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Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?).
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On July 18 2013 21:07 furymonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2013 11:19 kmillz wrote:
It's interesting to me that so many people here seem to be ok with all of this spying..could anyone give me some examples of what good it has done for us that we know about so far? I think it's the same reason why many super power has nuclear arsenal. Do you want a good example what good it has done for human kind?
Yay random analogies.
No, it is not comparable to the nuclear arsenal. The security benefits of having a nuclear arsenal are more than obvious. The national security benefits of PRISM are unclear at best and completely non-existent at worst.
If you were referring to spying on EU nations, that isn't nearly as bad as it is dumb. Espionage programs cost money and risk lives and reputations of whole countries. It's globally considered to be a hostile act, and no matter how much everybody assumes it's going on all the time anyway, when the cat is actually out of the bag it can only do harm. You don't spy if the costs and risks far outweigh any imaginable benefits.
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I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too.
Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government.
On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?).
Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species.
That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe.
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On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. Show nested quote +On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe.
Seems to me like claiming Europe is doing the same (without having any evidence!) is only going to make the US look more like the bad guy. It is the very "us vs them" mentality that a lot of people in the US seem to have that is the problem. You just assume people in Europe think the same way. The EU is made up of a lot of countries that had this "us vs them" mentality in the past (between each other and probably also towards others). However, the EU has shown that these countries have moved past this mentality and want to work together as a whole, for the better of all. At least most people in those countries want that, I assume.
By doing these kinds of things, the "us vs them" mentality will remain and we wont be able to move further as a species.
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On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. Show nested quote +On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe.
Honestly, I doubt it. Europeans do not, in any way, tend to think of Europe as a united, continuous entity. Every nation has its own biases, concerns, and nationalist base. The difference between the US and Europe is that, well, the US is basically a really populous, large nation with a lot of power and international clout, whereas Europe is a large group of nations, some powerful and some not so powerful, that have decided to join together in certain respects, but not in others. I doubt there would be any sort of uniform EU spying program, and, if there were, I imagine it'd benefit some countries more than others (within the EU); as such, different nationals would receive it differently, because politics in, say, Sweden, are different than those of Britain i.e. every culture probably has different customs/biases in regard to spying.
Basically, I don't think it makes any sense to think of a citizen of the EU as an analogue of a citizen of the US. There are some similarities, but being an EU citizen is different than being an Italian citizen. The EU is not one really big country. It's a union of a lot of small (and some big) ones. As such, it is very diverse, both politically and culturally.
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On July 19 2013 00:30 Tennoji wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe. Seems to me like claiming Europe is doing the same (without having any evidence!) is only going to make the US look more like the bad guy. It is the very "us vs them" mentality that a lot of people in the US seem to have that is the problem. You just assume people in Europe think the same way. The EU is made up of a lot of countries that had this "us vs them" mentality in the past (between each other and probably also towards others). However, the EU has shown that these countries have moved past this mentality and want to work together as a whole, for the better of all. At least most people in those countries want that, I assume. By doing these kinds of things, the "us vs them" mentality will remain and we wont be able to move further as a species.
To you, my post reeks of American arrogance. To me, your post reeks of European arrogance.
I think that we as a species have a long way to go, and the problem is not only in one culture.
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On July 19 2013 00:40 yelsiab wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 00:30 Tennoji wrote:On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe. Seems to me like claiming Europe is doing the same (without having any evidence!) is only going to make the US look more like the bad guy. It is the very "us vs them" mentality that a lot of people in the US seem to have that is the problem. You just assume people in Europe think the same way. The EU is made up of a lot of countries that had this "us vs them" mentality in the past (between each other and probably also towards others). However, the EU has shown that these countries have moved past this mentality and want to work together as a whole, for the better of all. At least most people in those countries want that, I assume. By doing these kinds of things, the "us vs them" mentality will remain and we wont be able to move further as a species. To you, my post reeks of American arrogance. To me, your post reeks of European arrogance. I think that we as a species have a long way to go, and the problem is not only in one culture.
The thing is that being part of the EU isn't the same thing as being part of a sovereign nation. I mean, it's not like French and Italians don't consider themselves different and independent, even though they're part of the EU.
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On July 19 2013 00:40 yelsiab wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 00:30 Tennoji wrote:On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe. Seems to me like claiming Europe is doing the same (without having any evidence!) is only going to make the US look more like the bad guy. It is the very "us vs them" mentality that a lot of people in the US seem to have that is the problem. You just assume people in Europe think the same way. The EU is made up of a lot of countries that had this "us vs them" mentality in the past (between each other and probably also towards others). However, the EU has shown that these countries have moved past this mentality and want to work together as a whole, for the better of all. At least most people in those countries want that, I assume. By doing these kinds of things, the "us vs them" mentality will remain and we wont be able to move further as a species. To you, my post reeks of American arrogance. To me, your post reeks of European arrogance. I think that we as a species have a long way to go, and the problem is not only in one culture.
To me, that one reeks of false equivalence.
As much as everybody assumes some things are going on (maybe both ways), you cannot act and pass judgement based on assumptions, only on evidence. This is why US espionage programs weren't a hot topic pre-Snowden even though they were obviously going on for a very long time, and they are a hot topic now.
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On July 19 2013 00:48 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 00:40 yelsiab wrote:On July 19 2013 00:30 Tennoji wrote:On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe. Seems to me like claiming Europe is doing the same (without having any evidence!) is only going to make the US look more like the bad guy. It is the very "us vs them" mentality that a lot of people in the US seem to have that is the problem. You just assume people in Europe think the same way. The EU is made up of a lot of countries that had this "us vs them" mentality in the past (between each other and probably also towards others). However, the EU has shown that these countries have moved past this mentality and want to work together as a whole, for the better of all. At least most people in those countries want that, I assume. By doing these kinds of things, the "us vs them" mentality will remain and we wont be able to move further as a species. To you, my post reeks of American arrogance. To me, your post reeks of European arrogance. I think that we as a species have a long way to go, and the problem is not only in one culture. To me, that one reeks of false equivalence. As much as everybody assumes some things are going on (maybe both ways), you cannot act and pass judgement based on assumptions, only on evidence. This is why US espionage programs weren't a hot topic pre-Snowden even though they were obviously going on for a very long time, and they are a hot topic now.
I'm not passing any judgement. I was merely using it as a point (apparently a poorly made one) that any government at any time could be doing similar spying. My point was that really no government should be trusted. I was not trying to make any excuses for the NSA. I only used "Europe" as a general example because it was relevant to the post I was replying to. I suppose I should have said "China" or something to avoid getting people so riled.
My comments on arrogance were directed at Tennoji's remarks implying that Europe has long ago as a whole put aside any sort of thoughts of nationalism for the betterment of the world, and the United States is lagging behind in this regard. I found it arrogant because it was aggressive and also pretty untrue. The members of the EU argue amongst themselves just as much as anyone else.
Basically I'm saying everyone is arrogant, especially people who think that they are not.
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On July 19 2013 00:56 yelsiab wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 00:48 Talin wrote:On July 19 2013 00:40 yelsiab wrote:On July 19 2013 00:30 Tennoji wrote:On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe. Seems to me like claiming Europe is doing the same (without having any evidence!) is only going to make the US look more like the bad guy. It is the very "us vs them" mentality that a lot of people in the US seem to have that is the problem. You just assume people in Europe think the same way. The EU is made up of a lot of countries that had this "us vs them" mentality in the past (between each other and probably also towards others). However, the EU has shown that these countries have moved past this mentality and want to work together as a whole, for the better of all. At least most people in those countries want that, I assume. By doing these kinds of things, the "us vs them" mentality will remain and we wont be able to move further as a species. To you, my post reeks of American arrogance. To me, your post reeks of European arrogance. I think that we as a species have a long way to go, and the problem is not only in one culture. To me, that one reeks of false equivalence. As much as everybody assumes some things are going on (maybe both ways), you cannot act and pass judgement based on assumptions, only on evidence. This is why US espionage programs weren't a hot topic pre-Snowden even though they were obviously going on for a very long time, and they are a hot topic now. I'm not passing any judgement. I was merely using it as a point (apparently a poorly made one) that any government at any time could be doing similar spying. My point was that really no government should be trusted. I was not trying to make any excuses for the NSA. I only used "Europe" as a general example because it was relevant to the post I was replying to. I suppose I should have said "China" or something to avoid getting people so riled. My comments on arrogance were directed at Tennoji's remarks implying that Europe has long ago as a whole put aside any sort of thoughts of nationalism for the betterment of the world, and the United States is lagging behind in this regard. I found it arrogant because it was aggressive and also pretty untrue. The members of the EU argue amongst themselves just as much as anyone else. Basically I'm saying everyone is arrogant, especially people who think that they are not.
In a way, you are correct. But in real terms, there's no doubt that between the EU and North America, the US is far and away the nation with the biggest tendency to enact aggressive/coercive/far-reaching foreign policies. Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things. Obama, for instance, strongly demanded for China to embrace American understandings of copyright when their head of state visited America (Chinese rejected it, I'm pretty sure). I don't recall China going out of its way to suggest that America become a single-party state or that politicians must be atheists, even though both of these things are customary in China.
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On July 19 2013 01:11 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 00:56 yelsiab wrote:On July 19 2013 00:48 Talin wrote:On July 19 2013 00:40 yelsiab wrote:On July 19 2013 00:30 Tennoji wrote:On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe. Seems to me like claiming Europe is doing the same (without having any evidence!) is only going to make the US look more like the bad guy. It is the very "us vs them" mentality that a lot of people in the US seem to have that is the problem. You just assume people in Europe think the same way. The EU is made up of a lot of countries that had this "us vs them" mentality in the past (between each other and probably also towards others). However, the EU has shown that these countries have moved past this mentality and want to work together as a whole, for the better of all. At least most people in those countries want that, I assume. By doing these kinds of things, the "us vs them" mentality will remain and we wont be able to move further as a species. To you, my post reeks of American arrogance. To me, your post reeks of European arrogance. I think that we as a species have a long way to go, and the problem is not only in one culture. To me, that one reeks of false equivalence. As much as everybody assumes some things are going on (maybe both ways), you cannot act and pass judgement based on assumptions, only on evidence. This is why US espionage programs weren't a hot topic pre-Snowden even though they were obviously going on for a very long time, and they are a hot topic now. I'm not passing any judgement. I was merely using it as a point (apparently a poorly made one) that any government at any time could be doing similar spying. My point was that really no government should be trusted. I was not trying to make any excuses for the NSA. I only used "Europe" as a general example because it was relevant to the post I was replying to. I suppose I should have said "China" or something to avoid getting people so riled. My comments on arrogance were directed at Tennoji's remarks implying that Europe has long ago as a whole put aside any sort of thoughts of nationalism for the betterment of the world, and the United States is lagging behind in this regard. I found it arrogant because it was aggressive and also pretty untrue. The members of the EU argue amongst themselves just as much as anyone else. Basically I'm saying everyone is arrogant, especially people who think that they are not. In a way, you are correct. But in real terms, there's no doubt that between the EU and North America, the US is far and away the nation with the biggest tendency to enact aggressive/coercive/far-reaching foreign policies. Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things. Obama, for instance, strongly demanded for China to embrace American understandings of copyright when their head of state visited America (Chinese rejected it, I'm pretty sure). I don't recall China going out of its way to suggest that America become a single-party state or that politicians must be atheists, even though both of these things are customary in China.
I agree with you. America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way. For the most part, this is true, but this has earned America a lot of enemies over time. I think that people are slowly starting to realize this, but this is still very real American arrogance. We think that we are untouchable, but we are not.
The EU as a whole I think tends to believe that it has taken a moral high road to what the United States has done, and as a result its crap does not stink. I think for the most part this tends to be true, but many Americans are of the belief that Europe has basically been living safely under the blanket the US made for it and has maintained for it since WWII. Basically, the idea is that Europe is able to take the moral high road because America gets the blood on its hands so Europe does not have to. This is European arrogance.
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On July 19 2013 00:40 yelsiab wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 00:30 Tennoji wrote:On July 19 2013 00:15 yelsiab wrote:I don't see why they shouldn't give him the award, they gave it to Obama for absolutely no reason. Might as well give it to Snowden too. Its sad that the prize was created to draw attention to individuals that were making a difference to the name of peace in the world, and lately its just been being used as a political tool by the Norwegian government. On July 18 2013 22:52 Tennoji wrote:
Seems to me lot of the Americans would cry differently if it was Europe spying on American companies, politicians and other individuals (maybe them?). Its certainly true that Americans would be more angry were it Europe doing the spying. I think that its also true however that Europeans would be less angry if Europe was doing the spying. It comes down to the entire "us vs them" mentality we have as a species. That being said, keep in mind that this is just what we know about. Just because we only know about US spying does not mean that the same thing isn't happening in Europe. Seems to me like claiming Europe is doing the same (without having any evidence!) is only going to make the US look more like the bad guy. It is the very "us vs them" mentality that a lot of people in the US seem to have that is the problem. You just assume people in Europe think the same way. The EU is made up of a lot of countries that had this "us vs them" mentality in the past (between each other and probably also towards others). However, the EU has shown that these countries have moved past this mentality and want to work together as a whole, for the better of all. At least most people in those countries want that, I assume. By doing these kinds of things, the "us vs them" mentality will remain and we wont be able to move further as a species. To you, my post reeks of American arrogance. To me, your post reeks of European arrogance. I think that we as a species have a long way to go, and the problem is not only in one culture.
European arrogance, American arrogance? Please...
You think I am opposed to your opinion because you are American?
That is ridiculous as there are many American people who would agree with me that spying on your allies is not done.
Either way, if you want to look at an argument with reason, it is not less or more valid because or in spite of arrogance. So your comment does not bring anything to the discussion even if it were true.
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Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world,
As does everyone other country in the world... so what. What you mean is the US has the capability to do something about its opinion and get its opinion satisfied most of the time... which oddly only seems to really piss off people who also have an official opinion about every event that happens anywhere in the world and aren't getting their opinion satisfied most of the time.
and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things.
Like, oh, non-US countries do to the US and to each other all the time...
America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way.
lolwut
9 times out of 10 America bends over backwards to get people to go along with it. Which has resulted in some bad relationships like say with the Egyptian government under Sadat and Mubarak or the Royal House of Saud. 5 times out of that 10 the American goal is maintaining the liberal internationalist order that gives most other countries influence far beyond their own national capability, and the 1 time out of 10 America actually does remember that it doesn't need permission to act in its national-interest, people get the vapors. America, acting without our leave? We are disappoint.
That is ridiculous as there are many American people who would agree with me that spying on your allies is not done.
I'm sure there are lots of Europeans who would say spying on the US is fine, spying is not worth raging over that's why when the US captures Russian spies we don't call up the Kremlin and start spewing sand out of our vaginas over it.
For the most part, this is true, but this has earned America a lot of enemies over time.
Such as...?
I think that people are slowly starting to realize this, but this is still very real American arrogance.
It would be a shame if Americans became as hypocritical as most of the rest of the world, to start accusing countries of doing things it disagrees with as being arrogant.
We think that we are untouchable, but we are not.
Didn't that cliché die an unnoticed death circa 2006? The Americans who actually make American policy have never believed that anyway.
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On July 19 2013 02:55 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, As does everyone other country in the world... so what. What you mean is the US has the capability to do something about its opinion and get its opinion satisfied most of the time... which oddly only seems to really piss off people who also have an official opinion about every event that happens anywhere in the world and aren't getting their opinion satisfied most of the time.
That's because everyone is entitled to an opinion, whereas the US seems to think that it's entitled to exercise its influence in other sovereign nations to coerce/demand them to do things.
The problem isn't with having the opinion. It's with being arrogant enough to presume that your opinion somehow trumps sovereignty and/or shit that's none of your business simply because you're strong enough to make it so regardless. Compare it to the way politics plays out in America. Nobody really cares if Bob or Alice have differing views about gay marriage. They care if there are so many Bobs in high places that pressure starts to mount on people who disagree with them. That's the point. Nobody is mad that the US expresses a concern on a certain issue; it's when they have a history of doing shit behind the scenes outside of their jurisdiction that people call them presumptuous and/or arrogant.
It doesn't really matter if other nations have strong opinions on things. Most of them are either too quiet to be of any serious concern or more or less fine with the fact that strong opinions on things are still opinions, and that if someone says "no," you take their answer and respect the sovereignty of their nation. For a country that was founded on the principle that foreign monarchs and powers shouldn't have say over sovereignty instead of the people, the US certainly doesn't seem to extend that courtesy to other nations.
and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things.
Like, oh, non-US countries do to the US and to each other all the time...
Yeah: the US chooses to acquiesce or ignore those things, and the non-US countries deal with it.
What's more, the US intervenes/puts pressure on countries even when the events in question have practically nothing to do with them (e.g. quietly pressuring Swedish authorities to raid The Pirate Bay way back when).
This isn't even taking into account the number of foreign military actions that the US has engaged in since WWII. There is no other Western nation that does those kinds of things with any regularity these days.
America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way.
lolwut
9 times out of 10 America bends over backwards to get people to go along with it. Which has resulted in some bad relationships like say with the Egyptian government under Sadat and Mubarak or the Royal House of Saud. 5 times out of that 10 the American goal is maintaining the liberal internationalist order that gives most other countries influence far beyond their own national capability, and the 1 time out of 10 America actually does remember that it doesn't need permission to act in its national-interest, people get the vapors. America, acting without our leave? We are disappoint.
"National interest" seems to be your catch-all for any action you wish to justify. Every nation has hypothetical "interests" that they can't realize because doing so would require them to do something really illegal, destructive, or immoral. Just because something plausibly benefits America in some way is not in any way moral justification for such an action. I'm not saying that America's actions always usually or even commonly immoral, but that something being a "national interest" doesn't make it justifiable alone.
tl;dr who cares if other countries also spy? It's still wrong for America to do it. A country saying something possibly hypocritical doesn't invalidate the criticism itself. Besides, none of the people on this forum are governments or heads of state; we're criticizing America spying because that's what this thread is about. If a massive European spying program is unveiled, we'll criticize that too.
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On July 19 2013 03:19 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 02:55 DeepElemBlues wrote:Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, As does everyone other country in the world... so what. What you mean is the US has the capability to do something about its opinion and get its opinion satisfied most of the time... which oddly only seems to really piss off people who also have an official opinion about every event that happens anywhere in the world and aren't getting their opinion satisfied most of the time. That's because everyone is entitled to an opinion, whereas the US seems to think that it's entitled to exercise its influence in other sovereign nations to coerce/demand them to do things. The problem isn't with having the opinion. It's with being arrogant enough to presume that your opinion somehow trumps sovereignty and/or shit that's none of your business simply because you're strong enough to make it so regardless. Compare it to the way politics plays out in America. Nobody really cares if Bob or Alice have differing views about gay marriage. They care if there are so many Bobs in high places that pressure starts to mount on people who disagree with them. That's the point. Nobody is mad that the US expresses a concern on a certain issue; it's when they have a history of doing shit behind the scenes outside of their jurisdiction that people call them presumptuous and/or arrogant. It doesn't really matter if other nations have strong opinions on things. Most of them are either too quiet to be of any serious concern or more or less fine with the fact that strong opinions on things are still opinions, and that if someone says "no," you take their answer and respect the sovereignty of their nation. For a country that was founded on the principle that foreign monarchs and powers shouldn't have say over sovereignty instead of the people, the US certainly doesn't seem to extend that courtesy to other nations. Yeah: the US chooses to acquiesce or ignore those things, and the non-US countries deal with it. What's more, the US intervenes/puts pressure on countries even when the events in question have practically nothing to do with them (e.g. quietly pressuring Swedish authorities to raid The Pirate Bay way back when). This isn't even taking into account the number of foreign military actions that the US has engaged in since WWII. There is no other Western nation that does those kinds of things with any regularity these days. Show nested quote +America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way. Show nested quote +lolwut
9 times out of 10 America bends over backwards to get people to go along with it. Which has resulted in some bad relationships like say with the Egyptian government under Sadat and Mubarak or the Royal House of Saud. 5 times out of that 10 the American goal is maintaining the liberal internationalist order that gives most other countries influence far beyond their own national capability, and the 1 time out of 10 America actually does remember that it doesn't need permission to act in its national-interest, people get the vapors. America, acting without our leave? We are disappoint. "National interest" seems to be your catch-all for any action you wish to justify. Every nation has hypothetical "interests" that they can't realize because doing so would require them to do something really illegal, destructive, or immoral. Just because something plausibly benefits America in some way is not in any way moral justification for such an action. I'm not saying that America's actions always usually or even commonly immoral, but that something being a "national interest" doesn't make it justifiable alone. tl;dr who cares if other countries also spy? It's still wrong for America to do it. A country saying something possibly hypocritical doesn't invalidate the criticism itself. Besides, none of the people on this forum are governments or heads of state; we're criticizing America spying because that's what this thread is about. If a massive European spying program is unveiled, we'll criticize that too.
Breaking out moralistic argument when dealing with nations and their safety, is frankly, naive. National intrest doesn't justify everything, but saying that spying is illegal, destructive, or immoral just comes across as some pie in the sky point of view.
Hey, if people really believe that every nation is the would who are "allies" should never keep tabs or attempt to spy on each other, I guess they can believe that. History has shown otherwise and that even allies make efforts to find out what is happening behind closed doors, but maybe we are all beyond that.
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Breaking out moralistic argument when dealing with nations and their safety, is frankly, naive. National intrest doesn't justify everything, but saying that spying is illegal, destructive, or immoral just comes across as some pie in the sky point of view.
The only ostensible reason for concerning oneself with national safety is morality. If a government wants to protect its citizens, it's doing so because it (ideally) feels that it's its duty to protect them i.e. a moral imperative. There are obviously pragmatic reasons, but I'm not so cynical as to think that countries don't at least try to believe that what they're doing is morally justified.
Like, preserving safety is a moral concern. You can't dismiss moral reasoning from any situation, because moral reason founds all sorts of different decisions, and because judging decision-making without morality is totally baseless because a lack of moral jurisdiction implies arbitrarily constructed value systems that have no real meaning.
The NSA exists because someone somewhere in the administration thought that it was a good way of protecting the people from these evil people called terrorists; that is a moral justification, at the core.
Hey, if people really believe that every nation is the would who are "allies" should never keep tabs or attempt to spy on each other, I guess they can believe that. History has shown otherwise and that even allies make efforts to find out what is happening behind closed doors, but maybe we are all beyond that.
There's a pretty big difference between "keeping tabs," "attempting to spy on each other," and creating massive surveillance programs with near-universal scope that not only collect data regarding the actions of other governments, but also of private citizens.
Countries that are allied to each other nowadays (in a real sense e.g. Britain and the US) tend to agree with each other on most major aspects of foreign policy. Yes, they're domestically different. It's not like the US needs to keep tabs on Britain as if there's a chance that Britain is going to suddenly declare war on them tomorrow, or start funneling money to Al Qaeda. I'm not saying that the US or Britain shouldn't try to stay in the know, but, for the most part, it's more of a matter of convenience than actual threats/safety.
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On July 19 2013 03:34 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 03:19 Shiori wrote:On July 19 2013 02:55 DeepElemBlues wrote:Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, As does everyone other country in the world... so what. What you mean is the US has the capability to do something about its opinion and get its opinion satisfied most of the time... which oddly only seems to really piss off people who also have an official opinion about every event that happens anywhere in the world and aren't getting their opinion satisfied most of the time. That's because everyone is entitled to an opinion, whereas the US seems to think that it's entitled to exercise its influence in other sovereign nations to coerce/demand them to do things. The problem isn't with having the opinion. It's with being arrogant enough to presume that your opinion somehow trumps sovereignty and/or shit that's none of your business simply because you're strong enough to make it so regardless. Compare it to the way politics plays out in America. Nobody really cares if Bob or Alice have differing views about gay marriage. They care if there are so many Bobs in high places that pressure starts to mount on people who disagree with them. That's the point. Nobody is mad that the US expresses a concern on a certain issue; it's when they have a history of doing shit behind the scenes outside of their jurisdiction that people call them presumptuous and/or arrogant. It doesn't really matter if other nations have strong opinions on things. Most of them are either too quiet to be of any serious concern or more or less fine with the fact that strong opinions on things are still opinions, and that if someone says "no," you take their answer and respect the sovereignty of their nation. For a country that was founded on the principle that foreign monarchs and powers shouldn't have say over sovereignty instead of the people, the US certainly doesn't seem to extend that courtesy to other nations. and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things. Like, oh, non-US countries do to the US and to each other all the time... Yeah: the US chooses to acquiesce or ignore those things, and the non-US countries deal with it. What's more, the US intervenes/puts pressure on countries even when the events in question have practically nothing to do with them (e.g. quietly pressuring Swedish authorities to raid The Pirate Bay way back when). This isn't even taking into account the number of foreign military actions that the US has engaged in since WWII. There is no other Western nation that does those kinds of things with any regularity these days. America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way. lolwut
9 times out of 10 America bends over backwards to get people to go along with it. Which has resulted in some bad relationships like say with the Egyptian government under Sadat and Mubarak or the Royal House of Saud. 5 times out of that 10 the American goal is maintaining the liberal internationalist order that gives most other countries influence far beyond their own national capability, and the 1 time out of 10 America actually does remember that it doesn't need permission to act in its national-interest, people get the vapors. America, acting without our leave? We are disappoint. "National interest" seems to be your catch-all for any action you wish to justify. Every nation has hypothetical "interests" that they can't realize because doing so would require them to do something really illegal, destructive, or immoral. Just because something plausibly benefits America in some way is not in any way moral justification for such an action. I'm not saying that America's actions always usually or even commonly immoral, but that something being a "national interest" doesn't make it justifiable alone. tl;dr who cares if other countries also spy? It's still wrong for America to do it. A country saying something possibly hypocritical doesn't invalidate the criticism itself. Besides, none of the people on this forum are governments or heads of state; we're criticizing America spying because that's what this thread is about. If a massive European spying program is unveiled, we'll criticize that too. Breaking out moralistic argument when dealing with nations and their safety, is frankly, naive. National intrest doesn't justify everything, but saying that spying is illegal, destructive, or immoral just comes across as some pie in the sky point of view. Hey, if people really believe that every nation is the would who are "allies" should never keep tabs or attempt to spy on each other, I guess they can believe that. History has shown otherwise and that even allies make efforts to find out what is happening behind closed doors, but maybe we are all beyond that.
You want to live in a world where every phone call you make, every conversation you have on skype (video or not), all your emails/text messages - are recorded and stored indefinitely by people hidden behind the scenes?
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On July 19 2013 03:48 AnomalySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 03:34 Plansix wrote:On July 19 2013 03:19 Shiori wrote:On July 19 2013 02:55 DeepElemBlues wrote:Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, As does everyone other country in the world... so what. What you mean is the US has the capability to do something about its opinion and get its opinion satisfied most of the time... which oddly only seems to really piss off people who also have an official opinion about every event that happens anywhere in the world and aren't getting their opinion satisfied most of the time. That's because everyone is entitled to an opinion, whereas the US seems to think that it's entitled to exercise its influence in other sovereign nations to coerce/demand them to do things. The problem isn't with having the opinion. It's with being arrogant enough to presume that your opinion somehow trumps sovereignty and/or shit that's none of your business simply because you're strong enough to make it so regardless. Compare it to the way politics plays out in America. Nobody really cares if Bob or Alice have differing views about gay marriage. They care if there are so many Bobs in high places that pressure starts to mount on people who disagree with them. That's the point. Nobody is mad that the US expresses a concern on a certain issue; it's when they have a history of doing shit behind the scenes outside of their jurisdiction that people call them presumptuous and/or arrogant. It doesn't really matter if other nations have strong opinions on things. Most of them are either too quiet to be of any serious concern or more or less fine with the fact that strong opinions on things are still opinions, and that if someone says "no," you take their answer and respect the sovereignty of their nation. For a country that was founded on the principle that foreign monarchs and powers shouldn't have say over sovereignty instead of the people, the US certainly doesn't seem to extend that courtesy to other nations. and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things. Like, oh, non-US countries do to the US and to each other all the time... Yeah: the US chooses to acquiesce or ignore those things, and the non-US countries deal with it. What's more, the US intervenes/puts pressure on countries even when the events in question have practically nothing to do with them (e.g. quietly pressuring Swedish authorities to raid The Pirate Bay way back when). This isn't even taking into account the number of foreign military actions that the US has engaged in since WWII. There is no other Western nation that does those kinds of things with any regularity these days. America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way. lolwut
9 times out of 10 America bends over backwards to get people to go along with it. Which has resulted in some bad relationships like say with the Egyptian government under Sadat and Mubarak or the Royal House of Saud. 5 times out of that 10 the American goal is maintaining the liberal internationalist order that gives most other countries influence far beyond their own national capability, and the 1 time out of 10 America actually does remember that it doesn't need permission to act in its national-interest, people get the vapors. America, acting without our leave? We are disappoint. "National interest" seems to be your catch-all for any action you wish to justify. Every nation has hypothetical "interests" that they can't realize because doing so would require them to do something really illegal, destructive, or immoral. Just because something plausibly benefits America in some way is not in any way moral justification for such an action. I'm not saying that America's actions always usually or even commonly immoral, but that something being a "national interest" doesn't make it justifiable alone. tl;dr who cares if other countries also spy? It's still wrong for America to do it. A country saying something possibly hypocritical doesn't invalidate the criticism itself. Besides, none of the people on this forum are governments or heads of state; we're criticizing America spying because that's what this thread is about. If a massive European spying program is unveiled, we'll criticize that too. Breaking out moralistic argument when dealing with nations and their safety, is frankly, naive. National intrest doesn't justify everything, but saying that spying is illegal, destructive, or immoral just comes across as some pie in the sky point of view. Hey, if people really believe that every nation is the would who are "allies" should never keep tabs or attempt to spy on each other, I guess they can believe that. History has shown otherwise and that even allies make efforts to find out what is happening behind closed doors, but maybe we are all beyond that. You want to live in a world where every phone call you make, every conversation you have on skype (video or not), all your emails/text messages - are recorded and stored indefinitely by people hidden behind the scenes?
they already are. Just not necessarily by the govt
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On July 19 2013 03:50 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 03:48 AnomalySC2 wrote:On July 19 2013 03:34 Plansix wrote:On July 19 2013 03:19 Shiori wrote:On July 19 2013 02:55 DeepElemBlues wrote:Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, As does everyone other country in the world... so what. What you mean is the US has the capability to do something about its opinion and get its opinion satisfied most of the time... which oddly only seems to really piss off people who also have an official opinion about every event that happens anywhere in the world and aren't getting their opinion satisfied most of the time. That's because everyone is entitled to an opinion, whereas the US seems to think that it's entitled to exercise its influence in other sovereign nations to coerce/demand them to do things. The problem isn't with having the opinion. It's with being arrogant enough to presume that your opinion somehow trumps sovereignty and/or shit that's none of your business simply because you're strong enough to make it so regardless. Compare it to the way politics plays out in America. Nobody really cares if Bob or Alice have differing views about gay marriage. They care if there are so many Bobs in high places that pressure starts to mount on people who disagree with them. That's the point. Nobody is mad that the US expresses a concern on a certain issue; it's when they have a history of doing shit behind the scenes outside of their jurisdiction that people call them presumptuous and/or arrogant. It doesn't really matter if other nations have strong opinions on things. Most of them are either too quiet to be of any serious concern or more or less fine with the fact that strong opinions on things are still opinions, and that if someone says "no," you take their answer and respect the sovereignty of their nation. For a country that was founded on the principle that foreign monarchs and powers shouldn't have say over sovereignty instead of the people, the US certainly doesn't seem to extend that courtesy to other nations. and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things. Like, oh, non-US countries do to the US and to each other all the time... Yeah: the US chooses to acquiesce or ignore those things, and the non-US countries deal with it. What's more, the US intervenes/puts pressure on countries even when the events in question have practically nothing to do with them (e.g. quietly pressuring Swedish authorities to raid The Pirate Bay way back when). This isn't even taking into account the number of foreign military actions that the US has engaged in since WWII. There is no other Western nation that does those kinds of things with any regularity these days. America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way. lolwut
9 times out of 10 America bends over backwards to get people to go along with it. Which has resulted in some bad relationships like say with the Egyptian government under Sadat and Mubarak or the Royal House of Saud. 5 times out of that 10 the American goal is maintaining the liberal internationalist order that gives most other countries influence far beyond their own national capability, and the 1 time out of 10 America actually does remember that it doesn't need permission to act in its national-interest, people get the vapors. America, acting without our leave? We are disappoint. "National interest" seems to be your catch-all for any action you wish to justify. Every nation has hypothetical "interests" that they can't realize because doing so would require them to do something really illegal, destructive, or immoral. Just because something plausibly benefits America in some way is not in any way moral justification for such an action. I'm not saying that America's actions always usually or even commonly immoral, but that something being a "national interest" doesn't make it justifiable alone. tl;dr who cares if other countries also spy? It's still wrong for America to do it. A country saying something possibly hypocritical doesn't invalidate the criticism itself. Besides, none of the people on this forum are governments or heads of state; we're criticizing America spying because that's what this thread is about. If a massive European spying program is unveiled, we'll criticize that too. Breaking out moralistic argument when dealing with nations and their safety, is frankly, naive. National intrest doesn't justify everything, but saying that spying is illegal, destructive, or immoral just comes across as some pie in the sky point of view. Hey, if people really believe that every nation is the would who are "allies" should never keep tabs or attempt to spy on each other, I guess they can believe that. History has shown otherwise and that even allies make efforts to find out what is happening behind closed doors, but maybe we are all beyond that. You want to live in a world where every phone call you make, every conversation you have on skype (video or not), all your emails/text messages - are recorded and stored indefinitely by people hidden behind the scenes? they already are. Just not necessarily by the govt
Like who?
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On July 19 2013 03:48 AnomalySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 03:34 Plansix wrote:On July 19 2013 03:19 Shiori wrote:On July 19 2013 02:55 DeepElemBlues wrote:Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, As does everyone other country in the world... so what. What you mean is the US has the capability to do something about its opinion and get its opinion satisfied most of the time... which oddly only seems to really piss off people who also have an official opinion about every event that happens anywhere in the world and aren't getting their opinion satisfied most of the time. That's because everyone is entitled to an opinion, whereas the US seems to think that it's entitled to exercise its influence in other sovereign nations to coerce/demand them to do things. The problem isn't with having the opinion. It's with being arrogant enough to presume that your opinion somehow trumps sovereignty and/or shit that's none of your business simply because you're strong enough to make it so regardless. Compare it to the way politics plays out in America. Nobody really cares if Bob or Alice have differing views about gay marriage. They care if there are so many Bobs in high places that pressure starts to mount on people who disagree with them. That's the point. Nobody is mad that the US expresses a concern on a certain issue; it's when they have a history of doing shit behind the scenes outside of their jurisdiction that people call them presumptuous and/or arrogant. It doesn't really matter if other nations have strong opinions on things. Most of them are either too quiet to be of any serious concern or more or less fine with the fact that strong opinions on things are still opinions, and that if someone says "no," you take their answer and respect the sovereignty of their nation. For a country that was founded on the principle that foreign monarchs and powers shouldn't have say over sovereignty instead of the people, the US certainly doesn't seem to extend that courtesy to other nations. and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things. Like, oh, non-US countries do to the US and to each other all the time... Yeah: the US chooses to acquiesce or ignore those things, and the non-US countries deal with it. What's more, the US intervenes/puts pressure on countries even when the events in question have practically nothing to do with them (e.g. quietly pressuring Swedish authorities to raid The Pirate Bay way back when). This isn't even taking into account the number of foreign military actions that the US has engaged in since WWII. There is no other Western nation that does those kinds of things with any regularity these days. America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way. lolwut
9 times out of 10 America bends over backwards to get people to go along with it. Which has resulted in some bad relationships like say with the Egyptian government under Sadat and Mubarak or the Royal House of Saud. 5 times out of that 10 the American goal is maintaining the liberal internationalist order that gives most other countries influence far beyond their own national capability, and the 1 time out of 10 America actually does remember that it doesn't need permission to act in its national-interest, people get the vapors. America, acting without our leave? We are disappoint. "National interest" seems to be your catch-all for any action you wish to justify. Every nation has hypothetical "interests" that they can't realize because doing so would require them to do something really illegal, destructive, or immoral. Just because something plausibly benefits America in some way is not in any way moral justification for such an action. I'm not saying that America's actions always usually or even commonly immoral, but that something being a "national interest" doesn't make it justifiable alone. tl;dr who cares if other countries also spy? It's still wrong for America to do it. A country saying something possibly hypocritical doesn't invalidate the criticism itself. Besides, none of the people on this forum are governments or heads of state; we're criticizing America spying because that's what this thread is about. If a massive European spying program is unveiled, we'll criticize that too. Breaking out moralistic argument when dealing with nations and their safety, is frankly, naive. National intrest doesn't justify everything, but saying that spying is illegal, destructive, or immoral just comes across as some pie in the sky point of view. Hey, if people really believe that every nation is the would who are "allies" should never keep tabs or attempt to spy on each other, I guess they can believe that. History has shown otherwise and that even allies make efforts to find out what is happening behind closed doors, but maybe we are all beyond that. You want to live in a world where every phone call you make, every conversation you have on skype, all your emails/text messages - are recorded and stored indefinitely by people hidden behind the scenes?
I already live in that world. My texts go through a third party company, my emails go through google and any of these groups could look at them if they wanted and I would never know. One more set of people copying them isn't that big of a deal for me. I already understand that everything I put online isn't really mine any more. I can claim it and say I wrote it, but its not stored on my PC or on a system that I own. Even what we type here is stored on Team Liquids servers and if they lock this account, I can't force them to delete anything. Facebook owns everything you put up there and even if you delete something, they likley still store it. My skype calls could be recorded by anyone at Microsoft if they wanted to be creepy.
I would rather people face the idea on what the internet is, a network of computers you don't know and storage that you don't own. None of this stuff is protected like physical things and may not be practial for it to have the same protections. Email is not the same as mail sent through the US postal service.
On July 19 2013 03:56 AnomalySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 03:50 packrat386 wrote:On July 19 2013 03:48 AnomalySC2 wrote:On July 19 2013 03:34 Plansix wrote:On July 19 2013 03:19 Shiori wrote:On July 19 2013 02:55 DeepElemBlues wrote:Bluntly, the US seems to have an official opinion on every event that occurs anywhere in the world, As does everyone other country in the world... so what. What you mean is the US has the capability to do something about its opinion and get its opinion satisfied most of the time... which oddly only seems to really piss off people who also have an official opinion about every event that happens anywhere in the world and aren't getting their opinion satisfied most of the time. That's because everyone is entitled to an opinion, whereas the US seems to think that it's entitled to exercise its influence in other sovereign nations to coerce/demand them to do things. The problem isn't with having the opinion. It's with being arrogant enough to presume that your opinion somehow trumps sovereignty and/or shit that's none of your business simply because you're strong enough to make it so regardless. Compare it to the way politics plays out in America. Nobody really cares if Bob or Alice have differing views about gay marriage. They care if there are so many Bobs in high places that pressure starts to mount on people who disagree with them. That's the point. Nobody is mad that the US expresses a concern on a certain issue; it's when they have a history of doing shit behind the scenes outside of their jurisdiction that people call them presumptuous and/or arrogant. It doesn't really matter if other nations have strong opinions on things. Most of them are either too quiet to be of any serious concern or more or less fine with the fact that strong opinions on things are still opinions, and that if someone says "no," you take their answer and respect the sovereignty of their nation. For a country that was founded on the principle that foreign monarchs and powers shouldn't have say over sovereignty instead of the people, the US certainly doesn't seem to extend that courtesy to other nations. and they're not above telling other countries to do certain things. Like, oh, non-US countries do to the US and to each other all the time... Yeah: the US chooses to acquiesce or ignore those things, and the non-US countries deal with it. What's more, the US intervenes/puts pressure on countries even when the events in question have practically nothing to do with them (e.g. quietly pressuring Swedish authorities to raid The Pirate Bay way back when). This isn't even taking into account the number of foreign military actions that the US has engaged in since WWII. There is no other Western nation that does those kinds of things with any regularity these days. America does have a tendency to believe that it can do basically whatever it wants and everyone else will get out of the way. lolwut
9 times out of 10 America bends over backwards to get people to go along with it. Which has resulted in some bad relationships like say with the Egyptian government under Sadat and Mubarak or the Royal House of Saud. 5 times out of that 10 the American goal is maintaining the liberal internationalist order that gives most other countries influence far beyond their own national capability, and the 1 time out of 10 America actually does remember that it doesn't need permission to act in its national-interest, people get the vapors. America, acting without our leave? We are disappoint. "National interest" seems to be your catch-all for any action you wish to justify. Every nation has hypothetical "interests" that they can't realize because doing so would require them to do something really illegal, destructive, or immoral. Just because something plausibly benefits America in some way is not in any way moral justification for such an action. I'm not saying that America's actions always usually or even commonly immoral, but that something being a "national interest" doesn't make it justifiable alone. tl;dr who cares if other countries also spy? It's still wrong for America to do it. A country saying something possibly hypocritical doesn't invalidate the criticism itself. Besides, none of the people on this forum are governments or heads of state; we're criticizing America spying because that's what this thread is about. If a massive European spying program is unveiled, we'll criticize that too. Breaking out moralistic argument when dealing with nations and their safety, is frankly, naive. National intrest doesn't justify everything, but saying that spying is illegal, destructive, or immoral just comes across as some pie in the sky point of view. Hey, if people really believe that every nation is the would who are "allies" should never keep tabs or attempt to spy on each other, I guess they can believe that. History has shown otherwise and that even allies make efforts to find out what is happening behind closed doors, but maybe we are all beyond that. You want to live in a world where every phone call you make, every conversation you have on skype (video or not), all your emails/text messages - are recorded and stored indefinitely by people hidden behind the scenes? they already are. Just not necessarily by the govt Like who?
Like anyone to interact with on the internet. Amazon to Facebook to Skype. They all keep your data and sell your information to other companies, or sell ads based on your internet habits. The Government is late to the game, really.
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EPT
