Why the US Govt Should Be Happy About Wikileaks 232
angry tapir writes "WikiLeaks' leaking of classified information should be considered a blessing for the US government, and other governments should take heed of the lessons when it comes to information sharing, according to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) research associate, Professor Mike Nelson, who spent four years as Senator Al Gore's science adviser and served as the White House director for technology policy on IT, and was also a member of Barack Obama presidential campaign."
If You Are Right (Score:2, Interesting)
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If you are right, then you have nothing to hide.
Hmm, let's see how accurate that statement is by using a little political gedankenexperiment.
Husband: "I'm sorry... that information is classified."
Wife: "If you are right, then you have nothing to hide."
Husband: "OK, since you put it that way, that dress reveals exactly how overweight you are."
Do you think the outcome of this scenario will make the Husband happy that he was open and honest?
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If his wife is that stupid that she wants people to lie to her rather than just eating better, he shouldn't have married her..
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If his wife is that stupid that she wants people to lie to her rather than just eating better, he shouldn't have married her..
Since I can see that you're clearly still single, would you mind if I live vicariously through you?
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I'm happy with that prospect at the moment :P I have only had one girlfriend so far who was actually that histrionic about her weight though. I tend to go for the types who actually look after themselves, and are at least semi-rational. Admittedly that type of woman is pretty rare.
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Seriously though - the one time in my life I did know a girl that obsessive about it, she seemed to be the only one who wouldn't do anything about it. Damn kids.
Re:If You Are Right (Score:4, Funny)
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My thoughts exactly, sane female. Do you happen to be available for a procreation simulation anytime soon?
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Sadly, as a sane female, I will have to politely decline the prospect. I'd be crazy if I took up every offer from internet strangers
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Damnit, I got the protocol all mixed up. Handshake first, procreation second..
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Define "know".
Re:If You Are Right (Score:5, Funny)
If you are right, then you have nothing to hide.
Hmm, let's see how accurate that statement is by using a little political gedankenexperiment.
Husband: "I'm sorry... that information is classified." Wife: "If you are right, then you have nothing to hide." Husband: "OK, since you put it that way, that dress reveals exactly how overweight you are."
The husband can safely and honestly answer "no" to "Does this dress make me look fat." He might not choose to add "It's not the dress, it's all those burgers and fries."
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Really? I think people would settle just for the honesty at this point. Currently they aren't getting either one of those things.
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It works well enough for me.
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In a negotiation, it seems perfectly reasonable to hide your ultimate fallback position. If there is space between your ultimate fallback and the other guys ultimate fallback (i.e. the negotiations have a chance of succeeding), you want to capture as much of that space as possible. Revealing your stopping point allows the other guy to claim all the space by demanding that.
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Speaking idealistically, if your ultimate fallback position in all negotiations represents the boundaries with which you would be content, then does it really matter whether somebody else has gobbled up all of the grey area? I appreciate that some aspects of human nature drive us to acquire more than we really need. On the other hand, that drive is responsible for a lot of conflict and can't really be considered a trustworthy guideline for long-term peace. If we want to promote stable, consensual peace,
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Note that I am describing people negotiating on price. I do not suggest that people lie, cover up flaws, collude, or participate in other similar immoral activities to achieve thi
Re:If You Are Right (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, we can consider price as the example. If I'm willing to pay as $3 for a loaf of bread and the seller is willing to accept as little as $2.50 for it, then there's 50 cents of grey area in there for us to negotiate over. If I were being REALLY idealistic, I'd say that we both reveal that information and then agree on $2.75 as the final price because we want to be fair to one another. Alternately, I offer $2.50 at first; the seller requests $3.00 at first, and we negotiate toward $2.75.
I am, however, willing to pay $3 for the bread. I don't think it's being "taken advantage of" if I offer $3 and end up paying it. So what if the guy selling the bread makes 50 cents that he didn't really expect to make? So what if I could have had a share of that 50 cents? If I have set my boundaries such that paying $3 for a loaf of bread allows me to be content with my purchase, then I have no reason for complaint. In my opinion, this is a fundamental flaw in what I consider to be the typical free market. People allow their utility, wellbeing, happiness, etc. to be predicated on their ability to capture that grey area.
Put another way, I don't think it's reasonable to choose to be happy because I saved a quarter on a loaf of bread and merely indifferent about getting a loaf of bread at my threshold price. I think it's more reasonable to choose to be happy about enjoying my bread that I paid a fair price for rather than fretting over how much less I could have paid for that bread.
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If you are right, then you have nothing to hide.
It has little to do with hiding information because of being 'right.' It has to do with hiding the information from those who would use it to harm others or the interests of said country. To keep in line with your thought process, why do so many companies keep their IR&D facilities on such tight lock down? They are protecting their own interests. And if you think that not hiding all information will make you safer, I think there is a bridge in Brooklyn you can buy.
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> And if you think that not hiding all information will make you safer,
> I think there is a bridge in Brooklyn you can buy.
I take exception to the "all" in that sentence. I certainly believe that some information should be hidden, as someone else mentioned, the location of my submarines, the nuclear launch codes, etc. But there's also other information that makes us safer by helping others understand our intent, and that information MUST be open. To coin a new term, the "bear analogy". I think we
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It isn't the nuclear subs or troop positions that need to be revealed. It is all the other stuff that our government and the corporations hides from us to keep us from seeing how we, the people, are being ripped off by them.
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Nobody has leaked the positions of nuclear subs to the public, though. The leaks mostly pertain to things like incompetence, shady back-door dealings and civilian casualties. Many of the leaked documents contain strategic information too, but so far, the strategic importance seems to have been very minor. That damage has mostly consisted of embarrassment for the military and the politicians.
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True enough.
However (there's always a however)..
Way back during Desert Storm, the US military allowed reporters to embed with various military units.
On the first night of the ground war, there was a reporter reporting on international TV (CNN), with camera footage, that the tank battalion he was with had moved up from their start line to the edge of a berm in Kuwait.
The reporter even went so far as to say (on international TV, remembe
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maybe act like responsible adults for a change? (Score:2)
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Re:If You Are Right (Score:5, Informative)
If invading Iraq was the safest course of action, why did the Bush government have to mislead Congress with outrageous claims about an army of unmanned drones ready to strike against America?
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
In October 2002, a few days before the US Senate vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that the Iraqi government had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones that could be launched from ships off the US' Atlantic coast to attack US eastern seaboard cities. Colin Powell suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that UAVs were transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the United States. In fact, Iraq had no offensive UAV fleet or any capability of putting UAVs on ships.[90] Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of less than a handful of outdated Czech training drones.[91] At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community whether the CIA's conclusions about Iraq's UAV fleet were accurate. The US Air Force agency denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.[92]
It's not just in hindsight the government's course of action looks insane; even back then, a lot of people pointed out how they systematically picked and chose intelligence reports to support their pre-determined conclusion.
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I am appalled that anyone was dumb enough to believe that claim. Most of the Iraqi navy was destroyed during the first Gulf War and back in 2002 they couldn't even send a single ship to fight the invading forces. Their navy was a joke, practically non-existent.
And yet somehow they were going to get their ultra high-tech stealth boats past satellite radar systems and underwater listening stations to launch these drones within range of the US mainland. What exactly was their plan afterwards to deal with the b
Mike Nelson? (Score:5, Funny)
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Lol, as soon as I read "Professor Mike Nelson, who spent four years as Senator Al Gore's science advise" all the credibility the article had vanished.
An Inconvenient Truth had so many anti-scientific mistakes with it (the Drowning Polar Bear Myth, the Global-warming-caused-Katrina Myth, and so forth), that even RealClimate.org's apologetic review of the movie had to admit them (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/).
There's all sorts of good sources of information about AGW o
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Right. The scientists at RealClimate hated the film's science, as noted by the following quotes:
They were especially critical of its handling of Katrina:
After do
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Besides, if you want good advice, everyone knows you go to Joel Hodgson. He was the one who figured out how to escape.
Yeah, so bad (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yeah, so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
What did you expect an official commission to say? That privacy and freedom are more precious than safety and that the terrorists win if we turn into a police state because of their actions?
Duh. I tell you what else they won't say. They won't say that maybe we wouldn't have these problems if we didn't keep meddling in the Middle East's affairs, often brutally. Nah, there is no connection between repeatedly provoking them and finally getting attacked by them. Clearly information sharing now that they already want to attack us, yeah that's the real issue.
Government lies to you. It lies to you routinely, naturally, and without remorse. Why you fucks can't bring yourselves to accept it is the only mystery.
Re:Yeah, so (Score:2, Funny)
What makes you think you deserve to be told the truth? That's a huge assumption in itself.
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What makes you think you deserve to be told the truth? That's a huge assumption in itself.
Because the government works for me, and is paid for by my money?
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What makes you think you deserve to be told the truth? That's a huge assumption in itself.
Because the government works for me, and is paid for by my money.
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Government lies to you. It lies to you routinely, naturally, and without remorse. Why you fucks can't bring yourselves to accept it is the only mystery.
Maybe because we shouldn't ?!?
Re:Yeah, so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's also worth recalling that the "meddling" that Osama bin Laden was concerned about was Operation Desert Shield. Not Storm, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, but Shield when the U.S., at the Saudi government's request, led a multinational coalition of forces to defend Arabia. He was upset that non-Muslims and non-Arabs were allowed to set foot in the land of the two cities, even if they were 1,000 km away from Mecca. To call this a justification for terrorism, you would have to assume that OBL is the proper au
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No plane hit W7C. Yet it got demolished the same day. Loosely quoted: "It got pulled". Yeah, along with numerous evidence material against the rich and powerful.
People are easily misled by the wrong people, especially those who think themselves smart.
Hahaha. Is this irony?
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The lack of information sharing may very well have been a factor - though there surely at the time were plenty of ways for such agencies to share information. Why they didn't, or didn't do so successfully, that's a whole different matter. When you have the solution to the puzzle it's always much easier to put the pieces together. When you don't have that solution - some pieces may appear to be unrelated, while they belong to the same puzzle. On top of that, effective information sharing between thousands of
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Secondly, - slipping into conspiracy theory mode - how do we know that the public report of the commission is really the complete report? Were there parts kept under wraps, that could have embarrassed certain people in powerful positions? That there was more to blame for the attacks?
Because it wasn't in Wikileaks.
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False, the CIA trained the Mujahideen, some of whom joined Al Qaeda decades later, but just as many have fought against Al Qaeda.
Too bad about Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
"was also a member of Barack Obama presidential campaign."
Too bad the Obama administration hasn't done anything to increase openness - in fact, they've done just the opposite.
If only this guy had actually been appointed to a position of power - or maybe this kind of opinion is why he wasn't.
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If only this guy had actually been appointed to a position of power ...
... then he too may have changed his tune.
More to the point (Score:5, Insightful)
95 per cent of those leaked memos were incredibly well written and well reasoned, with one paragraph that might be sensitive
And the other 5% are the ones that cause a scandal. And while they may help garner domestic support (which is unlikely, because the media only covers that 5%), diplomacy could get a lot trickier when you have to explain your conversations with others.
Before I get modded into oblivion for this, all I'm not passing judgement on Wikileaks in either direction. Leaking can be argued as being necessary depending on the situation, but saying that the US government should be happy about it is just ridiculous.
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Perhaps. OTOH it might actually be easier in the long run if you deal with people openly and honestly. Too often when people start talking about Wikileaks effect on diplomacy people (though not specifically the person whose post I'm replying to) end up making diplomacy sound like some sort of game played be old men who get a kick out of pulling levers and trying mould the world to their will rather than the art of ar
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Open and honest behavior is only valued in specific cultures and is considered highly arrogant and insulting in others.
The world is a bad place full of vicious people, so as there are no good guys one must deal with governments and people as they are, not as we would have them.
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Also, like it or not, a lot of diplomacy is playing the game. The other guy lies
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Hmmm, if your wife ask you if she looks fat in that particular outfit, do you answer her "open and honestly"?
I answer politely and honestly. She can see through when I'm lying, since she has no illusions about herself, and only by being honest can I make her believe me when I give her compliments.
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Ya, what bothers me more than anything else about the leaks is how much of it is stuff that is of no public benefit but that some of it is things that hurts diplomacy.
A working diplomatic process is a really important thing in the world if we want any kind of peace and stability. That is the reason for things like diplomatic immunity. Countries recognize that it is so important to have unhindered diplomacy.
Well another side of that is that diplomats and their staff and advisers need to be free to talk among
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Unfortunately the line between important shady stuff which the pubic should know and what would hurt them to know is very blurry.
You're also not only talking about one country.
For example: meetings with politicians in other states where they give US intelligence staff regular updates may be dull and uninteresting to US citizens.
Recently some cables hit the news: they were about politicians in my country meeting with US embassy staff and quite clearly show them saying one thing in private while at the same
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The government should be happy about leaks which expose corruption and lawbreaking - it means the leaker is basically doing the job the police would have done if they could. And for free!
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Actually, no. Most of the ones that caused "scandals" did so because they told uncomfortable truths. Like that our Packastani "allies" were actually in cahoots with the terrorists, or that Israel wasn't even trying for peace.
My personal favorite was the one that revealed [about.com] that the US was actually not all that close to, or fond of, Tunisian strongman Ben-Ali, and that his government was a laughable cesspool of corruption. He'd held onto power in part by convincing his people that he unreservedly had the US'
It depends on the objective. (Score:5, Interesting)
He's right if the U.S. government's objective is to promote freedom and democracy. The cables certainly show the rampant corruption in the world, the injustices everywhere, and that the United States government recognizes and responds to them.
However, Obama is actually more interested in stability in the region, and will do everything to maintain that regardless of what it takes to achieve that stability. There's a reason one of the most repressive governments in the world is considered a close ally, while a democratically-elected president is constantly being vilified.
The leaked cables has actually caused the opposite effect. And because of the instability of the middle east region, oil and thus gas prices are higher than they otherwise should be. High gas prices are detrimental to an economy trying to dig itself out of a recessionary hole. Which the egg-on-his-face notwithstanding, is why Obama is generally against such whistleblowing.
Re:It depends on the objective. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Obama is actually more interested in stability in the region, and will do everything to maintain that regardless of what it takes to achieve that stability.
As Noam Chomsky points out, in US foreignpolicyspeak "stability" means "obedience to US corporate demands".
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You say that like it's a bad thing. Bad for US industry, energy supplies, etc., is bad for our unemployment rate, CPI, etc.
That doesn't mean that corporate greed should run the show, but Chomsky is so cynical about stuff like this he stumbles onto the truth like a blind squirrel finding a nut in a grove of trees that it can't see.
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Maybe the Noam-Chomsky-quoting-AC has the radical idea that the people in those foreign countries should be allowed to make up their own minds and have their own government that does what is good for *them*, not necessarily good for the USA.
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Damn right. GP has an imperialist attitude towards other countries.
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I don't think he's ever claimed to be an "economics expert". He writes/speaks his opinions about various topics just as anyone should have the right to do, even if they are not a so called "expert". I noticed that you didn't actually attack any of his positions, you just say he doesn't have the correct training so we shouldn't listen to him. And you criticize his writing style by linking to Chomskybot? You do realize that chomskybot is a computer program and not the actual writing of Noam Chomsky. I co
Re:It depends on the objective. (Score:4, Insightful)
As Noam Chomsky points out, in US foreignpolicyspeak "stability" means "obedience to US corporate demands".
Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune. The United States offers a host of pretty compelling benefits, not among the least of which is the protection of our vast military, to our allies and friends. It's only natural that we should ask for certain things in return for these benefits. That's the way the world works after all.
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As Noam Chomsky points out, in US foreignpolicyspeak "stability" means "obedience to US corporate demands".
Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune. The United States offers a host of pretty compelling benefits, not among the least of which is the protection racket of our vast military, to our allies and friends. It's only natural that we should ask for certain things in return for these benefits. That's the way the world works after all.
There, corrected it for you.
"Prosperous little democracy you have there going. It would be such a shame if something happened to it."
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In all fairness, we expect obedience to our political demands as well.
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To clarify:
'Stability' does not mean 'peace' or 'happiness of the local people' or whatever else in the context of the post above.
'Stability' means things are calm and thus, easy for politicians and governments to deal with. The local population could be forced into working like slaves for their nation's leaders, women could be raped daily, kids taken from their parents to be brainwashed into becoming soldiers, as long as the people don't rebel against their government it's considered 'stable'.
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Obama is interested in *short-term* stability.
Actual democracy would be the key to long-term stability.
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Oh, yes... let's turn all government functions directly over to the people, such as those currently running amok at 4chan. The point of TFA is that the leaked cables show that international policymaking is hard, and the US government should be "looking on the bright side" and pointing out the tough situations the diplomats work in on a daily basis. Do you really think that high-school dropout down the street will be better at diplomacy than the appointed diplomat we have now?
Short-term stability makes a muc
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I note sadly that your idealistic view blatantly ignores a moral and political conundrum. Stated simply:
What do the US and her allies do when a couple of these newly minted democracies follow the path of Iran? Do we do nothing, save applauding them from the sidelines for their democratically free and fair election of a hard-line government which immediately threatens us and our allies in the region with extinction? Do we decry their militaristic threats while filing protests, motions for censure and impo
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This is the hypocrisy that the world hates the US for.
Your government plays the democracy tune when they wish a people to overthrow a tyranny that doesn't suit their agenda. And when a peaceful, fair election [wikipedia.org] such as the one in Palestine happens, and somebody who you don't like gets elected, the West get their panties in a twist and starts their pathetic economic bullying [nytimes.com].
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[Two axioms: A moral absolute and the value of life.]
I maintain clearly that there is an absolute good and moral right (as in right and wrong). The hard part is living up to this absolute good and moral right. All governments face this incredible difficulty from time to time, it seems to me.
But to call for the extermination of a nation or a people (a la Iran in present times) is wrong. It is evil. A democratically elected government whose stated aim, from their initiation, is to kill or destroy others i
Re:It depends on the objective. (Score:5, Interesting)
Let us not forget that democracy gives the people the ability to choose things contrary to what other people choose. It is much easier (and cheaper) to sway a politician than to sway the masses. Germany and france didn't come around to their current borders until about 1956/57 when the french gave up on taking over the Saar. That is, after 900 years of stabbing, shooting and occupying each other, the recent total occupation of cosmopolitan france, and all of a (a newly defined) germany, the killing of millions of people - they were still squabbling over who gets to keep what for themselves for a decade.
People, as a whole, can, and will choose what benefits them, even if it as at the expense of someone else. If we give people democracy a hell of a lot of them aren't going to go the nelson mandella truth and reconciliation route, they are going to demand territories which cannot be given voluntarily. And who do you side with? How do you even define what is a legitimate democratic outcome or not, is a majority of people in the middle east a legitimate democratic outcome, or does it need to be done country by country? If the world votes against the US existing and decides to carve it up and redistrict it back to mexico, spain the UK and various native inhabitants, is that democracy we want to support?
Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems but by itself it is a path to a very dark place, albeit rarely, but those places are very dark. The challenge the world faces is building systems which both represent the best interests of the people, including taking their opinion into account, and resolving when those two things (best interests and desires) do not align. But if people will vote for less taxes, more spending, conquest at the expense of others and so on, then democracy is unsustainable, and must be balanced by control from people who actually have some sense. The people who are in control, are, in turn, hopefully balanced against being nuts and can be removed if they fail that test. But democracy has a tendency to form a feedback loop of corruption and incompetence. I'm sure there's ways to deal with that, but not in a /. post.
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"Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems...." In conjunction with what other systems? How are they formed? How do they operate? How can they prevent a people or a nation from going down "a path to a very dark place?" I see many deep and deeply principled assertions here, but with nothing of substance to support them, only wishes and dreams :(
This is precisely why "[m]any forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of si
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Oh, come on. Constitutions, representative government rather than direct referenda on day-to-day issues, an apolitical judiciary and civil service, an apolitical military, supernational organizations like NATO and the UN, international law, worldwide treaties on issues of global import, and international human rights tribunals all serve to prevent the darkest excesses of democracy. In themselves they are all anti-democratic, but they make possible an environment in which democracies can thrive.
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Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems but by itself it is a path to a very dark place, albeit rarely, but those places are very dark. The challenge the world faces is building systems which both represent the best interests of the people, including taking their opinion into account, and resolving when those two things (best interests and desires) do not align. But if people will vote for less taxes, more spending, conquest at the expense of others and so on, then democracy is unsustainable, and must be balanced by control from people who actually have some sense. The people who are in control, are, in turn, hopefully balanced against being nuts and can be removed if they fail that test. But democracy has a tendency to form a feedback loop of corruption and incompetence. I'm sure there's ways to deal with that, but not in a /. post.
The short version appears to be: Sir_Sri believes the majority of people at large are too stupid to be trusted to manage the government, but there's the possibility of some enlightened despots who are less stupid than the masses. That's been the excuse of every not-so-enlightened despot in history.
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That sounds mostly like nonsense coming from someone who don't know his history. The truth is that most people are relatively reasonable if you make sure they cannot make rash decisions. That's why democracy works pretty well, much better than previous and contemporary competing systems. It's not infallible, and of course, people need to have access to accurate information. But overall it does work.
As you say, democracy needs to be checked against the masses trampling over some people. But democracies reali
Re:It depends on the objective. (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you're talking about Hitler, that's not really what happened. He got some power, then abused that massively to suppress the democratic institutions, which by the way were relatively young in Germany at that point (the Weimar Republic was established in 1918). Those institutions were also under pressure from other groups, including conservatives. Keep in mind that Germany had enormous problems in the aftermath of the first World War and the conditions that were imposed upon the country.
I was looking for s
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However, Obama is actually more interested in stability in the region
As has every president since at least WW II. Can't have Pax Americana if the barbarians are running amok, can we?
And because of the instability of the middle east region, oil and thus gas prices are higher than they otherwise should be. High gas prices are detrimental to an economy trying to dig itself out of a recessionary hole. Which the egg-on-his-face notwithstanding, is why Obama is generally against such whistleblowing.
No, he's against it because he's a politician - and they absolutely fucking hate it when peasants like Assange get all fucking uppity.
Gas prices? The economy? Fuck me. For the cost of one of our wargasms in the Middle East, our government could subsidize gas to 1980's levels without adding anything more to the national debt.
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I'm guessing the repressive government is Saudi Arabia. Don't know who the democratically-elected president is.
They're not simple to dismiss. (Score:5, Interesting)
Leaks are almost inevitable in a relatively free society - as long as the information is in a usable state, and it is used by people, it pretty much will be leaked eventually if people care to leak it.
As far as distributors of sunshine (breaks in secrecy, disinfecting stagnant air) go, Wikileaks is rather benign - they exercise considerable restraint and editorial control considering their size and content they process.
The problem isn't their arguable responsibility though, it is the relative difficulty in getting rational people to dismiss their evidence, the difficulty in painting them as a poisoned source of valid information. Certainly it is tried - all the logical fallacies that exist are thrown against them at a fairly constant rate, but they are still viewed as a valid source of important information.
Since they don't delve purely in talking point - just releasing information from sources known as valid, their points are fairly solid - whatever you think of their practices.
Ask Newt Gingrich - claiming a problem exists because you were quoted accurately and directly doesn't get you very far.
Ryan Fenton
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Ask Newt Gingrich - claiming a problem exists because you were quoted accurately and directly doesn't get you very far.
I think you understimate the ability for partisans to accept doublethink and cognitive dissonance when it suits their purposes.
Uh-huh (Score:2)
Arab Brothers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Iranians are not Arabs.
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Yes. He probably meant "Muslim". It's a common mistake.
To be fair, his exact words are not contradictory to knowing all of that:
... because he thought he was well-loved by his Arab brothers.
The statement is that his brothers (in Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia) are Arab (which they are), not that he, himself, is. I'm for giving him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Shachar
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Iranians are not Arabs.
Iran's native population is indeed Persian, but the current ruling party and its enforcers is mostly Arab. Arabs have a tight grip on Islam on account of its history, and when the Persians fell for the religion, it gave the Arabs ideological power over them. From ideological power eventually comes political and then physical power.
This is one of the motivators for the recent uprising: Persians who are fed up with their mostly-Arab government and its Arab goon squads.
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Arabs, Persians... they're all the same because they have the same skin color, right? I mean, Germans and the French may as well be the same, too... they're both the same skin color and from a geographically close area...
lol @ CSC (Score:2)
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o_O (Score:2)
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Obviously not (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it actually manage to do something in a reasonable timescale without completely stuffing it up?
Yes?
Well in that case the CIA are not running it.
Remember that the only reason Homeland Security exists is because the CIA was unable to be a centre to co-ordinate all of those other intelligence agencies - you know, the job the CIA was set up to do in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember that the only reason Homeland Security exists is because the CIA was unable to be a centre to co-ordinate all of those other intelligence agencies - you know, the job the CIA was set up to do in the first place.
CIA didn't cause the DHS... it was NSA.
Must see Nova - The Spy Factory:
part 1 [youtube.com]
part 2 [youtube.com]
part 3 [youtube.com]
part 4 [youtube.com]
part 5 [youtube.com]
part 6 [youtube.com]
part 7 [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you look at a lot of the information provided by wikileaks it doesn't make the US look bad
The US is not all that bad. Sure we have our problems (who doesn't), but even in poverty I am able to live resonably well. The kings of old did not have it as good as I do. There may be lots that I can complain about (I wont - it does no good), but their is a reason that illegal imigration is a problem here. That is we have a very high standard of living even for most people who are considered poor.
I do not understand why people expect the US to be bad or evil.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think people expect the USA to be a bad place to live in. Here in Europe, the USA is often called "the motor of the western economy". It's well-known that it's a rich industrialised nation, comparable to Germany, France and northern Europe. It's well-known that millions of Mexican immigrants live illegally in the USA for economic reasons. Most political and economic trends start in the USA and spread over to Europe after a few years. It's well-known that most of the inventions that have changed mode
Re:What does Private Mean????? (Score:4, Insightful)