On bitterness...

I'd add this to my last:

I'm more than disgusted with the direction that the government of these United States has taken since... I'm not even sure when.  At least since 1990 when the USSR was no longer the greatest threat to our existence.  I'm damn near numb to the news that another piece of the Constitution has been sacrificed to the "greater good" of society.  I'm so utterly sick of the idea that government is the solution to all the problems facing this society I could puke.

And I do mean all the problems.  I'm not limiting this rant to social security, or unemployment, or social welfare... I'm including foreign affairs in this too.  We cannot continue to think we are the sole holders of all that is good and ideal in the realm of politics and ideology and work to force that same mind-set on the rest of the world.  Not if we hope to survive ourselves, that is.

We have seen the process by which the powers that be worked to eliminate the threat of a terrorist attack similar to or great than Sept. 11... and the results are all around us.  We are no more safe now than we were then... literally.  Our threats now might not be the same men (since most are dead and gone now) or the same countries, but the threats are just as real, just as present and just as deadly... as F Ryan pointed out in his last.

F Ryan's arguments against the New Deal mindset keep ringing in my ear: government doesn't fix the problem, it creates it.  Why doesn't that apply here?  Why is it not the case that our very involvement in every single overseas crisis is feeding the beast that is threatening our society?  If the threat of anti-American terrorism exists at all... it is because of American foreign policy in years gone by or the here and now.

Honestly, I'm more and more convinced that the isolationists had it right all along.  We do whatever it takes to protect our borders and our civilian population abroad... and leave the rest to themselves.  Get our own house in order, then let that house stand as a living breathing example of how a system of government based on the guaranteed rights of the individual citizen over the power of a central authority is the best system of national government that exists.  It will be the most prosperous, the most generous, and the most secure nation on the face of the earth... not because of its ability to project power globally, but because of its fundamental makeup.

So yes, I am bitter... but the argument in my eyes is far beyond the "hero-traitor" status of Ed Snowden.  He just acted in a manner that sparked a conversation that I think is long, LONG over due.