Americans are so NOSY, you guys, what with their unrelenting interference inVice Presidential matters and this bizarre obsession with "unsealing" classified documents to better understand the mistakes and triumphs of the past. Thomas Jefferson? Moron. James Madison? Hippie. And don’t even get me started on George Washington.

Via an Op-ed piece by CNN journalist typist LZ Granderson:

We are a nosy country. Though to be fair, it's not entirely our fault. Between the 24/7 news cycle, social media and reality TV, we have been spoon fed other people's private business for so long we now assume it's a given to know everything. And if there are people who choose not to disclose, they must be hiding something. Being told that something's "none of your business" is slowly being characterized as rude, and if such a statement is coming from the government, it seems incriminating.

Times have changed. Yet, not everything is our business. And in the political arena, there are things that should be and need to be kept quiet.

Couldn't agree more. Interest in Kim Kardashian’s comings and goings is exactly like an interest in, say, the meeting minutes between oil executives and elected officials, or the reasons for firing federal prosecutors along ideological lines. EXACTLY THE SAME, especially when the government is just doing its darndest to Keep Us Safe.™ What is this, Iceland?

You see, freedom isn't entirely free. It also isn't squeaky clean. And sometimes the federal government deems it necessary to get its hands a little dirty in the hopes of achieving something we generally accept as good for the country.

Laws are made to be broken, amiright bro?  Freedom isn’t free, you can’t make a omelet without breaking eggs. Sometimes, you have to break the law to enforce the law, haven't you seen Beverly Hills Cop?

Much in the same way, Project Wide Receiver and Project Road Runner -- the earlier versions of Fast and Furious under President Bush -- were executed with the hope that they will do more good than harm. Hardly anyone in the public knows the finer points of these programs. Were they legal? Hell no. Were they effective? Who knows? Were they done as a way to keep America safe? Yes.

Exactly. Laws are for little people. If you want to, say, sell a bunch of illegal drugs in the next town over and use the proceeds of those drug sales to fund a takeover of the taco stand down the street just in case the local grocery store runs out of prized natural resources, well, the most important question should be whether or not you’re doing all of that to keep you and your family SAFE.

But to go much beyond the criticism of these men runs the risk of learning that this great nation of ours is heavily involved in doing some things that are not so great. Think about it: We have allowed weapons to cross the Mexican border and into the hands of criminals for years. Many of these weapons were involved in killing innocent Mexicans. There's nothing very admirable about that. But the truth is, it's very American.

Duh, what is more American than killing innocent Mexicans, especially if we admit that it’s not admirable to have killed the innocent Mexicans? Like the Founders said, our nation’s values are best manifested in the strength of our resolve to kill innocent people in service of ineffective and inhumane policies that prop up special interests at the expense of poor and minority communities. Couldn’t agree more.

And maybe it's better for us not to be so nosy, not to know everything because, to paraphrase the famous line from the movie "A Few Good Men," many of us won't be able to handle the truth.

And that, friends, is what it takes to be a regular CNN typist: a disinterest in investigative reporting, an unquestioning defense of authority, a disregard for the lives of people who aren't American, and if possible, a heady dose of clichés and movie quotes.

[CNN]