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Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

theguardian.com

111–120 of 199 posts

Re: Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitler was TIME magazine man of year, and for a decent while in America Fascism was mildly popular (circa 1930's). Its strange looking back on a that time (Post Holocaust and WW2). American Newspapers applauded the works of fascists claiming, "They got the trains to run on time."

Being Man of the Year isn't necessarily an honor. From Wikipedia: Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, group, idea or object that "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

2001 title should have gone to OBL then.

Re: Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

#113
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you respect Manning, please stop saying "he" and "guy".

This is clearly something that we as a society are going to have to wrestle with. It seems reasonable to me that this person, having XY chromosomes and all the hardware that go with them, may be correctly referred to using masculine pronouns. There's something to be said for respecting the wishes of the individual in how they'd like to be addressed. But there's definitely a point at which that drifts off into absurdi…

In polite society we respect the ways that others wish to be addressed, as long as the request isn't unreasonable (I want you to call me 'Doctor wavefunction' yet I lack the credentials).

It is not absurd to refer to someone by the gender they prefer.

Re: Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

#114
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone has already forgotten Pfc. Manning rotting away for 35 years. Please represent the facts accurately. Manning is eligible for release in 7-8 years. I'm willing to make a long bet ( http://longbets.org ) for $300.00 that Manning does not serve 35 years, or "rot away for 35 years" as you put it. Are you up for it?

After the aggressiveness of the current administration, you think there is a chance the next administration might come along and say "nope, they need to serve the full 35 years". The sentence is 35 years. They could legally be forced to serve the full 35 for any reason. As far as I am concerned that is the weight being hung around their neck, not the imaginary eight. And eight years in prison is an insanely long time…

He was given 3.5 years for time served. He'll really be eligible for parole after a full decade in jail.

Re: Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

#115
post #66
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manning released a bunch of documents, but how did he change the world?

Did you not see the videos? Did you know the US military was doing that?

Shooting people? Yeah. I didn't know the helicopter crew felt so bad about it though. I thought they had better psychological support, but they sounded traumatized.

Re: Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is clearly something that we as a society are going to have to wrestle with. It seems reasonable to me that this person, having XY chromosomes and all the hardware that go with them, may be correctly referred to using masculine pronouns. There's something to be said for respecting the wishes of the individual in how they'd like to be addressed. But there's definitely a point at which that drifts off into absurdi…

> It seems reasonable to me that this person, having XY chromosomes and all the hardware that go with them, may be correctly referred to using masculine pronouns. Gender != your chromosomes and gender != your "hardware" or any other body part for that matter. Gender is about social identity and structure. > There's something to be said for respecting the wishes of the individual in how they'd like to be addressed. Bu…

While I really do tend to lean in the direction you suggest, I don't think it's quite a cut-and-dry as you claim. Here are a few things to consider.

First, we're only talking about language. We get those gendered pronouns not because of a need to distinguish between how a person views his gender (or how the world views it), but because of stupid linguistic convention going back to English's Indo-European roots. You'll see that in many languages in the same family, nouns all have gender, even absurd ones like "airplane" or "shoe". These genders have absolutely nothing to do with sexual identity, they're essentially randomly assigned, conferring no additional meaning (but providing a parity check in communication, helping ensure clear transmission). Coming from this history, we shouldn't be too concerned with the way pronouns correspond to individual humans.

Second, I don't think it's hard to imagine socially-undesirable consequences of honoring anyone's own claimed gender. I'm thinking of a biological-male claiming to self-identify as female, so that he can use the women's locker room at the gym. So under what circumstances do we want to honor their self-image (or, for that matter, to believe their claimed self-image)?

Third, with identity politics still having legal bearing in our system, it seems that self-identification of gender may derail efforts to ensure gender equality. Given that there are legal structures in place to protect females, may I (as a biological male) claim to self-identify as female, and achieve those same protections? May I at least self-identify on official forms (thereby making enforcement of workplace protections unenforceable)?

Not that these things are insoluble, but I think that we need to give thought to the repercussions should we choose to take any person's claims of gender at face value.

Re: Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

#119
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is clearly something that we as a society are going to have to wrestle with. It seems reasonable to me that this person, having XY chromosomes and all the hardware that go with them, may be correctly referred to using masculine pronouns. There's something to be said for respecting the wishes of the individual in how they'd like to be addressed. But there's definitely a point at which that drifts off into absurdi…

There's a time and a place to be pedantic, and this really isn't it. Transgendered people go through a heap of terrible, terrible crap and the least we can all do is give them the dignity of using their identified pronoun. If anybody has earned that respect, it's ms. Manning. I mean really, how the heck does it hurt anybody to say "She" instead of "He" after you've been informed that's not how she identifies? Does it…

> Transgendered people go through a heap of terrible, terrible crap and the least we can all do is give them the dignity of using their identified pronoun.

I think we'd do better to make sure they don't go through a heap of terrible crap (no bullying/abuse for personal choices) and leave people some personal freedom to have different views on pronouns.

> Will the ghost of Plato arise and smite you down for failing to properly class something?

Seems to be happening.

Re: Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

#120
post #92
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'd like to shake his [sic] hand, buy him [sic] a beer, thank him [sic] personally", "but I believe Manning's sentence [of 35 years in prison] is reasonable". My jaw dropped to the floor. Assuming that you want to thank her for doing that thing that landed her in prison, there is nothing you can say that can reconcile those two statements for me.

Are they contradictory? There are plenty of criminals I like personally who deserve to serve time for breaking the law. EDIT: I wouldn't conflate ignorance of her gender and disrespect, it's not anything I've ever heard.

So you're saying you like Manning personally, but not for her 'criminal' actions? What about her makes you want to 'shake [her] hand' and 'buy [her] a beer' then?
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