The Wikileaks controversy makes me frustrated, then tired, then sad, then disillusioned, then hungry, and finally, sleepy. Oh, and also full of hate. For whom or what do I feel this hate? Here is my hateful list:
1) Conservative loons. O'Reilly's calling for Julian Assange to be executed; Palin wants him to be executed, then dismembered; Beck wants him to be transformed into a tiny puppet for use on his show. According to the booming right-wing patriotic voices of hate, Assange is the worst thing to happen to modern civilization since last week (when probably Obama did something that was really awful).
2) Liberal loons. They love this. They get to go on about democracy and citizen's rights and transparency, all the while positively quivering with self-righteous intensity. They refuse to acknowledge that a state should be permitted, under any circumstances, to not tell its people that it secretly thinks Canada's a sissy or France is badly dressed. And I'm not minimizing the significance of the Wikileaks revelations for the sake of questionable funniness: from what I can tell, these documents either reveal things that have already been revealed or do things like make fun of Angela Merkel's haircuts. It's like hundreds of tween diaries have suddenly been released upon the world.
3) Julian Assange. First of all, he's creepy. He looks kind of like a malignant albino otter. Also, he appears to be a bit of a hypocrite. He demanded news organizations sign confidentiality agreements before giving them access to the documents. Which means he concedes that in some circumstances secrecy is advisable. And in a recent interview, he got up and walked out because the interviewer refused to steer clear of certain subjects (she asked whether he thought the sex assault charges laid against him in Sweden were politically motivated, which would seem to be a not unsympathetic question). Which means that he is willing to champion transparency as long as it doesn't apply to him.
4) Me. I can never seem to be self-assuredly principled. I believe that people should be entitled to know things and that sometimes people should be allowed to conceal things. I hate smug idealists and I hate smug self-professed pragmatists. I'm trying to rustle up the energy to imagine myself an enlightened moderate, but who likes enlightened moderates? Not I.
1) Conservative loons. O'Reilly's calling for Julian Assange to be executed; Palin wants him to be executed, then dismembered; Beck wants him to be transformed into a tiny puppet for use on his show. According to the booming right-wing patriotic voices of hate, Assange is the worst thing to happen to modern civilization since last week (when probably Obama did something that was really awful).
2) Liberal loons. They love this. They get to go on about democracy and citizen's rights and transparency, all the while positively quivering with self-righteous intensity. They refuse to acknowledge that a state should be permitted, under any circumstances, to not tell its people that it secretly thinks Canada's a sissy or France is badly dressed. And I'm not minimizing the significance of the Wikileaks revelations for the sake of questionable funniness: from what I can tell, these documents either reveal things that have already been revealed or do things like make fun of Angela Merkel's haircuts. It's like hundreds of tween diaries have suddenly been released upon the world.
3) Julian Assange. First of all, he's creepy. He looks kind of like a malignant albino otter. Also, he appears to be a bit of a hypocrite. He demanded news organizations sign confidentiality agreements before giving them access to the documents. Which means he concedes that in some circumstances secrecy is advisable. And in a recent interview, he got up and walked out because the interviewer refused to steer clear of certain subjects (she asked whether he thought the sex assault charges laid against him in Sweden were politically motivated, which would seem to be a not unsympathetic question). Which means that he is willing to champion transparency as long as it doesn't apply to him.
4) Me. I can never seem to be self-assuredly principled. I believe that people should be entitled to know things and that sometimes people should be allowed to conceal things. I hate smug idealists and I hate smug self-professed pragmatists. I'm trying to rustle up the energy to imagine myself an enlightened moderate, but who likes enlightened moderates? Not I.
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POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
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