You gotta be freaking kidding me
- Thread starter vraiblonde
- Start date
PsyOps
Pixelated
I'll make a deal with you... stop calling everyone a racist that disagrees with Obama and I'll stop calling you out for being a bigot for falsely accusing people of being racist when they aren't.Then stop doing it .
Deal?
:token:Then stop doing it .
Coddlers gotta coddle.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
To which I would offer it is disturbing someone as smart as you does not see the extreme danger in all the secrecy. At least, extreme danger to a free society.
That snowden endangered a dangerous mindset and reality, I would suggest that that is what you're not appreciating. How many people have said "This is not right" to themselves the last 13 years, time and time and time again yet, out of sense of duty, fear of jail, just go along? The FBI and CIA watched 9/11 unfold knowing they could have, WOULD have stopped it had they been allowed to and not ONE, not one book or story about is while, in the mean time, our society has transformed from needing ONE person to exercise good judgment to cut through the bureaucracy, we've added MORE layers, MORE rules, MORE secrecy and more law.
Does a person become dependent because of too much help? Of course. Does a society become incapable of handling the truth because they never have to deal with it? I say of course. Secrecy is the coin of the realm and you know that. Everyone's secrets are their departments power, their relevancy. But, that does NOT serve the national interest. If we're too stupid to handle the truth is it because we never were or we've become too stupid because we never have to deal with it? I say the later.
Either way, we have exponentially more secrets than a free society can bear. Snowden should be seem as a hero because he was willing to lose everything to try and wake us the hell up. 90% or more of what gets classified is not only non sense but, it makes it virtually impossible for a leader to make an informed decision. Informed any more than each person holding a secret wants. And makes it absolutely impossible for the people to make informed choices. it gets used against us ALL the time and you know that. It leads to people making promises and talking talk they would not or could not if they knew the facts. It leads people to use secrecy as cover for saying stuff they know is BS.
One person is NOT the threat to this nations freedom. Not a free nation. Too much secrecy, WAY too much IS the threat.
PsyOps
Pixelated
I do see the danger in the secrecy; but is the solution to take those secrets to China and Russia? Really? That’s a good idea to you? They are our enemies and would love nothing better than to use those secrets against us – YOU, your family, the people you love, the country you love.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
The solution is NO MORE secrets. At least not 100 bull#### ones to 1 legit one. Or, is it 1,000 BS to one good one?
If you missed junior high, the 'bad guys' don't have a thing on you, learning your secrets is worthless if YOU just open up. But, you know the truth. It's not about national interest. It is mostly about covering individual asses. Individual power.
PsyOps
Pixelated
So, you’re saying nothing should be classified? Are you qualified to determine what should or shouldn’t be classified? Do you have some sort of inside track to what is classified to know it’s all mostly covering one’s ass? Do you really hold our intelligence agencies in such low esteem that you believe they do what they do to cover their asses?
I agree a lot of things that are classified shouldn't be, or at least not for extended periods of time. But how do you get to the point where YOU - the private citizen - get to decide what is and isn't classified; I mean since you agree the 'good ones' should be... how do YOU decide which are the 'good ones' and which are the 'BS ones'?
Larry Gude
Strung Out
How do you do that? I say, clearly, 1:100 or 1:1,000 and you, it seems, read 0:100, 0:1,000.
Seriously, how do you see a 1 and read a 0?
Larry Gude
Strung Out
If we were talking about classifying maybe a little too much, that is one thing. We're not. We're talking about ENORMOUSLY too much be classified. You know it. Everyone does. But, we're also talking about bureaucracy that knows how to do one thing very well; protect itself. The process's in place to protect a system with way, WAY too many secrets works in such fashion that not even someone outing the whole hting has any real effect on the continual growth of even MORE secrecy. We, the cows, absently minded note that one of us has been slaughtered and go back to our grazing.
Snowden should be used as an alarm, a full on fire alarm of how much danger we are in because our government acts on secrets we know nothing about and, frankly, the left hand only knows what the right hand wants it to know.
We should ALL be outraged by the fact that the CIA handed the FBI information that would have PREVENTED 9/11 but, the bureaucracy said no. ONE little memo, 'Go get 'em, boys!" and 9/11 does not happen.
And all the good little soldiers keep their mouths shut because of the well being of their families and careers and retirements. All to protect the bureaucracy first and foremost.
:shrug:
PsyOps
Pixelated
It’s one thing to say Snowden should be used as an alarm to change the system; it’s quite another to prop him up as a hero and an example of how whistleblowers should conduct their business of whistleblowing.
Again… I am with you on we need more transparency and disclosure from our government. But what you want relies more on honesty in our government to stop the CYA with classified and only classify what would protect national security. How do we get there? Having worked in that environment I can tell you that very few are qualified to know exactly what damage would be done by leaking classified. But I can assure you that if you care about this country you would NEVER take it to our enemies. Snowden is a coward and traitor for doing what he did.
Midnightrider
Well-Known Member
If he handled it any differently he would likely have been locked away in prison and we would have never heard all the details of the fed abusing its powers...
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Now, you're just quibbling. You agree with the message but not the messenger?
I'm not talking about handing secrets AS secrets to those who would use the SECRETS against us. I am talking about declassifying. "Here. Here's the dirty picture in the biology book in the library. Anyone can see them." Then, there is NO power to be used against us.
What percentage of secrets do you think are needlessly, and even harmfully, classified? 1%? 99%? The US missed the collapse of the USSR not because we didn't have the information. We missed it because of way, way, too much secrecy. Departments clutching tight to their decoder ring. A President could NOT make informed decisions about geo politics because of lack of information and too much secrecy. This has been going on at least since Eisenhower. You think Dubbya really had a clear picture about Chalabi pre invasion? Or, did some spook somewhere know the guy was a Shia first Iranian lackey and was never asked or that was left out because it would cost so and so a promotion? You think the people rotting in Gitmo would have ANY power over us if everything they knew, everyone they knew, was ALL revealed? How about the double and triple dealers in the Saudi government? In Iraq? In the US government, people who succeed, greatly, on others NOT knowing they are supporting this or that or the other agenda?
You think Paul Bremer had the first clue what was going on in Iraq? Who was working with the CIA? Who was probably really working for Iran? You think Powell, in turn, knew ####? Or, then, the President of the United States?
I am sure there are a few things that really should be secret. I am just as sure that the VAST majority should not be and that the net result would be an American people who felt like they knew and could trust THEIR government. Because we know.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Obviously. Psy wants him to have followed some sort of procedure that does not exist. Can not exist. We only have so many secrets BECAUSE the policies and procedures are in place so that things that would better be known are not known.
PsyOps
Pixelated
So, again I ask... you thought it was a good idea for Snowden to take this classified information to Russia and China?
There are procedures that exist. There are many avenues one can take to get this stuff out there. We have an entire legal system Snowden could have used and would have protected him. But, any and all do have their risks to the person and others. Certainly you have to agree there is a HUGE risk to selling it to our enemies; a risk that potentially affects every American and our security.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
It would have been a great idea had the government come out, as he was doing it, and say "Here is what he is giving to our enemies." But, no. Our government would rather our enemies have it than us. Think about that.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Why should I believe that? Who is protected by that system, right now, that is, in fact, blowing the whistle long and loud? Shouldn't we KNOW that people are doing it and HERE is the fruits of these warnings?
PsyOps
Pixelated
Why don't you want to answer the question? Was it a good idea for Snowden to take it upon himself and divulge classified information directly to our enemies?
PsyOps
Pixelated
Do you realize what lawyers wouldn't jump at a chance for something like this?
Larry Gude
Strung Out
So, where is it happening? Shouldn't it be all over the papers? In the news?