Opinion: Edward Snowden is a patriot

boing
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Do you appreciate the irony of your choice of comparisons?

You may want to do some research on the topic.

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Snowden took the only road left open to him by the US government. It is the government’s behaviour that necessitates people to do what Snowden did. Previous whistleblowers have had their lives destroyed, have been illegally incarcerated and tortured. Leaving the country was the only reasonable option Snowden had.

Don’t like what he did? Then re-institute the rule of law and the constitution. Don’t like whistleblowers fleeing the country? Then don’t make them flee the country. Don’t like whistleblowers at all? Then don’t do these things that would make any moral person blow the whistle.

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He didn’t give up allegiance to the US State for another one. If he did, what other State has he pledged his allegiance too?

If on the other hand you are saying that defector is one who gives up his allegiance to the State, then I will agree completely. In that case, he is certainly a defector. He gave up his allegiance to the State and instead patriotically pledged his allegiance to the American people in defiance of the State. Fuck the state. We could use more heroic “defectors”.

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“But Mom, I was totally going to reevaluate our surveillance protocol and be more transparent! You’ve got no right to embarrass me in front of my friends about how you did it yourself! I was gonna do it! You are so mean I hate you!”

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Yeah, I was totally going to do that. I mean, like I promised, back in late 2007. Just getting around to it… We were busy with other stuff, like being less transparent, pushing through FISA, and then some drone strike stuff. But we were totally going to do this anyway, you guys! At the very least we would have had a press conference about it, and let it blow over. But now this guy- this meddling KID- comes along, who is totally NOT a patriot, and blows our big surprise! I have half a mind to just call it off, because it’s all ruined now.

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You know, I’ve just got to add. . . this whole ‘allegiance to a Country before humanity’ concept is all kinds of fucked up.

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Hell, there are plenty of people who think you have to be dead to gain the moral high ground. Most of them are the powerful and the privileged. We’ll celebrate Dr King’s day, but don’t anybody get any ideas.

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So basically, Snowden went out and fulfilled Obama’s campaign promise from back in Yes We Can '08.
In 2013, Snowden kept the Obama of '08 honest, and for that he gets Obama’s stern scowl and “tough love”.
Topsy-turvy is the world of power, ain’t it.

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Are you going to come out and argue? Or are you just a cowardly troll?

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"“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
― Mario Savio
Berkeley Free Speech Movement 1964

I believe Edward Snowden put his body on the gears of the machine.

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'turfer MO:

  1. get in early
  2. troll bomb
  3. leave 'em wanting more
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Then he did it wrong.

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Ahahaha! Touche.

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Snowden has sacrificed and risked a lot to bring these matters to his country’s attention (“likely” patriotic), and has obviously only begun trying to save himself second, but any self-preservation is too much for you vultures.

Thank you so much for saying this. The dolts disparaging Snowden do a massive disservice to their country (and the world for that matter) by helping to discourage more patriotic whistleblowers from coming forward.

Whistleblowers rising against governmental and quasi-governmental overreach and corruption are a precious, national resource and should be treated as such.

You really have to abandon logic by leaps and bounds to conjecture that Snowden didn’t perform a valuable act of valor here. I believe some disparage him because they are challenged when it comes to critical thinking, then others have an agenda from on-high… and then there’s the jingoistic, dogmatic nationalists that are suffering from cognitive dissonance as their errant, precious beliefs are increasingly destroyed by the escalating leaks. They just can’t cope. Then some are, well, just plain dense.

They’ve tried everything against Snowden and as more info comes out that supports him, the more some of them keep descending into buffoonish denial. (Here’s looking at YOU, Obama)

Despite these wayward individuals, more of us need to stand up for Snowden and show other potential whistleblowers that not all Americans are ingrates, are dense and want to continue allowing the corrupt to continue to run this country into the ground.

Some of us are fucking over it.

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deadsoulswalk said:
Snowden is a defector.

chenille said: Damn straight - Snowden was part of the NSA, which has been treating the public as their enemy, and he defected to the public’s side. How come nobody questions the patriotism of the other workers, who have been upholding their contracts at the expense of the constitution, just the one guy who decided to stand up for something?

Thank you, this is exactly what too many Americans don’t get. Someone sitting silently as they help to trash our United States Constitution while protecting and enabling the corrupt is a disgusting act of cowardice and is treasonous. Yet, here are people trashing on someone like Snowden who not only stood up for principle, but also for our increasingly bullet-ridden, stomped upon, beleaguered U.S. Constitution.

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It’s Nobel time.

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For what it’s worth, somebody -ahem- has been trolling Daily Kos with the same post, verbatim. What a surprise, it’s a new account.

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This is exactly it. You have perfectly, succinctly defined the doublespeak we are facing here on this issue. To those in power, patriots are people who obey. To those not in power, patriotism has a completely different meaning.

The only way he’s not a patriot is if you define patriot as someone who loves, obeys and serves the US government. But to someone who sees the US as the American people, rather than the government, Snowden can only be considered a patriot.

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You’ll have to now somehow prove that he has allegiance to Russia.

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Your definition of patriotic is off-base. I’d suggest you check your references and try again.

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