Edward Snowden: American Hero

#301
#301
Obsessed said:
Dream?

Your president took all my dreams.



My scenario fit perfectly. I caught you with your pants down. Your scenario fit perfect with history. You failed.
Click to expand...

Please, do explain, then. Explain how an inaccurate Paul Revere quote relates to a hypothetical scenario in which you can either sacrifice the tiniest amount of therealUT's notion of "absolute liberty" to create a classified "state secret" or fight a losing battle and completely destroy your country's liberty altogether, in which those are the only two options.

Spell it out for me.
 
#302
#302
notabed22 said:
Please, do explain, then. Explain how an inaccurate Paul Revere quote relates to a hypothetical scenario in which you can either sacrifice the tiniest amount of therealUT's notion of "absolute liberty" to create a classified "state secret" or fight a losing battle and completely destroy your country's liberty altogether, in which those are the only two options.

Spell it out for me.
Click to expand...

If you don't understand by now, you never will. TRUT is much better at these things in breaking down scenarios. Me. Not so much. I assume the person has enough sense to get the basics of what I'm after.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
#303
#303
therealUT said:
Well, it is not outside the logical possibilities. Sorry to have to break that to you.

OK. I believe that my scenario has a real world possibility. I don't think yours does.

I'm not uncomfortable at all with your scenario. Before you brought it forth I had already explicitly stated that risking the lives of seven billion was not problematic for me .

In the scenario, there is no risk of losing liberty. It is a given. There is no liberty to be gained by fighting.


So, would you rape the infant?
Click to expand...

Why do you ask this question. It has nothing at all to do with the subject (state secrets vs liberty) at hand?

Is this becoming personal for you? It was not intended to be personal to you or anyone else. You are the only person who responded. (Well, Hog did, briefly. But he has exited the discussion.)
 
#304
#304
Obsessed said:
If you don't understand by now, you never will. TRUT is much better at these things in breaking down scenarios. Me. Not so much. I assume the person has enough sense to get the basics of what I'm after.
Click to expand...

... are you a really trying to play a grammar school game here?

I clearly do not understand the basics of what you're after. Frankly, I'm almost positive that this "scenario" of yours doesn't make any sense at all. No, not in the "that makes no sense" way that encompasses how I feel about most of what you say, but in a way where it actually doesn't connect remotely to the topic at hand in the way that you think it does.

So, please, do try to explain what you're trying to imply by saying "The British are coming! The British are coming!"
 
#305
#305
therealUT said:
Fight. If someone else destroys my liberty and my way of life, that is not on me.

Fiat justitia ruat caelum.
Click to expand...

When you say to declassify everything and "fight in the light" you are either trolling or speaking foolishly. You wouldn't leave your ATM card and pin on the street regardless of which philosophy you follow. Yes, you can say the thief made a choice and it is his actions that caused you to lose all your money, but the outcome was predictable and you initiated it.

you wouldn't divulge your plan to fight the enemy you would protect it. You would protect your unit locations, orders and encrypt your communications to prevent the enemy from gaining an unfair advantage. Likewise you would try to discover the enemies locations and plans to give yourself an advantage. All philosophy aside, war is pragmatic and fairness plays no part. All of this calls for keeping secrets and a system of classification.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4 people
#306
#306
Danl said:
Why do you ask this question. It has nothing at all to do with the subject (state secrets vs liberty) at hand?

Is this becoming personal for you? It was not intended to be personal to you or anyone else. You are the only person who responded. (Well, Hog did, briefly. But he has exited the discussion.)
Click to expand...

Wait, now we have moved on to "real world possibility"? And, you think a scenario in which North Korea invades the US and the individuals running the United States know without a doubt that the war will be lost and the US will turn into another North Korea is a "real world possibility"?

Since when is knowing the future a "real world possibility"?

You brought up a hypothetical. By default, this is in the land of logical possibilities. Guess what, so long as there is no contradiction, everything non-contradictory falls within the realm of logical possibilities. Saying, "I would rape an infant" falls within logical possibilities. Saying, "Country B will ask you to rape an infant", again, falls within logical possibilities. "You will rape an infant and you will not rape an infant" does not fall within the range of logical possibilities, since it is a contradiction.

So, again, I ask: would you rape the infant?

If you want to disqualify this question, you are going to have to present an argument as to why this question ought to be disqualified while yours shall remain. As I have already stated, "real world possibilities" disqualifies your question as well.

Maybe you can get into some range of probabilities. But, the probability you assign to absolutely knowing the future is going to be less than the probability I assign to the raping of the infant.
 
#307
#307
YorkVol said:
When you say to declassify everything and "fight in the light" you are either trolling or speaking foolishly. You wouldn't leave your ATM card and pin on the street regardless of which philosophy you follow. Yes, you can say the thief made a choice and it is his actions that caused you to lose all your money, but the outcome was predictable and you initiated it.

You wouldn't divulge your plan to fight the enemy you would protect it. You would protect your unit locations, orders and encrypt your communications to prevent the enemy from gaining an unfair advantage. Likewise you would try to discover the enemies locations and plans to give yourself an advantage. All philosophy aside, war is pragmatic and fairness plays no part. All of this calls for keeping secrets and a system of classification.
Click to expand...

Negative. Your analogy does not hold. My ATM card is my ATM card. My government is my government. My ATM card does not belong to others. My government does belong to me. Further, my government professes to defend liberty above all else; my bank professes to defend my money.

Further, my government professes to be a representative government. By hiding information from me, a citizen, it is keeping me from being informed and making informed choices; thus, it cannot truly represent my interests.

As for the talk of tactics and strategy in war, this is not something about which I have not spent hours thinking. My ideals certainly commit me to thinking that any expeditionary wars are dubious, at best. However, fighting to protect one's life and liberty at and within the borders of one's country poses no theoretical difficulty. If the nation being attacked is truly representative (i.e., truly respects the liberty and autonomy of those within, and without, its borders), then there will be few, if any, enemies of said nation within the borders. Thus, knowledge of where the fighting is occurring and what tactics are being used is not necessarily destructive to the cause.

However, history demonstrates, time and again, that when liberties are given over from the people to the state in exigent situations in order to provide security, these liberties are never given back to the people from the state. This bears out as far back as Herodotus and Thucydides. When these liberties have been recaptured, they have been just that: recaptured. And, quite frequently, in more violent struggles than the original struggles which resulted in the surrender of said liberties.
 
#309
#309
myrobbins7 said:
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has told a Hong Kong newspaper that the U.S. government has been hacking Hong Kong and Chinese networks for at least four years.

The comments were made as part of the South China Morning Post's exclusive interview with Snowden — his first since revealing himself on Sunday.

SNOWDEN: US Has Been Hacking China - Business Insider
Click to expand...

Snowden would be making a huge mistake by exposing intelligence operations against foreign countries. If he does that, he will be viewed as a turncoat instead of a loyal American defending the Constitution.
 
#310
#310
Vol Main said:
Snowden would be making a huge mistake by exposing intelligence operations against foreign countries. If he does that, he will be viewed as a turncoat instead of a loyal American defending the Constitution.
Click to expand...

I agree that this does not seem to cohere with his stated strategy.

I'm thinking that it is quite possible that the US has planted this story with SCMP in an effort to bait Snowden into trying to contact other reporters to refute the story, thus having to surface.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#311
#311
therealUT said:
I agree that this does not seem to cohere with his stated strategy.

I'm thinking that it is quite possible that the US has planted this story with SCMP in an effort to bait Snowden into trying to contact other reporters to refute the story, thus having to surface.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Demonize him and he loses the publics support
 
#312
#312
therealUT said:
I agree that this does not seem to cohere with his stated strategy.

I'm thinking that it is quite possible that the US has planted this story with SCMP in an effort to bait Snowden into trying to contact other reporters to refute the story, thus having to surface.
Click to expand...

This sounds totally plausible to me.
 
#313
#313
therealUT said:
I agree that this does not seem to cohere with his stated strategy.

I'm thinking that it is quite possible that the US has planted this story with SCMP in an effort to bait Snowden into trying to contact other reporters to refute the story, thus having to surface.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's what im starting to think also.
 
#315
#315
Clutch conspiracy theory reaction. Definitely more plausible than Edward, our hero, doing something less than glowing.
 
#317
#317
therealUT said:
I agree that this does not seem to cohere with his stated strategy.

I'm thinking that it is quite possible that the US has planted this story with SCMP in an effort to bait Snowden into trying to contact other reporters to refute the story, thus having to surface.
Click to expand...

I agree with this as well. China already knows that we spy on them and engage in cyber-warfare as well, so this is not news to them.
 
#318
#318
notabed22 said:
Clutch conspiracy theory reaction. Definitely more plausible than Edward, our hero, doing something less than glowing.
Click to expand...

I never said that it was less than glowing. If Snowden actually made these comments to SCMP, then my opinion of him does not change.

I just do not dismiss the possibility that he did not make these comments. It does not jive with his interview. Further, I find it odd that one would flee a hotel, disappear in Hong Kong, and then, merely one day later, make contact with anyone in Hong Kong in which he is identifying himself.

If he really was not going to hide, then why jet from the first hotel so quickly?
 
#319
#319
Danl said:
In the scenario it is not a "risk" that the bad guys would win and strip you, if you survive, and your family of their liberty. It is a given.

It is a "risk" in the scenario that your liberty would be further eroded beyond this one "state secret".

Is your answer still fight, die, and sentence your family and everyone else to a life without liberty?
Click to expand...

The only given there is that they would kill me with a gun in my hand, that of my wife and both my son's. Probably in both hands. I can assure you that I would take plenty of them with me.
 
#320
#320
Danl said:
OK. I think you might just be dancing. But on the chance that you're not....

...let's add to the scenario that you (or Hog) are the benevolent monarch of CA. It is your decision whether to establish and maintain a state secret, thereby preserving most of your citizens' liberty or fight a fight that you know for a fact you and your country will lose, thus losing all of your liberty.

What would you do?
Click to expand...

If I was the monarch of California I would kick all the Libs out and turn it into a vacation mecca. Would pretty much be the FL of the left coast without all the old people. I would be the only old person allowed.
 
#321
#321
notabed22 said:
Really though, you don't see how crazy it is to fight a losing battle in the name of liberty as opposed to keeping a "state secret" to avoid war and preserve your nation and the vast majority of its liberties?
Click to expand...

Why would we lose? You get upset when people label you for what you are. WTF do we call someone who assumes that we would lose a terrorist invasion? I know what I would call them but Freak would ban me in about 10 seconds.
 
#322
#322
allvol123 said:
Even if his philosophies would lead to the death of this country that in no way makes them worse than yours. For yours are certainly doing the same thing, just more slowly.
Click to expand...

Hell, we've already lost. He can't conceive of having to fight because he is scared of guns. Maybe he could throw rocks?
 

Attachments

  • obamathrow2.jpg
    obamathrow2.jpg
    84.9 KB · Views: 2
#324
#324
Vol Main said:
Snowden would be making a huge mistake by exposing intelligence operations against foreign countries. If he does that, he will be viewed as a turncoat instead of a loyal American defending the Constitution.
Click to expand...

Drone bait.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top