Author Topic: Snowden Speaks at Reddit via Moscow  (Read 842 times)

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Offline Libertas

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Snowden Speaks at Reddit via Moscow
« on: February 25, 2015, 08:35:10 AM »
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-24/edward-snowdens-libertarian-moment-we-will-remove-governments-ability-interfere-our-

"Well, I suspect that governments today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their citizens' discontent."

Heh, saying that from Moscow, is ironic.  Actually saying it from just about anywhere would be ironic now days.  And I would argue his statement is only generally true, I think governments do care about citizen discontent, but only to the extent that: a) it is their power-supporting constituents who are relatively easily paid off with government largesse of some sort or another and b) helping them helps maintain their power and control.  But managing discontent is but a tactic to ensure they can continue to employ "control" and "regulation" to meet the same ends.

"We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights."

Swell.  At some point though boots meet pavement.  Jus' sayin'.

"Our rights are not granted by governments."

A notion many of us still cherish and are willing to cling to, kill for and die defending.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

 ;)
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.