Not surprising, WikiLeaks founder had a short rein as my hero. The reason is that his crusade to topple governments and hopefully bring about higher standards of accountability and disclosure fell apart on philosophical grounds. It seems that Julian Assange is as unprincipled as his counterparts in the government. The reason I say this is because he is displaying poor judgement as to what constitutes 'public information'.
I don't for a moment accept the arguments of the Obama administration or US military that WikiLeaks is placing lives at risk. There is no evidence to suggest that is true. The problem is that he is disclosing information which reflects sensible US defence or security interests, such as the following security disclosure with NZ. Does the public need to know the details of this.
The public needs to know how governments conduct themselves, and the public needs to know that governments are universally corrupt and poorly administered. The reason they need to know is because they need to recognise that they ought to be as small as possible, and accountable as possible. This is not the case now. There is one set of rules for the public, and another set for government.
The problem of course is that Assange is a die-hard liberal who holds a lot of contempt for the US foreign policy. I get that. The US is a shocker! But then so is Assange. There is a 'middle place' between loving government and hating it. That place is not a 'place of compromise', but a place of principles applied and considered in context. I would hope it involves:
1. Reason as the standard of value
2. Open and honest dialogue with foreign countries
3. Standards of conduct between people and nations
Assange is persecuting the US government in the same senseless way that the US is persecuting the world. This is the senseless dichotomy we get from 'left-right' debates. These political poles mean nothing because they are 'false dischotomies' or forms of collectivism. There is little objective regard for principle in what Assange is doing, and their is no objective principle in the hacking of WikiLeaks servers by the US government. They are both perpetrators battling it out in the same sense as kings fought kings. In those days, kings resolved to persecute their citizens instead. We have as much with China and the USA. China is adopting markets and the US is adopting central planning...and we will all drift towards tyranny together....so its all happy happy ever after....happy.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
