One thing is clear: folks are really divided on the correctness of what NSA leaker Edward Snowden did. People one respects are defending him and his actions, others are saying he should be jailed forever, or worse. I saw someone wishing the death penalty could be brought back for what he did.
Most of this division has to do with how violated the speaker feels about having the government poking about in his/her electronic records. Some believe we must give up this information to catch domestic terrorists before they do us in. Others see it as another big step down a slippery slope toward George Orwell's dystopian future.
What if both are right? I worry about the IRS scandal showing the government cannot be trusted to treat us in an even-handed manner. It came along just before the news that the NSA is essentially pattern-mapping our communications.
As we wrote the other day, most civil servants tend for good, selfish reasons to vote liberal, to vote Democrat. Suppose (as I do) the NSA-niks have the same political biases the IRS-niks seem to have had.
Can any conservative feel easy about the government tracking his/her electronic communications? Will most civil servants view all conservatives as the enemy and act accordingly upon our electronic chatter?
Should conservatives start feeling as persecuted as Communists did (with good reason) in the depths of the Cold War? Deep and murky waters are aswirl here.
Is this stage in the Long War one of those times when, as in World Wars I & II, and the Cold War, certain civil liberties must be sacrificed in the short run? A reasonable argument can be made for that step here.
I am unwilling to become what our government views as an enemy, for I am not. I could however be viewed as an enemy by some civil service employees, whose functions I would prefer our government not do. Wishing for a smaller, less intrusive government does not make me anti-American, only anti-progressive.
If I cannot rely on the federal government to deal with all in an even-handed way, as the IRS scandal seems to show, then I have to worry about our government intruding in places in my life where it has not first obtained a warrant to poke about.
