Where are the Snowdens of Yesteryear?

Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in a house divided.

I think it is pretty clear at this point that the (whether-duly-elected-or-not) actual in-fact current President of these United States is a traitor who has conspired and collaborated with America's enemies - namely but not limited to Al-Qaeda, because we're talking both "foreign" and "domestic" enemies here.

This is a bit bigger than First Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder bombing his own squadron at Pianosa (if you haven't heard about that, don't worry - you didn't miss a memo, you missed a fantastic book and/or a fine movie), and that it is entirely possible our laws are not up to the task of solving this problem.

It has been said before, by people far wiser than me, that our country can survive anything but treason - and various smart guys (and likely gals too) have been saying this from our very founding.

So what's next?



Well, just to backtrack a bit, today's (Sunday, June 9, 2013) press epileptic fit* is brought to you courtesy of 29-year-old executive spooksperson Edward Snowden, (there's a huge "Catch-22" double entendre there, but I'm going to skip it for the moment) who decided:

"The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to."

He skipped out to Hong Kong, then leaked some carefully chosen (I'm taking his word on this) NSA documents to The Guardian, the general gist of which is an announcement which states, in part (I'm summarizing, of course):

"NSA TO ALL AMERICANS: What 4th Amendment? We OWN You. We're In Charge. We Can Ruin You. We Can Watch You Type. We Can Watch Ideas Form In Your Mind. We Can Even Falsely Plant Onto Your Computer Rude Material Keln Probably Doesn't Want Spelled Out In Detail Because Of The Family Nature Of This Blog But Please Understand We're Reallly Really Good At Doing This Kind Of Thing And It Definitely Involves People Who Have Not Reached The Legal Age Of Consent - Not Even In Louisiana, Even Between Cousins - Having Unmentionable Acts Inflicted Upon Them By Unspeakably Evil People. Someone Must Be Slacking - I Can't Believe We Let You Finish Typing All That!"

Which, of course, made me wonder: "Is this Snowden guy essentially some kind of civil libertarian hero for exposing the massive NSA underhandedness, OR is he a player/pawn in the ongoing scandalanche apparently meant to distract from Benghazi and the (IMHO very likely) apparent high-treason committed by our country's highest office holder?  Or both?"  And then, of course, I had to start Googling "Catch-22" quotes because it has been a horrendous number of decades since I last read the thing, and besides it's odds-on the NSA already knows I like the book...

MEANWHILE over at Breitbart, there's an interesting side-issue brewing:

A senior Senate staffer agreed telling Breitbart News, "Senators and staff all use Verizon phones. So the executive branch is monitoring the meta data of the Senate. This seems like a violation of the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution."

Really, dude, ya think?

The clue here seems to be that Obama would RATHER have to fight this battle than have people delve into the whole Benghazi mess.

Which brings me back to the topic at hand, and if you've forgotten what that is here's a reminder:  A House Divided Cannot Stand.

If there's a big calamitous crash-n-burn in our society, which frankly seems to be scheduled and in fact rushing toward us, the historical norm would be for numerous disparate groups to rally around various strong-man type leaders, "Road to Serfdom"-style. 

This will happen. I obviously don't know when, or to what degree, but it will happen.

AT THAT POINT it will be vitally important to act like - TO BE AMERICANS.  To be the "Exception" which defines "American Exceptionalism". It will be important to stand up and say:

"NO!  We are going to return to our founding principles, and we - within our lifetimes - will NOT allow the Marxists, the statists, the totalitarians, to seize power again!
And we will teach our children the same.
And we will teach our children to shoot."

The question that matters is - will we win?

Despite being better armed, more disciplined, and far more ethical, we have one gigantic disadvantage - and it is a disadvantage I feel we cannot abandon while remaining true to ourselves. It is this:

We are lawful.

We're the ones who want to change the system by working through the system, not by burning it all down.

We are law-abiders. We are law-keepers.

And look who we've now got creating, controlling, and interpreting our laws.

Our enemies know they have us on the horns of this dilemma.

I don't have a ready-made solution.  Feel free to offer suggestions as to what you think are valid and ethical courses of action, because our country is in bigger trouble than any of us - including me - currently know.

---

Title Reference: 
I've always been a fan of Joseph Heller's "Catch-22".  Edward Snowden apparently doesn't expect to see his family again, or probably even survive.  In "Catch-22" a young airman named Snowden is killed in the main character Yossarian's plane while they were on a bombing mission. Yossarian came out "covered in Snowden".
It would be an understatement to say this impacts the entire narrative action re: Yossarian - but there... I said it.

To quote from the Urban Dictionary (in its entirety for this entry except where edited for family-friendliness):

"Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?"
   
A question posed by Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 to find out why so many people were working so hard to kill him.

This seemingly rhetorical question is what one asks when one feels that everyone else is asking stupid questions and one wants to join in and/or point out how obviously stupid their questions are. Or, merely, because one wants to find out why so many people are working so hard to kill oneself.

Yossarian was a collector of good questions and had used them to disrupt the educational sessions Clevinger had once conducted two nights a week in Captain Black's intelligence tent with the corporal in eyeglasses who everybody knew was probably a subversive. Captain Black knew he was a subversive because he wore eyeglasses and used words like panacea and utopia, and because he disapproved of Adolf Hitler, who had done such a great job of combating unAmerican activities in Germany.

Yossarian attended the education sessions because he wanted to find out why so many people were working so hard to kill him. A handful of other men were also interested, and the questions were many and good when Clevinger and the subversive corporal finished and made the mistake of asking if there were any.

“Who is Spain?”

“Why is Hitler?”

“When is right?”

“Where was that stooped and mealy-colored old man I used to call poppa when the merry-go-round broke down?”

“How was Trump at Munich?”

“Hi-ho beriberi!”

and “[edited by Hunter, but in all honesty it was pretty tame]!” all rang out in rapid succession, and then there was Yossarian with the question that had no answer:

“Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”

 * No disrespect is intended towards actual sufferers of epilepsy - I use the term in the figurative sense only.