Thank you for this: Maybe Assange did something in poor judgement, not sure. Maybe conviction
of something is appropriate. Regardless it's pretty clear that other things are more important, and anybody working on pursuing him is either coerced, confused, misled, otherwise stuck, or hoping to actually help him somehow.
So you acknowledge that there is a reasonable chance he should in fact be convicted of one or more crimes. But you are saying that we *shouldn't even have a trial* -- and instead Biden should "pardon assange as being obviously hounded and targeted for trying to help everyone". And you are concluding he's been "obviously hounded" based on social media and news reports? So you know, for certain, that there is no substance to Sweden's claims of sexual assault? And you are saying, if the tables were turned, and it was your daughter who had accused him of assaulting her -- and everything else in the news reports were the same -- you'd feel that justice was served by him being pardoned *despite you him having are reasonable chance of being correctly convicted if he went to trial*? I just cannot believe you are serious. It feels like you are ignoring any kind of "equality under the law" argument to pick and choose who gets justice, based on what you *want* to be true, without following any actual process to determine what *is* true. That feels an irresponsible position. So "cop" is just a guess? Why are you skeptical of Punk's assessment of my guilt being "obviously some kind of US cop pushing chat malware", when you wholly agree with his assessment of Assange's innocence? He's saying I'm "obviously" guilty, and also saying that Assange is "obviously" innocent. It feels that he is very comfortable deciding absolute truth based on his personal instincts as to what is obvious. Are you? -david On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 3:27 PM Karl <gmkarl@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jul 5, 2021, 6:05 PM David Barrett <dbarrett@expensify.com> wrote:
Again, you *still* aren't saying anything specific about whether Assange should be treated equally under the law, or not.
I am trying to honestly respond to you. I don't have the best memory.
I would give everyone equal treatment and pardon assange as being obviously hounded and targeted for trying to help everyone, as should be done for anyone struggling to save the world.
Maybe Assange did something in poor judgement, not sure. Maybe conviction of something is appropriate. Regardless it's pretty clear that other things are more important, and anybody working on pursuing him is either coerced, confused, misled, otherwise stuck, or hoping to actually help him somehow.
You have suggested we find some "free criminal mediation" system that
somehow serves as an alternative to the court system, but explained nothing about how it would be different than the *free court system* (ie, that provides you with an attorney at no cost) that
Mediation involves learning to understand each other enough to resolve the conflict. There is no debate nor punishment. It is quite different.
already exists. This has nothing to do with whether Assange should be
tried.
Basically true. I didn't realise you meant policy that related to immediate concerns regarding Assange.
You have suggested that "new officials' activities were all publicly
logged" without explaining what that means, or acknowledging the tremendous amount of publicly logged information already available about our politicians and why that is inadequate (or even what specific changes
It is incredibly hard to access, and leaves avenues for them to commit crimes. Surveilled criminals do not have these avenues: our leaders should not either or, by mathematical process of natural selection, the two sets will trend to merge (criminals and leaders).
you would make). This has nothing to do with whether Assange should be
tried.
Yes.
You have said "Wouldn't it be great if profit-motivated information
dispersal were to not happen?" which doesn't actually explain what that is, why it's a problem, or what you would
Paid advertisements. Outlaw (or otherwise cause to stop) paid advertisement and similar things so we can make our own freakin decisions. The problem is that horrible decisions are being made on a huge scale because of huge amounts of money trying to cause them.
change to make it better. And so far as I can tell, this also has nothing
to do with whether Assange can be tried.
These things are all related to the situation in my personal political analysis but are not related to the thread. I guess I didn't quite understand.
To the degree you have been clear about anything, it seems you feel
Assange should not be tried in any global jurisdiction for any of his many indictments. But you haven't explained by what process you are advocating we override the normal course of the legal process. I know you don't like it when I put words in your mouth, but are you essentially saying "If there is enough social media outrage, normal legal process should be suspended"?
That paragraph you just wrote is really great.
It's not me you're talking to: it's everyone who supports Assange.
People have no idea how to act on this. They don't know what to do. I'm sure if we talked about it with somebody who knew the systems, we could figure it out.
Anyway: publicly investigate all the crimes assange's people exposed, and the systems underlying those crimes. publicly investigate the processes leading to assange's harassment and targeting. Protect our journalists and whistleblowers.
We are too upset and disrupted to really come together around the new laws needed without help.
One of these problems in when people are targeted with baseless criminal charges. What is done about situations where people are targeted with baseless criminal charges, even planted evidence, in unfriendly environments? What's a normal avenue of recourse? Sure you can get it thrown out of court with effort and luck, but it's quite effective in derailing your life and can continue.
Again, I'm genuinely trying to understand what specific policy changes you
are advocating. And the specifics do matter. It's easy to say "Assange should go free" -- I'm asking you to specify which specific part of the legal process you want changed that would result in Assange (and others who meet whatever conditions you think he does) to avoid even showing up in court at all?
We need to investigate the harassment and targeting of a suspect before bringing the suspect to trial because somebody could have the trial planned to harm them. It would not be justice to convict the wrong person or group.
-david
On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 2:19 PM Karl <gmkarl@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jul 5, 2021, 5:08 PM David Barrett <dbarrett@expensify.com> wrote:
Again, you have sent another email that avoids to state any kind of specific opinion. You are frustrated that I am putting words in your mouth, but it can't help but do so because you aren't saying anything.
You haven't agreed that our justice system should carry out warrants, but you also haven't indicated when it should not.
You haven't agreed that justice should happen in courts, but you also haven't said it shouldn't be.
You haven't really said anything at all that can be pinned down to a specific defined position.
Maybe just to sanity check, why are you in this conversation? Are you trying to refine
I feel upset and disconnected (feeling are reasons, remember: they directly drive our actions via our understanding of things). I want to know I can be friends with you without compromising on what I care about. I want to know we can agree. It's so hard, and I know we can do it.
and articulate a specific opinion? Because that's my goal, I want to
understand actual policies that we can implement and follow, in order to make this world a better place.
I didn't know that.
Wouldn't it be great if mediation were a formal alternative to criminal trials, and were provided free by our government to resolve any other conflicts? Wouldn't it be great if using it were normalised?
Wouldn't it be great if new officials' activities were all publicly logged, for any citizen to watch their behavior? Then we could resolve so so many debates about what is really going on. Implementing that would also need a way to protect them from minority harm.
Wouldn't it be great if profit-motivated information dispersal were to not happen? Then people would have much more fair exposure to what happens, to guide their opinions.
If your goal is exclusively to complain about other people doing bad
jobs without giving them any specific advice on how to do it better, that's not very interesting or useful.
Who is doing a bad job?
Everything you do, you are doing the best you possibly can. Any living creature can't help but do this.
We often learn we need to follow rules and obey regulations. But what's important is doing what is best for everyone, what is most right, in every scenario.
This doesn't mean every individual gets to set what the law is. It means that people need to act in ways they can when it is crucial to do so, and talk to each other about what is real, what they know, and what the actually best course of action is.
Today we have many situations we aren't familiar with treating with laws, for example abuses that involve AI. But we can figure all of these out. There are always innumerable ways; we just don't always think of them on our own.
David
On Mon, Jul 5, 2021, 2:03 PM Karl <gmkarl@gmail.com> wrote:
Anyway if you can honestly help someone in need like Assange, please do so. Otherwise please focus on fixing the world.