re: #304 klys

Aside from our differences related to the connection between acting on principle and staying out of the clutches of law enforcement (which clearly you think is a much bigger deal than do I), we’re not that far apart, maybe. We’re certainly not adversaries.

I agree that Snowden made some remarks about the “dedication to civil rights” in Hong Kong which are completely unsupportable outside of a lunatic asylum, but I think I can understand that he may have been trying to box the Chinese in a bit with that - he may have felt that such (public) remarks would make it more “difficult” for the HK authorities to simply fold and turn him over. Doesn’t have to be true, it just has to be something he believed.

I do think that had he gone to a European nation he would have been arrested and extradited, and I do think I understand his reluctance to endure that outcome. Nor do I think that his apparent determination to remain “at large” detracts from what he says his motives are.

Greenwald has been, well, Greenwald, and to expect anything else is unrealistic, but we are where we are.
Perhaps Snowden could have found another way to bring this stuff to the front burner where I think we both believe it belongs, just as you suggest.
But he didn’t, and the fact that he did not find the most elegant method of disclosure doesn’t make me want to demonize him as much as many folks around here seem comfortable with.
We don’t know the extent to which there has been a “data dump” to the Chinese or the Russians. We do know that convincing people of that serves the interests of discrediting Snowden’s motives. I remain agnostic about whether that happened or not - the only evidence of it is the repeated insistence of those who believe it’s inevitable - but there is no way to objectively verify it. That’s a position which triggers derision here, and will boost my downvote collection, but there it is. Maybe I’ll get them framed one of these days.

On balance, I’m happy to see this issue brought front and center, even as I have some of the same dissatisfaction as you do. I’m skeptical that the Patriot Act would be the topic of discussion to the extent it now is without Snowden’s actions.
I’m also skeptical that those who remain enamored with Obama (I worked my ass off for his campaign in ‘08, for whatever that’s worth, and would not vote for today’s GOP at gunpoint) will enter this discussion with anything like the enthusiasm they had for the topic when we had a GOP president. I firmly believe this issue, and some others, transcend party loyalties. They do for me anyway.

Again, I appreciate that our discussion is forthright and civil. I think that matters, and I wish it were more common. There are many serious issues confronting the future that will be faced by future genrations, and now is not too soon to get serious about trying to deal with them.
LGF does a fine job of articulating the total fucking madness that is today’s GOP base (which is why I come here) and is an important part of the struggle.