Roundup

   Idle thoughts from a rambling mind.

   REALITY CHECK -- Every spring, bears leave their hibernation dens and roam rural and suburban areas, wandering through residential back yards and rummaging in trash bins. This year, several sightings prompted a Philadelphia TV reporter to observe that the bears "seem to make themselves at home."
   Check that. They are home. People are the newcomers.

   KNOW-NOTHING PARTISANS -- Lawyers hired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie cleared him of any wrongdoing in the bridge closing scandal. What a surprise (not)! Editorial writers properly called the report a whitewash, since the probers took no testimony from active participants, but only from the Governor and his aides.

   NOT PROVEN -- In the American system of justice, someone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. That means it's up to the prosecutor to prove guilt, and not up to the suspect to prove innocence. This is not to say, however, that the person charged is in fact innocent, but only that he or she has not been proven guilty.

   TRAITOR OR PATRIOT -- Exposing government wrongdoing is an act of patriotism, not treason. Some commentators insist that we must always support the government, and to disagree equals treason, as well as a failure to "support the troops."  It's one thing to support the troops, but quite another to protest a government policy that put the troops in harm's way.
   It was curious to hear right-wing commentators demand that everyone support a President who happened to be a Republican at the time. The theme was "support the President because he's the President." A few years later, these same commentators were vehemently assailing a President, who happened to be a Democrat.
   Currently, many government supporters are demanding that Edward Snowden is a traitor because he exposed government activities that were and are clearly excessive and wrong. By definition, treason is an act that gives aid and comfort to an enemy. Snowden, however, arranged to leak government documents to the general public via newspapers, and not quietly and surreptitiously to an enemy.
   If Snowden is to be charged with treason, then so also should the editors of the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, all newspapers that published accounts distributed by the Associated Press, as well as any and all broadcast journalists who reported on the content of the leaked documents.
   Remember the Pentagon Papers, which exposed government failures and misdeeds in Vietnam? Theft, perhaps. Treason, no.
   The First Amendment right to freedom of speech and of the press is not a right granted by government, but a right we already have, and one to be guaranteed by government. Interfering with that right is a wrong perpetrated more often and more dangerously by government than by those who exercise that right.