Comment by orthecreedence | Hacker News Reader

Comment by orthecreedence | Hacker News Reader

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The US is like a screaming child throwing a tantrum right now. We were not so long ago lauded as the greatest nation in the world. Now we're stamping our feet and breaking relations with other powerful nations over the stupidest issue. Here's a thought: if you don't want whistleblowers, don't do things that make people blow the whistle.

Maybe in the next few decades we'll learn that meddling in everyone else's business, committing crimes against our own citizens, and blanket bombing other countries doesn't pay off in the end.

Or maybe the US government will become the totalitarian regime it's shaping up to be and keep us under military rule whilst somehow twisting our view with propaganda to make us think it's all for the greater glory (and still constitutional, of course). We do, after all, have to stop terrorism. Surely the best way to do this is to kill/torture people until everyone likes us. You can't do this with a bunch of whiny citizens blubbering about their rights.

My country is really pissing me off right now.

/rant

> We were not so long ago lauded as the greatest nation in the world.

Only Americans ever thought this. The rest was propaganda.

It's not a very good phrase, since "greatest" means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. You could plausibly say that about almost any country - everyone has something they're "the greatest" at.

To be fair, though, I reckon that there was a period in time in which the USA did seem to be holding the generally accepted global flag for "the country that's doing things right". Not perfect, but the USA had a much better reputation than it does now for generally having its shit together and moving in the right direction.

Cracks started to appear in the 1970s, I'd say, and the edifice had completely crumbled by the mid 90s.

Interesting. Thanks for the perspective. I guess I was never privy to the propaganda until recently when it became really blatant and obvious.

Also, relevant username ;).

Absolutely spot on.

And: People are repeating "Never forget." - and at the same time, people seem to have forgotten that there was a time when we had no terrorism (true story!).

The question nobody's asking anymore: What is the reason for terrorism? How did we get there?

Nowadays, fighting some symptons seems to be all we can come up with. (The only reason I can see for this is: Because it's big business.)

I agree there are most likely big business/defense interests behind a lot of this.

But any intelligent person would see that our reaction to terrorism (bombing countries in the Middle East) is only going to create more terrorists. For every terrorist we kill, there are others we kill who are not...what if we kill someone's child? Or even if we kill a child's dog? This is the kind of ill-will that harbors "terrorism" and makes people our supposed enemies.

Of course people are going to hate us if we're bombing them all the time.

So on one end we're trying to stop terrorism by killing every last one of them (heh, good luck) and in reality are trying to provoke more attacks so our government can gain more power in the hopes of "stopping" terrorism. The cycle continues, the contractors win, the government wins, the citizens lose, the terrorists keep fighting.

"there was a time when we had no terrorism"

I remember that. I think it may have been a Tuesday.

It's not the stupidest issue. Absolutely not

Don't you think he's getting some "interesting" visits and talking about "curious" topics?

What else does Edward knows about?

I'm sure there would be much less "interested" parties in other countries, say in South America? Why would we try to force any planes down supposedly carrying him there if we really wanted him to leave Russia? I would think he'd be a lot easier to extract (via Seal team et al) from a poorer South American country than a superpower like Russia.

Also, if the US hadn't waved around words like "treason" maybe he'd be a bit keener on coming back of his own accord.

I think we've screwed up multiple times here on an issue that, in the grand scheme of things, is fairly petty. Now we're digging ourselves deeper.

Politics and diplomacy is and always has been childish. The US isn't acting any different than any other country has in the same situation.

They're all playing the same game.

Perhaps you're right, however I hold my country to a higher standard than "I'm not talking to you because, um, you won't give my balloon back!!"

I have lived a short life compared to some, but I've never seen anything that equates to what is happening now.

> /rant

It's not a rant sir, it's rather a serious thought. Calling it a rant unnecessarily trivializes the problem at hand.

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