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Comment by evgen | Hacker News Reader

What it would confirm is that Assange has made himself more trouble than he is worth the the Ecuadorian's and they have decided to simply kick him out of their embassy. They have no moral obligation to continue providing shelter for someone who thinks their protection is some untouchable perch from which to play political games and are simply asking them to leave. Assange is that guy you once knew from high school who you let crash on your couch for 'a few days' and find still there a year later trying to run a mail-order scam out of your kitchen. He is being shown the door.

The fact that once he leaves the long-delayed wheels of justice start turning is merely a side-effect. The end-goal is not getting him transferred to Sweden, it is for Assange to be able to show the world that he was right all along by defending himself against the charges against him and not hiding until he could run out the clock.

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I think if this election cycle has taught us anything, it's that allegations of the worst kind can be created for political reasons. Surely Bill Clinton AND Donald Trump AND Julian Assange AND Anthony Weiner can't all be rapists, right? What kind of a world do we live in if they all are?!

> can't all be rapists, right?

Why not? Considering that not too long ago it was deemed legal to rape your wife? It's not too long ago that rape wasn't exactly treated as the crime it is now. Without wanting to apologize any of the behavior, it's less than my lifetime ago that the man who took a woman against her will wasn't considered a rapist but rather a role model in large chunks of the population. So yes, it's quite well possible that all of them are rapists. That's the kind of world we live in.

> wasn't considered a rapist but rather a role model in large chunks of the population

Pop history. Be specific (time, place, evidence) or stop with the demon-haunted characterisations of the past.

1. Howard Roarke (The Fountainhead) 1943 Novel

2. Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire) 1947 Play

Just two that spring to mind. I'm sure a diligent person could find plenty of other examples of rapist protagonists in 20th century literature.

Wow, just because a protagonist does something in a piece of literature or theater doesn't mean that the author, much less society, approves of the deed in question (rape, in this case), or considered the one responsible for the deed a "role model".

I mean, didn't you read and discuss "Native Son" in high school? Do you think that the fact that its protagonist committed murder means that Richard Wright or society at the time approved of murder?

And by the way, when "The Fountainhead" and "Streetcar Named Desire" came out, those rape scenes were just about as controversial as the publication of "Native Son".

Pop history in particular artistic works are reflective of society.

Look at early Bond movies for example. Quite a lot of behaviour in those movies would be considered sexual assault if happened today.

In many ways, for better or worse, the early Bond movies mixed the 'suave, debonaire spy' with the reality of the books:

That Bond was a lonely, bitter, alcoholic (beyond "vodka martini, shaken not stirred", but in many of the books Bond would often find himself alone at the bottom of a bottle of liquor), misogynist with a short temper.

So certainly they could, and in many cases, that would have been the underlying premise - not that he was (just) a ladies' man who would have women falling over themselves.

>Pop history in particular artistic works are reflective of society. Look at early Bond movies for example.

The Human Centipede

Are you being obtuse ? Of course they can.

People in positions of power often feel like they can get away with sexually aggressive behaviour. Just like Trump unequivocally stated on tape. And you have selectively chosen a handful there but there a lot of politicians e.g. Obama, Bernie, Biden, Ryan, Romney etc who haven't had charges of rape labelled against them.

And remember there are many successful leaders, visionaries and pillars of society with fatal personality flaws. You only have to look at Trump using the argument that "she was ugly" to dispute a rape charge as an example of this.

A patriarchy where powerful men are essentially unaccountable for abuse of women. Or, in other words, exactly the same world we've been living in for centuries. (Not saying all the allegations are true, just that even if they were, it wouldn't fundamentally alert the nature of the world, which is one of the reasons they spread so easily--they are quite consistent with the way the world is observed to work.)

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