Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

declassifieduk.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 82 posts

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#51

Post by sigmaprimus »

Ensorceled wrote: post #47
sildur wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it’s “prejudging”.

This is true. But is "prejudging" bad? I use prejudging all the time: I prejudge people who drop the n-word in casual conversation. I prejudge people who use terms like "SJW" or "woke". And, yes, I prejudge people who use "main stream media".

Those are all examples of Post Judgment IMO, I don't agree with you conflating the last two phrases with using the n-word as they are very different. How do You feel about "Lets go Brandon"? oops did I just destroy my earlier argument?

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#52

Post by rich_sasha »

gampleman wrote: post #12
rich_sasha wrote: post #3

Most voices in support of Assange seem to come from people with strong conviction that he is clearly a good guy (unsurprisingly). I don’t really have an opinion. Could someone provide a more impassioned / balanced list of pros and cons? From my vague point of view, I get that he is sort of a journalist (so should be protected), but also the stuff he leaked did go quite far, like borderline-espionage scale (or is that…

> States have a reasonable need to keep things secret, even against the immediate best interest of the citizens Do they? Perhaps this is the crux of the matter, as I would say that a democracy has no reason to keep anything secret against the best interests of its citizens. It may have some operational need of secrecy for things that are in the interest of its citizens (i.e. it's in my interest that nuclear launch co…

Some dodgy businessman might be a crook and criminal (no reference to Assange), but also a vital intelligence asset.

It might be in the immediate interest of citizens to know that, and have the guy tried, but not so in the *long term. I would expect a competent intelligence service to keep the guy safe and his misdeeds under cover.

Of course that can go badly wrong, I just mean, a priori, there may be very good reasons to keep secrets from your own people. But then this is why intelligence services need civilian supervision, just like armed forces do.

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#54

Post by rich_sasha »

nabla9 wrote: post #33
rich_sasha wrote: post #3

Most voices in support of Assange seem to come from people with strong conviction that he is clearly a good guy (unsurprisingly). I don’t really have an opinion. Could someone provide a more impassioned / balanced list of pros and cons? From my vague point of view, I get that he is sort of a journalist (so should be protected), but also the stuff he leaked did go quite far, like borderline-espionage scale (or is that…

>that he is clearly a good guy The unspoken assumption behind this question is that any actor in our society needs to be morally or personally exemplary for their work to have value. It's a modern version of Donatism. Donatists were a group of Christians in the fourth century. Their core tenet was that priests need to be ‘faultless’ for their prayers and their sacraments to be valid It's often faulty son-of-the-bitch…

I guess a part of my question was, is WikiLeaks _really_ a good thing? I just don't know. ELI5 if you'd like.

I'm deliberately keeping any personality assessments out of it. Assange seems like a strange guy, but even if true, I agree that's besides the point.

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#55

Post by lawn »

rich_sasha wrote: post #3

Most voices in support of Assange seem to come from people with strong conviction that he is clearly a good guy (unsurprisingly). I don’t really have an opinion. Could someone provide a more impassioned / balanced list of pros and cons? From my vague point of view, I get that he is sort of a journalist (so should be protected), but also the stuff he leaked did go quite far, like borderline-espionage scale (or is that…

> Most voices in support of Assange seem to come from people with strong conviction that he is clearly a good guy (unsurprisingly).

That's not my perception at all. It seems to me that people support Assange because the US don't like people showing proof of their war crimes, so they want to make an example of him.

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#56

Post by nabla9 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #54
nabla9 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that he is clearly a good guy The unspoken assumption behind this question is that any actor in our society needs to be morally or personally exemplary for their work to have value. It's a modern version of Donatism. Donatists were a group of Christians in the fourth century. Their core tenet was that priests need to be ‘faultless’ for their prayers and their sacraments to be valid It's often faulty son-of-the-bitch…

I guess a part of my question was, is WikiLeaks _really_ a good thing? I just don't know. ELI5 if you'd like. I'm deliberately keeping any personality assessments out of it. Assange seems like a strange guy, but even if true, I agree that's besides the point.

WikiLeaks is a good thing. WikiLeaks works as protection intermediary between journals and sources https://wikileaks.org/-Partners-.html

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#57

Post by mandmandam »

Ensorceled wrote: post #47
sildur wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it’s “prejudging”.

This is true. But is "prejudging" bad? I use prejudging all the time: I prejudge people who drop the n-word in casual conversation. I prejudge people who use terms like "SJW" or "woke". And, yes, I prejudge people who use "main stream media".

Main stream media are the media who used Assange's stories when it became clear they couldn't ignore them; then helped to smear him while ignoring his torture and a long list of disproportionate and illegal actions against him.

You can call them scumbag media, billionaire media, or tool of the warmongers media; but pre-judging people who use the term "main stream media" means you have chosen the side of the opulent oppressor, and willingly put up a wall of ignorance for yourself. Seems dumb, especially on a thread discussing this story of all stories.

https://chomsky.info/199710__/

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#58

Post by cafard »

rich_sasha wrote: post #3

Most voices in support of Assange seem to come from people with strong conviction that he is clearly a good guy (unsurprisingly). I don’t really have an opinion. Could someone provide a more impassioned / balanced list of pros and cons? From my vague point of view, I get that he is sort of a journalist (so should be protected), but also the stuff he leaked did go quite far, like borderline-espionage scale (or is that…

> States have a reasonable need to keep things secret, even against the immediate best interest of the citizens (but not long term, clearly).

I don't disagree, but that this has never been considered to bind those who are not citizens or residents of those states. Is there a state in existence today that does not maintain what intelligence apparatus it can afford, in order to learn the secrets of other states?

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#59

Post by mcv »

rich_sasha wrote: post #3

Most voices in support of Assange seem to come from people with strong conviction that he is clearly a good guy (unsurprisingly). I don’t really have an opinion. Could someone provide a more impassioned / balanced list of pros and cons? From my vague point of view, I get that he is sort of a journalist (so should be protected), but also the stuff he leaked did go quite far, like borderline-espionage scale (or is that…

I have plenty of criticism of Assange. I mean, I had a very favourable view of him before the leaks, I feel the Collateral Murder video is very important, and I think it's important that governments can be held accountable for their crimes, so in those areas I'm on his side.

But I'm not so happy with his grand-standing, with the way he handled some of the data, with his attempts to work with Russia and Trump to influence US elections, or with how he handled those Swedish rape allegations.

There is plenty of criticism for everybody here. But the biggest issue is still the core issue: does the US have the right to commit war crimes, and does it have the right to persecute anyone who tries to publicise those crimes?

Re: Assange judge is 40-year ‘good friend’ of minister who orchestrated his arrest

#60

Post by ynth7 »

pjc50 wrote: post #16

This is rather a broader problem in the UK: the country is run by an extremely small group of people who all know each other and who have the capacity to appoint each other to positions of power, all the while getting sympathetic coverage from the press, who they also crossover with. (I wonder why Dame Cressida Rose Dick DBE QPM won't investigate the House of Lords cash-for-peerages scandal? https://news.sky.com/stor…

This is a broader problem in society

Inequality and meritocracy are euphemism for caste system

Post reply on HN