Snowden is the poster child for an UnEthical Generation

reply to post by Auricom

Snowden was working for people who were constantly VIOLATING American people's rights. Daily. The unethical thing to do, is to keep your mouth shut and ignore it. Not the other way around. So in my opinion, he's gotten all ten out of ten right.

I sure hope you're never in such a position where you would sit quietly by and allow people like his employers to rape the constitution.

This is the balancer on the scales; he indeed broke his bond with the NSA but he upheld his responsibility to the nation.

From here, we... the people, have to choose between what was more important. We know those behind the operation are twinkled, and we should expect that. The guys behind the curtain did not want us to see them.

On the flip... we are a much wiser country now and will, hopefully, be less apt to buy that bottle of elixir the next time the salesman comes around.

Originally posted by truthermantwo
say we were living with nazis, and the NSA was under a nazi regime, and he released some secrets [color=gold] and it stopped fascism and oppression and created a new society? We as a free nation have to sometimes forceably check and balance those who's minds let power run away with them.

Ask me again when this "new society" comes about.


Mike

reply to post by mikegrouchy

As long as one is willing to admit he violated trust, then yes... I'm willing to weigh one against the other. It's when, in the mad rush to hero worship that one skips over the 10th point in Snowden's case that I take exception. Trust is not something to be conveniently discarded, particularly when accusing someone else of doing the same thing.

WHat does it matter if Snowden violated the trust of an agreement he had?

He revealed unconstitutional practices. This WHOLE COUNTRY is built on the Constitution and freedom. It's a moot point and there's not a single person besides yourself, bringing up that he broke the trust/agreement with his employer for the sake of revealing the Truth that was being hidden.......

WHo cares what he violated......his agreement was with an unethical employer violating the constitution.

reply to post by dominicus

WHo cares what he violated......his agreement was with an unethical employer violating the constitution.

Hear, hear!

Originally posted by redoubt
reply to post by Auricom

 

Snowden was working for people who were constantly VIOLATING American people's rights. Daily. The unethical thing to do, is to keep your mouth shut and ignore it. Not the other way around. So in my opinion, he's gotten all ten out of ten right.

I sure hope you're never in such a position where you would sit quietly by and allow people like his employers to rape the constitution.

This is [color=gold] the balancer on the scales; he indeed broke his bond with the NSA but he upheld his responsibility to the nation.

From here, we... the people, have to choose between what was more important. We know those behind the operation are twinkled, and we should expect that. The guys behind the curtain did not want us to see them.

On the flip... we are a much wiser country now and will, hopefully, be less apt to buy that bottle of elixir the next time the salesman comes around.

Agreed!

...and...
another cigar for you, sir.



It would be unethical for us to overlook his violation of trust
in the pursuit of some other parties violation of trust.



Mike

I think it was Max Keiser, who said protesters should stop wearing the V for vendetta masks, where Warner Brothers makes a cut of every mask sold and instead wear Snowden Masks.

reply to post by mikegrouchy


Accuse? It's there in black and white, FFS! They broke the law so his agreement is voided. This is also why we have whistleblower laws, supposedly to protect them. But go ahead and make it a black and white issue with no grey area. Sometimes you have to do something "wrong" to do right. In this case, what he did was absolutely ethical. Contracts are broken all the time, for a variety of reasons, and this is no different.

Again, go ahead and ignore the fact that the US government broke it's own laws. Every damned contract with those lying weasels should be broken by We The People as they would rather have every piece of information regarding our personal lives and yet we get jack squat from them. Transparency, indeed. I guess it's ok for the government to break it's own laws but if anyone else does, they are damned. We are a nation of laws that mean little for us peons, they are only there to protect the government and corporations.

You may enjoy your surveillance state, I do not enjoy living in a Orwellian nightmare. The government was wrong, period. Truth is treason in the empire of lies, so a wise man once said. But you go on enjoying your police state, well, as long as you can before they come for you. Since they know more about you than you do, I doubt it will be long before you break one of those hundreds of thousands of laws on the books and they can send you to a nice FEMA camp or some such. Heck, I'd bet you, like all of us, have broken some law that you probably don't even know about already.

Snowden is a traitor in Bizarro world, not this reality.

Originally posted by dominicus
reply to post by mikegrouchy

 

As long as one is willing to admit he violated trust, then yes... I'm willing to weigh one against the other. It's when, in the mad rush to hero worship that one skips over the 10th point in Snowden's case that I take exception. Trust is not something to be conveniently discarded, particularly when accusing someone else of doing the same thing.

WHat does it matter if Snowden violated the trust of an agreement he had?

He revealed unconstitutional practices. This WHOLE COUNTRY is built on the Constitution and freedom. It's a moot point and there's not a single person besides yourself, bringing up that he broke the trust/agreement with his employer for the sake of revealing the Truth that was being hidden.......

. [color=gold] WHo cares what he violated......his agreement was with an unethical employer violating the constitution.

Only a member of a wholly unethical generation could say such a thing.

If one outweighs the other, then let's examine that.
But to completely dismiss the one violation in pursuit of the other...

I find your lack of ethics disturbing.


Mike

reply to post by mikegrouchy

How can I trust your sense of what is and is not ethical?

How can We The People trust the government's sense of what is and is not ethical?

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
I think it was Max Keiser, who said protesters should stop wearing the V for vendetta masks, where Warner Brothers makes a cut of every mask sold and instead wear Snowden Masks.

LOL!


Mike

reply to post by mikegrouchy


This is just a game to you, isn't it.

Originally posted by TheSpanishArcher
reply to post by mikegrouchy

 

How can I trust your sense of what is and is not ethical?

How can We The People trust the government's sense of what is and is not ethical?

The first step is to make sure we do not become like them.


Mike

Yes, and Snowden took a step towards that end.

Originally posted by suz62
reply to post by mikegrouchy

 

This is just a game to you, isn't it.

Not in the least.

woodwardjnr 's post
gave me a much needed tension breaker.

I'm sorry you feel that way in a discussion about ethics.


Mike

Originally posted by suz62
Yes, and Snowden took a step towards that end.

The beginning of the path he is on now started with his violation of trust.
Even Snowden admits that.

9 out of 10 ain't bad. But denying it, pretending the people's-champion
did no wrong is bad. Nay, it's unethical.


Mike

Originally posted by mikegrouchy
So all I have to do is accuse my perceived enemy
of illegal activity and that gives me justification
to violate any agreements signed by me?

Two wrongs make a right?

Are you actually trying to help or hurt the image of
this generations ethical behavior?

Mike

edit on 18-7-2013 by mikegrouchy because: (no reason given)

Response PART 1

Numerous times in this thread, the overwhelming majority of people have pointed out to you just how flawed your logic is, and why. And every single time you try to take their words and twist them against them, in an attempt to make this case fit your preconceived notions. You're twisting logic so badly, more than one person here has wondered if you're "trolling." I can't help but wonder if you actually see their points, but are so stubborn and unwavering that you feel compelled to twist their logic around, or if you're truly incapable of viewing the situation with logic, and reason, and without bias. Your disdainful attitude and mocking use of eye-rolling emoticons suggests stubbornness and being overly-emotional. However, your repeated mangling of the real meaning of "possession is nine tenths of the law" seem to indicate to me that the latter is true, and grasp of logic is your failing point, but I'll get back to that.


Addressing what you said above: That is a different scenario and you know it. This is not really an "accusation," properly. An accusation is what you call it when there is no evidence. There is evidence here, of what he is "accusing" the NSA of. If this was not factual, he would not be violating any agreement (and thus no breech of "trust" as you suggest) and the government would not want his head on a platter.

So no, it's not as simple as "accusing" someone of something.

Further, as has been pointed out by several people, the government is violating the trust of the public and the constitution. They were the first "violators" in this situation. Snowden was (assuming he's not actually working for them as a stooge in a planned release of info-- which I'm still not sure about) acting on what he felt was ethics and duty-- a duty to the constitution and the people, above all else. All government officials should have duty to the constitution as their highest priority. The fact that you don't see our freedoms as the highest priority of all really makes me wonder where you're coming from....

By the way, not long before all this... didn't Obama make some speech to the effect of how we need to protect whistleblowers so they can do their oh-so-important job of blowing that whistle? Hm... ironic....



**** Now, as a brief aside.... I've mostly tried to keep quiet on this case, because my own opinion is complex. As indicated above, I'm not even certain snowden is a real whistle-blower. Some cynical part of me thinks this was all planned out (similar to what some, myself included, have speculated about Assange) and that Snowden is, still, by doing all of this, following orders.

All that speculation aside, however, I understand the government has to spy. They need to collect intel. For all kinds of perfectly valid reasons. We have rights codified into the most basic and important document of our law as well as checks and balances to prevent the natural tendency toward corruption that power tends to encourage in some. Ever since I was a kid-- and I do mean before puberty, I was well aware of what our government was "really" like. I was aware that they did stuff we weren't supposed to know about-- some of which was even probably illegal. And I sincerely hoped, and prayed that the men doing these things had pure intentions at heart-- and were only truly acting in our best interest. That of our country, if not humanity. And part of me still has that hope.

But our country doesn't mean as much if the things that make our country great-- our rights and freedoms, and our checks against corruption-- are eroded away completely. And the last couple decades (a couple decades beyond that, really... but it's become especially obvious the last 10 years or so) we have seen some evidence of this happening. ****

reply to post by mikegrouchy

Response PART 2

Back to you, and your denial of logic and embracing ignorance....

The American people are supposed to be able to trust that their government is doing the right thing. Many feel that with the spying, they have violated that trust. Snowden was, theoretically, acting because of his own conscience. If he was just a scumbag who wanted to double-cross the government for his own personal gain, he'd have tried to sell some of our secrets to a rival. Someone with security clearance and the right info could be a rich man. That doesn't seem to have been the plan. This wasn't for personal gain. What did he gain? Praise by some, sure... but hate from plenty of others. Exile from his home. Threats of imprisonment and death. Those are not the kind of things a man risks unless he believes he's doing what's right. So maybe he did the right thing, to you, or maybe he didn't. But I don't think it's even up for debate, that he did what he thought was right. Whether you and I see it the same way or not....

Violation of trust? What trust? The government didn't trust him. They don't trust anyone. (They can't, properly speaking. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing-- see the beginning of my **** aside above. Security, in the way the government / intelligence people require it, does not allow for trust.)

Let me ask you-- when you let a friend borrow a CD, or tell a friend a secret, do you make them sign 10 different documents in triplicate, and then convene a group of other mutual friends to enact laws by which if your friend violates your agreement, you will jail and/or execute him? No, you don't. You simply trust them, or you don't. Sure, some people say "If you ever tell anyone this I'll kill you." But 999,999 times out of 1,000,000 that is figurative. Not so with the government. So there was no real trust. Not like it works in the "real world." There was an agreement. And he did violate that-- no argument there. But he presumably did so believing it was the right thing. Those are not the actions of a moral failure.

Back to your twisting of, or difficulty using logic: Before I close, I just want to point out that you've repeatedly mangled the meaning of "possession is nine tenths of the law." You keep saying it as "only nine tenths" as though having possession (and thus having 9/10 of the law on your side) is somehow a bad thing. (How you could make that logical deduction is quite beyond me.)

Possession is nine-tenths of the law is an expression meaning that ownership is easier to maintain if one has possession of something, or difficult to enforce if one does not. The expression is also stated as "possession is nine points of the law", which is credited as derived from the Scottish expression "possession is eleven points in the law, and they say there are but twelve".

Although this isn't actually correct, this principle can be restated as: "in a property dispute (whether real or personal), in the absence of clear and compelling testimony or documentation to the contrary, the person in actual possession of the property is presumed to be the rightful owner. The rightful owner shall have their possession returned to them; if taken or used. The shirt or blouse you are currently wearing is presumed to be yours, unless someone can prove that it is not".

Source-- Possession is 9/10 of the law...

Originally posted by mikegrouchy
10) [color=gold] Trust: We live in a world where everything is connected to everything else. Everything we do, say, think and believe affects others and the universe around us. "As you sow, so shall you reap". This is also known as the "Law of Cause and Effect". Whatever we put out in the Universe is what comes back to us. If we want to be able to trust then we should be worthy of trust ourselves.

Snowden reminds me of that old saying that "Possession is only 9/10ths of the law" he had possession, but he had no sense of propriety. None. I guess to this generation, possession is now 10/10ths of the law, and the idea of trust is extinct.

Trust goes many ways. What weights more, trust between him and NSA that is based on him signing a document and getting money for it or trust between the people and those who have the power to spy them? I personally place more value on the moral trust between him and the people.

Originally posted by iwilliam

Response PART 2

. [color=gold] There was an agreement. And he did violate that-- no argument there.

I'm willing to accept your criticism of my posting style,
and reflect on how I may be coming off to the readers of this thread.
Thank you for that.

Also with the quote above,
I feel I have met someone with whom I can reach an agreement.

How does this sound.



We The People Unanimously Declare that

Edward Snowden is guilty

of violation of Trust:

should be fined one dollar ($1.00),

sentenced to time already served abroad,

and allowed to return home a free man.




Mike

reply to post by mikegrouchy

Only a member of a wholly unethical generation could say such a thing. If one outweighs the other, then let's examine that. But to completely dismiss the one violation in pursuit of the other... I find your lack of ethics disturbing. Mike

Your whole point is complete garbage because there are no ethicists, philosophers, professors, politicans, presidents of countries, nor is there ANYONE ELSE anywhere crying about Snowden being unethical except for George W., Cheney, the people who are making $$$ of these programs, and the anti-constitutional people within the US Gov.....

You are entirely by yourself on this one. Big Fail. It would be Unethical (lack of ethics) for a person to sign a secrecy agreement, find out that everything that is going on is unconstitutional, and to continue on and NOT say anything about it.......that's what lack of ethics is ...and there are a lot of people working in GOV that are unethical because they do should be blowing the whistle.