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Comment by uvdiv | Hacker News Reader

The White House rather unambiguously threw Snowden under the bus:

"Mr. Snowden's claim that he is focused on supporting transparency, freedom of the press and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen - China, Russia, Ecuador, as we've seen [...] His failures to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the United States, not to advance Internet freedom and free speech."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-ob...

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If it's not one thing, it's another. No matter what Snowden did, they would come up with some excuse to trivialize his disclosures.

This one is particularly egregious because it can be turned right back around on the US government which also claims to support transparency, freedom of the press and protection of individual rights and yet it also consorts with despots and dictators.

Let's not forget too that the US toppled 2 democracies and thwarted another.

Not to undermine your point at all - as the US is guilty many times over of doing terrible things in the name of overthrowing governments - but Democracy != good. Just because people can vote, doesn't mean they won't vote in evil leaders. The US elected Nixon, Bush, and Obama, after all.

Electing bad guys (which itself is kind of a ambiguous term - what metrics and who gets to choose the metrics?) is a risk of democracy.

It's kind of like seedless watermelon - if you want rich, succulent aka "good" watermelon you have to put up with the occasional seed. If you want a guarantee of no seeds then you have to accept a watermelon that doesn't taste anywhere near as "good" - maybe it is passable but it certainly isn't good.

That's not to say that democracy can't be perverted, just that it can't be perfect.

Yep. We elect bad guys in large part because our democracy is flawed. At a minimum we need approval voting to loosen the stranglehold the two major parties have on us.

> His failures to criticize these regimes

Hilarious, not the least because the White House itself is usually very timid about criticizing China or Russia. Also, what do they expect him to do, step out of the airplane in Moscow and shout "I hate Putin"?

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