Thoughts on Bradley Manning

Thinking a lot about Bradley Manning these past few days.

While this nation's government encourages, facilitates, and rewards people for "blowing the whistle" on corporations and their fellow citizens, when it comes to the illegalities, immoralities, and improprieties of our government institutions, doing the very same thing can cost you your life, or everything else, failing that.

War is hell, and national security is a dirty business, but to throw away humanity, morality, ethics, and human decency for the sake of obscure goals leaves us as a people resembling the very archetypes and monsters our enemies accused us of being in the first place.

One government's traitor is another man's hero, and while very often the reality of the situation is obfuscated by the rhetoric, morals, and laws on either side, it should be obvious to any decent person that we cannot let the canaries in the coal mines go unheard, else-wise it won't be much longer until we're all silenced along with them.

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