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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

zyan.scripts.mit.edu

121–130 of 179 posts

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#121

I find it very sad that the bulk of comments on this matter are about Manning being trans rather than the injustice of jailing a kid for 30 years for blowing the whistle on war crimes.

There's a lot of virtue signalling going on here and it definitely detracts from the important topics that you point out.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politeness is culturally contingent. For example, I have lived in places where making a special effort to hold open doors for women is a social obligation, as well as places where it is deeply offensive. Is it appropriate sometimes to violate those norms? Certainly, when those norms involve a violation of higher moral principles. Principles such as not saying things you believe to be false. > How about "polite"? So,…

- Hello, my name is Henrik. - I disagree, I'm going to call you Steve. - ???

I agree that your interlocutor is being ridiculous.

But the analogy doesn't hold because your interlocutor doesn't have any reason to disagree with your statement; they're just being a troll.

In any case, someone might rationally object to any such analogies because they disagree that there is an equivalence between names and pronouns.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#123

I find it very sad that the bulk of comments on this matter are about Manning being trans rather than the injustice of jailing a kid for 30 years for blowing the whistle on war crimes.

I don't think Manning should spend 30 years in jail, but she wasn't convicted for whistleblowing.

She was acquitted for leaking the few files related to war crimes; she was convicted of leaking 750000 unrelated documents.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#124
post #123

I find it very sad that the bulk of comments on this matter are about Manning being trans rather than the injustice of jailing a kid for 30 years for blowing the whistle on war crimes.

I don't think Manning should spend 30 years in jail, but she wasn't convicted for whistleblowing. She was acquitted for leaking the few files related to war crimes; she was convicted of leaking 750000 unrelated documents.

She was acquitted of leaking the Collateral Murder video in 2009, but only because she plead _guilty_ to leaking it later. That was simply a matter of timing, the government got one charge wrong.

She was also acquitted of "aiding the enemy", which was an extraordinary overreaching charge from the government.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And transgender rights activists are more busy with right gender pronouns then with him/her. I like how you felt the need to take an anti-trans dig at the woman you're claiming to care about. That was classy.

I am not taking dig on Manning, but activists. Gender is irrelevant, what matters is 10 versus 35 years. And you proved my point.

Why criticize people for caring about something if you didn't also care about the same thing?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are saying--your comment will be out of sight soon, by the way--but, does it hurts to "humour" someone? What do you lose or win? Why not just be nice to others?

Agreed. The world is not this black and white place we might sometimes try to make it. Rather than writing diatribes about how people are "objectively" wrong about matters of no consequence, why not save the effort and call people what they want to be called?

Because it supports the delusion they have put themselves into.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#127
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People absolutely can be wrong about their own subjective experiences: that's a big component to why religion exists. It's also why we have the concept of mental health. When people say they have spoken to god, reasonable people think they might be deluded or have some sort of mental health problem. I understand the desire to not hurt people feelings, but we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deceptio…

> When people say they have spoken to god, reasonable people think they might be deluded or have some sort of mental health problem. Self righteous people who think they know it all might assume that. Reasonable people will think "that person experienced something I don't understand". > we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deception We do people a disservice by assuming we know more about them than t…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If such evidence cannot be provided, I see no reason to just accept someone's claim at face-value.

I don't claim or believe I know it all, but I try to support any claims of knowledge with evidence.

> We do people a disservice by assuming we know more about them than they know about themselves.

Someone who knows more about human biology or human psychology than me may, in fact, know something more about myself than I do.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#128

I find it very sad that the bulk of comments on this matter are about Manning being trans rather than the injustice of jailing a kid for 30 years for blowing the whistle on war crimes.

This.

I donated to the defence fund when she was Bradley and I'm not sorry I did it. Secret courts and whatnot have no place in America. At all. Ever.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#129
post #2

> I will be Chelsea’s first visitor since her sister in November. > I bring up her recent appeal to reduce her sentence from 35 years to 10 years, and she seems worried that it didn’t receive enough coverage in the press. She hopes that the world hasn’t forgotten about her. I am afraid world has already forgotten. Google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com Chelsea Manning" for past month gives three results includi…

The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her', and a lot of trans activists and allies do spend an inordinate amount (which wouldn't be so necessary if people made even a small effort to get them correct) of time correcting people on pronouns, but there is a lot of work that transgender rights activists are doing for people in prison in general, and I do know that they've been involved with some of the work to help ens…

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her'

The correct pronoun is whatever people deem the correct pronoun is. Personally, I don't see a lot of value in referring to people as their preferred gender. I see more value in referring to them based on their biological sex.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#130
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her', and a lot of trans activists and allies do spend an inordinate amount (which wouldn't be so necessary if people made even a small effort to get them correct) of time correcting people on pronouns, but there is a lot of work that transgender rights activists are doing for people in prison in general, and I do know that they've been involved with some of the work to help ens…

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her' The correct pronoun is whatever people deem the correct pronoun is. Personally, I don't see a lot of value in referring to people as their preferred gender. I see more value in referring to them based on their biological sex.

Biological sex isn't binary, even if socially ascribed gender is, and is often based on one aspect of biological sex (external genitalia.) If you think what's between someone's legs is more important than the person themself, that's your preference, but don't be surprised if outwardly subjecting people to that kind of objectification produces negative responses.
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