So I took it very personal, and I'd hate to think that there would be a strong correlation between people standing up to governments and rapists.
Sorry I hit a nerve. Intended as a humorous observation: Given that politics is dominated by men and most people view rape as something committed only by men, perhaps there is (purely coincidentally) some kind of correlation there.
I'm not someone who places much value on politics. Maybe someday that will change. I believe "The government is best which governs least." I believe attacking the government so it feels all the more compelled to defend itself is counterproductive. I believe in the "light one candle rather than curse the dark" philosophy. I believe that fighting against some "evil" is a waste of time and the time and energy involved in doing so would be better spent building something good in the world. I believe letting opposition to evil define your actions is a win for the thing you view as evil.
The English bible says "The meek shall inherit the earth". I have heard the French version is "The nonchalant shall inherit the earth". I prefer the French version. I've got my own self-righteous streak and have stepped on plenty of toes in my time. I find it counterproductive and continue to work on being non-chalant and offering alternatives rather than attacks. It's slow but I think it's really more productive.
Peace.
The things that are happening around us are pretty scary indeed, and it's not the meek that will stop them.
For instance, in my country we now have a nation wide register of finger prints of non offenders. We have DNA data banks, license plate registration systems, identification requirements and so on.
Wikileaks is a force pushing in the opposite direction, something that watches over the watchers. You can't directly attack wikileaks, but you can attack the people behind such initiatives. That person could easily be me or a hundred others who are not going to stand by idly while our freedoms are being eroded.
My passport is about to expire, I will not renew it because I don't feel like giving up my fingerprints to authorities that have already been seen to abuse every little bit of data they have on us.
Former East block citizens are shocked at the ease with which we have given up our privacy in return for a non-existent threat.
We need wikileaks, or something like it. I'm against the way wikileaks is taking sides in issues, I think it should just dump whatever it receives as long as it has been verified to be true and not editorialize. But I can see how attacking a man is much easier than attacking a concept, and after the attacks on the concept have failed we should not be too surprised to see attacks on the man.
I think if you want a better government, you need to make better people since government is run by people. I think if you want a government that places a high value on respecting the rights of its citizens, you need to foster a population of people that really respect each other. I think spitting in the face of the current government doesn't foster such an environment. It fosters something else, something I don't want in my world. You cannot compel others to be respectful. You can only teach them to do so. The best way to teach it is to model it, to live it. So I believe the antidote to the scary stuff going on is to just go through life having compassion for others and doing my best to treat them with respect. It's sort of like "the broken windows theory". Yeah, I know, the way the theory is written has serious flaws. But it's the best model I know to reference which is well-known and might be a concept people here will be familiar with.
Anyway, I'm just trying to clarify my view as to why I think wikileaks isn't necessarily here nor there in the grand scheme of things. My original point: Shit happens. This isn't necessarily about the government framing him and it isn't necessarily about him being a bad dude and serial rapist. There are other possible explanations and too little info to really go on.
Have a good day. I'm going offline now.
Thanks.
In English law rape can only be committed by a man.
In England "rape" is a crime which requires the criminal to penetrate with a penis. There are many other forms of sexual assault that are punished just as severely as "rape" but are just not known by that name. They can be, and are, committed by men and women.
No problem.
In England "rape" is a crime which requires the criminal to penetrate with a penis. There are many other forms of sexual assault that are punished just as severely as "rape" but are just not known by that name. They can, and are, committed by men and women.
The problem is that I am unaware of a word or law which specifically defines and names some opposite equivalent, which suggests the concept is absent from our language and therefore absent from our culture. The word "rape" also gets used as a metaphor in non-sexual situations where someone feels violated in an ugly manner. (Someone on HN used this word to describe how they felt about Google Buzz making so much of their personal info public by default when it launched.)