Useful to know how the enemy is arguing. Sure, the consequences are torture, imprisonment and death. But who wouldn't take those consequences to be a real hero?
Indeed, the demand from some that dissidents should all throw themselves upon a pyre is peculiar to say the least. I feel safe in asserting that anyone who demands it is either foolish or has ulterior motives for demanding it.
I hope we are not forgetting that civil disobedience is not the only legitimate form of resistance. Particularly, when the prerequisites for successful civil disobedience are not precisely met, attempting it is not being noble but rather just being foolish. There is nothing admirable about taking yourself out of the fight for no reason other than to satisfy those who demand strict adherence to the principles of civil disobedience.
Yeah, no. That doesn't work like that. The times now and 40 years ago were different.
CIA, NSA and the whole gamut are now much more efficient than they were 40 years ago (no need for due process etc.) If you try to play fair, they'll fuck you over big time.
Look how much good the legal system was to Aaron Schwartz for a minor misdemeanor. You'd never hear from Edward Snowden, until he just came out and admitted he was Chinese spy and that he loves Big Brother, I mean Big Government.
PS. He isn't in China btw, he is in Hong Kong. Which isn't a communist country as comment before me noted.
True, history hasn't been my strong side, but I don't see how Watergate is relevant?
The difference in technology (between now and then) is huge, since our lives have migrated more towards the Internet. Before the wiretapping could only go so far. You needed to install wiretapping in a room (phones could always be bugged).
Now wiretapping is everywhere. You literally carry the equipment for others to wiretap you (mobile phones, laptops, google glass, etc). It's just an order of magnitude more easier now.
You appear to have a high value or `goal' of personal `heroism'. Is this something imprinted from mom and dad or scripted in Boy Scouts? Your kind do well in High School marching band, as E- ball-peen hammers in the motor-pool, and as dutiful shrapnel fodder. That's the only reason the rest of us remain succinctly cordial and pleasant to your schoolboy entrained narcissism.
If you can have all the effect, getting the message out, without getting bruises, that is strictly better than getting bruises. The only thing standing in the way of that is people like you who think you have to sacrifice yourself for your message to count. Who would Snowden be selflessly helping by turning himself in?
