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IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

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Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#41

Post by [deleted] »

Chris2048 wrote: post #38
shadowprofile77 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's no moral compass for society anymore What? And there was more of such a compass a century ago when lynchings were much more common for "racial defilements"? Or two centuries ago when slaves were considered bad by the general public for escaping from the brutality of ownership? Or perhaps 600 years ago when witch burning was remarkably common in much of Europe? Not criticizing your defense of Assange (his tre…

> witch burning was remarkably common in much of Europe Is that a moral issue, or one of knowledge / technologies? You can only go on the best information you have, and many theistic beliefs are currently acceptable in the modern world despite being no less plausible than a belief in witches.

[deleted]

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#42

Post by arethuza »

tenbino wrote: post #21
shadowprofile77 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's no moral compass for society anymore What? And there was more of such a compass a century ago when lynchings were much more common for "racial defilements"? Or two centuries ago when slaves were considered bad by the general public for escaping from the brutality of ownership? Or perhaps 600 years ago when witch burning was remarkably common in much of Europe? Not criticizing your defense of Assange (his tre…

The fact that society isn’t perfect doesn’t dispel my point. It’s easy to dispel any argument by hand waving and saying “but look at all these other problems therefore you’re wrong!” I stand by the assertion that 60/70 years ago western society had a more unified sense of what is right and wrong. No doubt there were some major missing elements of that but the point stands.

"60/70 years ago western society had a more unified sense of what is right and wrong."

I'd agree that 60/70 years ago Western countries certainly thought they were right and other people were wrong.

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#43

Post by shadowprofile77 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #38
shadowprofile77 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's no moral compass for society anymore What? And there was more of such a compass a century ago when lynchings were much more common for "racial defilements"? Or two centuries ago when slaves were considered bad by the general public for escaping from the brutality of ownership? Or perhaps 600 years ago when witch burning was remarkably common in much of Europe? Not criticizing your defense of Assange (his tre…

> witch burning was remarkably common in much of Europe Is that a moral issue, or one of knowledge / technologies? You can only go on the best information you have, and many theistic beliefs are currently acceptable in the modern world despite being no less plausible than a belief in witches.

A common mistake of modern humans is to presuppose that people from earlier times were somehow less capable of thinking than we are today. No evidence suggests that this was the case. They could be just as rational, they just knew less upon which to base their notions of reason. Even in a 16th century context, it was not hard to see that a lot of supposedly real witch burning was repressive control politics masquerading behind imposed superstitious strictures of morality around women, just taken to murderous degrees.

More basically: if your morality means decisions to justify or reject the torture and killing of another person, then you'd better set some damn high criteria for whether your information is complete enough.

Even medieval humans understood a surprising amount of this. A Book I highly recommend that demonstrates as much: "The Faithful executioner: Life and death, Honor and Shame in the turbulent 16th century" by Joel F. Harrington. It records a lifetime of personal observations through diary entries from a public executioner in the Germanic city of Bamburg during these times. and gives wonderful insights into how well even those charged with the job of killing could reason about the dirty ambiguity of what they were doing.

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#44

Post by Frost1x »

pseingatl wrote: post #35

You cannot trust the US concerning extraditions. Just ask Austria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholam_Weiss

Trust is something that in general, seems to be waning across the board, at least here in the US.

At the same time, trust provides foundations for a stable society. I believe that for people to interact regularly, they need to trust that the others aren't always out to constantly undermine them in their daily interactions. It could be that their representative government is representing some of their ideas, that their legal system treats them as it says it will, that fellow citizens won't throw them under a bus the second they see opportunity, etc. All of that seems to be on the decline.

Instead our society seems to be filled with lies at every front. I hear lies from top government officials, lies from our legal system, lies from businesses, lies from everyone around me--pretty much all in pursuit of personal gain.

The less I can trust my government, politicians, authorities in power, and fellow citizens to be reasonable and work collectively, the less I tend to trust our society overall.

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#45

Post by dogma1138 »

watwut wrote: post #39
tenbino wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that society isn’t perfect doesn’t dispel my point. It’s easy to dispel any argument by hand waving and saying “but look at all these other problems therefore you’re wrong!” I stand by the assertion that 60/70 years ago western society had a more unified sense of what is right and wrong. No doubt there were some major missing elements of that but the point stands.

> I stand by the assertion that 60/70 years ago western society had a more unified sense of what is right and wrong. That would be 1950-1960. Speaking of America, Montgomery bus boycott started in 1955. Which took a year and started whole civil war movement. President Nixon’s red-baiting campaigns were at exactly that time too. In Europe, IRA started their border campaign in 1956. And that is just me going from top o…

Continental Europe during the post world period until the late 80’s had terrorist bombings, political assassination, dictatorships and plenty of other crap going around, I’m really not sure what level of understanding people have of history these days.

70 years ago was just after Europe decided to murder millions of Jews, Roma, Gays and a bunch of other groups.

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#46

Post by arcticbull »

johnnyfaehell wrote: post #26

> According to his lawyers, Mr Assange was handcuffed 11 times; stripped naked twice and searched; his case files confiscated after the first day of the hearing; and had his request to sit with his lawyers during the trial, rather than in a dock surrounded by bulletproof glass, denied. Stripped naked and search is standard custody practice. Criminals hide things and are known to smuggle things in and out of court to…

Seems like nobody should really be treated that way though, so the fact he's being treated in accordance with others to me is more of an indictment of the system than his specific treatment. People seem to have lost sight of the fact that (a) people are innocent until proven guilty in general and (b) criminals are people too, and all people deserve humane treatment. After all, if you can't treat criminals humanely who are you to condemn them for treating others inhumanely? By all means, remove from society, reform, re-educate, etc, but no reason to treat criminals as anything other than your siblings, parents, etc who did something wrong and need some course correction.

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#47

Post by watwut »

dogma1138 wrote: post #45
watwut wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I stand by the assertion that 60/70 years ago western society had a more unified sense of what is right and wrong. That would be 1950-1960. Speaking of America, Montgomery bus boycott started in 1955. Which took a year and started whole civil war movement. President Nixon’s red-baiting campaigns were at exactly that time too. In Europe, IRA started their border campaign in 1956. And that is just me going from top o…

Continental Europe during the post world period until the late 80’s had terrorist bombings, political assassination, dictatorships and plenty of other crap going around, I’m really not sure what level of understanding people have of history these days. 70 years ago was just after Europe decided to murder millions of Jews, Roma, Gays and a bunch of other groups.

> I’m really not sure what level of understanding people have of history these days.

People go by what they gathered from movies and what their older relatives talk about.

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#48

Post by sudosysgen »

implements wrote: post #15
theobeers wrote: post #5

It sickens me how little it seems to matter to people in our mainstream discourse whether or not Assange is treated as a human being. After he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy, and officials said he had behaved erratically there and smeared feces on the walls, etc., the public reaction was along the lines of, “Wow, what a weirdo loser”—rather than, “Oh God, what have we done to this person?” It speaks poorly o…

Thing is, he damaged himself by choosing to spend nearly a decade in isolation. We haven’t done anything to him other than expect him to submit to due process as a citizen like any other. That he has driven himself half-mad is indeed tragic, but it’s not societies fault, nor is it sufficient to place him outside the law.

Do you think he'd have a better treatment in a US prison? Because I don't know if that's a realistic viewpoint to hold.

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#49

Post by sudosysgen »

Diggsey wrote: post #25
mcherm wrote: post #8

I can't think of a special reason why the UK would have it in for Julian Assange. I presume they are doing this in order to cow towel to their ally the United States. Do they not realize that the United States is likely to undergo a regime change at the beginning of next year? Do they think the new regime in the US will feel the same way about Julian Assange and will put the same kind of pressure on the UK that the T…

> Do they not realize that the United States is likely to undergo a regime change at the beginning of next year? It's far too early to count on Trump losing the election... In my estimation, there's still over 50% chance he'll be re-elected. All he needs is for some Covid metric to show improvement, and he'll claim that as a win at the key moment. And economically, due to the weaker lockdown measures, the US will com…

It's not very likely the US will come out ahead economically. Countries that had stricter lock downs seeing great economic revivals as case numbers dwindled and lockdowns get progressively more targeted and less intrusive. This can't be done successfully in the US.

To give an extreme example of where countries with stricter lockdowns will be soon, look at China. Their economy is almost already at pre-pandemic levels.

Re: IBAHRI condemned UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial

#50

Post by kgonza »

k1m wrote: post #31
implements wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, he damaged himself by choosing to spend nearly a decade in isolation. We haven’t done anything to him other than expect him to submit to due process as a citizen like any other. That he has driven himself half-mad is indeed tragic, but it’s not societies fault, nor is it sufficient to place him outside the law.

> Thing is, he damaged himself by choosing to spend nearly a decade in isolation. He always argued that he would not receive fair treatment if he submitted himself to authorities, especially as they would give him no assurance about not handing him over to the US (this is before the US officially started proceedings against him). > We haven't done anything to him other than expect him to submit to due process as a ci…

>He always argued that he would not receive...

He is not special. He broke the law and he should face consequences like everyone else. Instead, he wants the world to dance to his tune.

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