41–43 of 43 posts
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One can have little doubt that the real terrorists look upon all this with glee. I imagine the perpetrators of extremist based terrorism see this erosion of civil liberties as an enormous win. Yes. Snowden is definitely a hero, of dare I say it, historic proportions.
Will he still be a hero of historic proportions if it turns out he misconstrued the four power point slides?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fail to see how you managed to make a connection to "Ayn Rand-ish libertarianism" and why you think many people in government believe in it. Don't libertarians dislike government?
Libertarians (unlike anarchists) don't "dislike government." They dislike government that has more than a specific set of responsibilities. That said, I don't get the Rand connection here either. I will say that NSA spying isn't necessarily incompatible with a libertarian government. Libertarians don't reject the law & order or security functions of the state. Even a libertarian government would have the power to iss…
I would believe it is against the very definition of libertarianism as a belief and not any political party with libertarian in its name. Taken from Wikipedia:
"Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free")[1] is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end.[2][3] This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty,[4][5] political freedom, and voluntary association. It is the antonym to authoritarianism.[6] Libertarians advocate a society with a greatly reduced state or no state at all.[7]"