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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

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Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#141

Post by phd514 »

arca_vorago wrote: post #56

For those people who are curious about the act of disseminating information like Manning did, allow me to summarize. When you get a clearance, and often even when just working with confidential documents, the DoD has you sign an SF312, which is a classified information non-disclosure. When you join the military, one of your first acts is to be sworn in, and you swear an oath, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I w…

I agree with the distinctions you draw between what Snowden and Manning did and the fact that most politicians get away with leaking confidential information that benefits them. However, it wasn't Cheney who leaked Plame's employer and your attribution of intent to the people involved in those events says more about your political leanings than anything else.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#142

Post by dragonwriter »

mixedCase wrote: post #138
dragonwriter wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Biological sex isn't binary It most certainly is. XY and XX are two things, therefore binary. Anything else is a defect in the individual's chromosomes.

XX and XY have a strong correlation with sex traits, but not a 1:1 correspondence. (And neither those chromosome configurations nor other biological sex traits map 1:1 to external genitalia, which is Italy the basis of socially ascribed gender.)

So the fact that XX and XY configurations exist and other configurations are considered "defects" doesn't make biological sex a binary trait that correspondence to the manner in which gender is usually digitally ascribed and for which people are labeled "transgender" when their gender identity differs from that social judgement.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#143

Post by dragonwriter »

na85 wrote: post #134
dragonwriter wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's between our legs matters most. If I am biologically male but identify as female, then guess what? I'm never going to become pregnant and give birth, no matter what mutilation of the English language I use to refer to myself.

Wait, are you arguing external genitalia matter most, or are arguing that having (or not having) fully functional female internal reproductive organs matters most? Because you first sentence seems to say the former and your other paragraph the latter. While there is obviously a correlation between those things, it's not an absolute one.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#144

Post by askldfhjkasfhd »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #109
Vraxx wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a non-insignificant number of people claiming it to be the case isn't a good enough reason to believe that it's a possibility? What is the threshold for you to consider this possibility? Do you not believe anything subjective then, because by definition "no one can point to it nor create a test for it"? edit: It seems to me that it costs a person almost nothing to believe somebody about their subjective belief of…

I believe subjectivity exists, but not in its supremacy over objectivity. My objections on the topic are fairly simple: * We shouldn't create laws around activities or identities that cannot be objectively measured. * Peoples personally held identities shouldn't be foisted up such that everyone must accept them unquestionably. People should be free to love, fuck, marry whomever they want and express themselves in wha…

But don't we have to create those laws, sometimes? I'm thinking about the difference between homicide degrees, which include a subjective perspective: the intent of the accused.

We do develop standards for manslaughter versus murder 1, but my understanding is that the accused killer's mindset (their "intent") is an important distinction.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#145

Post by RankingMember »

ythl wrote: post #133
RankingMember wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What's the point of titles, adjectives, pronouns if they can be manipulated by the subject? Statement: "Dr. Smith ran across the street. She was terrified of what would happen next" What actually happened: "A burly transgender man who believes he is a doctor ran across the street."

This isn't a police report. In matters of consequence, I'd expect you would call things by whatever is most conducive to the target audience understanding what you're talking about.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#146

Post by RankingMember »

throwaway929388 wrote: post #126
RankingMember wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is a delusion in this context? Is being gay a delusion because penises are meant to go in vaginas and people putting them in anuses are delusional and just need to wake up?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#147

Post by niccaluim »

ythl wrote: post #137
niccaluim wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And transgender rights activists are more busy with right gender pronouns then with him/her [sic]. Speak for yourself.

[sic] indicates a spelling error in context, not a political correctness "error" that is still being debated

"Sic" stands for "sic erat scriptum" ("thus was it written"). It says nothing about spelling, only that the quote has been transcribed exactly as written.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#148

Post by smellf »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #121
hendersoon wrote: post #108

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.

> virtue signalling

?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#149

Post by DennisP »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #119
DennisP wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a democracy, the voters, via their representatives, decide what's legal for the government to do. So if the government does things that are illegal and hidden, then I'd say anyone has the authority to reveal it. That authority was granted by the voters who made the activity illegal. If the government's activity is legal, on the other hand, then it's harder to make a case. A whistleblower may still decide to reveal…

This is a pretty good answer, but I think there are at least two problems with it: * It is often (though not always) quite hard to tell whether something the government is doing is or is not illegal even for well trained lawyers. Manning, Snowden, et al. are not lawyers. * The information released by Manning, Snowden, et al. was dramatically broader in scope that what would have been required merely to reveal illegal…

Sure, it's a judgement call and whistleblowers have to do the best they can. If they make the wrong decision they're in the second category, so they have to decide if it's worth the risk. If they reveal the secrets to lawyers they're still breaking the law.

I agree that from what I've seen, Manning is on the civil disobedience side. I wish he had changed voters minds more than he apparently did.

Snowden had evidence of clearly illegal activity. There was a lot more mixed in, but it wasn't practical to separate it. Secret abuse of power is dangerous enough that I think that should be acceptable.

If we don't have practical protection for whistleblowers, we might as well not bother putting limits on government power at all. Based on what's happened to whistleblowers who went through official channels, it's clear that that approach doesn't work at all, and I don't know why anyone should expect it to work.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#150

Post by smellf »

emerongi wrote: post #132
dragonwriter wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At that point the female/male distinction loses its meaning altogether. If anyone can pick their gender, what makes someone masculine and what feminine? Nothing. There's no difference between genders, so lose gender-specific words. I'm not against transgender, I'm just arguing on technical grounds. I don't see value in using gender-specific words if people can pick their gender, but I do see value in using them purel…

> If anyone can pick their gender, what makes someone masculine and what feminine?

I don't think this really follows. There are still traditionally masculine and feminine traits, this is unchanged by people self-identifying as a gender other than the one they were born with.

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