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Contrary to John Rawls philosophy of civil disobedience, in which disobedients have to accept the legal consequences of their actions, Snowden evaded authoritie
by intslack 13y ago
Contrary to John Rawls philosophy of civil disobedience, in which disobedients have to accept the legal consequences of their actions, Snowden evaded authorities.
But willingness to accept punishment can be viewed as more of a strategy to bring attention to the cause, instead, and not a qualifier of the disobedient.
For Snowden to reenact the "classic account of civil disobedience" would mean silence of himself in the mean time of his trial.
Why must Snowden throw himself into the system where he is almost certainly going to be crushed, with the inevitable jury make up in the district where charges were filed?
- cwp 13y agoYes, that is the tradeoff. Submitting to federal justice would be the moral high-ground, and a tactic of classical civil-disobedience. Doing that, however, would effectively silence him; it would be up to others to make arguments on his behalf. Who can say whether that would be more effective than the course he's taken. At the same time, it's pretty brazen for his critics say that he hasn't sacrificed enough, that if he was sincere about his motivation he would have sacrificed more.
- talmand 13y agoI agree, I find it really odd that there are demands that one cannot be on the moral high ground unless you throw yourself upon the mercy of a system that you directly exposed as being corrupt. It's as if all those people that escape North Korea to spread word about the abuses there must go back to face the ire of that government or we won't believe them. As for the immature people out there with sad debating etiquette, I'm not comparing the US government with the North Korean government, it's just an example.