God damn it, can none of you comprehend OBVIOUS sarcasm when you see it? The only way you can interpret my post the way you have is by ignoring most of it. But you are the third person to comment that way, so obviously, I will need to mark my sarcasm as such in the future, no matter how obvious I think it is.
Sometimes, like when you're forcing three disparate people to share the wealth of one tiny corner of an otherwise inhospitable province, it really could be that a despot is the best choice.
What an insightful, true, and yet wildly unpopular thing to say. Have you been thinking for yourself again? Haven't we told you not to do that? Pick a pigeon hole and STAY there. Anything not in a pigeon hole is fair game. Did I mention that we shoot pigeons, pigeon?
DigiShaman wondered why the US "caught hell" (in his words) for ousting Saddam. I responded that perhaps the world thought we were a bit hypocritical, supporting him when he gassed the Kurds, for instance, but only going after him when he went against the interests of the American ruling class.
The point of that, and my question to you, is that we did not oust him because he is a "bad guy." We fucking well LOVE bad guys if they are on the side of our businessmen and bankers, and will kill some leftists for us. We have only rarely in our history fought "bad guys" for anything more than purely selfish reasons. We do not fight bad guys to make the world a better place for all, we fight anyone, good or bad, who goes against our Wall Street masters.
Adapting your analogy, we are actually selling drugs to the dealer and giving him a territory to work. Then he buys drugs from someone else, or sells outside his territory, so we kill him. Meanwhile, we are still supplying drugs to dozens of other dealers, as long as they cooperate. That is the morality of the people who rule my country right now, and it sickens me, okay? As a patriot, I have to try to make it right.
Stop it. You aren't playing the game right, you are being entirely too rational and reasonable. You aren't enraged enough. You haven't picked a team to stand behind and root for, right or wrong. You are thinking for yourself, an obvious danger to society. What's wrong with you?
Letting Manning decide when to end his own punishment sort of defeats the point of the punishment as a consequence for his actions.
However, it simultaneously removes the reason for that punishment. There are only two legitimate reasons for punishment: deterring the individual from acting that way in the future, and deterring others. Causing someone to suicide is as big of a deterrent to others as the death penalty, and Manning is unlikely to commit crimes from beyond the grave.
The only other reason for punishment is the satisfaction of the victims, and you'll excuse me if I don't shed a tear for the so called 'victims' of this crime, the US government. I would also posit that that satisfaction is pathological, and damaging to the victims themselves.
Saddam never changed, though. He was an evil, ruthless bastard when we put him in power, we knew how he would act, and we didn't care until he turned against the status quo.
Unlike you, I am a true patriot and love my country, which is why I tell the truth instead of going along with the lies. Yes, America, that foreign policy DOES make you look like a ruthless bitch, sorry.
To invoke Godwin's Law, would you have supported a leak of where all the Jews were hiding in Nazi Germany? Only the Nazis would be to blame for what happens next, right?
No, but if diplomatic secrets were given to party A, and party A went to five separate well known and well respected papers to redact those diplomatic secrets, and people were then harmed by unredacted material, I would blame the papers, not the person who went to the papers. You do realize that Assange, responding to criticism that he was not redacting confidential information, made a deal with five venerable papers of record in various countries, and gave them the cables to redact, right? So Assange is still not to blame, the papers are. Nice attempt at deflection though.
In your previous post, you put things in absolute, not personal terms. If your first post had been more like this one, I wouldn't have any problem with it. But your first post does not acknowledge that you, personally, have not taken the time to investigate content and context for yourself, and blames wikileaks for that in general terms. Your specific complaints, as outlined in your second post, make much more sense. I won't assume conclusions on your behalf as long as you don't assume conclusions on behalf of everyone else, as you did in your first post. Deal?
Correction: he wants Manning to live against his will. He believes Manning to be a coward who wants to die, and believes Manning should be denied the right to a cessation of suffering. That is some sick shit right there.
Sorta like Saddam Hussein and his sons running Iraq. But Jesus, did America catch hell for doing something about it. We still are.
We caught hell for that because we put Saddam in power and supported him for decades. When you have to take out the same guy you put in, it makes the game itself look ridiculous. All the players hate it when you make the game look ridiculous.
If it's one thing I've learned, dictators are protected by larger nations so that they may be used like pawns and creating stalemates in global diplomacy. Nice huh?
Funny how we shift the blame here. And funny how no mention is made of the fact that all the diplomatic cables were redacted by the five newspapers Assange pre-released the cables to. No, it is not Mugabe or the papers who are to blame here, it is that rapist Assange again. The spin and manipulation seem so blatant to me, so orchestrated, that it amazes me how few people seem to notice the man behind the curtain.
Manning is coward and a fool, through and through. He will commit suicide because he is a coward. Personally, I would rather that he serves the entire sentence, but it will not happen.
This passage is disgustingly gleeful, FYI. You want him to suffer as much as possible.
I gave a REASON why I do not consider wikileaks actions fencing any more than the actions of the NYT. You have not rebutted my reasoning. You just restate your OPINION that wikileaks is fencing. Accepting donations is fencing now?
Did Assange actually say what you claim? A quote from him would go a long way to back up your blackmail narrative. Perhaps you could find one?
In closing, you seem a little bit too gleeful over the punishment, why does the idea of someone dieing painfully excite you? Conversely, on a planet with over six billion humans why does the death of one stranger get you all tied up in knots?
Quick question, can you point out where I appear "all tied up in knots" to you?
I don't think I do appear that way, but if I did, there is a simple explanation: most normal people don't enjoy the thought of other people dieing, especially for unjust causes.
As for your sig, let me ask you this: when the weak, who have no claws, band together to kill the strong, doesn't that make them the stronger of the two? And isn't that a good thing? The strong should survive, and if you can't cooperate, you are not as strong as those who can. Maybe you should reconsider your position of laughing at the weak. They can kill you even though they lack claws, when they cooperate. I mean, if you believe in Social Darwinism, then the strong but uncooperative individual is weaker than the weak but cooperative individual, and should die to make room for his betters' offspring. Cooperation is a competitive trait. The tyranny of the weak over the strong is no less natural than the tyranny of the strong over the weak. Just some food for thought, since you profess to be beyond good and evil.
I'm glad we have people like you to judge what is important for us to know, and what is fit only for tabloid publication. I find your idea that news should consist of "analysis" instead of "dumping" facts and letting us, the readers, make up our own minds to be quite comforting. I don't want to have to think about difficult things, and would rather an expert provide my analysis for me. On my own, I seem to be likely to conduct analysis that leads to very wrong headed conclusions. For instance, I have analyzed this situation and obviously come to a different conclusion than you, which is obviously wrong on my part. And without proper analysis, you might read my post, not realize it was sarcastic, and come to some wrong conclusions yourself.
2. No, they gave the files to five major newspapers and only put the redacted cables up. Also, seeing as how they were not profiting off the copied (not stolen) information, they are not a fence. You can not "fence" copied goods. You might be guilty of additional unauthorized copying, but not fencing. Maybe the USA can go after him on copyright violations, hehe.
3. No demand was made. "Don't kill me, bro" is not a demand, as "I won't kill you" the default, legal course of action. Demanding someone NOT break the law is not blackmail.
My predictions:
Manning will commit suicide by fifty three self inflicted hammer blows to the head, before he goes to trial
Wikileaks has committed no crime that the US has any jurisdiction over. They stop publishing anything once the US has killed enough of the staff.
Assange will die shortly after releasing information on the true masters of the world, the banks.
In closing, you seem a little bit too gleeful over the punishment, why does the idea of someone dieing painfully excite you?
Wikileaks is exactly like the pentagon papers, and here's why: Wikileaks released the cables to five major papers to redact. Manning may have stolen secrets, but so did Ellsberg. Ellsberg gave the papers to a third party, so did Manning. The third party committed no crimes in either case.
You have presented no evidence that Assange believes blackmail is appropriate. The "insurance file" is not blackmail.
You continue to compare Wikileaks to Ellsberg, but they are not equivalent. Ellsberg is equivalent to Manning, and Wikileaks is equivalent to the New York Times (even down to the redactions, get your facts straight.) The original publication can not be criminal in nature, for two reasons. First, and most important, the US has no jurisdiction over Assange and Wikileaks. Second, there is no difference under the law between 'dumping' and 'analyzing' data.
As the data dumped by Wikileaks was redacted BY the very media you let off the hook, your final argument falls to pieces too.
Finally, it is important to note the biases and possible motives in any information exchange, and thus, it is important to note Dave's connections to a group that is dead set on utterly destroying Julian Assange by any means necessary.
Can I just ask, are these your opinions, or are they what you have been told to say? Are you even allowed to have your own opinions, working in US intelligence as you do?
We know from your history here and your old website that you work in US intelligence. Which agency employs you these days? Or are you not allowed to say?
I'm sure he won't mind me pointing out that he works in a United States government intelligence agency. This should really be pointed out at the top of this discussion, which is why I'm hijacking this stupid first post. Dave, how come you never mention this salient fact when you are pushing government propaganda?
Society has very little control over how many sociopaths it breed, because they are bred, not made. Every society has around the same amount.
Actions of individuals are influenced by their setting. Different settings prompt different actions. Corporations create a moral hazard, as I said, due to their structure. They diffuse responsibility. They are also authoritarian, and can prompt the same sorts of behaviors that were seen in the Milgram experiments.
People do not have one nature. They have many different faces that they put on or take off as circumstances dictate. A corporation is structured differently from other types of groups, and creates different types of behaviors in its members.
While I agree that any action of a group is only the result of the individuals, the difference between a group and an individual is that in a group, the interactions of the individuals creates a dynamic that is not present in a single individual.
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God damn it, can none of you comprehend OBVIOUS sarcasm when you see it? The only way you can interpret my post the way you have is by ignoring most of it. But you are the third person to comment that way, so obviously, I will need to mark my sarcasm as such in the future, no matter how obvious I think it is.
Sometimes, like when you're forcing three disparate people to share the wealth of one tiny corner of an otherwise inhospitable province, it really could be that a despot is the best choice.
What an insightful, true, and yet wildly unpopular thing to say. Have you been thinking for yourself again? Haven't we told you not to do that? Pick a pigeon hole and STAY there. Anything not in a pigeon hole is fair game. Did I mention that we shoot pigeons, pigeon?
DigiShaman wondered why the US "caught hell" (in his words) for ousting Saddam. I responded that perhaps the world thought we were a bit hypocritical, supporting him when he gassed the Kurds, for instance, but only going after him when he went against the interests of the American ruling class.
The point of that, and my question to you, is that we did not oust him because he is a "bad guy." We fucking well LOVE bad guys if they are on the side of our businessmen and bankers, and will kill some leftists for us. We have only rarely in our history fought "bad guys" for anything more than purely selfish reasons. We do not fight bad guys to make the world a better place for all, we fight anyone, good or bad, who goes against our Wall Street masters.
Adapting your analogy, we are actually selling drugs to the dealer and giving him a territory to work. Then he buys drugs from someone else, or sells outside his territory, so we kill him. Meanwhile, we are still supplying drugs to dozens of other dealers, as long as they cooperate. That is the morality of the people who rule my country right now, and it sickens me, okay? As a patriot, I have to try to make it right.
I'm confused. Who are you responding to and what are you trying to say?
Who the hell are you responding to? I fucking well agree with you, why are you calling me retarded?
Stop it. You aren't playing the game right, you are being entirely too rational and reasonable. You aren't enraged enough. You haven't picked a team to stand behind and root for, right or wrong. You are thinking for yourself, an obvious danger to society. What's wrong with you?
Letting Manning decide when to end his own punishment sort of defeats the point of the punishment as a consequence for his actions.
However, it simultaneously removes the reason for that punishment. There are only two legitimate reasons for punishment: deterring the individual from acting that way in the future, and deterring others. Causing someone to suicide is as big of a deterrent to others as the death penalty, and Manning is unlikely to commit crimes from beyond the grave.
The only other reason for punishment is the satisfaction of the victims, and you'll excuse me if I don't shed a tear for the so called 'victims' of this crime, the US government. I would also posit that that satisfaction is pathological, and damaging to the victims themselves.
But he was an evil bastard when we put him in power, we just don't care. Do you have any idea how many ruthless bastards we have put in power?
Saddam never changed, though. He was an evil, ruthless bastard when we put him in power, we knew how he would act, and we didn't care until he turned against the status quo.
Unlike you, I am a true patriot and love my country, which is why I tell the truth instead of going along with the lies. Yes, America, that foreign policy DOES make you look like a ruthless bitch, sorry.
Assange is to blame as well.
To invoke Godwin's Law, would you have supported a leak of where all the Jews were hiding in Nazi Germany? Only the Nazis would be to blame for what happens next, right?
No, but if diplomatic secrets were given to party A, and party A went to five separate well known and well respected papers to redact those diplomatic secrets, and people were then harmed by unredacted material, I would blame the papers, not the person who went to the papers. You do realize that Assange, responding to criticism that he was not redacting confidential information, made a deal with five venerable papers of record in various countries, and gave them the cables to redact, right? So Assange is still not to blame, the papers are. Nice attempt at deflection though.
In your previous post, you put things in absolute, not personal terms. If your first post had been more like this one, I wouldn't have any problem with it. But your first post does not acknowledge that you, personally, have not taken the time to investigate content and context for yourself, and blames wikileaks for that in general terms. Your specific complaints, as outlined in your second post, make much more sense. I won't assume conclusions on your behalf as long as you don't assume conclusions on behalf of everyone else, as you did in your first post. Deal?
It is really quite instructive to watch the machine in action, isn't it?
Correction: he wants Manning to live against his will. He believes Manning to be a coward who wants to die, and believes Manning should be denied the right to a cessation of suffering. That is some sick shit right there.
Sorta like Saddam Hussein and his sons running Iraq. But Jesus, did America catch hell for doing something about it. We still are.
We caught hell for that because we put Saddam in power and supported him for decades. When you have to take out the same guy you put in, it makes the game itself look ridiculous. All the players hate it when you make the game look ridiculous.
If it's one thing I've learned, dictators are protected by larger nations so that they may be used like pawns and creating stalemates in global diplomacy. Nice huh?
We are one of the worst offenders in that regard.
Funny how we shift the blame here. And funny how no mention is made of the fact that all the diplomatic cables were redacted by the five newspapers Assange pre-released the cables to. No, it is not Mugabe or the papers who are to blame here, it is that rapist Assange again. The spin and manipulation seem so blatant to me, so orchestrated, that it amazes me how few people seem to notice the man behind the curtain.
Manning is coward and a fool, through and through. He will commit suicide because he is a coward. Personally, I would rather that he serves the entire sentence, but it will not happen.
This passage is disgustingly gleeful, FYI. You want him to suffer as much as possible.
I gave a REASON why I do not consider wikileaks actions fencing any more than the actions of the NYT. You have not rebutted my reasoning. You just restate your OPINION that wikileaks is fencing. Accepting donations is fencing now?
Did Assange actually say what you claim? A quote from him would go a long way to back up your blackmail narrative. Perhaps you could find one?
In closing, you seem a little bit too gleeful over the punishment, why does the idea of someone dieing painfully excite you?
Conversely, on a planet with over six billion humans why does the death of one stranger get you all tied up in knots?
Quick question, can you point out where I appear "all tied up in knots" to you?
I don't think I do appear that way, but if I did, there is a simple explanation: most normal people don't enjoy the thought of other people dieing, especially for unjust causes.
As for your sig, let me ask you this: when the weak, who have no claws, band together to kill the strong, doesn't that make them the stronger of the two? And isn't that a good thing? The strong should survive, and if you can't cooperate, you are not as strong as those who can. Maybe you should reconsider your position of laughing at the weak. They can kill you even though they lack claws, when they cooperate. I mean, if you believe in Social Darwinism, then the strong but uncooperative individual is weaker than the weak but cooperative individual, and should die to make room for his betters' offspring. Cooperation is a competitive trait. The tyranny of the weak over the strong is no less natural than the tyranny of the strong over the weak. Just some food for thought, since you profess to be beyond good and evil.
I'm glad we have people like you to judge what is important for us to know, and what is fit only for tabloid publication. I find your idea that news should consist of "analysis" instead of "dumping" facts and letting us, the readers, make up our own minds to be quite comforting. I don't want to have to think about difficult things, and would rather an expert provide my analysis for me. On my own, I seem to be likely to conduct analysis that leads to very wrong headed conclusions. For instance, I have analyzed this situation and obviously come to a different conclusion than you, which is obviously wrong on my part. And without proper analysis, you might read my post, not realize it was sarcastic, and come to some wrong conclusions yourself.
1. Under the law, NO DIFFERENCE.
2. No, they gave the files to five major newspapers and only put the redacted cables up. Also, seeing as how they were not profiting off the copied (not stolen) information, they are not a fence. You can not "fence" copied goods. You might be guilty of additional unauthorized copying, but not fencing. Maybe the USA can go after him on copyright violations, hehe.
3. No demand was made. "Don't kill me, bro" is not a demand, as "I won't kill you" the default, legal course of action. Demanding someone NOT break the law is not blackmail.
My predictions:
Manning will commit suicide by fifty three self inflicted hammer blows to the head, before he goes to trial
Wikileaks has committed no crime that the US has any jurisdiction over. They stop publishing anything once the US has killed enough of the staff.
Assange will die shortly after releasing information on the true masters of the world, the banks.
In closing, you seem a little bit too gleeful over the punishment, why does the idea of someone dieing painfully excite you?
Wikileaks is exactly like the pentagon papers, and here's why: Wikileaks released the cables to five major papers to redact. Manning may have stolen secrets, but so did Ellsberg. Ellsberg gave the papers to a third party, so did Manning. The third party committed no crimes in either case.
You have presented no evidence that Assange believes blackmail is appropriate. The "insurance file" is not blackmail.
You continue to compare Wikileaks to Ellsberg, but they are not equivalent. Ellsberg is equivalent to Manning, and Wikileaks is equivalent to the New York Times (even down to the redactions, get your facts straight.) The original publication can not be criminal in nature, for two reasons. First, and most important, the US has no jurisdiction over Assange and Wikileaks. Second, there is no difference under the law between 'dumping' and 'analyzing' data.
As the data dumped by Wikileaks was redacted BY the very media you let off the hook, your final argument falls to pieces too.
Finally, it is important to note the biases and possible motives in any information exchange, and thus, it is important to note Dave's connections to a group that is dead set on utterly destroying Julian Assange by any means necessary.
I'm guessing, because Malda doesn't care. It's controversial, it gets more page hits, what's not to love?
Can I just ask, are these your opinions, or are they what you have been told to say? Are you even allowed to have your own opinions, working in US intelligence as you do?
We know from your history here and your old website that you work in US intelligence. Which agency employs you these days? Or are you not allowed to say?
I'm sure he won't mind me pointing out that he works in a United States government intelligence agency. This should really be pointed out at the top of this discussion, which is why I'm hijacking this stupid first post. Dave, how come you never mention this salient fact when you are pushing government propaganda?
Society has very little control over how many sociopaths it breed, because they are bred, not made. Every society has around the same amount.
Actions of individuals are influenced by their setting. Different settings prompt different actions. Corporations create a moral hazard, as I said, due to their structure. They diffuse responsibility. They are also authoritarian, and can prompt the same sorts of behaviors that were seen in the Milgram experiments.
People do not have one nature. They have many different faces that they put on or take off as circumstances dictate. A corporation is structured differently from other types of groups, and creates different types of behaviors in its members.
While I agree that any action of a group is only the result of the individuals, the difference between a group and an individual is that in a group, the interactions of the individuals creates a dynamic that is not present in a single individual.