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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

This should be a sobering view of how the world really works. Above a certain threshold, every veneer of civilization vanishes no matter what the country (some have a higher threshold than others).

At this level, only power matters. And the first rule of power is: Don't embarrass the powerful unless you can call on a lot of power to defend yourself.

Laws can't protect you; they can be thwarted and bent, and the legal process "guided" to the required outcome.

International organizations can't protect you; they can only register complaints that will be duly ignored by everyone if the champion is important enough.

Even countries can't protect you at this level; they're beholden to power themselves after a certain point.

This is the message to would-be activists anywhere: Stay out of the big boy pool or we'll make you regret it.

View on HN

The most infuriating among all of them has been our media - specifically mainstream media. They have played the entire saga down and in many cases many mainstream media pundits actively espoused for Assanges punishment [1].

I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does. Mainstream media right now has no other purpose other than being active vehicle of the powerful and billionaire oligarchs to control the narrative. When 70% of the media empire are owned by billionaires why are we pretending otherwise? How different is that than state sponsored media in North Korea?

[1] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/julian-assange-loses-appeal...

> I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does.

That, uh, might be a bit of an overcorrection.

Well can you elaborate why you think it is? Because the way I see it, it gives unwavering and constitutionally guaranteed way for billionaires to control the narratives - in addition to the power they already have been wielding through owning politicians using lobbyists and having protection through section 230 in all the stakes they own in the social media companies.

That’s what has been happening in the media space - Murdochs, Turners and Bezos now own vast sum of media sphere. And social medias just use them as proxy for “fact checks”.

> Well can you elaborate why you think it is?

Because "we'll revoke your First Amendment rights if we don't like how you're using them" is a very big step on a very steep and very slippery slope.

Assange's defense is likely to revolve around the First Amendment. Weakening it would hurt him, even.

My point is the way founding fathers envisioned first amendment protection, they never foresaw the rise of a small billionaires oligarchs owning large stake of media and newspapers to promote views favouring their narratives. I am not speaking of first amendment of individuals which I think is also under attack by the same group of people, look how the mainstream media would love to cancel certain people they don’t like.

The idea that people who lived in a time of tarring-and-feathering people couldn't anticipate cancel culture is a bit silly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Brown_(loyalist)

> Brown requested the liberty to hold his own opinions, saying that he could "never enter into an Engagement to take up arms against the Country which gave him being", and finally met their demands with pistol and sword. The crowd seized him and struck him with the butt of a musket, fracturing his skull. Taken prisoner, he was tied to a tree where he was roasted by fire and scalped before being tarred and feathered. Brown was then carted through a number of nearby settlements and forced to verbally pledge himself to the Patriot cause before being released. This mistreatment resulted in the loss of two toes and lifelong headaches.

Cancelling someone is also known as freedom of association.

edit: Media stirring shit up was a thing pre-Revolution, too, including at least two Founding Fathers participating themselves! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre#Media_battle

Not to mention fairly regular extrajudicial lynchings. The rule of law is respected far more today than it was in the 1770s.

What I find inspiring about the Boston massacre is that founding father, John Adams, defended the British soldiers involved in it and doing so did not prevent him from becoming president in the future. The values of the electorate were quite a bit different in those days and really are knowing about and emulating the better parts.

> Cancelling someone is also known as freedom of association

Personally, I don't care that it's age old. It's still not okay, and I don't care whether it's better or worse in modern times. I'm not even sure how far outside of propaganda some of this stuff falls, which ironically has the opposite reception from the public.

It's not OK to choose not to hang out with someone because you've heard they did something shitty?

You can absolutely make a personal choice. The moment that you start tricking yourself into thinking that narrative manipulation, harassment, trolling, stalking, etc to get others to make that same personal choice are part of some high moral stance is what people get angry at cancel culture about. There is quite a distinction.

I can’t use my free speech to encourage someone to make the same choice?

Trying to conflate “cancel culture” with the already-illegal concepts of stalking and harassment is disingenuous. Trolling and “narrative manipulation” are pretty clear protected free expression.

I don't really get your point about free speech. That's a government protection. What I am talking about is the tendency of mobs to act as conduits of misinformation and abuse while projecting some form of morality en masse. It teeters on being more harmful than the thing they're mobbing about, typically.

> My point is the way founding fathers envisioned first amendment protection, they never foresaw the rise of a small billionaires oligarchs owning large stake of media and newspapers to promote views favouring their narratives.

That sounds to me like a problem with the existence of billionaire oligarchs and not a problem with the first amendment.

the founding fathers were those oligarchs for their time

The founders largely were oligarchs, heirs of oligarchs, or married into the families of oligarchs,and certainly were not people to whom the idea of someone, or some group, within that class investing heavily in media to promote their political ideas would be surprising.

> look how the mainstream media would love to cancel certain people they don’t like.

Both before and after independence, political cancel culture in the early US involved much more forceful, and often permanent and total, cancellation than what is complained about today.

That journalists and individuals have separate first amendment rights guaranteed by the constitution is a lie created by the same mainstream media you’ve lost faith in.

Overcorrection? No it is not. They enjoy misleading and diverting attention away from the things that really matter. Just take a look at these lawsuits:

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/a-court-ruled-rachel-maddow...

https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case...

Look, these talking heads are simply well-paid entertainers - nothing more. All they spew is lies, propaganda and downplay the things that are really happening. Unfortunately they have a willing audience in the majority of Americans who cannot see through all the bullshit. I personally cannot recall when last I tuned in to any of the mainstream media outlets.

So I'd recommend that they be stripped of all of those protections and get the same punitive treatment that we, the People (we are the ones who pay taxes, BTW), get when we talk shit. Trust me, that'll make them sit up.

> Look, these talking heads are simply well-paid entertainers - nothing more.

Entertainers have First Amendment rights, too.

> They enjoy misleading and diverting attention away from the things that really matter.

If I feel your argument does that, do I get to revoke your rights?

> So I'd recommend that they be stripped of all of those protections and get the same punitive treatment that we, the People (we are the ones who pay taxes, BTW), get when we talk shit.

We, the People, are similarly protected by the First Amendment. Weakening it would impact us, too.

Wow! You actually took my shit serious! LOL. Of course, I'm just being overly dramatic and would never support censorship in any way, shape or form. If you can't sense the sarcasm in my comment, I don't know what else to say :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

There's no way to tell these days. I feel bad for The Onion, really. Parody is dead.

Being sarcastic on the internet is generally a bad idea and creates confusion as to whether you truly believe what you’re saying. If you want to make a sarcastic point it’s best to be explicit about it, or else risk being taken seriously.

Nobody here knows what you actually believe. Without the benefit of that shared context, a sly vocal intonation, or a wink of the eye all we can do is take you at face value as someone who actually believes what you’re saying.

Just add /s at the end and it would be a done thing.

Joke's on you - Hacker News is into that shit.

Of course, the problem with removing First Amendment protections is you only know about these lawsuits because Business Insider and Glenn Greenwald enjoy First Amendment protections.

That having been said: the First Amendment is not absolute, and there are exceptions to the general principle that people are free to say what they feel (Assange, for example, could be tried on espionage if he's extradited). But in general, exceptions are carved with a jeweler's chisel, and only when extremely necessary and when there are no other possible remedies.

In this case, the sickness you've highlighted has several potential non-first-amendment remedies, including enforcing monopoly laws, passing new monopoly laws, and taxing billionaires at a rate that would make it difficult for them to keep the surplus cash-on-hand to buy 70% of the US's newspapers. And changing the market via law to find a new way to pay for news since the Internet era has completely ingested and digested their traditional advertising model.

Y'all are really taking this shit serious! LMAO. I think my own First Amendment rights should be revoked, actually! LOL

Jokes aside, I'm against censorship. I think information should be available to all but maybe with caveats and accountability.

BTW, I agree with the proposed remedies. But - Who's gonna bell the cat though? It ain't going to be any of y'all's Senators, CongressPeople or the Executive Branch. And we all know for damn sure that it's never going to be the Supreme Court.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

... emphasis on the last part.

There seems to be a push reject all news as of late. It's scary.

Nah, they should keep the 1st Amendment for the journalists. The medias' marketing departments and execs, however, should be regulated to within an inch of their lives. If they let their journos spout shit, they should be legally on the hook if they EVER claim truth. If they lie, don't allow them to take advertiser or subscriber money.

You can say whatever you want, but you can't charge people for it and you can't lie and pretend you're selling one thing (truth) when you're selling another (self-righteous feelings).

Won't ever happen because the government and media are in bed with one another, but that's what I'd like to see.

Who decides who is lying?

If the media and government are in bed today, won't that get worse when the government can arbitrate what truth is harming the not mainstream media?

At this point I think the best chance of implementation would be something like the Board of Labor, OSHA, or some open source bug reporting where specific lies can be be reported and fined/punished for. Maybe random audits like the IRS. I'd like the determination to lie with the public, but the issue is coupling determination from enforcement given how intertwined information control is with power.

Right now? It wouldn't work. It's an angry pipe dream.

A ministry that decides on truths? I wonder what that could be called!

The Ministry of Lies, obviously.

Point taken.

Tbh I wasn't really making a point, I just thought it was a funny association

It's a point and a good one: It got me to think of the purpose of said angry pipe dream and if it was a productive use of my time!

Also I always love a good Orwell reference.

You have to remember that the first amendment was written to protect people like the founders - wealthy, bourgeois, powerful men. It was never intended to create a press that challenges state power.

Source? I'm pretty sure that state challenges were accounted for in 1a's derivations. The entire point of three branches was to keep the gov in check with itself. 1a helps to ensure it can be in check with its citizens as well.

> I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does

I'm sure if you thought through the implications of removing Constitutionally recognized, inalienable rights, you wouldn't say this. Let's assume it is done, the press is now stripped of its rights, and ask some questions about the world and political reality thereupon:

Do individuals still have this right to free speech or is it only media that no longer does?

Does an individual who becomes a journalist still have the right to free speech?

Who would oversee the speech of journalists? Would it be you or right-thinking people like you who decide what is acceptable for the media to say? Or would it be whichever political party were in power at the time? Or billionaire oligarchs?

How would this oversight work? A "free speech oversight" committee? How does one get into the committee? Appointment? By whom? Election?

If I want to run for election in the committee, can I say unpleasant things about my incumbent opponents? Or will the committee declare this speech to be out of bounds? What if they become corrupt? Who can report the truth about that corruption?

If I dislike the committee for some reason, can the committee oversee my criticism, declare it out of bounds?

Could the legal precedence of overriding the inalienable right to free speech also be used to override other inalienable rights? My right not to have to barracks soldiers in my house, for instance.

> I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does.

Free speech is the only thing that makes it slightly possible to not parrot the official government narrative.

>I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does. Mainstream media right now has no other purpose other than being active vehicle of the powerful and billionaire oligarchs to control the narrative. When 70% of the media empire are owned by billionaires why are we pretending otherwise? How different is that than state sponsored media in North Korea?

If you take away the first amendment protection, doesn't that just mean that the government controls 100% of the media instead of 70% or whatever you think the number is?

The mass holding of such a view is exactly what's going to end up with me as an American refugee in Canada sometime in the next 10 years. I grew up in Democracy and I plan to die in it. Watching the USA backslide and imagining the very real risk of Trump refusing to give up power when he inevitably gets it in 2024 is sobering... to say the least

>I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does.

I think the Assange case is an excellent reminder that "our media" doesn't really have any First Amendment protection. You don't need First Amendment protection if you are spewing DC blob talking points all day. And if you challenge the DC blob, like Assange did (or Gary Webb and others), it very quickly becomes clear that those protections don't exist at all.

I mostly feel contempt for the mainstream media nowdays, but that does nothing to diminish my support for their right to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is most important for those whose speech we think is harmful and don't want to be spoken. Nothing would be more dangerous than letting those with the greatest capacity for and willingness to use violence (e.g. governments) decide what speech should be allowed.

Anyone who cares about freedom of speech for anyone should defend it for everyone because if nazis, tankies, and journalists can't have freedom of speech, none of us can. First they came for... you know how the rest goes.

> no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does. Mainstream media right now has no other purpose other than being active vehicle of the powerful and billionaire oligarchs to control the narrative.

You think the oligarchs should hold the media they allegedly control accountable for the things they say so that we can get less biased media? What?

This is in micro scale, so perhaps this is why the power imbalance is so painfully clear. This is one guy against the whole might of the US.

Of course events like this have been happening for centuries, recent decades included. The people in various countries caught up in wars had their lives ruined or lost. At best, this was despite all efforts to safeguard them and a price to pay for some greater good, at worst footnote to some uncaring Grand Plan. The end result is the same though.

The machine of Western Democracy devours those who cross it hard enough. Maybe to protect those inside the bubble, or maybe because it's still floating in the same Big Bad World as the less democratic counterparts around the world.

It sets precedent. One guy today, more tomorrow.

if "laws" cannot protect one man, why bother with the sham that is "democracy"? its not just in the US but rest of the countries as well. when "pride" of a democracy is greater than the life of a human, it is no better than china or north korea. there at least you have the expectation of their intentions, that you are on your own. "democracies" are supposed to protect the little guy regardless of the adversary. as the other commenter said, this sets the precedent for the rest of the world. now india can go ahead and do the same to its dissenters because america could do it.

I would argue we bother with the sham because it is superior to the alternatives, the issue is human nature prevents us from ever truly reaching an ideal society. As long as there is someone standing is 3ft of shit for us to laugh we are comfortable and happy despite the fact that we ourselves are standing in 2ft of shit.

sure, we are willing to sacrifice assange for the greater good

So is it OK for you if we sacrifice you for the greater good?

The truth is we are not better than China or North Korea, we just hide our shit better.

>"The machine of Western Democracy"

While statistically better the democracy on its own does not stand for being "humane". Masses love government "being tough" and do not care much about them destroying lives.

I suspect Assange doesn't regret this.

I kind of get the impression that becoming a martyr was a sacrifice he was prepared to make if he managed to rip off the mask and expose the unbridled imperialist evil lurking underneath the "civilized press conference veneer" presented by the US government.

It's a bit of a sad sacrifice, though. Nothing (significant) has changed about the US's imperialism as a result of his disclosures, it's just mildly more acknowledged.

The sad part is how few people even know what he published, especially juxtaposed with his sacrifice. If I go talk to the average person about Snowden or Assange they know little to nothing about what they revealed.

> If I go talk to the average person about Snowden or Assange they know little to nothing about what they revealed.

You are doing good, then. Need to keep talking to more people!

I agree, but to me it's troubling so many people simply don't care.

Every time I try to talk to my wife about what the government's doing/has done, she stops me and says, "I really don't care. So long as I can keep living my life without interference, why would I care?"

This also happens when I try to explain basic economics to her.

I find most people I talk to simply don't care so long as they get to enjoy living their dreamy lives.

I think he probably had more of an effect than is obvious. Activism raises the political price to governments of making bad decisions. When the powerful change their position as a result of activism, they always try conceal it - the effect is far in excess of what they let on.

In that light, I always found this story of the 6 scared, cold, humiliated and alone mothers of soldiers protesting outside the White House preventing nuclear war with Vietnam somewhat inspiring.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-har...

(The connection is tenuous, but it's not completely unreasonable.)

In assange’e case, the opposite is true. They were avoiding paying the cost before his leaks. Now the reputational damage is done and so there is less for them to avoid.

It very much depends on the context. In this particular case the US government managed to establish a deterrence too my making him an example.

So I would say the effect is actually in the other direction. That is less activism of that type, not more.

And the connection is not only tenuous. You are making a very general mild claim based on scant evidence. Your consideration is valid but very weak.

Activism isn’t the point.

Yes, governments make it hard and will go so far as to actually kill people. It’s still a moderating influence and a feedback mechanism before civil war. I may not agree with them or even care about the issue, but I still respect the sacrifice.

Much was made of upholding the promise to withdraw troops from the Middle East in the last US election. You can bet Collateral Murder and a number of other Wikileaks publications helped sway public opinion of the US military presence in the Middle East

> mildly more acknowledged

This is already a very big achievement for just one individual.

How many people, activist or not, have been killed without anybody noticing?

Most left journalists were dancing in joy when Assange got arrested. They never forgave him for exposing the Clinton emails and ensured he was heavily character assassinated over the next several years. He also became a victim of the #MeToo movement at its height. He was openly called evil/narcissist/etc in many "opinion" pieces.

All the other important stuff he revealed never got the level of attention it deserved.

Yep. 100% this.

After 2016, i went from getting "oh you radical crazy commie" looks wearing a wikileaks shirt to immediately "oh you're a republican, let me guess you listen to alex jones and joe rogan?"

I believe somewhere in here lies a fundamental problem with today's society. We have reached an absurd level of polarization. Any opinion you hold that is in contradiction with someone else's opinion, qualifies you for membership of the opposing camp.

We should really work on depolarisation.

The establishment is the enemy, not each other.

Also, I'm not sure where this "keep friends and family separate from business" idealogy came from, but business is just organizing production. If we're not going to try to hold those keys with our friends and family, then elites will hold them for us.

Side note-no actual progress can come until there is sound money again.

> The establishment is the enemy, not each other.

The problem with the premise that the establishment is a lot like The Matrix. Some people are so hopelessly enamoured with the establishment that they will do whatever it takes to defend it.

This just seems like another polarization to me. Other people CAN be the enemy. Racist and White Supremacists are the enemy, especially to me. Now how we treat and decide to combat our enemies is a while other matter.

> After 2016, i went from getting "oh you radical crazy commie" looks wearing a wikileaks shirt to immediately "oh you're a republican, let me guess you listen to alex jones and joe rogan?"

The flip side of this is that we're apparently focusing on the wrong things.

Assange was prosecuted under Trump, now he's being prosecuted under Biden. Who were we realistically supposed to vote for in order to make this stop? If this is the only front then we lost before there was even a vote.

The US effectively has one party with two costumes.

That's not it. There are meaningful differences. Which party represents the oil industry? Which party represents Hollywood? It's not the same party.

The real problem is, which party represents the finance industry? Both of them. Which party is the party of small business? Neither of them. Strong antitrust enforcement? Reducing the scope of wasteful bureaucracy, as distinct from regulatory capture? It's not on the ballot.

How do we fix it? Maybe start here:

https://www.starvoting.us/

> Which party represents the oil industry?

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/clinton-fracking-theworl...

https://www.salon.com/2016/10/18/leaked-email-hillary-clinto...

It's both, just the voters don't get told that.

not only because of the left/right politics, but also because defending Assange as a "journalist" caused them grief. The definition of journalism is at stake: if someone who just posts to the internet is a journalist and can defend their actions as necessary for the operation of a free press, then that includes bloggers[0] and all sorts of riff-raff.

Craig Murray's trial had a similar outcome: he's not a "proper" journalist because he doesn't work for a media/newspaper company. And the judge gave an opinion that bloggers should get tougher sentences than journalists[1].

It'll come back to bite the journos, and some of them know this and are saying it. But most are keen to carve out special exemptions for themselves from laws that the rest of us have to follow.

[0] In journalism circles, "blogger" is an insult. Source: I used to run a newspaper.

[1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/the-mind-of-...

Your comment reminds me of CNN's special-in-their-own-minds status where laws are "different for the media." [0]

I agree that powerful media orgs see this as the definition of journalism at stake, and their assessment is close to self awareness in a way that falls comically short. The irony is the harder they fight the despicable internet bloggers the more credibility they lose - near zero at this point in my eyes. The media ideally is a group of citizens exercising their first amendment rights as a bulwark to government abuse; the media we've ended up today is a group of powerful entities aligned with the government. They are always on their best behavior to preserve their access to the latest carefully curated "leaks" and fat and happy in their position as lapdogs. Bloggers, citizen/independent journalists, etc. are the media, and what we call the media is at this point little more than the ministry of truth. Anyone whose worldview could consider Don Lemon a journalist and Glenn Greenwald a fringe internet blogger should be laughed out of whatever room they are in, I just can't take this position seriously.

[0] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512

Yeah this is why laws, and even constitutions don't matter at this point. Only the anointed CIA affiliated "papers of record" are given protection. Despite the beautifully clear language in the US constitution.

Just so you know, if you think this is new, its not. Communist speech has been deemed illegal, and upheld by the supreme court, since the McCarthy era. This is not presented as a political view on Communism vs Capitalism, just as a fact that the constitution doesn't matter.

For more recent events, I challenge you to find where a "curfew" on peaceful protests, or "free speech zones" appear in the constitution. Again, not an endorsement of the protest, merely pointing out that laws don't matter.

Also remember that the journalist that exposed the Panama papers mysteriously died in a freak car explosion. Very sad.

I'll take off my tinfoil hat now...

Democratic-party affiliated journalists. Even left-of-center journalists. But the Clinton emails were an exposure of attacks against Sanders.

It's so bizarre that Glenn Beck's view of the world, making Wall Street Iraq Warriors who ended welfare as we knew it and who put more black people in prison than anyone while deregulating everything into basically Lenin, ate up even the libertarian right.

What a different world we would be living in if Bernie Sanders had won the US presidential elections.

I fear we'd just be in another JFK situation. We're only allowed so much representative government.

Why make him a martyr when they could have done the same to him as they did to Trump?

Well, sure, they would have tried the smears employed against Trump and, more relevantly, Corbyn. In fact, forget "would have", that was actually done. [0] I'm just not sure the accusations would have seemed important to voters. Trump's myriad misdeeds have been salient to public attention for decades. "Collaboration" with Russia may have been one of a few awful actions he hadn't actually attempted over his life, which is exactly why it was emphasized. The go-to war media criticisms of Sanders, e.g. "he thinks healthcare should be provided to all, even during a pandemic!" probably wouldn't have seemed so bad to normal humans. But sure, our enemies have a certain low cunning in addition to their complete control of popular media. They could have surprised us with their choice of smears.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/18/the-ri...

"Supports single payer healthcare" is used against Sanders in the primary to instill fear in Democratic primary voters that he'll be too far to the left for moderates and then lose to a Republican. It wouldn't be effective, or attempted, if he was already the President.

They could easily have used the same style of attacks that were used against Trump. "Kids in cages" was the case under Obama, and Trump, and Biden, but we only heard about it under Trump.

They wouldn't have used the same issues because those are the issues you use against a Republican, but the same format works against anyone. Under Sanders there would have been huge concerns about the deficit. Any tax increase impacting the middle class would be condemned but the middle class would inherently have to pay more to have single payer healthcare, so you fight it with "tax increase bad" not "healthcare bad." Not having to pay health insurance premiums would either be ignored or condemned as a giveaway to employers.

They'd find some black families who support school vouchers to go on TV and accuse him of being a racist for supporting existing "racist public schools" and things along those lines.

The general idea is to be horrified to learn that things that have been happening for years have suddenly been discovered happening under the target administration, but choose the things related to the direction they want to move. As if the Overton window is not only not covering what they want to change, it no longer even covers the status quo, and we have to go in the opposite direction or he's literally Hitler (or, presumably, Stalin). So you burn up all their political capital just to stand still while turning the viewer against them no matter what they do. Then four years later the status quo remains intact.

Well that ruined my day... you're right of course. Putting it that way just confirms my belief that the best course is to dissolve this union. Let's chop it into about a dozen pieces. That would be better for Americans, and also for non-Americans. Raytheon would lose some business...

The smallest US state has a larger economy than some countries. Fixing it doesn't require dissolution of shared citizenship, what we need to do is stop doing so many things at the federal level.

Why do we need a huge federal military in peacetime when we have the state national guard? Why do we need federal welfare programs instead of state welfare programs? It's not an argument against having a military or having welfare programs, it's a question of where to do it. And the US federal government is the wrong place, because it's too big.

"Laboratories of democracy" are a public good, but you can't have them if Uncle Sam is sucking up the public's money and giving it to Raytheon and drug companies and whoever instead of letting the states and the people have that money to implement a diverse set of independent programs and allowing citizens to decide which they want to live under.

Most of which was caused by 20th century screwing up of the original design. US Senators were originally elected by the state legislatures, to represent the states and temper federal power. The 16th amendment, federal taxation without apportionment, provides the perverse incentive for federal spending to increase without bound because you then have the large majority of states as net recipients of federal spending which is coming from a handful of states who are outnumbered. And guess which ones they are -- you wouldn't know it by asking their representatives because given the setup, they have no incentive not to feed from the same trough even while their residents are getting fleeced.

The good news is most of the taker states are still around breakeven and many of those (like Texas) would likely support fixing this if the likes of New York and Massachusetts would take notice that doing so is strongly in their own interest. (The biggest takers are the swing states, for reasons that should be obvious, but the red and blue states outnumber the purple states -- if they'd work together.)

The thing had already gone off track in 1788. The Constitution is not compatible with democracy.

In a blessed future when we figure out a less totalitarian way to organize ourselves, Americans can still live together and trade with each other. The value of federal spending can be overstated, even for "net winners". Sure it's free money, but it's calibrated to the needs of those who hire lobbyists. No existing entitlement program is as beneficial to the population as just giving directly to individual humans would be.

Several factors that keep some Americans opposed to entitlements would no longer apply in the "laboratories of democracy" situation. No population is actually as hard-ass about deficits as some current representation claims, due to nondemocratic aspects of how such representation is currently elected. Simply redirecting the spigot of "free money" deficit spending away from armaments toward anything beneficial to humans would be a windfall. Spending on children would encourage young families to locate nearby instead of moving to the coasts, so eventually the hollowing-out middle states would see the benefits no matter their "traditional" opposition.

In fact, much of the traditional politics of both the "winners" and "losers" are simply negotiating positions that would disappear without a federal government. "Loser" states sending resources to "winner" states is the way that they "bribe" seemingly opposed representatives into accepting entitlement spending. It has much more to do with politics than with what particular areas "need" or "produce".

100%. Sanders wouldn't have made it to his own inauguration. They would have never allowed it.

I'm suspicious that Bernie's heart attack was not natural, but actually the CIA's doing with something like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/45vsg1/til_c...

(He's old, so a natural heart attack is certainly plausible. But, the powers that be had means, motive and opportunity)

I'm not so sure a Sanders presidency with a Republican congress would have been super different. He promised to also crack down on immigration, impose tariffs, end trade deals, and pull out of Afghanistan. He is/was also very skeptical of longstanding alliances and NATO. With not power to legislate, he'd have likely done some similar things as an executive.

Would he have been as embarrassing and corrupt, probably not, but there more to an administration than all of that.

He is a great demagogue but his Congressional record indicates he is not so good at dealmaking. I think he would have been a progressive Perot that got angry a lot but those tantrums would lead to great sound bites.

Or TLDR if you're not going to get good at making sausage stop applying for positions at the sausage factory.

> TLDR if you're not going to get good at making sausage stop applying for positions at the sausage factory.

This is 100% a perfect distillation of a great criticism of Sanders from the left and on merits.

I think it's often also undersold how often he's been terribly wrong about foreign policy in the past and how he almost never walks it back.

There are a lot of things you can do at the executive level that recent administration don't have the guts to do. Declare a medical emergency on account of COVID-19 and bam, there is a provision in the laws that allows you to expand medicare to the entire population. That alone would guarantee re-election. Free all non-violent marijuana prisoners, Forgive student debt. That alone would be a boost to the economy as a generation saddled with debt would get a reset. There are more he could do by executive order that can bypass congress. He will be attacked, but so what? The population overwhelming wants these proposals anyway.

I think you deeply underestimate the influence of the corporate media in influencing the opinions of the masses. But apparently America went through something like this right after the Civil War where everyone had an opinion on everything and all that led to was corporations amassing power for a half century.

That affects you when trying to get elected. I'd argue a strong candidate who takes no BS is something that the people are clamoring for. Trump fit that bill to an extant but he was an idiot and a bigot. He had a real opportunity to enact real change but he blew it.

Sure I would love a truth-telling candidate. But no existing party machine will accept such a candidate and even if elected no existing party will work with such a candidate.

And in the unlikely event you create a genuine third party, the current two parties will drop all their differences to destroy that party.

> It's so bizarre that Glenn Beck's view of the world, making Wall Street Iraq Warriors who ended welfare as we knew it and who put more black people in prison than anyone while deregulating everything into basically Lenin, ate up even the libertarian right.

Wat. Is this GPT3 or something?

Looking at his other comments, it seems like it. There is an email in his account. Maybe you should send off an email asking. :)

That's how a well articulated propaganda campaign looks like.

That's what a poorly articulated propaganda campaign looks like.

The better ones you can't tell so easily.

> They never forgave him for exposing the Clinton emails

The issue there was precisely how he was emphatically not acting as a journalist.

Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates.

Political operatives do.

> Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates.

No, they would never do anything like that:

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...

I think this is a naive and unrealistic perspective. Journalists coordinate with their preferred candidates all the time to gain better access. They shouldn't but they do.

(And, whether wikileaks meaningfully coordinated with trump campaign is debatable)

>Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates

That's basically a press conference, which are both a mainstay of journalism and you'll see particularly well connected journalists leak what a press conference will be about before it happens.

You're forgetting he tried to reach asylum but was stopped midway, and while he was stuck in limbo, he applied for multiple asylums, all of which were rejected.

Not really the mark of someone who wanted to be a martyr as opposed to someone like Navalny, for example.

More an indication of someone who didn't really know what he's doing and became an accidental but very effective Russian agent who ended up being a major contributor to shaking the very foundations of democracy in America.

This is what so many people forget -- he almost surely (but frankly, even the contrary wouldn't surprise me any more) didn't start out as a Russian agent but most certainly became one.

Even if that was the case at any point, I doubt that currently he's still willing to be a martyr. He now has children and a partner that I imagine he'd like to spend time with.

What matters here is rule of law (and the fact that we live in a time where it is being increasingly eroded) - not Assange's internal psychological machinations.

Rule of law is being followed. A lower court judge ruled that there was a risk that Assange's well-being could not be safeguarded in the American system. A higher court judge reversed that ruling on assurances from the US that his well-being would be guarded. Now they have an opportunity to an appeal to a still-higher UK Court.

What's inconvenient here is that the rule of law is operating in the context that the US and UK are allies and therefore take each other's statements on good faith. The United States assures he will be protected, they are not an enemy nation, and there are extradition treaties between the US and the UK. Unless the UK has some kind of carve-out for countries with bad track records of keeping their word, that might be sufficient to satisfy the rule of law.

It is perfectly fine to debate the prudence, or lack thereof, of the High Court's decision.

My point is that, in this context, speculations as to whether Assange secretly desired this outcome, due to some supposed martyr complex ... are plainly irrelevant.

"he managed to rip off the mask and expose the unbridled imperialist evil lurking"

That's a bit absurd given showed the total opposite:

Gigabytes of diplomatic cables of highly sensitive data revealed a US Diplomatic Corps trying to do a decent job in a world rife with ugly corruption.

The 'Arab Street' saw the information and they saw the US trying to assuage and nudge brutally corrupt leaders.

The cables didn't unite Arabs against the US - they exposed the ruthless corruption of their own governments and 'united' them against their own governments.

I was in Tunisia near the time of the revolts and I can tell you the thing that pissed them off the most was probably the fact that their disgraced PM had Canadian citizenship (i.e. citizen of convenience, as many do) and simply flew to Montreal to enjoy Canadian Constitutional protections and avoid prosecution.

It's shocking that someone could read about Arab governments doing 'very bad things', the US government trying to stop them, and then come away with the notion that the US is the bad actor.

It speaks to some kind of deeply held ideology or perspective that can make facts that point one way, seem like they point in the other direction.

Assange will have to face trial given the fact that he may have explicitly helped Manning break into systems of National Security, which is definitely illegal. I don't think he did, but there's been some evidence made public that indicates that it's possible. Soon we'll have a court case and see the evidence.

>The cables didn't unite Arabs against the US - they exposed the ruthless corruption of their own governments

I'm sensing that you believe that this is something you think that should have been concealed from them for their own good.

>It's shocking that someone could read about Arab governments doing 'very bad things', the US government trying to stop them, and then come away with the notion that the US is the bad actor.

Collateral murder is mostly what people are condemning. Also what this extradition was all about.

It's weird that you seem to believe that the war crimes are not relevant to the discussion about whether the US is "the bad actor".

Well, perhaps not that weird. Your reply suggests that you may have been part of the institution that committed and covered up the war crimes (unless you were in tunisia for a different reason).

>Assange will have to face trial given the fact that he may have explicitly helped Manning break into systems of National Security, which is definitely illegal.

Oh yes. Exposing US war crimes IS definitely illegal - more illegal than committing them, apparently.

Just like Rosa Parks sitting at the back of a bus - that was illegal too.

"Your reply suggests that you may have been part of the institution that committed and covered up the war crimes "

Oh no, you outed me! I'm a CIA plant!

How were you able to slyly prove my complicity in war crimes from a mere comment about travelling abroad?

A testament to brilliant and rational deductive thinking and logical inference, that must prove 'America is Evil' as well of course ...

To play devil's advocate, there is at least some value in US diplomatic cables being secret. It allows our diplomats to pass around honest impression and sensitive information back to our government.

If all diplomatic channels were transparent, diplomats would treat it like a twitter account. If the US's Saudi Ambassador thought the Saudi leadership was unstable, they'd never write that in a cable if it was going to be released publicly.

And nobody would tell our diplomats uncomfortable truths.

This is basically my takeaway, I think Snowden has a lot stronger of an argument frankly.

Assange also editorialized his leaks to be damaging towards the US rather than just leak them. IIRC this lead to conflict within the org. The CM video was awful, but as I understand it was a mistake made within the bounds of acceptable ROE? Similar to the recent drone strike mistake in Afghanistan. War sucks and these accidents are awful, but we live in an imperfect universe. These things don’t really say much in isolation. If anything the cables showed the US in a positive light (most on HN probably didn’t actually read them).

I found the US’s media response to be stupid as it often is, rather than engage honestly on these issues. Over the years Wikileaks went from something that could have had a genuine media purpose to a way for intelligence agencies hostile to the US to leak hacked materials to the world with plausible deniability. It was no longer a neutral actor (and frankly the editorialization by Assange in the “CM” video wasn’t neutral either).

He crossed the line with aiding the hack which gave legal recourse - this is the rule of law bit, we’ll see what happens.

I do think the “sex crimes” stuff could have been Intel doing stupid shit (imo) but that’s just speculation on my part.

> revealed a US Diplomatic Corps trying to do a decent job in a world rife with ugly corruption.

This, too, is journalism. Showing that the world isn't black and white, that sometimes the US does bad things that we should work against and sometimes they do the right thing, that's important too. Secrecy is harmful to democracy.

It's obvious why the state department tries to keep their internal communications secret, but it's also obvious why journalists have a public interest in trying to reveal them. We should let them both make their attempt instead of bringing criminal charges against one side for doing the job we need them to do.

Notice that the job is the same regardless of what's in the cables, because you (along with the public) don't know that ahead of time.

But to be clear, a strong argument against your point is that he's being prosecuted. All the government insiders who leak classified information to the media in order to advance the government's interests are not sitting next to him in a cell, are they?

It's not 'journalism' to release arbitrary secrets even if the transparency might be beneficial.

Secrecy can be harmful in some cases but it's also essential in many ways, it's really not an argument at all. Nobody would be able to do their jobs otherwise.

> It's not 'journalism' to release arbitrary secrets even if the transparency might be beneficial.

Uncovering and publishing secrets is the core of journalism.

> Secrecy can be harmful in some cases but it's also essential in many ways

Then they should do a better job of keeping the important things secret. But it's good that they occasionally fail.

I suspect Assange does not want to be tortured and murdered and thus does not want this. Are you insane ?

I doubt the US intends to murder him.

It might be the case right now but it came out earlier this year that the CIA was entertaining this idea in 2017. This [0] appears to be the originating story and there are corroborating accounts in many other outlets.

[0] https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london...

> It might be the case right now but it came out earlier this year that the CIA was entertaining this idea in 2017.

CIA, DoD, and lots of agencies “entertain” lots of ideas, and even develop plans, for lots of things that never get close to being policy.

Planning to commit a murder or a terrorist attack is a felony that will put an individual in prison for a long time.

> Planning to commit a murder or a terrorist attack is a felony that will put an individual in prison for a long

Unless it is with other people and, more critically, at least one of the people involved goes beyond planning and takes some concrete step to advance the execution of the plan (at which point it becomes the separate crime of conspiracy), no, planning a crime, even of that seriousness, is not itself a crime.

Just writing death threat for the president online is a crime.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Buddhi

No other concrete step is needed.

A threat is not the same as planning.

Planning to kill someone is not a crime. Threatening to is, even if they aren't the President.

Yes, but whether it is a murder or not is decided in court, not by you. Not all assassination are murder.

Except the time they were plotting to murder him, of course.

Yes, when he was a fugitive potentially in possession of state secrets.

I’m not saying it’s ok - just that now he’s in custody it’s a little different.

They intend, fully, to make an example out of him.

Why murder him when he's no threat to them anymore, and they can drag him through more hell for the next decade in order to show what happens when you cross the line?

They committed to letting him serve his prison term in Australia, if convicted.

I'm afraid you may have fallen for the deliberately misleading words of the supposed assurances given by the US. Here's what the Guardian[0] says of that particular claim (with my emphasis):

"and could apply, if convicted, to be transferred to a prison in Australia."

My understanding is that his application could be denied, without any recourse, by the DoJ (of whichever administration is in power at the time), and probably by the Australian government too.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/dec/10/julian-assange...

Ah, very weasely. I imagine any prisoner can apply to be transferred to a prison in another country.

There are worse things than dying.

> I doubt the US intends to murder him.

And Epstein committed suicide. Right?

How is Epstein at all relevant? I believe the conspiracy theory is around powerful people trying to keep their secrets secret. Meaning not let the US government know their secrets so they can avoid prosecution. So the US government would want Epstein alive. Why do you think the US government is prosecuting Ghislane Maxwell right now?

Not wanting what’s coming, and regretting his choices are not the same thing. He fought the good fight, I hope that’s worth something to him.

From the article:

"The US had offered four assurances, including that Mr Assange would not be subject to solitary confinement pre or post-trial or detained at the ADX Florence Supermax jail - a maximum security prison in Colorado - if extradited.

Lawyers for the US said he would be allowed to transfer to Australia to serve any prison sentence he may be given closer to home.

And they argued Mr Assange's mental illness "does not even come close" to being severe enough to prevent him from being extradited."

So assuming that the international community cannot avoid his extradition, to make sure that those assurances are true and can be hold, would be already a win, no?

the "assurances" had an unless we feel like it exemption.

I’m sure Epstein was offered assurances as well.

US assurances aren’t worth the toilet-paper they’re written on.

Well nobody has ever died while in custody of US law enforcement, so this seems reasonable

exactly, I'm not saying that it is perfect, but to keep comparing with Epstein and joking around won't help Julian Assange. Important is: if those Assurances could be documented and monitored by the international community, it is definitely great and TBH, would be better to Assange if he would have gotten something like that back in 2010.. he lost 10 years of his life in "prison", but it won't even be reduced from his sentence..

> he lost 10 years of his life in "prison", but it won't even be reduced from his sentence..

Totally his own fault. Neither the USA nor the UK told him to hole up in that embassy; he did that all on his own.

yes, sure. Probably he believed that Obama and the international community would save him. In another hand back in the days he didn't have the same offer on the table as he has now.

To me it feels more likely that he just wanted to avoid a few years in Swedish prison for rape and thought it would blow over soon (much faster than in the end it did), so he could slither out from the embassy in a month or three. The whole "afraid Sweden would extradite him to the USA" line felt phony then and still does now.

which is understandable.. I think people accused from rape have an universal welcome treatment everywhere in the world...

Sure, but still nobody's fault but his own. All the people going "But the evil U[S|K] has already kept him inprisoned at the embassy for ten years!" are totally off their heads. Nobody but he himself did that.

If he was willing to be a martyr, he would not have holed up in an embassy seeking asylum for years.

Willing to be a martyr does not mean that he wouldn't try to avoid it.

It's remarkable how casually people demand sacrifices of others as a condition for taking their activism seriously.

There's basically no limit to how much someone can demand, e.g. "Well, if he was really committed to transparency, he would have tried breaking into the White House with a camera", or "If he was really prepared to risk dying to bring these leaks to people's attention, he should have self-immolated in front of the US embassy".

Personally, the metric I use is, if someone has achieved more for a good cause than me, and suffered more for it than I would, then they are a martyr for that cause and deserve my respect.

My sense, and I don't think it is a popular opinion on HN, was that Assange became, perhaps unwittingly, a pawn of Russia. Selectively releasing documents, which is how I see it, doesn't show an even hand of justice exposing "the unbridled imperialist evil".

I'm no fan of Assange. But I also have not read a lot about Assange so I may be ignorant.

yeah, a pawn of russia. just like trump. yet it is biden who said yes to the biggest russian infrastructure project for germany with the pipeline.

the narrative of being a russian pawn doesnt work. everyone loved assange until he underlined the oblivious corruption of clinton and hence contributed to make her loose rightfully so the election. I am no trump fan and I am for a non partisan vision of the world. a vision where freedom means telling the truth even if it hurts yourself or your political leaders. Assange is a victim of usa and it is sad to bring russia to the equation

Everyone loved Assange until he [entered politics, played favorites with information disclosure, and demonstrated that he is more mercenary than martyr]. I wonder why.

Putin would assassinate him if he exposed too much. That's incentive enough to cater to Russian interests.

> Above a certain threshold, every veneer of civilization vanishes no matter what the country (some have a higher threshold than others).

> At this level, only power matters. And the first rule of power is: Don't embarrass the powerful unless you can call on a lot of power to defend yourself.

Steven Donziger is another great example of this rule: https://theintercept.com/2020/01/29/chevron-ecuador-lawsuit-...

Chevron has decided to make an example of him by ruining his life in return for a $9.5 billion judgement he won against them in Ecuador.

Whatever happened to our benevolent anonymous hacker groups that were supposed to be so organic and decentralized they could never be ended?

They never got law degrees with which to pursue judgments in court. Turns out it's hard to pass the bar while remaining anonymous.

War on terror?

probably got caught hacking something else for fun and profit, e.g. lulzsec

There are countries which do not bend before others. Russia, China, Iran to name a few examples. They can protect those fleeing from the West. Just like West can protect people from those countries. World is not unipolar.

Is this a joke? The entirety of those countries citizens are subject to their own government's tyrannical rule

Bend before others. In other words, they aren't follower members of a block. That says nothing about citizens or what exactly these countries are doing.

Edward Snowden is currently hiding from US power projection in Russia. He is of course beholden to Russian law; I assume if he were gay he'd be having a much worse time of it. But the specific point here is that it is possible to hide from the US in the territory of a country that does not answer to the US.

Let's ask Litvinenko his opinion?

No, because it is clear? He was fleeing from Russian government. And they poisoned him.

That has nothing to do with the subject of people feeling from the US influence.

This kind of argument that you attempted is a bit tiring, don't you think? If you flee from Russian government, go to the West. And vice versa. One does not invalidate the other.

His opinion on fleeing from the US? What are you on about?

Protect? Or use them as tokens in international tit-for-tat diplomacy?

Both?

Can't imagine why anyone would want to run to China to hide from the U.S. of all places, in this scenario.

"I'm going to flee from one dystopian state, to another even more dystopian/technocratic/autocratic state!"

I'm not sure technocratic means what you think it means:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/technocr...

i.e it's a net positive to have a technocratic state, deferring decision making to those with the technical skills to do it.

That's one interpretation. Other one is that a technocracy regime is done IRL to push highly biased and ideological policies on the guise of being the only/best choice by the experts.

> it's a net positive to have a technocratic state, deferring decision making to those with the technical skills to do it.

Deferring to the technical experts is great when you want to know how to do something.

Deferring to them when you're deciding what to do is not necessarily as good.

It depends on which state is going to imprison you. Being in prison in the U.S. is worse than living out of prison in Chian or Russia.

But you're assuming that the UK court made a decision that is against their law. Why is extradition an incorrect decision?

For example - given the ample (and basically) record of U.S. authorities in regard to their treatment of so-called High Value Detainees -- and even of very low-value detainees at is borders, as we have seen in recent years -- the High Court had no reason whatsoever to lend credence to the so-called "assurances" they cited in their ruling:

The High Court said Friday that it had received appropriate assurances from the U.S. to meet the threshold for extradition, including:

Assange will not be subject to “special administrative measures” or be held in a notorious maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

Assange, if convicted, will be permitted to serve out his sentence in his native Australia.

Assange will receive appropriate clinical and psychological treatment in custody.

Specifically which of these assurances are you saying will be broken?

They openly admit their willingness to break all three if "future acts" deem them necessary, not to mention they're free to stick him in another terrible jail with other restrictive measures even with the assurances.

Hello old friend.

Why are you outraged about things that have not happened? Has the US Govt broken those promises? Y/n?

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Because if we wait for them to be violated, Assange could already be dead? And for the nth time, why should I expect them to hold to these promises when they've already violated his right to a free trial?

Who is going to oversee and enforce these promises? The UK High Court? When the US violates their promises, will the High Court Judge personally fly to the US to collect Assange and bring him back to the UK?

They have no means to enforce it, the judgement is what they think will happen. If, say, North Korea gave assurances on how they would treat a prisoner their judgement would probably be different.

The point is, saying the judgement is wrong is logically equivalent to stating that one of these assurances is going to be broken, which is an actual falsifiable proposition - I'm just asking which one you think is going to be broken.

Saying the judgement is wrong is logically equivalent to stating that one of these assurances is going to be broken

No - that plainly does not follow.

All that is needed is to apply the standard of reasonable doubt: in this case, that the party in question (the U.S. government) can be trusted not to act contrary their assurances on these matters.

Which we are compelled to adopt, based on the very ample track record of their conduct in this regard.

The judgement relied (in part) on the Diplomatic Note (No. 169), in which the US stated;

> "The United States has provided assurances to the United Kingdom in connection with extradition requests countless times in the past. In all of these situations, the United States has fulfilled the assurances it provided."

Are you saying this is false? What track record of breaking assurances are you referring to?

What track record of breaking assurances are you referring to?

We're going in circles. This was already referred to in my original entry into this thread, 5 or 6 levels up.

The fact that the U.S. may keep some of its assurances to some parties (if in fact this is the case) does not obviate the fact that frequently and brazenly breaks many other assurances it makes in this regard. It is this, much bigger fact (which is pretty obvious and doesn't need substantiation as to the particulars) which takes precedence.

Your original comment refers to the fact that the USA generally treats detainees poorly, not that it "brazenly breaks many other assurances it makes in this regard".

You haven't convinced me why the court is wrong to believe the USA on this point. You just seem to repeatedly state that it's ridiculous without saying why.

But anyway, ultimately we will be able to see whether or not the USA does let Assange (if convicted) serve his sentence in Australia or not.

not that it "brazenly breaks many other assurances it makes in this regard".

Are you referring to the CIA's famous "We don't do torture" promise, here?

Or the implicit promise to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan that they would be treated humanely when they came in contact with our armed forces and their surrogates? And most certainly when they ended up in our ... detention centers?

Or to the migrants detained by the ICE, who were told they were merely being "detained"... not that they would one day find an officer

"sitting on her like one would on a horse", with his "erect penis on her butt"

to quote just one of 1,224 reports of recent sexual abuse at these facilities?

In fairness, the US would be idiotic to renege on their assurances. That essentially would be a valid reason to block any future extraditions.

Saying that, we live in strange times where countries like the UK, which always used to play by the rules, albeit the ones they wrote, now backs out of treaties where the ink is barely dry.

UK extradition requires generally that it also be a crime to commit in the UK.

It is dubious that soliciting government documents and publishing them would be illegal in the UK.

"Laws are people, and I can manage people."

- Logan Roy, Succession, HBO

"How do you ensure the green? You can't. As in life, in traffic, you leave yourself an out... You move diagonal, you turn the wheel when you hit a red light. You don't try down Broadway to get to Broadway. You are going to butt heads with these friends of ours? You are going to come at them head on? They got lives, Freddy, families."

- Cop Land

Funny, I was thinking of a Logan Roy quote: “Life's not knights on horseback. It's a number on a piece of paper. It's a fight for a knife in the mud.”

Ultimately, right and wrong, good and evil are human judgments, sometimes acted upon by humans using human power. There’s nothing transcendent about it.

The international rules-based order is safeguarded by powerful entities… because it’s in their best interest. One goes against that self-interest at one’s peril.

> right and wrong, good and evil are human judgments

This is nonsense that opens up the possibility to justify pretty much any kind of abuse or atrocity.

> The international rules-based order is safeguarded by powerful entities… because it’s in their best interest.

If the international order was actually rules-based it would have been safeguarded by international institutions, not by a single capricious superpower.

> One goes against that self-interest at one’s peril.

This one eludes me. Who's going against who's interest?

> This is nonsense that opens up the possibility to justify pretty much any kind of abuse or atrocity.

Hilarious. Do you think there’s big judge in the sky that determines what’s good and bad? There is only human conscience, and powerful people who decide to enforce their conscience.

> If the international order was actually rules-based it would have been safeguarded by international institutions, not by a single capricious superpower.

If there’s an international institution that can enforce rules, then that institution is the capricious superpower, and woe betide those that mess with that institution.

> Hilarious. Do you think there’s big judge in the sky that determines what’s good and bad?

Mankind has reached a point where it realized that certain rights (natural rights [1]) are not really arbitrary cultural constructs, but more akin to the laws of nature. We're still not at a point where we fully understand the "moral laws of nature" (e.g. I suspect if we stick around as a species we will end up extending more rights to certain other species), but we're improving (at least on paper).

> powerful people who decide to enforce their conscience

Again an attitude that can be used to justify anything. If the powerful people decide it's ok to have slaves? Or that a certain ethnicity should be cleared off the face of the earth?

Luckily, post WW2 we have established international institutions (the UN for one) that at least on paper provide legal underpinning for what the right rules should be and for how they should be enforced.

> If there’s an international institution that can enforce rules, then that institution is the capricious superpower, and woe betide those that mess with that institution.

This is simply insane warmongering. Since you throw such threats around casually I suspect you might be a US citizen. I can assure you that to the rest of us seeing this kind of attitude coming from your political/economic/intellectual leaders can be a very scary thing indeed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

> Mankind has reached a point where it realized that certain rights (natural rights [1]) are not really arbitrary cultural constructs, but more akin to the laws of nature.

It's a moral system just like how Big Judge in Sky is a moral system. You're only determining what's good and bad in accordance with this one moral system. And most of humanity does not.

> Again an attitude that can be used to justify anything.

Of course, but only if its in their interest to do so like slavery, or if they believe it's in their interest to do so like committing genocide.

Have you noticed that slavery and genocide have actually never stopped in the world? Because they can do it and nobody can really stop them. See China's actions on the Uyghurs.

> This is simply insane warmongering. Since you throw such threats around casually I suspect you might be a US citizen. I can assure you that to the rest of us seeing this kind of attitude coming from your political/economic/intellectual leaders can be a very scary thing indeed.

You should address the factuality of the statement instead of bordering on an ad hominem. Every hegemonic power in history have exhibited the same characteristics: securing its interests. European powers have done it. Asian powers have done it and are currently trying to do it (China). Americas, Africa, and Middle East too.

> It's a moral system just like how Big Judge in Sky is a moral system. You're only determining what's good and bad in accordance with this one moral system. And most of humanity does not.

Well, at the very least "Big Judge in Sky" is not in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so there's that.

The fact that most of humanity most of the time fails short of our best understanding of morality doesn't mean that that understanding is a relative cultural construct. To make a parallel, even if all of humanity believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, that still wouldn't matter one bit. The Earth would still do its thing. It's kind of like that with morality too.

It was wrong to have slaves even when having slaves was accepted. It was wrong to rape and pillage even when that was the norm in conquest etc.

> You should address the factuality of the statement instead of bordering on an ad hominem.

It's possible I misunderstood parent's intent. I actually took this part "woe betide those that mess with that institution" to mean smth like "don't you dare mess with the US". That would be an out of place, over the top threat. If I misunderstood the intent I'm sorry.

> Every hegemonic power in history have exhibited the same characteristics: securing its interests.

I don't disagree with you on this one (at least if by "its interests" we understand: "the interests of that nation's ruling elite"). It doesn't however mean that that's morally right. It is entirely possible that all hegemonic powers are acting immorally all the time.

I think they meant that if anyone had the power to protect people's rights, they would also have the power to violate people's rights, and they would use that power in the same way as today's rights violators. If so, I think they are absolutely right on that point, and it holds true regardless of what you believe those rights are.

I certainly think some things are inherently wrong, but doing those things are not any more difficult than doing other things, and it's probably easier to do them than it is to prevent them. We can't rely on an organization or institution to protect us because any such group will always promote and protect each other first. Instead, we need to promote a culture of direct action on an individual level, praise and encourage whistleblowers, activists, saboteurs and others who do what they think is right to weaken the power of institutions over individuals. We won't always agree with their goals, judgement, and morals, but as long as they don't use methods that are unequivocally wrong (such as violence against non-violent people), we should support them because individual action is in aggregate much better (and much less dangerous) than institutional actions.

> This is simply insane warmongering. Since you throw such threats around casually I suspect you might be a US citizen.

Take many deep breaths and cool your jets. Think about your biases - it’s not good to go through life hating an entire nation and it says more about you than about them.

I am not American.

If you actually do want to explore this topic, read On The Genealogy Of Morality by Nietzsche.

That is why Edward Snowden beeing still free is important.

Don't get me wrong. If there will be a good deal from US - Russia is going to hand him over in a blink of an eye.

But he is an example that you still can play it out between big boys and not all is lost.

Your entire post is opinion and contains no information, factual or otherwise.

Isn’t a court ruling an opinion and not fact? Is it necessary to oppose one opinion not with another but a fact?

So, just like yours? How does this add anything?

I think you might misunderstand the difference between opinion and fact.

The thing I don't understand, given all this - and I say this with substantial study in Political Science, including a degree - is why then we still see such widespread admiration of the notion that states are legitimate organizational structures?

Ostensibly they are different than corporations and other private entities specifically in that the standard by which their mandate exists is a public one. But once we see that that's not true (and we have seen it throughout history, but with astonishing clarity in the past two decades), isn't it time to move on?

> is why then we still see such widespread admiration of the notion that states are legitimate organizational structures?

Because the states (indirectly, carefully, and tactfully) guide the media in those states, and the majority of people uncritically assume that the narratives they hear over and over again ("land of the free", "rule of law", "innocent until proven guilty", "justice is blind", "a free press") are true and correct, simply because they've been repeated at them so often.

Information that contradicts those beliefs is ignored, discredited, or discarded.

People think (and have throughout history thought) that they live outside of history and "this time it's different".

Hard to see the forest for the trees, I suppose

Big guns policy. Whoever has the highest number of guns is in charge. We are still tribal monkeys after all with a thin veneer of civilization.

This is ridiculous.

Assange is alleged to have cooperated with a member of the US forces to release gigabytes of diplomatic cables etc. - which is possibly a crime.

In all but rare cases, you absolutely do not have the right to break into systems of national security and release arbitrary information under the guise of 'journalism'.

His extradition is perfectly rational, legal and judicially legitimate.

The Abu Garib whistleblower didn't face criminal charges, and has been relocated and protected by US Justice System, because he did the right thing, not the wrong thing.

Assange will face a trial like everyone else, he is not above the law.

While I think he's probably not guilty in this scenario, there is evidence made public that possibly points to criminality, I'm looking forward to seeing the facts of the case.

> because he did the right thing, not the wrong thing.

And who defines the right or wrong? Assange revealed among many things how CIA collects data of US citizens abusing patriot act without warrants.

"And who defines the right or wrong?"

The Law under the purview of the Justice System, which is why they are pressing for a trial.

If you believe that The Law defines what is right and wrong, then surely it can never be right to change The Law? Maybe you don't actually believe that, but I think it is important to consider just how large the gap between The Law and What Is Right has been, at various times in the past, and in various places.

The Law is how we define 'Right and Wrong' in the civil sense, it's all we have.

Obviously, we us a moral sensibility in the community, but that's more nuanced.

Laws change all of the time, especially as different cases with different characteristics are brought before the courts and they set precedent.

Assange is accused of working with people to hack into sensitive systems in which gigabytes of arbitrary government data were stolen and published.

If true, this is definitely within the realm of what we would generally accepted to be illegal, there's not going to be much controversy there.

The issue is whether or not Assange has actually committed a crime, and to what extent his prosecution is political.

I suggest we'll be able to get a sense for that when he is put on trial and the evidence is presented.

If it turns out the FBI paid a guy to lie about him, and that's all the evidence they have, then Assange will walk away a free man, but otherwise we'll have to wait to see the evidence.

He did significant help in showing a major war crime that was covered up. That is, without doubt, more important.

As a journalist, you sometimes have to jump a fence - that is generally, and legally, accepted. Else writing 'do not view or publish' on your crime diary would be sufficient to conceal it.

The video that showed the deaths of journalists in Iraq was not an example of a war crime.

Just because it's tragic, and maybe one might not like 'the war' etc. doesn't make it a 'war crime'.

It was a glimpse into the horrors of war for many and that can be enlightening, but doesn't necessarily justify whistelblowing, even if the information does materially shape our views.

The issue with Assange boils down a bit to whether or not Assange 'published' or 'stole' the information along with Manning, there's a material difference there.

I'll gather he was on the side of publishing, not stealing, but I have not seen the evidence.

Well, Wikileaks also revealed the US involvement in funding bacha bazi "parties." Warcrime-a-licious.

it is also worth noting that julian didnt jump any fence. He received and published data full stop. The only espionage was on part of the whistleblowers.

> In 2010, Assange gained unauthorized access to a government computer system of a NATO country. In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack. With respect to one target, Assange asked the LulzSec leader to look for (and provide to WikiLeaks) mail and documents, databases and pdfs. In another communication, Assange told the LulzSec leader that the most impactful release of hacked materials would be from the CIA, NSA, or the New York Times. WikiLeaks obtained and published emails from a data breach committed against an American intelligence consulting company by an “Anonymous” and LulzSec-affiliated hacker. According to that hacker, Assange indirectly asked him to spam that victim company again.

> In addition, the broadened hacking conspiracy continues to allege that Assange conspired with Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password hash to a classified U.S. Department of Defense computer.

10 seconds of perusing the indictment against Assange alleges he actively did things other than merely publish data that was given to him.

> leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI)

Is this the same hacker who has gone on public record that he got paid by the FBI to lie , and as a result was later redacted from the court documents?

Paying for false witnesses is such a classic and really makes for a strong case.

using an indictment as a form of evidence is intellectually bankrupt.

Using the language of the prosecution's summary of a classified indictment issued by a state shown to have orchestrated 2 failed false indictments on this individual in the last decade particularly does not convey considerable confidence.

> you absolutely do not have the right to break into systems of national security and release arbitrary information

These are two very different things. Is Assange suspected of doing the first? The second I wonder how it can be a crime if it is a non-US citizen doing it on non-US soil.

> Assange will face a trial like everyone else

It's worth noting that Manning, his alleged co-conspirator in this thing, was declared guilty by Obama, in public, before her trial ever began (when she was, under the law, to be presumed innocent). She was also tortured in jail prior to conclusion of the trial, to such an extent that she attempted suicide twice.

The extradition is only rational, legal, and judicially legitimate if he can be expected to receive a fair trial and not be tortured before/during/after. None of these assumptions hold true in the United States, as we both know.

"was declared guilty by Obama, in public, before her trial ever began "

That's not how it works. Biden made similar public declarations about Rittenhouse, who was subsequently found not guilty.

Now, none of them should be talking about, but that they did does not imply a miscarriage of justice.

The extradition is legitimate, and Assange will receive a fair trial in the US where the whole world will see the evidence against him.

The points you make are orthogonal to the fact that there is no way that Assange will receive a fair trial in the USA.

I believe someone else (Manning) broke in. Assange was the conduit for the information.

You may now look at the disparity in treatment.

Well that is the claim that Assange is making. The government claims he tangibly helped. That has always been the line. You can't give your source burglary tools, ask them to break into something particular and then claim you were just a reporter. You may believe the claims from the prosecution are wrong or lies, but they don't seem on their surface to be crazy

> You can't give your source burglary tools, ask them to break into something particular and then claim you were just a reporter.

Drop the analogy, what did Assange actually do to help Manning?

I’d maintain that it’s not unreasonable for a journalist to ask a leaker for documents about a particular topic.

Presumably this will be addressed at the trial, and a jury will decide whether the materialness of the assistance was criminal.

Of course, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it in the interim. My parent comment claims (through analogy) that Assange gave secret proprietary hacking tools to Manning. I don’t believe that’s remotely true.

No, sorry I think the analogy was a bit too extreme meant only to show that under some circumstances arresting him would be fine. I think according to Wikipedia the specific claim is

> The charges stem from the allegation that Assange attempted and failed to crack a password hash so that Chelsea Manning could use a different username to download classified documents and avoid detection.

Again, the disparity is what interests me. Surely Manning is at as least guilty of "hacking" as Assange. And yet ... different treatment.

In what was is there different treatment? Manning stood trial, was imprisoned, and is now free. Assange has not.

It's gonna be super neat to find out. Are you of the opinion that Assange will be eventually set free?

I'm not an expert, but if following @popehat on twitter has taught me anything, it would lead me to conclude yes.

He's charged with 18 counts, each with a 10 year maximum sentence, except 1 with a 5 year sentence. Manning faced 22 charges, including one that carried a potential death penalty, so broadly speaking Assange is facing fewer and less serious charges. If we take Manning's sentencing as a reasonable upper bound, he'd face 35 years in prison, with potential for early release. He's 50 now, so there's a chance he'd die in prison, but I'd give him better than even odds. And that's assuming what I'd argue is a worse than could be expected sentencing.

But in general the likelyhood of him facing a life sentence (or what amounts to a life sentence, 50+years) is low.

> you absolutely do not have the right to break into systems of national security

He didn’t do that, he didn’t help Manning get any additional access, the whole basis of their case is in Assange agreeing to look at some stuff for Manning and then never getting back to him. Assange didn’t hack or crack anything.

In part of the indictment he’s accused of literally helping Manning to crack password hashes she obtained illegally.

> The superseding indictment alleges that Manning and Assange engaged in real-time discussions regarding Manning’s transmission of classified records to Assange. The discussions also reflect that Assange actively encouraged Manning to provide more information and agreed to crack a password hash stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a United States government network used for classified documents and communications. Assange is also charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to crack that password hash.

The Abu Gharib whistleblower's name was supposed to not be released, but instead Donald Rumsfeld himself leaked it, and his family had to be put into protective custody because of the constant death threats they were receiving from other service members and families of service members.

Donald Rumsfeld then later wrote a letter to the whistleblower telling him to stop telling people that Rumsfeld had been the one to leak his name.

That there are irresponsible actions taken by political actors (possibly mistakenly so) doesn't imply a lack of integrity in the system overall.

The Abu Garib leaker was treated as a true whistleblower, because he was, not a criminal.

In your very comment you indicate that the Justice System even went out of their way to protect him.

In the case of Assange, they are after him, so we'll wait to see what kind of evidence they have.

Would you feel the same if it was the Chinese or Russian government who wanted to prosecute a foreigner for allegedly helping one of their whistleblowers, or for just criticizing their government? Unless you want Americans sent to Beijing for violating the Hong Kong national security law, which applies to everyone in the world according to the Chinese government, I don't see how you can invoke 'the law' against Assange.

Regardless, laws are completely irrelevant to what's right or wrong. Laws are basically just threats, and it's not wrong to do something just because someone threatens to harm you. It doesn't matter if that someone is the Chinese government, the US government, the Taliban government, or some local street gang.

Neither of these sentiments are true.

There is a material difference between 'Whistleblowing' and 'Stealing and Releasing Data Because You Want To'.

Those releasing documents regarding arbitrary imprisonment of people because of their ethnicity are 'Whistleblowers'. I would argue that the release of the video showing US accidental killing of Journalistgs in the friendly fire incident, may fall under that.

But the diplomatic cable leaks I don't think constitute whistle blowing.

"Laws are basically just threats,"

Total rubbish, I can't fathom that someone would believe this.

The Law is the most foundational aspect of civilization, probably more important than democracy itself.

It's a set of codified rules that we roughly agree upon, or at least are aware of, that we are all equally subject to, not one above the other - or at least it's supposed to be, and when it's not, we consider that a form of corruption.

Assange is possibly guilty of the crime of breaking into private government systems to release arbitrary data to the public, which is probably a crime.

When the trial starts, we'll get to see the evidence, one of the advantages of living in a Western Liberal Democracy is that most of this information is available to anyone, another key aspect of a functional Judicial System BTW.

> This is the message to would-be activists anywhere: Stay out of the big boy pool or we'll make you regret it.

Check your expenses before waging war.

Or, you need to band together with an international band of investigative journalists like the ICIJ: https://www.icij.org (who released the Pandora Papers) or do it intelligently like Snowden.

The most Ballsy of people in this category has to be the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny: https://youtu.be/kHgI6um1BMc IMO.

> This is the message to would-be activists anywhere: Stay out of the big boy pool or we'll make you regret it.

You also need to take care of your big boy pool. When you make friends by force they will leave you the moment another stronger friend will come. And when you eroded all your credibility will be a bit difficult to regain it back. Of course you think you have control over everything.

Let me ask you: have you actually read the indictment against Assange that the DOJ has published?

You are aware he is alleged to have pointed Manning to which files to illegally obtain and offered to help her cover her tracks, right? These are real crimes — not, as you allege, for embarrassing the US government.

It’s not much different at other levels. You only have public opinion and Assange wasn’t able to best Clinton in that realm. There’s a lesson about optics and choosing your enemies to be learned as well as the lesson about power.

is it possible, that the system is getting more and more vindictive and less liberal? I mean, Assange isn't saying more radical things than Chomsky, yet they tolerated Chomky somehow, for whatever reasons....

In short... One should not assume the powers-that-be provide tools freely to disassemble the powers-that-be. "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," as the quote goes.

There is a deeper level to this event. Discovery is a bitch.

"sobering view of how the world really works" for whom this is unexpected, which is to say, the most naive.

Laws don't go beyond who enforces them. And this is as expected, they're not an omnipotent/divine construct.

The general public view of Assange is not so great and it went down with time. Manning is probably viewed more favourably.

States that were too tolerant with those who "skirt the rules" (or just do very serious crimes) usually end up regretting it (or not living to regret it, which is worse). I would be very happy if those involved in some January events at D.C. got a similar treatment.

> "sobering view of how the world really works" for whom this is unexpected, which is to say, the most naive.

I think perhaps you're giving too many people too much credit. I would assume that the vast majority of people in the USA think it's a functioning democracy, subject to the rule of law, with human rights.

None of these things are true, and, yet, these beliefs are very widely held.

It certainly beats the majority of other countries in this aspect

We wouldn't be talking about Assange having legal recourse had he got in the wrong way of a lot of other places.

The buck stops somewhere, no system is perfect and special cases are special cases. As again per the last paragraph in my initial response.

Imagine a parent that physically abuses their young child way less than all of the other parents on their block.

It's not really a defense. The USA, and in particular the parts of the USA that have the most power, do not really care at all about human rights, and are not held accountable for not caring about human rights.