sound okay, but it isn't.

Why? Because it puts you on the radar of your political opponents and makes you a potential target.

Scott Eckeren was a theater director in Sacramento, California, who gave a $1,000 donation to support

the traditional definition of marriage. Maybe you don't agree with Scott's position. That's your

right. But the LA Times didn't just disagree. They put every single donation made by people like

Scott online. Scott Eckeren lost his job and others faced boycotts and blacklisting,

all because of so-called transparency in an area of life that should be private.

Through most of our nation's history, what happened to Scott Eckeren wouldn't have happened.

If you made a political donation, your identity was not exposed. But under pressure from the left,

this is changing. In New York, for example, it's now the law that if a non-profit organization

advocates against a position taken by an elected official, it must disclose to the government the

identities of all the organization's significant donors. Faced with this prospect, most people

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