Quotes from the Greatest Progressive to Ever Live.

[Savannahmann]

18. Obsess much?

I mean really dude, don't you think this is getting a little unhealthy? I mean, I know you hate Greenwald, and I know why. Because he exposed the illegal spying that was started under Bush, but now will be tied for all time by historians to President Obama. If someone had exposed this stuff under Bush, you would have loved them and written nothing but praise about it.

But you see, to me, and many. There are issues bigger than protecting the President from a bad decision. The Constitution. That is called the highest law in the land for a reason. All our laws, all our rights, all of the power of the government, and all the protections for the citizens derive from that document.

It isn't perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. But it is pretty damned good, and I'll speak up and sound off to defend the rights contained therein as long as I have breath in my body. We have freedom of speech, so long as we shout and demand that we do.

Do I care about Greenwald's politics? Nope. I could give a shit less if he cast his ballot for Pat Buchanan. I wouldn't care if he voted for Mickey Mouse. The question that matters, and the one you've never been able to defeat is this. Did he tell the truth about the spying that was going on illegally by the associated intelligence apparatus of this and several other nations? Yes. He did.

By the world learning from Greenwald, we didn't elect him to become the prophet of some deity. We learned the truth. Now he could get out there and advise me to vote for David Purdue, the Republican candidate for the Senate from Georgia. I'd laugh and cast my ballot for Nunn.

My friend, you make the same mistake that all political party advocates make. You put party above policy. The Libertarians call them Civil Liberties. I call them Civil Rights. But if someone agrees with me, I don't care how they reached the destination. The Libertarians believe Government should be small and prevented from abusing the rights of the individuals by being too small to actually violate them. Whatever. I believe that Government should be large enough to protect the rights of every single individual.

One of those rights is to be secure in my person, and papers. Papers are electronic today. We learned a lot because of Greenwald, and Snowden, Manning, and Assange. That doesn't mean I'm going to marry them, or adopt them into my family. It does mean we should recognize their contribution to the truth. The same way we hold Woodward and Bernstein up to accolades. Because they found the truth, and they told us what it was.

Truth does not come from a political party. Truth comes from the delivery of factual information. While I may wish it was the case, the Democratic Party is not the keys to the receptacle of truth.

I started this by saying that it would be lain at the feet of President Obama. It will, because he didn't stop it. Oh I've heard the arguments, and I've mocked them often enough. The truth is that he had the opportunity to stop it in January 2009, and he didn't do it. You could have written the speech, I could have written the speech that he could have given. I'll summarize it now. "Because of my oath to support and defend the Constitution, I have ordered that several programs of our intelligence agencies be shut down. I believe that these programs violate the constitutional protections specifically contained in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment. Many people may disagree with this action, but my solemn duty is to protect the Constitution, and your rights contained within that document."

We would have been having these discussions because of the courage of the President, instead of the actions of Snowden and Greenwald. You can debate their motives, but as I said, I don't care about their motives, nobody does but party before policy types. Greenwald couldn't get elected dog catcher in Houston. Snowden couldn't get elected to vote registration supervisor. But they could, and did, tell the truth. And the truth was that our nation was doing some pretty bad things. Not the first time we've done bad things, probably won't be the last time either. But we can't stop the bad if we don't know what it was.

It wasn't about terrorism, we weren't spying to do anything about that. Because we didn't stop one damned thing because of those programs. It wasn't about any of the excuses that are given, and they've all been told, and rejected. It was about control, and the lack of self restraint in Government. If we could do it, we did it. If we couldn't do it, we tried to figure out a way to do it. The physically possible replaced the morally acceptable.

So bash on Greenwald all you want. But know this. You expose nothing about him. I don't care, and nobody who is thankful for the information he provided cares either. We aren't beholding to him for his political positions, they're bullshut in every reporter. We are thankful that he provided us with truth. He took the discussions that were hidden here because they were Conspiracy Theory, and made it impossible to deny. Because by telling us all about Greenwald, when we don't care, doesn't do anything to diminish greenwald. The one diminished is the one shouting. That person is exposed as a partisan hack, a person who shouts either of these two sentiments. My party is always right, which is juvenile. My party right or wrong, which is infamous. So what are you shouting my friend?