Set The Leg, the story of Snowden the Coward

I am really getting disheartened at the number of people who have anything to say about Snowden.

1.) He's a whistleblower. Okay, super. Thanks for letting me know.
2.) He elucidated everything that was happening. Yep. Caught that. Could have been discerned from a Freedom of Information Act request, but yeah, super dooper, he line-itemized that shit. Isn't this the stuff we said was going to happen when the Patriot Act first came out? And everybody was like it's a bad idea, but we'll sign it anyway? Thanks for the bullet points - I think we got it.
3.) He absconded. Here is where you lose me. You say he left the country. Wait, what?

Okay, Snowden, you had the balls to stand up and say, "We are doing something wrong and I need to say it." Then YOU RAN? What were you doing that required your stupid ass to run? You genuinely had to do something insurmountably illegal in order to do what's right?

Then you know what, you STAND UP AGAIN AND SAY "PROSECUTE THE SHIT OUTTA ME, LET ALL THIS INTO THE PUBLIC RECORD AND WE'LL SEE HOW THIS ENDS."

QUIT BLOWING THE WHISTLE AND SHOUT.

Your stupid, pampered ass wanted to not have consequences for outting what you felt was wrong? Tough shit. You're a damn coward, not a martyr. Martyrs face whatever happens, because what they are doing is right. There are consequences if your ass is convicted. And the fact that you are too much of a coward to stand up to that, regardless of how you think it will play out, disgusts and enfuriates me. I will not applaud you for anything.

Thus far you've done nothing but say hey, check this out regarding governmental activities I already suspected were going on (thank you, Patriot Act. You can actually read the laws the government passes, did you know that? It's in there.) and then procede to your pathetic attempt to...

I have no idea, really, but I suspect you ran to preserve your "freedom," which baffles me. If you'd stood up in the first place and made sure your face was everywhere, it's not like they could just throw you in Gitmo with no name and no hope. Seriously, you really didn't think this through, did you? You did something illegal, you thought you'd be forgiven because you were announcing something you thought was WAY WORSE to the public, and then you ran because, Oh Shit, there was still the matter of you committing illegality in order to announce what you'd discovered. You knew there were consequences, and your actions were, and will remain to me, cowardly.

Let me explain something to you:

Dr. Mudd was the physician who set John Wilkes Boothe's broken leg the night that Boothe shot Lincoln. Mudd had no way to know what had happened, and did the job in front of him. Mudd was hanged as a traitor.

The moral of the story is YOU DO THE JOB IN FRONT OF YOU AND YOU TAKE THE CONSEQUENCES, EVEN IF THEY ARE UNFAIR OR UNJUST. I do not give a shit what you want to happen, you KNOW what is going to happen. You still set the damn leg.




EDIT: Please note, no originally published information was altered.

1.) I had no idea all that I was talking about was The Freedom of Information Act. Allow my humble attempt to clarify, please. I apologize if my ire misdirected my intent. If you're focusing on the snarling suggestion I made that there were alternative avenues, legal ones even, by which similar if not identical information could be obtained and released to the public, I would hope at some point that you realize my argument is not the function of a FOIA request (which I have completed more than once, thank you) but refers specifically and directly to personal responsibility. Which files neatly into my next point.

2.) Why would I mention Dr. Mudd? Because consequence does not change the "rightness" of the action. Personal responsibility, in my opinion, demands action. Consequence occurs. Even if Mudd had KNOWN he would die simply by setting the leg, he still should have set the leg. And he did so. Because that's what you do. You set the damn leg. Even if you lose that which is most dear, you do what is right. And even in an age of internet anonymity, where attempts at honest discourse are oft over-laden with the chiding of people who will not even address it to the author, I would still think that personal responsibility for what some are calling "a heroic act" would resonate. I will continue to leave "heroic act" in quotations because I know there are far too many dark corners in this particular case to suggest such a decision could be reached right now.

3.) Presumption of a system being moral is a reach. In this instance, I have referred to Mr. Snowden as a whistle-blower and have stated, clearly, that I believe he left due solely to his belief that he will be prosecuted. I believe he should be prosecuted, and I also believe he should be elated to be prosecuted. Get everything on public record, make yourself a larger target than imaginable, and force social change.

4.) Being a woman has never been an issue for me. Being someone who is willing to discuss subjects has also never been a problem for me. Should you find fault with my gender or the fact that I can listen to everything you have to say, consider it thoughtfully and still believe that you are wrong without assigning you personal characterizations or attempting to degrade you personally in any way, I would submit that the issue is yours, not mine.