Lord Larehip

I don't see much debate here about all this leaking stuff going on. I don't know if most Americans even understand what the govt is or why they are so against it. That realization came to me after Obamacare was passed and these old geezers were protesting with signs that read "Govt keep your hands off my Medicare!" ???

Do they understand what smaller govt means? Say an F5 tornado or 9.5 earthquake hits you and destroyed everything for miles around. Or take what happened when Katrina hit New Orleans. When Bush didn't respond for 4 days, the country was outraged!! And yet, folks, there's your small govt in action! That's what it means. Yes, it would be great if there were no taxes but that also means no disaster relief, no road/bridge repairs, no police to call when some armed crankhead is robbing your house, no medicare, no social security when you get too old to work, etc. Small govt means that no matter what happens--save a direct threat to national security such as 9-11--you are on your own so deal with it. Well, hellfire, these aren't the pioneer days when you could throw up a little cabin with a sod roof in the space of an afternoon. A tornado that wipes out most of your town is just too big for you to handle on your own. If you think I'm lying, try it sometime. Without federal aid, you have no idea how much of a disaster it really is.

So all this anti-govt s-hit people keep spouting off today makes me believe that most of these jerks don't have any idea what the hell they are talking about. I'm no fan of big govt but I would be scared s-hitless to live in these people's idea of a democracy--loonies and conspiracy nuts who think a Mad Max future is just around the corner--talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Look how many states are legalizing pot now. Doesn't sound that oppressive to me. Sure, I get fed up with the bureaucracy and the red tape and corruption and the gridlock and the stupid laws that don't do any good and Monsanto is an evil that needs to be eradicated. Yeah, I got it, thanks. But it's part of the price you have to pay to have infrastructure and I don't feel like going back to 1871, thank you very much.

So I'm disturbed at how people are cheering on these govt leakers, making heroes of them. Bradley Manning--I mean, was this guy a study in arrested development or what? Er, I mean Chelsea, sorry. What do his supporters say? "He showed us the truth about what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan!"

Jesus F-uck! Where were these idiots when George W. Bush LIED to the whole world about the Iraq's intentions and weapons capabilities?? What were they doing when photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib were splashed across the news for weeks and weeks? What episode of "Survivor" were they too wrapped up in to notice all the stories about American soldiers raping Arab girls and killing their entire families, shooting innocent civilians and then planting guns or bomb parts on them?? Where was the outrage when Bush made the Blackwater mercenaries his own secret police force above the laws or both Iraq AND America???? They said nothing!!!!!

Now here comes this pathetic sexually confused soldier with a bunch of diplomatic cables he stole and turned them over to Wikileaks that exposed the WHOLE SORDID STORY OF U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!! Except what SHOULDN'T these morons have already known about that war that Manning's subterfuge provided to them??? That the war was dirty?? REALLY???? You don't say!!!

Do any of them remember the contractor scandal? Do you? Right after the war, the US sent in corporations and entrepreneurs to rebuild the infrastructure we had stupidly destroyed in Iraq and these people did nothing but fleece the American taxpayer for BILLIONS of dollars for works that was NEVER DONE (often billing the taxpayer several times over the actual cost NUMEROUS times for the same job and never actually doing the work even once) or done so badly that they should have gone to prison (these include showers that electrocuted soldiers, wounded soldiers housed in crumbling, condemned buildings and giving soldiers contaminated water--that last one was done by Halliburton, the corporation run by Dick Cheney, the vice-president of the United States who used that war to feather his own nest and where was the outrage?? To this day, BILLIONS of dollars have disappeared in Iraq and has never been nor will ever be recovered. Where is the outrage of American people?

So, folks, what exactly did ol' Chelsea-baby tell you that you shouldn't have known YEARS AGO!!!

Then there's Edward Snowden. I hardly know where to begin with this guy. He stole so many classified documents most of them TOP SECRET that the NSA isn't even sure how much of it he got. He left no tracks to follow because he was an IT guy. All I hear from too many Americans is what a hero he is for revealing this dastardly New World Order plan to the American people. Yessir, if not for him we all would have been herded into concentration camps by now and had all our guns taken away.

Once again, what the hell did Edward Snowden tell you that you shouldn't have known years ago? We knew as early as 2006 that Bush was intercepting emails and phone calls. Bush wasn't even getting warrants from the FISA court--which is ILLEGAL!!! What did these Snowden hero-worshipers say about that when it came to light? Here's what they said---NOTHING!!! When polled, most Americans said it was a necessary thing. Was this the same American people currently inhabiting the United States today?? I hardly recognize them.

Here's what Edward Snowden did: he told the whole world how the US govt collects intelligence to assess terrorist threats. In so doing, he told any and all terrorist groups out there exactly how to avoid detection. Those programs, for which YOU spent billions to put in place, are ruined. Now YOU will pay billions more to get new programs put in place because, whether you like it or not, they are necessary. We MUST have them or we are sitting ducks. In fact, we are currently at great risk because of this guy's bulls-hit.

"But he was a whistleblower and he should have whistleblower protection!" A whistleblower is someone who reveals an ILLEGAL operation. The administration's program was NOT illegal. It was reviewed and approved by the FISA court. Snowden didn't have to approve of it but he was bound by his job duties to shut his big mouth about it.

Now, I know many of you are not convinced. I don't care. But ask yourself this: What if Snowden had killed someone to get that information out of the country? Would you regard him as a hero then? Think carefully before you answer. If you say no, then you can't really believe he is a hero now. Why? Well, of course, he didn't kill anybody but what he did was still a crime by any application of the law in this country or any civilized nation. He assumed the logins and passwords of other high-ranking officials and got access to material he otherwise was not privy to and downloaded it onto thumb drives--something no one else was allowed to do unless they had administrator privileges. Basically, he lied his way into that material and then stole it by deliberately misusing protocols. That's no different than me telling you I need to read your water meter and then swipe your money or jewelry while I'm in your house. Deception is deception, thievery is thievery. And thievery is always a crime in the eyes of the law.

So what it boils down to is this: Do the means justify the ends? If you say yes, then you must still support Snowden even if he had killed someone to steal that information. If you say no, then he had no justification.

So are these men heroes in the end? No. Both did what they did out of some insane, self-destructive drive to be someone important. Manning did it because he was so confused over his sexual identity that we can only be thankful he didn't get his hands on something truly damaging because it doesn't look like he cared. Whatever he got, he was going to reveal and consequences be damned. You can't tell me he read all 700,000 documents he filched. Snowden? What can you say about someone who betrays his country claiming he wanted to liberate his people and then goes off to live in Russia (where he may very well never leave)?

It comes down to trustworthiness and how much of your sensitive information would you trust to either of these people? Both gave their word to not to reveal anything classified and both went back on their word. When all is said and done, if you don't have your word then what do you have?