Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the hypocrisy-and-more dept

This week, it was hard to miss the irony in David Petraeus saying that Edward Snowden should be prosecuted. We listed five reasons his statements were nonsense, and That One Guy won most insightful comment of the week with an addendum to that list:

Sixth, it's bullshit because the law Snowden would be prosecuted under does not allow motive as a defense. It's entirely black or white, 'Did you reveal classified information?', and since obviously Snowden did his 'trial' would be just as pre-determined as Patraeus' was, except in the other direction.

Our second place comment for insightful comes in response to the same story, this time from David (presumably not Petraeus) expanding on why comparing Petraeus to Snowden is stupid:

Petraeus acted only for personal gain, passing classified information to his mistress in order to self-aggrandize. That's stabilizing the political establishment.

Snowden acted in defense of the Constitution, passing classified information to the public in order to enable them to fight for their Constitutional rights. That's destabilizing the political establishment.

Of course the latter is an openly hostile act against those sworn to defend the Constitution, making Snowden an enemy of the state.

It would not be so if those sworn to defend the Constitution were not actively seeking to abolish it, but Snowden was perfectly aware that they were doing exactly this, so his acts clearly were hostile towards the government and its agencies.

So he cannot expect mercy. Not as long as the American People cheer on the scum that has stolen its country and turned it into a mockery of democratic processes.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a response from Ehud Gavron to a commenter accusing Techdirt of "glorifying discrimination against cops":

I think you're so busy blaming everyone other than the criminals you've lost the perspective.

First, Techdirt publishes articles discussing police criminal behavior -- like brutality -- daily. (Yesterday in fact there was a piece on Fox Network not wanting to show the end of a police chase that end with a man surrendering on the ground, and the criminal cops battered him.)

Second, if police weren't committing gross acts of criminal behavior -- like falsely arresting the people cleaning out the scumbag deadbeat cop's abandoned house -- there wouldn't be reports of this, some of which you find in Techdirt.

Yes, far easier to "blame the media" for reporting about criminal cops, than to take criminal cops to task, remove them from the street, or put them in prisons.

If cops held cops to the same standards as they hold everyone else, there would be more cops in prison than junkies.

There's no such thing as a good cop. There are bad cops... and those who look the other way or support them.

E

Next, we've got a good anonymous point about the Philly cops who bizarrely tried to hide their license plate reader vehicle as a Google Maps car:

Without the disguise no one would have even noticed.

Over on the funny side, first place goes to a response to the Butts County cop who arrested a crew sent to clean his foreclosed house, where ryuugami simply couldn't resist:

It seems even Butts County has its share of assholes.

...

I'll take my coat.

In second place, we've got some anonymous musings about the first place insightful winner this and many other weeks, That One Guy:

I actually skipped the main idea that struck me & led to my little joke (and compliment*): writing of this style doesn't seem like it expresses anger so much as it does a sense of rational frustration that has reached a tipping point. Eloquence without hyperbole strikes a rare balance that should be employed more often when addressing a wide audience. (I wouldn't know from personal experience: I lack one, and the other can only be used if you have a legal department to vet it for 'government asshat exploitability potential' first.)

_____
* - a compliment to TOG in that he seems to have the 'passionate but articulate' thing pretty much down. It was also a statement made to see how well I could resist my desire to mention that TOG could occasionally just... shut the hell up! Go get treated for hypergraphia! Take 'emeritus' status on 'Insight' you greedy bastard, & give the rest of us a bleeding chance once in a while! Frig flatblastulated gorram slrmm'n !#!#?@#$@!!!!

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from CharlieBrown on statements from the Panama Papers leaker that the revolution will be digitized:

.....so we should be able to use DRM to stop it, right?

And finally, even though jokes taking the term "piracy" literally are hardly new, DannyB must get some recognition for throwing in a fresh and irresistible pun:

Piracy is theft.

Piracy causes the loss of cargo. Sometimes the loss of shipping vessels. And sometimes injury or death to crews.

Often, piracy results in a Lost Sail and loss of other shipping or boating related items.

The Lost Sail is the main concern of the copyright maximalists.

That's all for this week, folks!

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