4 ms·
If you think the IRS issue and the NSA are mutually exclusive then you aren't paying close enough attention. They are just different tools in the same workshop
by ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
If you think the IRS issue and the NSA are mutually exclusive then you aren't paying close enough attention. They are just different tools in the same workshop.
As for the 'hypocrisy' would you feel the same if a Chinese national ran to the US seeking asylum after broadcasting to the world that the Chinese were hacking our hospitals and universities just because they could?
- hnal943 13y agoI didn't say they were mutually exclusive, I said one bothered me more than the other. You're right that there is a pattern of abuse of the citizenry coming from this administration, but don't think that abuse is as accepted or as systemic in the USA compared to the Russian or Chinese regimes. Thus the hypocrisy - China and Russia have brutal, repressive governments that do not have moral equivalency with the USA. That said, I don't think the scenario you pose is analogous. If Snowden flew to China and revealed we were spying on China, that would be regular old treason. If a Chinese national came to America to reveal to the world how China was spying on its own people (what good would that do as this information would be censored out within China?), he would be going to a less repressive land from where he left. Thus, no hypocrisy.
- mindslight 13y ago> If a Chinese national came to America ... he would be going to a less repressive land from where he left. Thus, no hypocrisy. So, it's wrong to blow the whistle on the least-repressive land in the world without submitting to draconian punishment? Let's say the US disappeared from the world (closed its borders entirely, took off in a giant spaceship, etc)... Does this mean that whistleblowers in Russia must accept punishment for their message to be valid?