[dragonwriter]

> Either Snowden performed a service or he committed a crime. He can't have done both.

He actually can have done both. That something has value to the public does not mean it is not within the scope of prohibition of a criminal statute. (Further, even if there was a blanket "public service" exception to the applicable criminal laws, its quite possible that some of the information he absconded with and released could be "service" and the rest could still be "crime".)

[vinceguidry]

I'm aware that the law can prohibit actions that are ultimately good for society. That doesn't make it rational.

[dragonwriter]

I think you are confusing "rational" with "fitting my aesthetic ideal of how things should be".

[vinceguidry]

How would you define "rational," then? Philosophy, or "love of wisdom", of which law is a branch, is all about trying to apply aesthetic ideals to the real world.

[dragonwriter]

> How would you define "rational," then?

Following a consistent internal logic given its factual and aesthetic premises.

> Philosophy, or "love of wisdom", of which law is a branch, is all about trying to apply aesthetic ideals to the real world.

This would be something other than a non-sequitur if "philosophy" was equivalent to "reason" rather than the latter being a tool used by the former but which is not coextensive with it.

[vinceguidry]

> This would be something other than a non-sequitur if "philosophy" was equivalent to "reason" rather than the latter being a tool used by the former but which is not coextensive with it.

I'm having trouble seeing this as anything other than a purely semantic distinction.

[dragonwriter]

Well, yes, the issue of what words mean is by definition purely semantic.