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Can a US citizen explain what seems to me tobe a dissonance, between the government putting huge efforts and resource in trying to arrest a citizen speaking out

Can a US citizen explain what seems to me tobe a dissonance, between the government putting huge efforts and resource in trying to arrest a citizen speaking out against the government doing illegal spying on its own people (an almost no reaction from other citizens), and people defending the right to bear weapons to protect themselves from the government turning into a dictatorship?

oneJob 11y ago
Sure, a US citizen could, but it would just be one citizen's point of view, and a citizen is not the same as his or her government, which is why a U.S. citizen can be critical of their government without being schizophrenic. We're each allowed our own point of view (and may be punished or rewarded commensurately). Since our laws are not centrally planned and individual rights are dearly cherished (though not universally respected), well, you get this sort of "cognitive dissonance " effect.
TheRealWatson 11y ago
What's the dissonance? Sounds like the two things you said are in agreement. Or maybe your main point is the part in parentheses?
doki_pen 11y ago
Many Americans believe in following the law no matter what. Snowden broke the law. Gun owners are trying to prevent the law from changing.
- fwn 11y ago
  They probably didn't learn following the law by observing their government. ..because that would be another dissonance.
- fukusa 11y ago
  >Many Americans believe in following the law no matter what. But if the government breaks the law, it's OK? When others do it, they're traitors?
  - lghh 11y ago
    That pretty much sums it up, yeah.
    - pavlov 11y ago
      Like Nixon said: "If the President does it, that means it's not illegal."
      - logfromblammo 11y ago
        And like the House judiciary committee said, "Oh yeah? Well we just voted on three articles of impeachment against you." Americans are starting to get rather pissed off at the increasingly obvious double-standard that exists when government employees are suspected of crimes, particularly violent crimes by those charged with keeping the peace, and corruption and fraud by those granted positions of trust and authority. And this is all mostly due to ubiquitous smartphone cameras. In this light, universal surveillance is barely acceptable, just so long as we get to watch them as thoroughly and easily as they watch us. So far, this condition has not been met.
  - doki_pen 11y ago
    Listen man, I'm just delivery the news, not defending it. The question was how do people think about it, and that's how they think about it.
- callinyouin 11y ago
  While the group of Americans who "believe in following the law no matter what" might partially intersect with the gun owner/advocate group, I'd like to add that there are apparently many 2nd Amendment folks who also believe in armed occupation of federal facilities, which is obviously super illegal. Edit: Not sure why I've been downvoted. I said "apparently many" because I've made the horrible mistake of reading comment sections on articles about the occupation event, and there were a number of very vocal supporters in those comments. To me that constitutes "many" supporters of this position. Obviously I have no idea what percentage of total gun rights advocates are in agreement with the occupation as I highly doubt those numbers exist. In addition, I wasn't even trying to make a statement for or against the 2nd Amendment/gun rights, merely pointing something out.
  - pekk 11y ago
    Not "many." You are cherry-picking a tiny number of people against a backdrop of 300 million or so.
    - callinyouin 11y ago
      Why not respond like this to the comment I was replying to? doki_pen said "Many Americans believe in following the law no matter what". Might this also be a tiny number of people when compared to the whole U.S. population? Speaking of the population, there are barely more than 300 million people in the entire country. I doubt there are that many 2nd Amendment activists.
beeboop 11y ago
Most people don't care about NSA surveillance or they agree with it. A surprisingly large number of Americans approve of the Patriot Act. Those who disagree with surveillance often don't understand the full implications of it and don't make any connection between that and the idea that citizens might need to protect themselves from their government by force. For a lot of people, their desire for stricter gun control largely outweighs any desire to arm themselves against their government.
- pc86 11y ago
  I don't want to turn this into a 2A debate, but it might be partly because gun control seems much more real than someone in a building in Maryland seeing which route they take to work in the morning, even if most of them never had any interaction, positive or negative, with a firearm.
  - Akkuma 11y ago
    I think the reason stems from fear of death. Very few people actively fear the NSA & government using this information to inflict harm on them to result in their or their loved ones demise. On the other hand, they see the news plastered with murders done with guns and now have some degree of fear.
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >A surprisingly large number of Americans approve of the Patriot Act. Because the vast majority of those people don't understand the repercussions of it. They think it allows the government to "catch the terrorists" on our soil. That's the way it was pitched. The people in power are still immigrants to the internet and this sort of technology in general. The views regarding domestic spying will change as more technologically savvy people age and move into politics. That's why they're trying so hard to push certain legislation, before it's too late.
  - untog 11y ago
    They think it allows the government to "catch the terrorists" on our soil. That's the way it was pitched. And it does. Some people are worried enough to think that is worth the price.
Arnt 11y ago
Said an acquaintance who used to live in the US: "Americans individually are the nicest people you can imagine, and 80% of them have no idea how their government represents them abroad". It is a puzzle.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  I always imagined that the U.S. negotiates abroad rather like Darth Vader negotiates with Lando Calrissian. "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further." "Perhaps you believe you are being treated unfairly?" Does that make me part of the 80%, or the 20%?
- MCRed 11y ago
  When all you consume, day in and day out, is propaganda, it becomes reality for you. I spent 6 years living abroad and got to see the perception of the USA (south america counts as "americans" too) -- in the media in foreign countries, including some discussions of politics with people in europe and south america. I can answer your puzzle very simply: The media in the USA is controlled by the FCC to a high degree, and all we get to consume inside this country is propaganda of one sort or another. From Fox news to CNN to MSNBC to your local affiliate, you get a very slanted, very consistent take on the news. John Stewart used to run clips of various reporters reporting on the same story and using the exact same words. This was supposed to be funny- but the thing is, this is because the government manufactures the news for us. Investigative journalism is basically a dead art. And the places that do it still (like Rolling Stones coverage of the housing bubble) are basically putting forth political propaganda pieces as if they were investigative journalism.
  - beeboop 11y ago
    The media is not controlled by the FCC in the way you imply. There is no evidence of it and to suggest it is ridiculous. It's accurate to say it's controlled by corporations, who have their own reasons that do seemingly align very well the status quo of current politicians, but that's not to say the news media is in any way coerced. There are plenty of simple, rational reasons why this would be the case. The reason you see the same lines from channel to channel is because these news outlets buy their stories. They are pre-written and arranged and often include video footage. They do this because original reporting is expensive and it's silly for a hundred reporters to cover the same unimportant subject when a single person can do it and sell it to others. Everyone wins, but it does result in many places not altering the script very much to make it more original. To suggest this is a government plot is silly. Again there is no evidence of this.
pc86 11y ago
Is your second point referring specifically to nationalists/separatist militias, or those who believe that Americans have an individual right to bear arms? The answer would depend on what you mean.
Shivetya 11y ago
well if you cherry pick your news sources, or your news sources cheery pick what they want to relay, it would be easy to gain the impression that those defending the 2nd have no problem with them trying to get Snowden back. However that is the crux of the issue. The media spends is way to cozy with the governments of the countries they operate in. Far too many in the media are trying to create news instead of reporting it. So putting two and two together... many of the media are against the gun rights advocates and take liberties with their reporting to put those advocates in the worst possible light. I am quite sure if you asked many of the advocates you could get very different replies based on how you phrased your question. Like many others there are pro government supported and gun advocates and those who don't trust the government.
- nsxwolf 11y ago
  I have guns because I am afraid of the government. Snowden confirmed my fears were justified.
  - aeling 11y ago
    Despite being a US citizen who also enjoys guns, I don't understand this rationale at all. What kind of government overreach would private ownership of firearms stop? It obviously wouldn't interfere with any sort of targeted attack on an individual (that's what drones are for), and I have a hard time believing it would deter even ground attacks. A few guys in the woods with AR-15s aren't going to be a speed bump for any concerted effort by a nation-state, let alone this one. *Disclaimer: I disagree with our use of drones, don't think anyone should come to take away private guns, and don't believe any of this is a real risk. I'm just trying to understand the large group that believes their guns will protect them from the military.
    - nsxwolf 11y ago
      I don't pretend to know what the scenario would be where I'd actually use my guns. Be assured it's a nightmare scenario and not some dispute over land use rights. A few lone nuts would have no chance against the government. But if the sentiments and fear spread to the point that entire towns were like-minded in their opposition, you'd have a guerrilla warfare situation like we saw with insurgents in Iraq. In that situation, the government's job becomes much more difficult, and assuming carpet bombing is off the table, small arms indeed can make an impact.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kyleblarson 11y ago
In all seriousness just watch Team America by the South Park guys. Pretty much sums it up.
- pekk 11y ago
  This is a lazy cop-out for people who don't really care to spend any time thinking or looking at evidence. Which might be emblematic of the real problem. Knee-jerk anti-Americanism isn't a bit more sophisticated than knee-jerk pro-Americanism.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    What?! Team America: World Police isn't anti-American or pro-American. It is a satirical caricature of the U.S. It's grossly exaggerated, maybe, but it isn't false. As an American, I'd say it does a great job at lampooning the way America sees itself and how America sees other countries. Those guys chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" at international sporting events? In their hearts, they're singing "America: F--- Yeah!"... or at least some Lee Greenwood.
mcjon77 11y ago
I can only give my perspective as a US citizen. The best way that I could explain it is with the phrase "out of sight, out of mind." Issues have much less of an impact if a person doesn't see and feel the direct consequences in their lives. Lets take the Snowden case. He released tons of info regarding the US spying on it's own citizens, but how does that directly effect my life today? To put another way, how do I FEEL the day to day impact of these programs? The answer is simple, I don't. I have no idea whether the NSA has a record of every website I have viewed. I have no idea if I have a file on some government server detailing my porn preferences based on my google searches. I don't know if the government knows of my relationship status based on listening in to my phone calls. Essentially, unless and until the government decides to use this information that they may (or may not) have to blackmail/arrest/detain/publicly humiliate me, it doesn't impact my life in a noticeable way Now, lets compare that with the gun issue. When the federal/state/local government passes a gun law, if I am a gun owner I FEEL the impact of that law. If someone wants to buy an AR-15 and there is a threat of banning the weapon, that person feels the direct impact of the issue in his life. If someone wants to carry a concealed firearm in public (something completely legal in the vast majority of states, btw) but they live some place that does not permit it, they FEEL the impact of that law. This is also why for people who don't own guns and have no interest in doing so, gun restrictions me nothing to them. Banning assault weapons have no negative impact on the lives of people who have no desire to own such firearms. I am certainly not saying that the right to firearms is more important than the right to privacy from government surveillance. What I am saying is that it is FAR easier to find and organize people who have felt (or would feel) the real life impacts of gun restrictions, than those who have felt the impact of the NSA's surveillance program.
- david_mitchell 11y ago
  The best way that I could explain it is with the phrase "out of sight, out of mind." Issues have much less of an impact if a person doesn't see and feel the direct consequences in their lives. This sounds like a general problem with modern democracy. Theres so much going on that none of us can keep up with it, including the people who work in politics full-time. The inevitable result is an inability to make intelligent decisions in our own interests. The wisdom of the crowd is all that saves us, except when it doesn't.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
Americans have always had a distrust of government. That's why we fought a war for independence against Britain even though the eventual peaceful federalization of former colonies like Canada and Australia provided that violence wasn't necessary. Then consider how our constitution was created: it was designed to protect people from the tyranny of the state (which is why gun rights are so prevalent) but also tyranny of the mob (hence the survellience state approach to preventing conflicts from getting out of hand). I think much of the democratic west is moving towards autocracy, not because of cultural preference, but because of concentrated power from industry and wealthy individuals whose interests dominate politics and so nothing changes. I think the solution is for more direct democracy, and I believe that many of us on the right and left would prefer that to the fear of powerful top-down implementation of a way of life preferred by one side or the other.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jowiar 11y ago
  It is worth noting that the particular bit of federal tyranny the constitution was designed to prevent was ensuring slavery never got abolished. It was the top priority for half the states ratifying it.
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    That's not too far off the survellience state. Americans want America to be the best in the world at everything, and that takes money and power. Slave owners had plenty of both. The reprehensible institution that it was, I cannot fathom a way our country could have grown so quickly and so successfully without coerced labor, and, for the native Americans, theft of land. We were in a lot of debt following the revolutionary war. It would have been crushing to pay back otherwise.
- cgriswald 11y ago
  I'm not convinced that more direct democracy is the solution. In fact, I think democracy is the weapon wielded by powerful industry and individuals. When you control the primary sources of information, how difficult is it to convince the people to vote your way? (Not that I know what the solution is...) The California proposition system reveals, IMO, both the strengths and the weaknesses in direct democracy. On the one hand, when representatives are not doing their jobs, the people can perform an end-run around them and pass any legislation they want. On the other hand, it's easily manipulated. Imagine I'm a lawnmower manufacturer. My bought and paid for representatives are concerned, because their constituents are very concerned about the safety of squirrels and want their representatives to pass a law requiring a new type of (more expensive, less efficient) lawn mower. They can't not act, or they won't get re-elected, but they also know they have to do what I want or they won't get my contributions. What to do? We write a bad law and have someone submit as a proposition. We wage a campaign against it (while our representatives speak out in favor of squirrels), pointing out the very flaws we had put into it and some sob stories about lawn mower factory employees losing jobs and how much more expensive it will be to cut your grass. If it passes, no big deal; we've put enough weaknesses into it to make it largely ineffective. If it doesn't, great! The people have spoken: they don't care about squirrels; and it's not the representatives fault. We probably don't have to worry about it again.
voodootrucker 11y ago
The baby boomer generation grew up before computers, and most of them don't even know how to check their email. They are very patriotic, and very insular. They believe that God gave America to white Christians, and the government is defending it. In short, they understand guns, but not computers. Young people grew up with the internet and are better informed, but they have no control. District lines and campaign financing have made it impossible to make an impact. The numbers are reaching a tipping point though, and you should expect to see a very different America in the next decade or so.
- voodootrucker 11y ago
  I think there is also a prevailing sense of impotency and apathy. The capital is so far away from most people (geographically and culturally) that they don't feel like they can change things. American politics are very divided on party lines, and neither party addresses these issues. I don't know what country the parent commentator is from, but US states are the size of most countries. At a local level there may be vigorous debate, but the only other comparable governments are the EU and maybe China. I imagine that the citizens of those governments also feel like they have very little voice? (edit, the EU is not a country)
- peeters 11y ago
  Are opinions on guns really divided along generational lines though? I mean going from my experience on Reddit, any time someone even suggests the U.S. should restrict gun ownership, that person gets a dozen or so upvoted replies reminding them that God gave Moses the 2nd Amendment on Mt Sinai. I find it hard to believe those are all baby boomers.
  - pyre 11y ago
    I think that you'll find sometimes those opinions vary greatly between subreddits.
    - voodootrucker 11y ago
      Detailed demographics: http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/gun-control-2011.pdf http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/gun-control-... (hint: it's very divided - somewhat by age, but not enough to back up my original point)
DonHopkins 11y ago
Because being impotent and having a short penis doesn't make people want cryptography to compensate, but it does make people want guns.
- mindslight 11y ago
  It sure does make people engage in needless tribal bickering, too. Rather than being part of the political design wherein each half of the population supports half of the tyranny, why don't you try rooting for a sports team instead? The Super Bowl is on this weekend, and you can even nonchalantly call it "sportsball" to feel like you're still above it.
jokoon 11y ago
I agree that what the NSA did was bad, but I really don't understand your anti government stance. The main problem with those NSA programs is not that spying is evil (it's necessary and it's part of defending your country against many different types of threat), the problem is that this spying program, as a tool, could be used for other things than security purposes. This is in fact very worrying and it's what Snowden complains about: this massive chest of data was not encrypted and could be read by many government operatives by means of bribery, or even by individual with political goals. So the problem has been about how those tools has been designed and managed with very sloppy consideration, and that politicians are not able to fix it because as always, technology is beyond what democracy is about. What I understand about this scandal is not about trivial corruption in government, it's more about what sort of political problems, technologies can create. > an almost no reaction from other citizens I think every citizen who use computers for sensitive purpose, or people who might be the target of spying, are now aware of the NSA, and might have taken precautions that made NSA's job a little more difficult. I don't think you can really have a protest against the NSA. It's not a simple issue, especially from the technical standpoint.
ninkendo 11y ago
> Can a US citizen explain It's not some monoculture over here. Your guess is as good as any's.
newday 11y ago
Not an American, but it really comes down to fear, and the illusion of safety; the TSA is a perfect example. A gun doesn't keep you or your family safe, but it gives you the illusion of safety. Government surveillance is the same, since the rhetoric is that it will keep America safe from terrorists, yet like the TSA and guns, when we look at the data, all of these provide no tangible benefit, and often great harm.
- MCRed 11y ago
  > A gun doesn't keep you or your family safe Defensive gun use is far more common in the USA than murders by firearms: http://guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html http://guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html > when we look at the data, all of these provide no tangible benefit, and often great harm. No tangible benefit? Even 100,000 people saved by guns annually (the low end number) is "tangible benefit". According to the CDC, there are 11k homicides by firearms: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm If you look at other countries, when guns are banned there is a shift from guns to other methods of killing ,but not a significant decline in homicides. This is what you see when looking at the data.
  - newday 11y ago
    A perfect example of what I'm talking about. If we look at western countries, the US leads in homicide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention.... You're narrative doesn't fit the data.
    - WhyDoiPostHere 11y ago
      > A perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's certainly a perfect example that people see what they want to see, even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I'm talking about you, by the way.
      - newday 11y ago
mindslight 11y ago
IMHO, the keeping of guns acts as a crutch [0] that lulls people into thinking they can always fight back when the true time comes. I believe they think there's no need to prematurely worry about mass surveillance (thus Snowden is a criminal), because if the ultimate results are used wrongly, then their guns can be used to put an end to it. Of course the same pathology applies to democracy itself, so out of the (ballot, jury, ammo) boxen, the only avenue us individualists really have left is the S-box. [0] Please don't misjudge my perspective - I think people have the right to keep and bear whatever tools regardless of purpose. And I think the 2A, as written, quite obviously covers fully auto, explosives, and armored vehicles. It should perhaps have been revisited with the advent of nuclear weapons though. A good legal test would be stewardship - what type of weapons can an individual/group practice with and store without causing harm to others?
- voodootrucker 11y ago
  I agree, and I find the viewpoint that guns will protect from Americans from a totalitarian government as naive. The US military has proven itself very effective at fighting those only armed with small arms. In Iraq roadside bombs have proven a far better weapon than assault rifles. Trying to imagine the Oregon militia fighting against predator drones seems insane. IMO, the 2A is just an opiate that the government uses to lull right wing voters into acquiescence.
  - AI_Overlord 11y ago
    If there is an actual revolution you can expect people within the military to take sides.
    - notahacker 11y ago
      If the military [mostly] side with the revolution, civilian legal entitlement to handguns is even more unlikely to affect the outcome than if they don't.
- rsync 11y ago
  I want nothing at all to do with a 2A debate, but ... The "nuclear weapons" argument is actually a useful and substantive retort from gun control advocates - I don't think it should be waved away as if it's absurd or silly. But at the same time, I think there is a very, very simple solution to the "nuclear weapons" problem, and that is to cap firearms capability at whatever the highest capability employed by the state and local law enforcement that one is subject to. No SWAT team or sheriffs department will have a nuke, so the problem is solved. Because of posse comitatus[1], you can't end up with a situation where local law enforcement disarms itself completely (and thus, disarms all citizens) and hands over larger tasks to the military, since they can't do that. On some level, local law enforcement in the US needs firearms, so that unintended consequence is skirted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
mikeash 11y ago
I think the anti-dictatorship is not as common as it might look. Certainly some people believe that, but in my experience most gun advocates merely believe that you can't count on the government to protect you from criminals so you need to be able to do it yourself. I think these people welcome the government's efforts to protect them, they just don't think it does a very good job sometimes, or that it's simply not possible to provide perfect protection. Lots of people don't see the NSA's activities as "illegal spying on its own people," but rather as strong anti-terror efforts that don't give up when terrorists enter the US. The idea that we need strong gun rights as a way to stop the government from becoming tyrannical has at least two major obvious holes in it, but a lot of people's views are more subtle and nuanced than that. As usual.
- AI_Overlord 11y ago
  Please explain the two major holes please and be ready to defend them if they are not solid.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Please ask as if you were a human being, not a robot, and I'll consider it. "Be ready to defend them" is ridiculously rude.
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      I thought of three obvious reasons. 1. The U.S. military is ridiculously well financed and supplied. Even if every American strong enough to lift them had a battle rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition, the federal government has mobile armor, fighters and bombers, and guided explosive munitions. The average American simply does not have the means to fight toe to toe with any professional army. As guerilla fighters, it is usually more useful to build explosives and make booby traps than it is to fire rifles. And if you're close enough to hit something with a rifle, you should probably already be running away. 2. We have strong gun rights now. They have not perceptibly slowed the government's slow ratcheting towards greater power and Constitutional overreach. Whether the government is already tyrannical is a matter of opinion, but be assured that some people think that it is. 3. Guns are not the only tools required to resist government. They are neither necessary nor sufficient. Defending gun rights in preference to any of the others, such as privacy, speech, assembly, redress, and due process, is to abandon our best means of resisting government power in favor of the one least likely to yield a predictably favorable outcome. All human rights work together to produce liberty, and none are more important than the others. To prioritize them is to see them picked off one by one, back to front, like Alvin York would.
Zigurd 11y ago
While it doesn't explain the soccer moms going along with the security state, part of the explanation is the Washington DC area culture. "Snowden" is a four letter word to anyone working for the DoD, DHS, DoJ and all their suppliers and providers - the beltway bandits. People outside this large circle don't understand that. But, inside, what Snowden did is unquestionably wrong. On top of that there are oddities like people with security clearances not being allowed to read the leaks. That just heightens the disconnect. Coincidentally, the people arming-up against the government are the most alienated from this circle. But that's just a coincidence. There's no connection through Snowden. It's all about creating a hostile environment for government officials. For the group in Oregon, they are probably more aware of Joseph Smith and the Oath of Vengeance than Edward Snowden.
linkregister 11y ago
You're begging the question here. The U.S. Department of Justice's reason for pursuing Snowden is because he perpetrated the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history. Speaking out against the government, which isn't a crime in the U.S., is not sufficient for being arrested. Can you imagine one of your customers permitting a developer to walk away with their entire code repository and internal strategy docs, without calling the police? Speaking against the government alone isn't a crime. It happens daily across many venues. Hell, I've got folks on my Facebook feed practically plotting to overthrow the government over the Oregon/Bundy controversy.
- zaphar 11y ago
  This explains the motivation of the US intelligence community in calling the police, yes. But It doesn't explain the willingness of the people of the nation to abet his prosecution. To take your analogy and apply it more accurately: Can you imagine one of your customers permitting a developer to walk away with the entire code repository that demonstrates massive violations of US law and internal strategy docs about how they intend to violate those laws without shutting him up permanently?
  - rhino369 11y ago
    The Snowden leaks didn't demonstrate "massive violations of US Law." Essentially one documents out of thousand upon thousands really exposed an illegal program (phone meta-data), and even that was done under a good faith legal theory. It took several court cases to find it was against the law. If he just released that FISA order, it would still be illegal, but there would at least by a good argument to not prosecute He released tons of information about stuff that nobody would credibly think was illegal. Instead he released stuff that exposed spying on foreign countries, the raison d'être of the NSA, and he did it because he was ideologically against spyign. And that's why the DOJ has to go after him.
mc32 11y ago
Two things come to mind, Many people are glad some things were exposed like the scope of data gathering, what many dislike is disclosing of state secrets that went along with the mostly uncurated dumps. Expose government overreach good; expose state secrets bad. Two, the armed occupation/protest in places like Oregon has a lot more to do with disagreement over government control over grazing lands, and other natural resources many locals believe should be locally devolved, typically to enable more liberal exploitation of the resources [to the chagrin of the environmentally minded, but these are typically areas with poor economies] So these issues are completely disconnected.
dreamdu5t 11y ago
Can you explain why you think US citizens have power over what their government does?
crdoconnor 11y ago
The right to bear arms has strong institutional support from the NRA (the gun manufacturer's lobby). Edward Snowden has very little institutional support (a bit from a few rights groups but none as powerful or rich as the NRA). Most political insanity in America boils down to this.
- seany 11y ago
  The NRA is a gun owners group, the NSSF is the industry lobby.
mercurialshark 11y ago
Well part of it is pretty simple. He stole, as in removed classified information without permission from a secure facility and disseminated millions of pages of classified information to non-approved parties (everyone in the world). If it were legal to remove classified information without permission, because you felt entitled to, then that could be a legal defense. But it's clearly not, so he sought political asylum in Russia. If however, there was a directive from the President or office of legal counsel to shut down the program and if NSA had kept it running, him exposing an illegal program could be a legal defense - had he gone through the appropriate channels. But there was nothing illegal about it at the time. So he committed the crime, not NSA...
- MichaelApproved 11y ago
  To add to your comment, he took an enormous amount of data. It was sweeping and pretty indiscriminate. And he gave it to the media. Some of what he took and shared could be legitimately argued as whistle blowing but there's lots of other classified data about legitimate programs that was taken as well.
  - FreakyT 11y ago
    I think this is the key issue that really muddies the Snowden issue. I completely agree with Snowden's leaking of the domestic spying program information, but he also leaked a lot of information not related to that. Foreign spying is basically what the NSA is supposed to do.
    - mcv 11y ago
      Did he also leak information about spying on enemies? Or only about spying on allies?
      - FreakyT 11y ago
        Both, and that's the key issue. Here's an example: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266875/exclusive-us-hacked-pacnet-asia-pacific-fibre-optic-network-operator http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266875/exclusive...
japhyr 11y ago
I think you could make an argument that many of the people who are loud advocates for gun rights don't understand the nuances of what Snowden did. Many gun advocates are an odd mix of "f the government" and "US is the best!" I just started subsistence hunting this year, so I own a gun and I want to keep the ability to hunt. I have zero concerns that the US government will "take away" my hunting rifle. But I'd love to see handguns and assault weapons under much tighter control. I think there's a middle ground between "no guns" and "you can own any gun you want". But not many people look for the middle ground right now, and most of our prominent politicians couldn't even give an accurate description of the what the term "middle ground" really means.
- forgottenpass 11y ago
  "Middle ground" on gun control, eh? http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Illustrated-Guide-To-Gun-Control.png http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/...
rmc 11y ago
People think Snowden is a traitor.
- lostlogin 11y ago
  It's absurd that this is still a thing. Without that charge there is plenty that he could be prosecuted with. Crap like "betraying your country" belongs back centuries ago along with imperial expansion, prosecution for speaking ill of the King etc.
kbenson 11y ago
Because arrest does not mean convict, and his actions consisted of more than speaking out. He has publicly admitted to something that, from the surface facts, appears to be illegal (regardless of whether you think it was morally right and acceptable). As such, until convicted or exonerated, it is the job of the justice system to bring him in for trial. It's comparable to killing someone in what you believe was self defense. You may still have to go to trial to prove your innocence if the government believes it may not have been self-defense. That is the point of the justice system, and trial by a jury of your peers. The right to bear arms is to protect from overreach by the government. As long as government consists of representatives of the people making laws in accordance with the constitution and prior laws, there should not be a case where arms are required to defend against the state. It ensures the government cannot monopolize force.
- tzaman 11y ago
  But they can try him in absence, can they not?
  - kbenson 11y ago
    I imagine in a high profile case like this which polarizes the populace, there is recognition that a trial where the defendant does not get to mount a defense would likely exacerbate any feelings of mistrust held for the government.
deleted 11y ago
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fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
Hoo boy! I wish I could explain it. I live right smack in the middle of a bunch of people who can be observed to do exactly that. They are oblivious to the irony or logical inconsistency. My only guess is that these people see pro military industrial complex hawks as defenders of the America in their fairy tales and implicitly trust that their motives are pure. The only other thing is maybe that they've been defending the MIC for so long that they've stopped (or were never) thinking critically about their position.
puppetmaster3 11y ago
I moved to USA from Europe, here is my POV: Citizens are mostly poorly educated relative to Europe. Also politicians are more corrupt. So the politicians have a free hand. For an empirical illustration : http://youtube.com/watch?v=HVOuK_KB9ew http://youtube.com/watch?v=HVOuK_KB9ew 85,000 callers out of 90,000 callers to a California senator (representing among others Silicon Valley) wanted a no vote. Senator voted yes. Or http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03hd981 http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03hd981 Confidence level is 15% with media support, this is normal: http://pollingreport.com/CongJob.htm http://pollingreport.com/CongJob.htm You have a choice of 2 parties. It is not a Euro style multi party democracy. Ex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland So: most people support Snowden, despite thought shaping that happens on forums. And Aaron. And Ian. Daniel. Hastings. But in age of big data, surveillance meta data can be used bayesian/predictive for internal politics (not for 'scary' external imagination). The winning move then is to be or appear passive. And anticapte tyrany. hth
- puppetmaster3 11y ago
  Ex: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-ope... http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/eglin-air-force-base-busted-gaming-reddit.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/eglin-air-force-base-... https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1dz470/most_reddit_addicted_city_over_100k_visits_total/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1dz470/most_red...
forgottenpass 11y ago
Can a US citizen explain what seems to me tobe a dissonance Americans will, unsurprisingly, pay lip service to the American ideals of democracy because that's what they were taught. The two disconnects I see are: do they actually believe in them? And can the identify a compromise of the ideas as such? Not always, and infrequently. People are exceptionally good at ignoring ingnorable things that they don't want to deal with, the "someone else's problem" phenomenon. Political groups that don't frequently recommit to American ideals mean that the political trends sway away from them. Add in some "this time it is different" type of rationalization, and boneheaded "America could never possibly X" attitude that makes them think the groundwork for X is always and forever unambiguously benign. So different political groups have different levels of commitment to different American ideals. Someone can believe in gun rights as important to maintain like all the other rights that strengthen our democracy. Or they could just like guns and find out the political groups they're already predisposed to disagree with want to take them away. Their commitment to American ideals is repackaged into hatred of the other party -- and as long as this hypothetical person got to keep their gun and a few other pet political issues, they'd welcome a dictator.
Umn44 11y ago
You should read some books on the history of the US government and its involvement in world affairs. http://williamblum.org/ http://williamblum.org/
a3n 11y ago
My opinion, I can't see even a significant minority of gun owners rising up in rebellion and revolution against the US. Ever. At most, the odd Timothy McVeigh or Ammon Bundy. The 2nd Amendment, and its implications, are mostly a convenient argument. We, as a population, just want our guns.
duaneb 11y ago
> illegal Legal. > a dissonance, between the government putting huge efforts and resource in trying to arrest a citizen speaking out against the government doing illegal spying on its own people (an almost no reaction from other citizens), and people defending the right to bear weapons to protect themselves from the government turning into a dictatorship? These are, arguably, two different reactions to perceived xenophobic threats.
superuser2 11y ago
Everyone is free to critize the government, to accuse it of any atrocity and to denounce it on the basis of those accusations. What you cannot do is disclose internal information to which you have privileged access as a government agent/employee/contractor. You have ample notice of this fact before agreeing to become one. In fact you must go out of your way to apply for a security clearance. If you find this an unacceptable infringement of your freedom, you may choose not to work for the government. Snowden is not subject to arrest for dissent, but for what is effictively a breach of his employment contract. SCOTUS recently held that government employees cannot even be fired for disparaging the government provided they do not identify themselves as government employees when doing so.
- iaw 11y ago
  Additionally, in the USA there are theoretically protections for "whistleblowers" who reveal illegal or immoral practices by large institutions. The problem is that the security apparatus hides behind the cloak of national security needs preventing any open rational debate on the subject.
AndrewBissell 11y ago
There's actually quite a lot of overlap in the U.S. between people who vociferously support gun rights (which includes libertarians and some left anarchists) and support for Edward Snowden and opposition to mass surveillance. Up until Rand Paul dropped out, he and Bernie Sanders were the only two U.S. presidential candidates speaking out against the NSA's overreach. Paul is staunchly pro gun rights, and Sanders has taken criticism from Hillary Clinton and many on the left for being insufficiently anti-gun for their tastes.
metaphorm 11y ago
you're correct. it is a huge cognitive dissonance. many of the most vehemently pro-gun anti-government people in the U.S. only selectively apply their views to "keep the government away from MY PROPERTY". they are often also enthusiastic supporters of aggressive, militaristic foreign policy and all kinds of really nasty shit including but not limited to assassinations, drone strikes, extraordinary rendition, torture, extra-judicial detainment, and persecution of whistle-blowers on the ground they are "traitors". it makes me sick to think about, but thats how it is. the U.S. is a country of many contradictions.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
I have a hard time explaining it. I know many very pro-gun people who constantly think the government is trying to take their guns but who don't have a problem with spying. My father is one of them. One of the only things I can see is the propaganda has worked. They think spying is only to catch online child abusers and terrorist, and they know they aren't one of those so they have nothing to worry about. The spying is also much harder to grasp. Taking someone's gun is a very easy think to understand. Even a toddler can understand someone taking something from them. In comparison, spying, especially the really large scale stuff, is much harder to understand. But besides for that, I don't really know why there is such a divide between the reactions.
sroerick 11y ago
This issue can also be explained a bit by illustrating some of the divides that make up party lines. The call to arrest Snowden has been echoed by both political parties. The mainstream of both parties is very pro-surveillance. While surveillance programs were certainly in place before 9/11, the Bush administration really furthered the goals of the surveillance (and the larger National Security state). The Obama administration continued that advancement without restriction. I would say that the two political parties in the US both support surveillance in a pretty vast majority. The bureaucratic reasons for this are fairly complex, but the simplest way of putting it is that the mainstream of both parties is very authoritarian (what some, myself included would label fascist.) Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama (to some extent), and the neoliberal movement has effectively the same foreign policy goals as the neoconservative movement that gave rise to the Bush administration. On the fringes of both parties, you have outspoken activists trying to address both surveillance and the larger natsec state. The libertarians on the right, (Rand Paul, Justin Amash), and the progressives on the left (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren) have all been outspoken against the NSA. The problem is that the mainstream in both parties tends to control Congress, the bureaucracy, and the media. Gun Rights is a mainstream Republican issue. Every republican has to be strongly pro gun (both the mainstream GOP and the libertarians are) whereas every democrat has to be against it (Both the neoliberals and the progressives are.) There are a lot of issues (or, in my opinion, non-issues) in American politics that tend to split the fringe in both parties. Topics like Gun Control, Abortion, Immigration, etc. are hot button issues that generally take the focus away from issues that theoretically should be very, very important, like NSA surveillance, illegal rendition and torture programs, assassination programs, and war. It's sad, because the anti-establishment (Progressives and Libertarians) in both parties tend to agree on these issues. Frankly, most of the people who are pro-gun-rights are also anti-surveillance. These are the constitutional libertarians on the right: gun rights are guaranteed by the US second amendment, and privacy by the fourth amendment against illegal search and seizure. The dissonance you're seeing isn't so much due to logical inconsistencies, but rather due to the weird, schizophrenic nature of US politics.
smaddox 11y ago
It's very simple: political beliefs are rarely logically consistent (at least not through a logic that excludes human psychology). This is not limited to the US.
awl130 11y ago
there is no dissonance. spying is about privacy. guns are about lives. spying can lead to loss of life but guns do lead to loss of life.

oneJob 11y ago

Sure, a US citizen could, but it would just be one citizen's point of view, and a citizen is not the same as his or her government, which is why a U.S. citizen can be critical of their government without being schizophrenic. We're each allowed our own point of view (and may be punished or rewarded commensurately). Since our laws are not centrally planned and individual rights are dearly cherished (though not universally respected), well, you get this sort of "cognitive dissonance " effect.

TheRealWatson 11y ago

What's the dissonance? Sounds like the two things you said are in agreement. Or maybe your main point is the part in parentheses?

doki_pen 11y ago

Many Americans believe in following the law no matter what. Snowden broke the law. Gun owners are trying to prevent the law from changing.

fwn 11y ago
They probably didn't learn following the law by observing their government. ..because that would be another dissonance.
fukusa 11y ago
>Many Americans believe in following the law no matter what. But if the government breaks the law, it's OK? When others do it, they're traitors?
- lghh 11y ago
  That pretty much sums it up, yeah.
  - pavlov 11y ago
    Like Nixon said: "If the President does it, that means it's not illegal."
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      And like the House judiciary committee said, "Oh yeah? Well we just voted on three articles of impeachment against you." Americans are starting to get rather pissed off at the increasingly obvious double-standard that exists when government employees are suspected of crimes, particularly violent crimes by those charged with keeping the peace, and corruption and fraud by those granted positions of trust and authority. And this is all mostly due to ubiquitous smartphone cameras. In this light, universal surveillance is barely acceptable, just so long as we get to watch them as thoroughly and easily as they watch us. So far, this condition has not been met.
- doki_pen 11y ago
  Listen man, I'm just delivery the news, not defending it. The question was how do people think about it, and that's how they think about it.
callinyouin 11y ago
While the group of Americans who "believe in following the law no matter what" might partially intersect with the gun owner/advocate group, I'd like to add that there are apparently many 2nd Amendment folks who also believe in armed occupation of federal facilities, which is obviously super illegal. Edit: Not sure why I've been downvoted. I said "apparently many" because I've made the horrible mistake of reading comment sections on articles about the occupation event, and there were a number of very vocal supporters in those comments. To me that constitutes "many" supporters of this position. Obviously I have no idea what percentage of total gun rights advocates are in agreement with the occupation as I highly doubt those numbers exist. In addition, I wasn't even trying to make a statement for or against the 2nd Amendment/gun rights, merely pointing something out.
- pekk 11y ago
  Not "many." You are cherry-picking a tiny number of people against a backdrop of 300 million or so.
  - callinyouin 11y ago
    Why not respond like this to the comment I was replying to? doki_pen said "Many Americans believe in following the law no matter what". Might this also be a tiny number of people when compared to the whole U.S. population? Speaking of the population, there are barely more than 300 million people in the entire country. I doubt there are that many 2nd Amendment activists.

beeboop 11y ago

Most people don't care about NSA surveillance or they agree with it. A surprisingly large number of Americans approve of the Patriot Act. Those who disagree with surveillance often don't understand the full implications of it and don't make any connection between that and the idea that citizens might need to protect themselves from their government by force. For a lot of people, their desire for stricter gun control largely outweighs any desire to arm themselves against their government.

pc86 11y ago
I don't want to turn this into a 2A debate, but it might be partly because gun control seems much more real than someone in a building in Maryland seeing which route they take to work in the morning, even if most of them never had any interaction, positive or negative, with a firearm.
- Akkuma 11y ago
  I think the reason stems from fear of death. Very few people actively fear the NSA & government using this information to inflict harm on them to result in their or their loved ones demise. On the other hand, they see the news plastered with murders done with guns and now have some degree of fear.
forgetsusername 11y ago
>A surprisingly large number of Americans approve of the Patriot Act. Because the vast majority of those people don't understand the repercussions of it. They think it allows the government to "catch the terrorists" on our soil. That's the way it was pitched. The people in power are still immigrants to the internet and this sort of technology in general. The views regarding domestic spying will change as more technologically savvy people age and move into politics. That's why they're trying so hard to push certain legislation, before it's too late.
- untog 11y ago
  They think it allows the government to "catch the terrorists" on our soil. That's the way it was pitched. And it does. Some people are worried enough to think that is worth the price.

Arnt 11y ago

Said an acquaintance who used to live in the US: "Americans individually are the nicest people you can imagine, and 80% of them have no idea how their government represents them abroad". It is a puzzle.

logfromblammo 11y ago
I always imagined that the U.S. negotiates abroad rather like Darth Vader negotiates with Lando Calrissian. "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further." "Perhaps you believe you are being treated unfairly?" Does that make me part of the 80%, or the 20%?
MCRed 11y ago
When all you consume, day in and day out, is propaganda, it becomes reality for you. I spent 6 years living abroad and got to see the perception of the USA (south america counts as "americans" too) -- in the media in foreign countries, including some discussions of politics with people in europe and south america. I can answer your puzzle very simply: The media in the USA is controlled by the FCC to a high degree, and all we get to consume inside this country is propaganda of one sort or another. From Fox news to CNN to MSNBC to your local affiliate, you get a very slanted, very consistent take on the news. John Stewart used to run clips of various reporters reporting on the same story and using the exact same words. This was supposed to be funny- but the thing is, this is because the government manufactures the news for us. Investigative journalism is basically a dead art. And the places that do it still (like Rolling Stones coverage of the housing bubble) are basically putting forth political propaganda pieces as if they were investigative journalism.
- beeboop 11y ago
  The media is not controlled by the FCC in the way you imply. There is no evidence of it and to suggest it is ridiculous. It's accurate to say it's controlled by corporations, who have their own reasons that do seemingly align very well the status quo of current politicians, but that's not to say the news media is in any way coerced. There are plenty of simple, rational reasons why this would be the case. The reason you see the same lines from channel to channel is because these news outlets buy their stories. They are pre-written and arranged and often include video footage. They do this because original reporting is expensive and it's silly for a hundred reporters to cover the same unimportant subject when a single person can do it and sell it to others. Everyone wins, but it does result in many places not altering the script very much to make it more original. To suggest this is a government plot is silly. Again there is no evidence of this.

pc86 11y ago

Is your second point referring specifically to nationalists/separatist militias, or those who believe that Americans have an individual right to bear arms? The answer would depend on what you mean.

Shivetya 11y ago

well if you cherry pick your news sources, or your news sources cheery pick what they want to relay, it would be easy to gain the impression that those defending the 2nd have no problem with them trying to get Snowden back. However that is the crux of the issue. The media spends is way to cozy with the governments of the countries they operate in. Far too many in the media are trying to create news instead of reporting it. So putting two and two together... many of the media are against the gun rights advocates and take liberties with their reporting to put those advocates in the worst possible light. I am quite sure if you asked many of the advocates you could get very different replies based on how you phrased your question. Like many others there are pro government supported and gun advocates and those who don't trust the government.

nsxwolf 11y ago
I have guns because I am afraid of the government. Snowden confirmed my fears were justified.
- aeling 11y ago
  Despite being a US citizen who also enjoys guns, I don't understand this rationale at all. What kind of government overreach would private ownership of firearms stop? It obviously wouldn't interfere with any sort of targeted attack on an individual (that's what drones are for), and I have a hard time believing it would deter even ground attacks. A few guys in the woods with AR-15s aren't going to be a speed bump for any concerted effort by a nation-state, let alone this one. *Disclaimer: I disagree with our use of drones, don't think anyone should come to take away private guns, and don't believe any of this is a real risk. I'm just trying to understand the large group that believes their guns will protect them from the military.
  - nsxwolf 11y ago
    I don't pretend to know what the scenario would be where I'd actually use my guns. Be assured it's a nightmare scenario and not some dispute over land use rights. A few lone nuts would have no chance against the government. But if the sentiments and fear spread to the point that entire towns were like-minded in their opposition, you'd have a guerrilla warfare situation like we saw with insurgents in Iraq. In that situation, the government's job becomes much more difficult, and assuming carpet bombing is off the table, small arms indeed can make an impact.

deleted 11y ago

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kyleblarson 11y ago

In all seriousness just watch Team America by the South Park guys. Pretty much sums it up.

pekk 11y ago
This is a lazy cop-out for people who don't really care to spend any time thinking or looking at evidence. Which might be emblematic of the real problem. Knee-jerk anti-Americanism isn't a bit more sophisticated than knee-jerk pro-Americanism.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  What?! Team America: World Police isn't anti-American or pro-American. It is a satirical caricature of the U.S. It's grossly exaggerated, maybe, but it isn't false. As an American, I'd say it does a great job at lampooning the way America sees itself and how America sees other countries. Those guys chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" at international sporting events? In their hearts, they're singing "America: F--- Yeah!"... or at least some Lee Greenwood.

mcjon77 11y ago

I can only give my perspective as a US citizen. The best way that I could explain it is with the phrase "out of sight, out of mind." Issues have much less of an impact if a person doesn't see and feel the direct consequences in their lives. Lets take the Snowden case. He released tons of info regarding the US spying on it's own citizens, but how does that directly effect my life today? To put another way, how do I FEEL the day to day impact of these programs? The answer is simple, I don't. I have no idea whether the NSA has a record of every website I have viewed. I have no idea if I have a file on some government server detailing my porn preferences based on my google searches. I don't know if the government knows of my relationship status based on listening in to my phone calls. Essentially, unless and until the government decides to use this information that they may (or may not) have to blackmail/arrest/detain/publicly humiliate me, it doesn't impact my life in a noticeable way Now, lets compare that with the gun issue. When the federal/state/local government passes a gun law, if I am a gun owner I FEEL the impact of that law. If someone wants to buy an AR-15 and there is a threat of banning the weapon, that person feels the direct impact of the issue in his life. If someone wants to carry a concealed firearm in public (something completely legal in the vast majority of states, btw) but they live some place that does not permit it, they FEEL the impact of that law. This is also why for people who don't own guns and have no interest in doing so, gun restrictions me nothing to them. Banning assault weapons have no negative impact on the lives of people who have no desire to own such firearms. I am certainly not saying that the right to firearms is more important than the right to privacy from government surveillance. What I am saying is that it is FAR easier to find and organize people who have felt (or would feel) the real life impacts of gun restrictions, than those who have felt the impact of the NSA's surveillance program.

david_mitchell 11y ago
The best way that I could explain it is with the phrase "out of sight, out of mind." Issues have much less of an impact if a person doesn't see and feel the direct consequences in their lives. This sounds like a general problem with modern democracy. Theres so much going on that none of us can keep up with it, including the people who work in politics full-time. The inevitable result is an inability to make intelligent decisions in our own interests. The wisdom of the crowd is all that saves us, except when it doesn't.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

Americans have always had a distrust of government. That's why we fought a war for independence against Britain even though the eventual peaceful federalization of former colonies like Canada and Australia provided that violence wasn't necessary. Then consider how our constitution was created: it was designed to protect people from the tyranny of the state (which is why gun rights are so prevalent) but also tyranny of the mob (hence the survellience state approach to preventing conflicts from getting out of hand). I think much of the democratic west is moving towards autocracy, not because of cultural preference, but because of concentrated power from industry and wealthy individuals whose interests dominate politics and so nothing changes. I think the solution is for more direct democracy, and I believe that many of us on the right and left would prefer that to the fear of powerful top-down implementation of a way of life preferred by one side or the other.

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jowiar 11y ago
It is worth noting that the particular bit of federal tyranny the constitution was designed to prevent was ensuring slavery never got abolished. It was the top priority for half the states ratifying it.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  That's not too far off the survellience state. Americans want America to be the best in the world at everything, and that takes money and power. Slave owners had plenty of both. The reprehensible institution that it was, I cannot fathom a way our country could have grown so quickly and so successfully without coerced labor, and, for the native Americans, theft of land. We were in a lot of debt following the revolutionary war. It would have been crushing to pay back otherwise.
cgriswald 11y ago
I'm not convinced that more direct democracy is the solution. In fact, I think democracy is the weapon wielded by powerful industry and individuals. When you control the primary sources of information, how difficult is it to convince the people to vote your way? (Not that I know what the solution is...) The California proposition system reveals, IMO, both the strengths and the weaknesses in direct democracy. On the one hand, when representatives are not doing their jobs, the people can perform an end-run around them and pass any legislation they want. On the other hand, it's easily manipulated. Imagine I'm a lawnmower manufacturer. My bought and paid for representatives are concerned, because their constituents are very concerned about the safety of squirrels and want their representatives to pass a law requiring a new type of (more expensive, less efficient) lawn mower. They can't not act, or they won't get re-elected, but they also know they have to do what I want or they won't get my contributions. What to do? We write a bad law and have someone submit as a proposition. We wage a campaign against it (while our representatives speak out in favor of squirrels), pointing out the very flaws we had put into it and some sob stories about lawn mower factory employees losing jobs and how much more expensive it will be to cut your grass. If it passes, no big deal; we've put enough weaknesses into it to make it largely ineffective. If it doesn't, great! The people have spoken: they don't care about squirrels; and it's not the representatives fault. We probably don't have to worry about it again.

voodootrucker 11y ago

The baby boomer generation grew up before computers, and most of them don't even know how to check their email. They are very patriotic, and very insular. They believe that God gave America to white Christians, and the government is defending it. In short, they understand guns, but not computers. Young people grew up with the internet and are better informed, but they have no control. District lines and campaign financing have made it impossible to make an impact. The numbers are reaching a tipping point though, and you should expect to see a very different America in the next decade or so.

voodootrucker 11y ago
I think there is also a prevailing sense of impotency and apathy. The capital is so far away from most people (geographically and culturally) that they don't feel like they can change things. American politics are very divided on party lines, and neither party addresses these issues. I don't know what country the parent commentator is from, but US states are the size of most countries. At a local level there may be vigorous debate, but the only other comparable governments are the EU and maybe China. I imagine that the citizens of those governments also feel like they have very little voice? (edit, the EU is not a country)
peeters 11y ago
Are opinions on guns really divided along generational lines though? I mean going from my experience on Reddit, any time someone even suggests the U.S. should restrict gun ownership, that person gets a dozen or so upvoted replies reminding them that God gave Moses the 2nd Amendment on Mt Sinai. I find it hard to believe those are all baby boomers.
- pyre 11y ago
  I think that you'll find sometimes those opinions vary greatly between subreddits.
  - voodootrucker 11y ago
    Detailed demographics: http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/gun-control-2011.pdf http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/gun-control-... (hint: it's very divided - somewhat by age, but not enough to back up my original point)

DonHopkins 11y ago

Because being impotent and having a short penis doesn't make people want cryptography to compensate, but it does make people want guns.

mindslight 11y ago
It sure does make people engage in needless tribal bickering, too. Rather than being part of the political design wherein each half of the population supports half of the tyranny, why don't you try rooting for a sports team instead? The Super Bowl is on this weekend, and you can even nonchalantly call it "sportsball" to feel like you're still above it.

jokoon 11y ago

I agree that what the NSA did was bad, but I really don't understand your anti government stance. The main problem with those NSA programs is not that spying is evil (it's necessary and it's part of defending your country against many different types of threat), the problem is that this spying program, as a tool, could be used for other things than security purposes. This is in fact very worrying and it's what Snowden complains about: this massive chest of data was not encrypted and could be read by many government operatives by means of bribery, or even by individual with political goals. So the problem has been about how those tools has been designed and managed with very sloppy consideration, and that politicians are not able to fix it because as always, technology is beyond what democracy is about. What I understand about this scandal is not about trivial corruption in government, it's more about what sort of political problems, technologies can create. > an almost no reaction from other citizens I think every citizen who use computers for sensitive purpose, or people who might be the target of spying, are now aware of the NSA, and might have taken precautions that made NSA's job a little more difficult. I don't think you can really have a protest against the NSA. It's not a simple issue, especially from the technical standpoint.

ninkendo 11y ago

> Can a US citizen explain It's not some monoculture over here. Your guess is as good as any's.

newday 11y ago

Not an American, but it really comes down to fear, and the illusion of safety; the TSA is a perfect example. A gun doesn't keep you or your family safe, but it gives you the illusion of safety. Government surveillance is the same, since the rhetoric is that it will keep America safe from terrorists, yet like the TSA and guns, when we look at the data, all of these provide no tangible benefit, and often great harm.

MCRed 11y ago
> A gun doesn't keep you or your family safe Defensive gun use is far more common in the USA than murders by firearms: http://guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html http://guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html > when we look at the data, all of these provide no tangible benefit, and often great harm. No tangible benefit? Even 100,000 people saved by guns annually (the low end number) is "tangible benefit". According to the CDC, there are 11k homicides by firearms: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm If you look at other countries, when guns are banned there is a shift from guns to other methods of killing ,but not a significant decline in homicides. This is what you see when looking at the data.
- newday 11y ago
  A perfect example of what I'm talking about. If we look at western countries, the US leads in homicide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention.... You're narrative doesn't fit the data.
  - WhyDoiPostHere 11y ago
    > A perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's certainly a perfect example that people see what they want to see, even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I'm talking about you, by the way.
    - newday 11y ago

mindslight 11y ago

IMHO, the keeping of guns acts as a crutch [0] that lulls people into thinking they can always fight back when the true time comes. I believe they think there's no need to prematurely worry about mass surveillance (thus Snowden is a criminal), because if the ultimate results are used wrongly, then their guns can be used to put an end to it. Of course the same pathology applies to democracy itself, so out of the (ballot, jury, ammo) boxen, the only avenue us individualists really have left is the S-box. [0] Please don't misjudge my perspective - I think people have the right to keep and bear whatever tools regardless of purpose. And I think the 2A, as written, quite obviously covers fully auto, explosives, and armored vehicles. It should perhaps have been revisited with the advent of nuclear weapons though. A good legal test would be stewardship - what type of weapons can an individual/group practice with and store without causing harm to others?

voodootrucker 11y ago
I agree, and I find the viewpoint that guns will protect from Americans from a totalitarian government as naive. The US military has proven itself very effective at fighting those only armed with small arms. In Iraq roadside bombs have proven a far better weapon than assault rifles. Trying to imagine the Oregon militia fighting against predator drones seems insane. IMO, the 2A is just an opiate that the government uses to lull right wing voters into acquiescence.
- AI_Overlord 11y ago
  If there is an actual revolution you can expect people within the military to take sides.
  - notahacker 11y ago
    If the military [mostly] side with the revolution, civilian legal entitlement to handguns is even more unlikely to affect the outcome than if they don't.
rsync 11y ago
I want nothing at all to do with a 2A debate, but ... The "nuclear weapons" argument is actually a useful and substantive retort from gun control advocates - I don't think it should be waved away as if it's absurd or silly. But at the same time, I think there is a very, very simple solution to the "nuclear weapons" problem, and that is to cap firearms capability at whatever the highest capability employed by the state and local law enforcement that one is subject to. No SWAT team or sheriffs department will have a nuke, so the problem is solved. Because of posse comitatus[1], you can't end up with a situation where local law enforcement disarms itself completely (and thus, disarms all citizens) and hands over larger tasks to the military, since they can't do that. On some level, local law enforcement in the US needs firearms, so that unintended consequence is skirted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

mikeash 11y ago

I think the anti-dictatorship is not as common as it might look. Certainly some people believe that, but in my experience most gun advocates merely believe that you can't count on the government to protect you from criminals so you need to be able to do it yourself. I think these people welcome the government's efforts to protect them, they just don't think it does a very good job sometimes, or that it's simply not possible to provide perfect protection. Lots of people don't see the NSA's activities as "illegal spying on its own people," but rather as strong anti-terror efforts that don't give up when terrorists enter the US. The idea that we need strong gun rights as a way to stop the government from becoming tyrannical has at least two major obvious holes in it, but a lot of people's views are more subtle and nuanced than that. As usual.

AI_Overlord 11y ago
Please explain the two major holes please and be ready to defend them if they are not solid.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Please ask as if you were a human being, not a robot, and I'll consider it. "Be ready to defend them" is ridiculously rude.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    I thought of three obvious reasons. 1. The U.S. military is ridiculously well financed and supplied. Even if every American strong enough to lift them had a battle rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition, the federal government has mobile armor, fighters and bombers, and guided explosive munitions. The average American simply does not have the means to fight toe to toe with any professional army. As guerilla fighters, it is usually more useful to build explosives and make booby traps than it is to fire rifles. And if you're close enough to hit something with a rifle, you should probably already be running away. 2. We have strong gun rights now. They have not perceptibly slowed the government's slow ratcheting towards greater power and Constitutional overreach. Whether the government is already tyrannical is a matter of opinion, but be assured that some people think that it is. 3. Guns are not the only tools required to resist government. They are neither necessary nor sufficient. Defending gun rights in preference to any of the others, such as privacy, speech, assembly, redress, and due process, is to abandon our best means of resisting government power in favor of the one least likely to yield a predictably favorable outcome. All human rights work together to produce liberty, and none are more important than the others. To prioritize them is to see them picked off one by one, back to front, like Alvin York would.

Zigurd 11y ago

While it doesn't explain the soccer moms going along with the security state, part of the explanation is the Washington DC area culture. "Snowden" is a four letter word to anyone working for the DoD, DHS, DoJ and all their suppliers and providers - the beltway bandits. People outside this large circle don't understand that. But, inside, what Snowden did is unquestionably wrong. On top of that there are oddities like people with security clearances not being allowed to read the leaks. That just heightens the disconnect. Coincidentally, the people arming-up against the government are the most alienated from this circle. But that's just a coincidence. There's no connection through Snowden. It's all about creating a hostile environment for government officials. For the group in Oregon, they are probably more aware of Joseph Smith and the Oath of Vengeance than Edward Snowden.

linkregister 11y ago

You're begging the question here. The U.S. Department of Justice's reason for pursuing Snowden is because he perpetrated the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history. Speaking out against the government, which isn't a crime in the U.S., is not sufficient for being arrested. Can you imagine one of your customers permitting a developer to walk away with their entire code repository and internal strategy docs, without calling the police? Speaking against the government alone isn't a crime. It happens daily across many venues. Hell, I've got folks on my Facebook feed practically plotting to overthrow the government over the Oregon/Bundy controversy.

zaphar 11y ago
This explains the motivation of the US intelligence community in calling the police, yes. But It doesn't explain the willingness of the people of the nation to abet his prosecution. To take your analogy and apply it more accurately: Can you imagine one of your customers permitting a developer to walk away with the entire code repository that demonstrates massive violations of US law and internal strategy docs about how they intend to violate those laws without shutting him up permanently?
- rhino369 11y ago
  The Snowden leaks didn't demonstrate "massive violations of US Law." Essentially one documents out of thousand upon thousands really exposed an illegal program (phone meta-data), and even that was done under a good faith legal theory. It took several court cases to find it was against the law. If he just released that FISA order, it would still be illegal, but there would at least by a good argument to not prosecute He released tons of information about stuff that nobody would credibly think was illegal. Instead he released stuff that exposed spying on foreign countries, the raison d'être of the NSA, and he did it because he was ideologically against spyign. And that's why the DOJ has to go after him.

mc32 11y ago

Two things come to mind, Many people are glad some things were exposed like the scope of data gathering, what many dislike is disclosing of state secrets that went along with the mostly uncurated dumps. Expose government overreach good; expose state secrets bad. Two, the armed occupation/protest in places like Oregon has a lot more to do with disagreement over government control over grazing lands, and other natural resources many locals believe should be locally devolved, typically to enable more liberal exploitation of the resources [to the chagrin of the environmentally minded, but these are typically areas with poor economies] So these issues are completely disconnected.

dreamdu5t 11y ago

Can you explain why you think US citizens have power over what their government does?

crdoconnor 11y ago

The right to bear arms has strong institutional support from the NRA (the gun manufacturer's lobby). Edward Snowden has very little institutional support (a bit from a few rights groups but none as powerful or rich as the NRA). Most political insanity in America boils down to this.

seany 11y ago
The NRA is a gun owners group, the NSSF is the industry lobby.

mercurialshark 11y ago

Well part of it is pretty simple. He stole, as in removed classified information without permission from a secure facility and disseminated millions of pages of classified information to non-approved parties (everyone in the world). If it were legal to remove classified information without permission, because you felt entitled to, then that could be a legal defense. But it's clearly not, so he sought political asylum in Russia. If however, there was a directive from the President or office of legal counsel to shut down the program and if NSA had kept it running, him exposing an illegal program could be a legal defense - had he gone through the appropriate channels. But there was nothing illegal about it at the time. So he committed the crime, not NSA...

MichaelApproved 11y ago
To add to your comment, he took an enormous amount of data. It was sweeping and pretty indiscriminate. And he gave it to the media. Some of what he took and shared could be legitimately argued as whistle blowing but there's lots of other classified data about legitimate programs that was taken as well.
- FreakyT 11y ago
  I think this is the key issue that really muddies the Snowden issue. I completely agree with Snowden's leaking of the domestic spying program information, but he also leaked a lot of information not related to that. Foreign spying is basically what the NSA is supposed to do.
  - mcv 11y ago
    Did he also leak information about spying on enemies? Or only about spying on allies?
    - FreakyT 11y ago
      Both, and that's the key issue. Here's an example: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266875/exclusive-us-hacked-pacnet-asia-pacific-fibre-optic-network-operator http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266875/exclusive...

japhyr 11y ago

I think you could make an argument that many of the people who are loud advocates for gun rights don't understand the nuances of what Snowden did. Many gun advocates are an odd mix of "f the government" and "US is the best!" I just started subsistence hunting this year, so I own a gun and I want to keep the ability to hunt. I have zero concerns that the US government will "take away" my hunting rifle. But I'd love to see handguns and assault weapons under much tighter control. I think there's a middle ground between "no guns" and "you can own any gun you want". But not many people look for the middle ground right now, and most of our prominent politicians couldn't even give an accurate description of the what the term "middle ground" really means.

forgottenpass 11y ago
"Middle ground" on gun control, eh? http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Illustrated-Guide-To-Gun-Control.png http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/...

rmc 11y ago

People think Snowden is a traitor.

lostlogin 11y ago
It's absurd that this is still a thing. Without that charge there is plenty that he could be prosecuted with. Crap like "betraying your country" belongs back centuries ago along with imperial expansion, prosecution for speaking ill of the King etc.

kbenson 11y ago

Because arrest does not mean convict, and his actions consisted of more than speaking out. He has publicly admitted to something that, from the surface facts, appears to be illegal (regardless of whether you think it was morally right and acceptable). As such, until convicted or exonerated, it is the job of the justice system to bring him in for trial. It's comparable to killing someone in what you believe was self defense. You may still have to go to trial to prove your innocence if the government believes it may not have been self-defense. That is the point of the justice system, and trial by a jury of your peers. The right to bear arms is to protect from overreach by the government. As long as government consists of representatives of the people making laws in accordance with the constitution and prior laws, there should not be a case where arms are required to defend against the state. It ensures the government cannot monopolize force.

tzaman 11y ago
But they can try him in absence, can they not?
- kbenson 11y ago
  I imagine in a high profile case like this which polarizes the populace, there is recognition that a trial where the defendant does not get to mount a defense would likely exacerbate any feelings of mistrust held for the government.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago

Hoo boy! I wish I could explain it. I live right smack in the middle of a bunch of people who can be observed to do exactly that. They are oblivious to the irony or logical inconsistency. My only guess is that these people see pro military industrial complex hawks as defenders of the America in their fairy tales and implicitly trust that their motives are pure. The only other thing is maybe that they've been defending the MIC for so long that they've stopped (or were never) thinking critically about their position.

puppetmaster3 11y ago

I moved to USA from Europe, here is my POV: Citizens are mostly poorly educated relative to Europe. Also politicians are more corrupt. So the politicians have a free hand. For an empirical illustration : http://youtube.com/watch?v=HVOuK_KB9ew http://youtube.com/watch?v=HVOuK_KB9ew 85,000 callers out of 90,000 callers to a California senator (representing among others Silicon Valley) wanted a no vote. Senator voted yes. Or http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03hd981 http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03hd981 Confidence level is 15% with media support, this is normal: http://pollingreport.com/CongJob.htm http://pollingreport.com/CongJob.htm You have a choice of 2 parties. It is not a Euro style multi party democracy. Ex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland So: most people support Snowden, despite thought shaping that happens on forums. And Aaron. And Ian. Daniel. Hastings. But in age of big data, surveillance meta data can be used bayesian/predictive for internal politics (not for 'scary' external imagination). The winning move then is to be or appear passive. And anticapte tyrany. hth

puppetmaster3 11y ago
Ex: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-ope... http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/eglin-air-force-base-busted-gaming-reddit.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/eglin-air-force-base-... https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1dz470/most_reddit_addicted_city_over_100k_visits_total/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1dz470/most_red...

forgottenpass 11y ago

Can a US citizen explain what seems to me tobe a dissonance Americans will, unsurprisingly, pay lip service to the American ideals of democracy because that's what they were taught. The two disconnects I see are: do they actually believe in them? And can the identify a compromise of the ideas as such? Not always, and infrequently. People are exceptionally good at ignoring ingnorable things that they don't want to deal with, the "someone else's problem" phenomenon. Political groups that don't frequently recommit to American ideals mean that the political trends sway away from them. Add in some "this time it is different" type of rationalization, and boneheaded "America could never possibly X" attitude that makes them think the groundwork for X is always and forever unambiguously benign. So different political groups have different levels of commitment to different American ideals. Someone can believe in gun rights as important to maintain like all the other rights that strengthen our democracy. Or they could just like guns and find out the political groups they're already predisposed to disagree with want to take them away. Their commitment to American ideals is repackaged into hatred of the other party -- and as long as this hypothetical person got to keep their gun and a few other pet political issues, they'd welcome a dictator.

Umn44 11y ago

You should read some books on the history of the US government and its involvement in world affairs. http://williamblum.org/ http://williamblum.org/

a3n 11y ago

My opinion, I can't see even a significant minority of gun owners rising up in rebellion and revolution against the US. Ever. At most, the odd Timothy McVeigh or Ammon Bundy. The 2nd Amendment, and its implications, are mostly a convenient argument. We, as a population, just want our guns.

duaneb 11y ago

> illegal Legal. > a dissonance, between the government putting huge efforts and resource in trying to arrest a citizen speaking out against the government doing illegal spying on its own people (an almost no reaction from other citizens), and people defending the right to bear weapons to protect themselves from the government turning into a dictatorship? These are, arguably, two different reactions to perceived xenophobic threats.

superuser2 11y ago

Everyone is free to critize the government, to accuse it of any atrocity and to denounce it on the basis of those accusations. What you cannot do is disclose internal information to which you have privileged access as a government agent/employee/contractor. You have ample notice of this fact before agreeing to become one. In fact you must go out of your way to apply for a security clearance. If you find this an unacceptable infringement of your freedom, you may choose not to work for the government. Snowden is not subject to arrest for dissent, but for what is effictively a breach of his employment contract. SCOTUS recently held that government employees cannot even be fired for disparaging the government provided they do not identify themselves as government employees when doing so.

iaw 11y ago
Additionally, in the USA there are theoretically protections for "whistleblowers" who reveal illegal or immoral practices by large institutions. The problem is that the security apparatus hides behind the cloak of national security needs preventing any open rational debate on the subject.

AndrewBissell 11y ago

There's actually quite a lot of overlap in the U.S. between people who vociferously support gun rights (which includes libertarians and some left anarchists) and support for Edward Snowden and opposition to mass surveillance. Up until Rand Paul dropped out, he and Bernie Sanders were the only two U.S. presidential candidates speaking out against the NSA's overreach. Paul is staunchly pro gun rights, and Sanders has taken criticism from Hillary Clinton and many on the left for being insufficiently anti-gun for their tastes.

metaphorm 11y ago

you're correct. it is a huge cognitive dissonance. many of the most vehemently pro-gun anti-government people in the U.S. only selectively apply their views to "keep the government away from MY PROPERTY". they are often also enthusiastic supporters of aggressive, militaristic foreign policy and all kinds of really nasty shit including but not limited to assassinations, drone strikes, extraordinary rendition, torture, extra-judicial detainment, and persecution of whistle-blowers on the ground they are "traitors". it makes me sick to think about, but thats how it is. the U.S. is a country of many contradictions.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

I have a hard time explaining it. I know many very pro-gun people who constantly think the government is trying to take their guns but who don't have a problem with spying. My father is one of them. One of the only things I can see is the propaganda has worked. They think spying is only to catch online child abusers and terrorist, and they know they aren't one of those so they have nothing to worry about. The spying is also much harder to grasp. Taking someone's gun is a very easy think to understand. Even a toddler can understand someone taking something from them. In comparison, spying, especially the really large scale stuff, is much harder to understand. But besides for that, I don't really know why there is such a divide between the reactions.

sroerick 11y ago

This issue can also be explained a bit by illustrating some of the divides that make up party lines. The call to arrest Snowden has been echoed by both political parties. The mainstream of both parties is very pro-surveillance. While surveillance programs were certainly in place before 9/11, the Bush administration really furthered the goals of the surveillance (and the larger National Security state). The Obama administration continued that advancement without restriction. I would say that the two political parties in the US both support surveillance in a pretty vast majority. The bureaucratic reasons for this are fairly complex, but the simplest way of putting it is that the mainstream of both parties is very authoritarian (what some, myself included would label fascist.) Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama (to some extent), and the neoliberal movement has effectively the same foreign policy goals as the neoconservative movement that gave rise to the Bush administration. On the fringes of both parties, you have outspoken activists trying to address both surveillance and the larger natsec state. The libertarians on the right, (Rand Paul, Justin Amash), and the progressives on the left (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren) have all been outspoken against the NSA. The problem is that the mainstream in both parties tends to control Congress, the bureaucracy, and the media. Gun Rights is a mainstream Republican issue. Every republican has to be strongly pro gun (both the mainstream GOP and the libertarians are) whereas every democrat has to be against it (Both the neoliberals and the progressives are.) There are a lot of issues (or, in my opinion, non-issues) in American politics that tend to split the fringe in both parties. Topics like Gun Control, Abortion, Immigration, etc. are hot button issues that generally take the focus away from issues that theoretically should be very, very important, like NSA surveillance, illegal rendition and torture programs, assassination programs, and war. It's sad, because the anti-establishment (Progressives and Libertarians) in both parties tend to agree on these issues. Frankly, most of the people who are pro-gun-rights are also anti-surveillance. These are the constitutional libertarians on the right: gun rights are guaranteed by the US second amendment, and privacy by the fourth amendment against illegal search and seizure. The dissonance you're seeing isn't so much due to logical inconsistencies, but rather due to the weird, schizophrenic nature of US politics.

smaddox 11y ago

It's very simple: political beliefs are rarely logically consistent (at least not through a logic that excludes human psychology). This is not limited to the US.

awl130 11y ago

there is no dissonance. spying is about privacy. guns are about lives. spying can lead to loss of life but guns do lead to loss of life.