> and the other party wants to prosecute the man who exposed the world to the dragnet surveillance being conducted by the NSA.

I'm pretty sure both parties want that. Any successful system will work to perpetuate itself.

Show me a majority of democratic leaders wanting Ranked Voting, and I have a bridge to sell you, for example.

Democrats and Republican leadership *want* the "good v evil" dichotomy of their party versus the other.

What does ranked voting have to do with Snowden?

Sorry, too many threads here and I missed this one. I was specifically thinking about how the two parties love keeping themselves around, rather than helping the will of the people get through.

Come on. The two situations are entirely different.

One side is trying to prosecute a journalist who clicked view source and embarrassed an incompetent IT department. There was never any law broken under any remotely plausible legal theory.

The other side is trying to prosecute someone who violated their NDA to not disclose classified info. Now, you might think what he did was a net positive (I certainly do), but on the other hand it is objectively illegal. The DOJ could use their discretion and drop it, but they don't have to.

> One party wants to prosecute a reporter who found a site vulnerability, and both parties wants to prosecute the man who exposed the world to the dragnet surveillance being conducted by the NSA.

FTFY, unless you think Rs have any interest in dropping charges against Snowden. So even in your own examples, one party clearly has the upper hand, and it's not R.