Really. You are suggesting that the US government is on the same level of opacity or human rights abuse as any of those that I mentioned? Are you literally fucking stoned?[1]
[1] No judgement, I've had a decent amount of scotch and to each their own, but really?
[edit: legalize it, and then tax it, and give me a tax break :) ]
No, that's rather the point. "They should be catching real criminals" is the argument used to complain about the police arresting people who have committed a crime because there are more serious crimes.
The argument here is that just because the US isn't the worst, doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything.
Except cops are out catching real criminals as well, there are lots of cops. If the entire police department are out catching speeding drivers and dealing with no other crime then "they should be catching more serious criminals" is a valid point.
How much capital (financial, political, human, technical) does Wikileaks spend focusing on each country around the world? How would that list correlate with the worst human rights abusers, the most opaque governments.
This of course in a week when the Azerbaijan presidential elections have just seen the results accidentally released before voting even opened...
So when information literally falls into their hands and they still refuse to publish because it happens to be embarrassing to Ecuador, what then? Do we finally get to point out that WikiLeaks is biased in their own investigations, and has been since their major redesign?
Who put them in that position? The US. You can't blame them for wanting to stay alive. If I chase you into a bear den, I can't blame you for staying quiet.
I appreciate the fact that that was the argument being made.
>> The argument here is that just because the US isn't the worst, doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything.
I did not say that you should give the US a pass (I in fact explicitly stated the opposite). I did state that if you claim to oppose some common ill of humanity that you should probably focus on where it is most ill.
If I decide to fight malaria, I should probably look at Africa as a good place to do my work.
If I decide to fight corrupt, oppressive, and deceitful governments I should probably look at states with the most distasteful human rights records.
If you decide to learn to swim, do you jump straight into shark infested waters?
If you anger the US government they will (generally) initiate legal proceedings to see you in court. Even if you think the legal proceedings against you are a sham, you (generally) get your day in court which are (mostly) fair. If you anger China or NK they (generally) don't bother with even that much pretense and you may be tried, convicted and executed before anyone even realizes you're missing.
Because of the structural arrangement and pay-to-play financial details of the American legal system, "mostly fair" is an extraordinarily generous characterization of how you will be treated.
So with that mindset, why are you arguing against WikiLeaks on Hacker News? There are FAR worse example of breaking your set of rules where you should probably focus.
Read this very internal memo and decide for yourself. Surely, you could argue for China and Russia breaking human rights, but they don't portray themselves as the moral authority in the world.
The document says this: kill squads, assassination, execution, immunity for the soldiers doing the assassinations. What the documents don't say - destabilize the region, overthrowing foreign governments for political benefit(you could argue they're just playing the geopolitics game with Russia), political exiles, breaching their own constitution in whatever way they can, hacking and cracking(surely an individual hacker would've gotten 50 or so life sentences for the things they've done).
> Read this very internal memo and decide for yourself. Surely, you could argue for China and Russia breaking human rights, but they don't portray themselves as the moral authority in the world.
Russia does, do they not? Were you not paying attention for Snowden or Syria? If Russia is not a moral authority that is at least compatible with WikiLeaks's moral goals then why would Assange host a television show on the state-sponsored Russia Today channel?
>then why would Assange host a television show on the state-sponsored Russia Today channel?
Plenty of possible reasons for that. One would be b/c there's no way Assange could get a TV show in the US, but RT has a decent Youtube following here.
You should read about the secret wars the US has led in Cambodia, their interventions of democratically elected governments in all of Latin America. I'm sure you must have heard of Iran-Contra, the funding of repressing Middle East dictactors.
I think you should really, really read up on some history.
[1] No judgement, I've had a decent amount of scotch and to each their own, but really?
[edit: legalize it, and then tax it, and give me a tax break :) ]