Donald Hank
The Pharisees are still raging
By Donald Hank
There are numerous commentaries in the msm and the conservative media that condemn Ed Snowden as a traitor. In fact I occasoinally receive angry emails from people expressing this opinion. They appear outraged that I would defend 'the traitor.'
I won't speculate as to the motives behind this lynch mob mentality. But it is sad to see people obsessed with the letter of the law when obviously the laws that apply to Snowden were written with the tacit understanding that the spy agencies are benignly defending the People of the USA and the Constitution. Instead we find that the current administration is cynically using the NSA for its own illegal purposes, not only to spy on its citizens but to interfere in foreign governments in violation of national laws.
I pointed out before that the judges' opinion at the Nuremberg trials introduced a precedent requiring officials of any country to do what is morally right, regardless of laws or orders, and that this opinion is now part of international law. Yet suddenly there are legions of powerful men, including in our Senate, who cynically ignore that ruling in their efforts to denigrate Ed Snowden and his whistleblowing achievements.
The story broken by Bild am Sonntag indicates that Obama was using the agency to dig up dirt on Chancellor Merkel simply because she had denied him the use of the Brandenberg Gate for a campaign speech in 2008. Although Snowden did not directly supply this information, without Snowden's leaks, we would not know this. That article series also quotes a German official stating that German wiretapping laws – the laws of an American ally – were violated by NSA. What is puzzling is to see otherwise decent conservative Americans condemning Snowden for his whistleblowing efforts when they should know that all people of good will in America are engaged in a life and death struggle with a criminal and increassingly tyrannical government. By way of reference, a recent report shows there is now proof that 'our' government allowed innocent men to die in Banghazi and lied to the public to cover its wrongdoing.
The accusations against Ed Snowden are tantamount to a situation on a battlefield where a brave soldier steals a valise of documents from behind enemy lines that advance the cause of his country and yet his own countrymen condemn him for stealing! The White House is not a benign entity with which we can simply get along and coexist, Folks. It is the enemy of each and every one of us who love our country and its Constitution. Anyone who can supply information to the public on its efforts to further enslave us is not a traitor, not matter what laws he may have violated in so doing.
I believe, however, that we are in fact dealing with the millennia old conflict between legalism and grace, a conflict best understood from a spiritual standpoint.
Our Lord, when He was on this earth, ran athwart the Pharisees, who kept trying to hold Him to the letter of the law in an effort to trip Him up and build a dossier againts him and ultimately crucify Him. For example, when He healed a crippled woman in the synagogue on a Saturday (the Sabbath), the leader of the synagogue angrily told those in attendance never again to come to be healed on the Sabbath because it was forbidden to work on the Sabbath under the law.
Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue (a powerful man):
However, the conflict Jesus faced 2000 years ago never went away. It exists today with legalists insisting on the letter of the law when they should humble themselves and accept that circumstances can make it impossible, and even immmoral, to obey the letter of the law. Hence, forgiveness.
Men of common sense, patriots who love their countries and deplore the tyranny they see growing around them, are being harassed by little men of no vision who are willing to countenance evil in the name of the law.
The good news is that men of good will still rejoice in the glorious things done by Him.
© Donald Hank
February 16, 2014
There are numerous commentaries in the msm and the conservative media that condemn Ed Snowden as a traitor. In fact I occasoinally receive angry emails from people expressing this opinion. They appear outraged that I would defend 'the traitor.'
I won't speculate as to the motives behind this lynch mob mentality. But it is sad to see people obsessed with the letter of the law when obviously the laws that apply to Snowden were written with the tacit understanding that the spy agencies are benignly defending the People of the USA and the Constitution. Instead we find that the current administration is cynically using the NSA for its own illegal purposes, not only to spy on its citizens but to interfere in foreign governments in violation of national laws.
I pointed out before that the judges' opinion at the Nuremberg trials introduced a precedent requiring officials of any country to do what is morally right, regardless of laws or orders, and that this opinion is now part of international law. Yet suddenly there are legions of powerful men, including in our Senate, who cynically ignore that ruling in their efforts to denigrate Ed Snowden and his whistleblowing achievements.
The story broken by Bild am Sonntag indicates that Obama was using the agency to dig up dirt on Chancellor Merkel simply because she had denied him the use of the Brandenberg Gate for a campaign speech in 2008. Although Snowden did not directly supply this information, without Snowden's leaks, we would not know this. That article series also quotes a German official stating that German wiretapping laws – the laws of an American ally – were violated by NSA. What is puzzling is to see otherwise decent conservative Americans condemning Snowden for his whistleblowing efforts when they should know that all people of good will in America are engaged in a life and death struggle with a criminal and increassingly tyrannical government. By way of reference, a recent report shows there is now proof that 'our' government allowed innocent men to die in Banghazi and lied to the public to cover its wrongdoing.
The accusations against Ed Snowden are tantamount to a situation on a battlefield where a brave soldier steals a valise of documents from behind enemy lines that advance the cause of his country and yet his own countrymen condemn him for stealing! The White House is not a benign entity with which we can simply get along and coexist, Folks. It is the enemy of each and every one of us who love our country and its Constitution. Anyone who can supply information to the public on its efforts to further enslave us is not a traitor, not matter what laws he may have violated in so doing.
I believe, however, that we are in fact dealing with the millennia old conflict between legalism and grace, a conflict best understood from a spiritual standpoint.
Our Lord, when He was on this earth, ran athwart the Pharisees, who kept trying to hold Him to the letter of the law in an effort to trip Him up and build a dossier againts him and ultimately crucify Him. For example, when He healed a crippled woman in the synagogue on a Saturday (the Sabbath), the leader of the synagogue angrily told those in attendance never again to come to be healed on the Sabbath because it was forbidden to work on the Sabbath under the law.
Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue (a powerful man):
-
You hypocrite, does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? Luke 13:17 And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.
However, the conflict Jesus faced 2000 years ago never went away. It exists today with legalists insisting on the letter of the law when they should humble themselves and accept that circumstances can make it impossible, and even immmoral, to obey the letter of the law. Hence, forgiveness.
Men of common sense, patriots who love their countries and deplore the tyranny they see growing around them, are being harassed by little men of no vision who are willing to countenance evil in the name of the law.
The good news is that men of good will still rejoice in the glorious things done by Him.
© Donald Hank
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