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Would you consider someone who murdered several children and then fled the country to be in exile? Because his choices would be to return and face the death pen
by thufry 13y ago
Would you consider someone who murdered several children and then fled the country to be in exile? Because his choices would be to return and face the death penalty, or live in hiding abroad.
Whether you think he did a good thing or a bad thing, it's clear that Snowden is, by his own acknowledgment, guilty of multiple counts of serious felonies in the United States. The government is acting as expected, given this fact.
- baddox 13y ago> Would you consider someone who murdered several children and then fled the country to be in exile? Yes, absolutely. Are there any English speakers who wouldn't?
- mpyne 13y agoWe would say "self-imposed exile". Or colloquially, that he was "on the lam". Exile is where someone else imposes it on you.
- baddox 13y agoThe distinction seems vague to me. It's either "don't come back or we will throw you in jail for coming back" or "don't come back or we will throw you in jail for committing a previous crime."
- mpyne 13y agoFor the latter, you could very well be judged not guilty and go off scot-free. Whereas with exile you get thrown in the slammer just for coming back.
- samstave 13y agoWasn't roman Polanski living in exile in France after being wanted for sex with a minor?
- jlgreco 13y agoA quick google search confirms that yes, Polanski could be said to have been in "exile" in France, according to numerous news organizations. Great example.
- olefoo 13y agoYour needlessly inflammatory hypothetical example is irrelevant in this case. Snowden did not; no matter whose rhetoric one accepts uncritically, perform an act of violence. And most people's moral calculus admits the concept of the balance of harms; whereby an acts benefits to the public at large or the victims of an evildoer outweigh the harms to the evildoer of having it's evil actions revealed to the world. That the US government is acting as we might expect rather than allowing a congressional investigation into these clearly unconstitutional programs and the legal smokescreen that was designed to prevent any challenge to their legality; is not an advertisement for it's good faith towards the citizenry.
- thufry 13y agoThe US government may or may not start a congressional investigation into these programs. PRISM may or may not be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. But even if both things happen, the US will do everything they can to get Snowden, convict him, and put him in jail for the rest of his life.