If you think that Snowden ought to have gone through channels, consider this.

[tymorial]

63. Thank you :)

No, I have not read that book but I just looked it up on Wikipedia. This particular quote is fascinating and rather illustrative of the point I made. I will definitely check this out. It perfectly defines the behavior of many ideologues. It is most certainly true of most on the right but sadly, we absolutely see elements of this on the left as well:

From wikipedia "The Paranoid Style in American Politics"
"The paranoid spokesman, sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization... he does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated — if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes"