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Was he ever arguing in favor of mandates for the general public? Has anyone done that on this thread? Arguing that vaccines are safe and effective ≠ advocating for a mandate Vaccine mandate for active duty military ≠ mandate for the entire general public

Bro, what the NSA was doing was keeping you and your family safe. Trust them, they're the experts.

There's that transparency and accountability we were promised...

The most ironic post I've ever seen on this forum. To be fair, I wholeheartedly agree with you. 1000%!

He didn't leave from the US. Boy, have you swallowed the big government lines. Again...I'm way more mad that a government that claims to represent its citizens has seized so much power over such a small amount of risk than I am that someone exposed that government's actions. I am not at all convinced that this system makes us safer. At all. Didn't catch the Las Vegas shooter. Didn't stop the Boston Marathon bombing. Near as I can tell, it's a bunch of security theater. And to inch us back to the topic...you don't think the government will turn those same tools on people who oppose vaccine mandates (for example)? It baffles me that you support the idea of an all-seeing eye for government while railing against things like militias and Trump supporters getting labeled as terrorists. Where do you think the government is going to turn those tools next?

Oh, right. I know every time I draw a line from the US to Ecuador, it crosses through Russia. Someone get me a map. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Everything has a justification, reason, and excuse. "Oh, see, I was on my way to Ecuador, then the big bad US revoked my passport. Darn. Guess I'll just have to spend the next forever hangin' with my boy Putin." We, as military pilots, have a lot of power. That doesn't mean we get to go hog wild. You know there are multiple checks and balances at multiple levels, and in addition to that, people can and are held accountable. Surely you have the imagination necessary to understand that those same checks and balances exist inside the intel community, right? BTW, that system helps protect us. Or do you honestly think its main function is to keep you, Joe The Taxpayer, down?

For the average supporter? Probably never, those pulling the strings will never allow it (it’s why inner cities never vote red despite the fact that lunatics like Maxine Waters has run Los Angeles into the ground). For the leadership? They know it’s a ploy, it was never about Black Lives, it was always a vehicle for Marxism.

There's no way you voted Libertarian. 😄

No trial, no jury, just straight to the death penalty, eh? Hate to pick on you, brother, but I'm going to challenge ideas I don't agree with. Not for fun, not because I like stepping on toes and getting people worked up, but because I see things that are clearly wrong. I can think of three instances here in the last week or so of death being the consequence of a perceived crime. Just straight up advocating for execution. One person said he'd dole out the death penalty himself because the unvaccinated didn't deserve hospital treatment. But it's not just here and actually, I think overall the people who frequent this forum are far more reasonable than the public at large. In Snowden's case, anyone who really wanted to could start with the death of a soldier and create a cause/effect chain of events that would somehow link to Snowden. So offing that a-hole is justified, right? But what would that process look like, and could it be applied elsewhere? Snowden did a, a caused b, b->c, d, e, f, and then people died. =Traitor. =Death. Milley did a. a->z. =Traitor. =Death. Biden =Traitor. =Death. Racist =Nazi =Death. The Unvaccinated =Murderers =Death. Republicans, Democrats, the Rich, etc. More people are wishing death on other individuals and groups due to ideological differences, and the threshold seems to be getting lower. This doesn't end well. This is related to the earlier vid I posted. Great stuff. Today, you likely consider the idea of "Genocide" hyperbole. At some point in your lifetime, you won't. It happens with Tyranny and the seeds are being planted.

Weird, it's almost like policy decisions exist in gray areas with nuanced details that need to be considered to ensure the policy actually works. Plenty of jobs subject people to background checks, drug tests, and vaccination requirements. That's an employer's prerogative much like it's your prerogative to go work somewhere else if those conditions are too onerous for you. Alternatively.. GUBMENT BETTER NOT TELL ME WHAT TO DO

Except they do. There have been vaccine mandates for schoolchildren for decades. There have been vaccine mandates for the military for just as long. Employers in various industries including airlines have required certain vaccines for years. So, sorry, but you're clearly wrong here. Public health requirements have existed without major issues in free and open societies for a very long time. They are not mutually exclusive concepts.

A 172 with 50 gallons of AVGAS might not be a problem but a Bonaza with 500 pounds of explosives in a TFR is most certainly a threat. Whether it be the President hanging out at Camp David or a stadium full of people there is a real threat IMHO.

I forgot that teachers, healthcare workers, airline travelers and the “couple” million of people you are missing are not “general population”. So you are for a sort-of mandate, which is totally different than a full mandate. What’s the difference between a nation wide mandate and requiring vaccination to travel? To go to school? To go to work? Less people will travel on airlines I guess? More vaccine fraud? More people will homeschool their kids? People will leave their jobs? The fact that you admittedly are “missing a couple” groups where the vaccine mandate “makes sense” is proof that your threshold is gray and if implemented will likely be determined by some person in an office building that doesn’t care about the individuals health nearly as much as that individual cares about theirs (or at least the individual ought to care). Bottom line is free countries don’t entertain this types of ideas. for the record, also against blow darts- though the blow dart scene from get smart comes to mind.

Pawn, you are a proving to be a beacon of hope this morning…..you are at the five yard line— now just use the same logic with COVID vaccines mandates.

Got it. And he does admit to doing everything. The "Snowden is a hero/traitor" is subject I can't argue well because I can't first win either side of the debate in my own head. On one hand, he lied, he stole, he gave up state secrets, he knowingly broke the law, and he fully expected to face the consequences. He made that choice. We can't let that go unpunished, lest we have any jerkoff with classified information and a bone to pick with the government going public. On the other, I remember the ideas that the government has the technology and desire to listen to and track any American citizen domestically being the regarded as crazy conspiracy theories prior to Snowden. The problem being, he couldn't reveal the ways in which the intelligence communities were violating the trust of the American public without also revealing our capabilities against foreign adversaries. These programs were apparently created and executed with no distinction between the two. Now that our government is suggesting large swaths of the American public are potential domestic terrorists, and therefore enemies, I think it's important to know how our intelligence communities intend to go after those people. I understand being a superpower is a messy business, but there is significant potential that power to be abused. In the end, I lean toward believing we should remain an accountable democracy and sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Snowden didn't intend to stay in Russia. He was enroute to Ecuador. The US government revoked his passport before he landed in Russia, stranding him there. I'm not saying he did the right thing, but I have a lot more anger at a system that enables the government to listen to every phone call, read every text, and monitor every credit card transaction than I do at the guy who told us about the system.

Perhaps my previous post was incomplete. That said, I did say "death penalty" which presupposes due process and a trial IMO. If I had said "hellfired" I'd be on board with you. I don't advocate that he is summarily executed without due process. Of course he should be tried. But let's also not stretch the case either and hold any pretense about what Snowden did. He publicly admits to doing everything. I don't think you need any over-wrought A -> B -> C -> Death for Snowden logic to get there. Doing what he did amounts to treason in and of itself: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter115&edition=prelim Did Bradley Manning deserve the death penalty - certainly not. He's an idiot, and what he did was foolish and I believe came from a place of honest concern. What Snowden did was calculated and executed in precisely such a manner as to undermine our belief in institutions. It was done with the exact purpose to cause people who don't know any better to draw a moral equivalence between the United States and our adversaries. Citizens who think that being a superpower means we don't ever have to get our hands dirty. It's design was to exploit the average American's naiveté about the world, and it continues to do so. Also, the damage was and IS orders of magnitude greater.

Lol. Sorry I’m late to the online party.

You actually thought you were going to get that from this administration when you voted for it?

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-ignore-us-reporters-amid-222227885.html Boris Johnson starts answering questions from the press. Team Biden then removes all press from the room. The clown show continues in the White House. But hey, at least the VP has the border under control. Oh wait…

Ding Ding.....we have a winner. Amen

It sure as shit isn’t revealing a broad amount of TS to the entire world.

Had Snowden only released information about possibly illegal wiretapping then you might have an argument. Instead, he downloaded hundreds, possibly thousands of highly classified information on US sources and methods. Gifting them to Russia. Snowden is a traitor, he deserves to share a cell with Robert Hansen. For life.

Your Fantasy: Reality:

Another story. First assignment was Osan 1977, what a place for the Air Force to send a 19 year old. I wind up in this particular girls room and she puts this song on the turntable. Then proceeds to strip. Best $5 I ever spent.

@brabus I understand what you are saying but I don't think it survives contact with our current reality. The problem is how do you PID all the high risk people. We still don't know why but the virus can have a severe impact on people who would seemingly have zero risk. I have no comorbidities and brother it humbled me. My COVID experience was crazy. I had a low grade fever and some intestinal issues on Christmas Eve. Christmas day I actually felt better. I had flown my family up to DC in my plane and my annual was going to expire on the 31st so the morning of the 26th I did a self-assessment and decided to fly home...no fever...no other symptoms except fatigue. I stopped in Georgia for gas and grabbed the courtesy car to go grab some lunch. I made it to the main road and something told me to just head back to the plane and get home. Still minus symptoms I took some preventative Tylenol, gassed up and took off for Florida. I landed, taxied to my hangar, backed my truck out of the hangar to load it and WHAM it hit me like a ton of bricks. Big fever spike, aches, chills...all at once, I almost called a friend to put my plane away for me. Thank god it didn't happen in flight. I felt like shit for about five days and started to feel better, you know the feeling when you have the flu and can tell you are on the backside...that is how I felt. I went to bed thinking a good nights sleep and I would be better...the next morning it came roaring back even worse than before. My family was still in DC and they all had it. Both my mother in law and father in law ended up in the hospital...My mother in law was given, steroids, breathing treatments, Remdesivir and LAST RITES. The doctor literally said "there is nothing else we can do and her infection numbers are still going up." Thankfully she turned the corner the next day. Eight months later my father in law still feels the effects. He has comorbidities , she does not other than being in her 70's (very fit and active). I was home alone and kept getting worse...my best friends were checking in and bringing me food but man it sucked. My pulseox actually went below 90 and at the insistence of my sister who is a nurse, I asked for help...the response from the Military doctor was "take Motrin and cough drops." Thank god for my sister who did a conference call from Massachusetts and let the doctor have it. "He needs steroids NOW!" The doctor was an asshole and replied "using what rationale"...she again unloaded on the doctor and mentioned the hundreds of COVID patients she had been treating..."His pulseox is below 90%, his lungs are swollen, he needs help NOW!" The doctor changed her tune and prescribed steroids. I picked them up an hour later and within 30 minutes of taking the first pill I knew it was the magic pill! My pulseox jumped to 94% and I started what would be a 12 week recovery. I had a follow up with that doctor who said "Wow, great to know the steroids work, you were my first COVID patient." I am a retired dude but after the fact I called the Med Group/CC and filed an official complaint...which I understand they did take seriously. I have a great friend from High School who is a PhD Nurse in Miami...one of the hot spots. The stories she tells are horrifying...truly horrifying. She is in the middle of the second wave right now and almost all of the patients are unvaccinated and a surprising number have no comorbidites. I've talked to her many times because I truly wondered about the vaccine and the conditions at ground zero. She keeps saying they all wish they had gotten the vaccine. I have another friend form high school and her 26 year old son has been in the hospital for 10 days...dude has no comorbidities and is an ultra-marathoner...no vaccine. I have a few rental properties, one of my tenants just spent two weeks in the hospital and is now home on oxygen. He is 32, no commodities and is again very active and fit...no vaccine. My sampling is not scientific but it is enough for me to realize there is still much we don't know. Again, I think people have a choice but given all I've seen and heard I hope they get the vaccine.

Not really…vaccinated spread the virus at nearly the same rate as unvaccinated (CDC/John Hopkins). This vaccine started at “97% keeps you from getting the virus” to “well it’s more like 40%…me scuzie, but your symptoms will be reduced!” That’s not to say the vaccine is a bad idea for many people, but it’s incorrect to blanket say people should get it to “help others.” I acknowledge that elderly and those who are unhealthy getting vaccinated will contribute to less ICU beds, and that does help others indirectly. But this generalized statement is misapplied to the low-risk demographics.

Complementary Soviet sub outfit too. One ping only Vasily, we're starting our descent to FCO.... 😄

Snowden is a traitor and should be given the death penalty. If it walks like a traitor, talks like a traitor, and gives secrets to the Russians like a traitor...wait for it...it's a traitor. That it was so seductive a play that it has obviously duped patriots in the military into thinking he's some sort of national hero speaks to how powerful various elements of the information war are. He played Glenn Greenwald like a fiddle, and if you don't think there is a connection between what we've witnessed happen on the world stage over the last 7-8 years and what he did, you need to get your head checked. And if you're in the military and you think that was the "proper" way to voice a concern, you shouldn't be in a position of any responsibility.