Glenn Beck strongly defends Snowden and says we’re on about the last exit before complete government surveillance over our lives. He says we must act now to end this and that the worst possible solution would be to pick up a gun because chaos is precisely what the government wants. If you sneer at this because it’s from Glenn Beck then you don’t get it about civil liberties and freedom. This isn’t about left vs. right.
“My stance on Edward Snowden – I came out over the weekend and said, ‘This guy is a hero.’ At least what he is doing is an act of heroism,” Glenn said. “What he is doing coming out and speaking to the press – he has issued himself a death warrant”¦ He had a decent life. He was making $200,000 a year, living in Hawaii with his girlfriend. He decides, ‘This is wrong and somebody needs to speak out.’ This is, I believe, the first act of real heroism that we have seen.”
As a country, we are running out of time. “I do believe this is the last exit. I could be wrong”¦ Hopefully there’s more,. If the American people, however, see that what he has done was right, we have a chance of changing things.”
Snowden has now shown the world that the United States government has access to just about every aspect of your life – from phone calls to emails to credit card activity, they have it all. The media and Washington may try to spin these leaks into some sort of political debate stemming from the PATRIOT ACT, but the implications of government overreach in this situation are far more dangerous than any political scandal.
We live in interesting times. If someone should pick up a gun, and if the government should respond with a crackdown, what would happen after that? Consider: there’s a Democrat in the White House, much hated by the middle of the country. If he was a Republican, it’s quite possible that the law and order sentiment would trump the 2nd Amendment sentiment, and they might go along… but he isn’t. A government crackdown at this point could well result in a limited but armed response, followed (almost inevitably) by further crackdowns and (again almost inevitably) by de facto civil war. The cycle of violence would be unleashed. While that would favor a drastic curtailment of rights in “emergency legislation,” which would serve the short-term interests of those seeking power, it would most likely also result in years of destructive armed conflict, and almost certainly the destruction of our nation as we know it. I don’t think any but the most deluded (politicians or citizens) want that as an option. No, the continuation of the slow erosion of rights would seem to be a strategically better option for the government than any sort of chaos. And it’s much harder to counter.
What happens after the crackdown depends on how far the government is willing to go. Just look at Egypt now. Not a good outcome. Government shooting people in the streets. Civil wars have really unpredictable outcomes and can end with nasty people seizing power.
I agree that the government is quickly losing legitimacy.
I don’t condone civil war, but from an analytical standpoint it remains a possibility, particularly since the short-term results could be beneficial to certain parties. One could even imagine a rich politician paying someone to blow up a building so he (or she) could ride the emergency legislation into virtual dictatorship.
“Sieg Heil to the President Gasman…”
For the only time. I agree with Glen Beck.