Please Defend Wikileaks!

[DaveC]

Ah, another ignorant DaveC post :lol: .
For someone who doesn't even know the difference between Anarchy and Anarchism you manage to write quite a lot about what you surmise to be someones political ideals. Guess you haven't been born into the "lucky brain club", am i right?

FYI: This is the information age, so go and inform yourself before spouting bullshit. And if that's too hard for you, please move to Yahoo! Answers, where ignorance easily passes as knowledge if it is propagated with enough zeal.

And sold, i would advise you to use more arguments and less stereotypes if you want to be taken seriously.

Ah, another smart-ass dickhead post from Fishbong without any kind of constructive argument to prove me wrong. Just the usual condescending name calling and insults.
I guess I should not expect anything different considering the source.

BTW a definition fron Wikipedia: "Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy"
Sounds exactly like what I was talking about. I guess you weren't born into the "lucky brain club" either.

I would advise you to use more arguments and less insults if you want to be taken seriously.

Julian Assange has pissed off many powerful people, and they want his nuts in a sling, but why should people rally for Wikileaks? I think they've bitten themselves in the ass and actually taken a step backwards from their intention to make governments more transparent by being totally irresponsible in their handling of information and their lack of journalism ethics. That's totally why I jumped at the OP.

Imho without capitalism, we wouldn't have evolved socially, technologically and mentally as quickly as we have as a species in the last 100 years. Competition forces people to advance. And that advancement makes for more fierce competition. Evolve or die. I don't see anything wrong there. We all die anyway.

The major problem is dumb assholes. They are the ones who make it necessary for every damn thing that can potentially become a social disease because of irresponsibility to be legislated. So sensible people are oppressed because the lowest common denominator is generally a stupid dick. But even then, the illusion of freedom is still better than the harsh reality of the alternative imho. Because if we were truly free, there would be only one rule. Survival of the fittest.

How would Wikileaks be "responsible" in their journalism? They did redact the names of those that could be targeted and didn't release everything. Without such underground activities we may never know what is really going on. Do you really want to base everything on the news filtered through the corporate media who has their own agenda (mostly their bottom line and keeping a government in place that is friendly to that bottom line)? Do we really want Fox News Channel being our only "news" source? At least with these leaks we can get a feel for what is really going on. Of course "they" don't like Assange exposing them for the rats that they are. Did you ever see the leaked video of the American troops shooting Iraqi civilians from a helicopter? It is quite a bit different from all of the flag waving, chest beating, faux patriotic, Jesus warrior crap they feed us on the main stream media. Should that reality be kept from us? I am not saying Wikileaks is the best and only answer but I would rather have it around than not.

As far as capitalism it is fine when it is done fairly but these days it always isn't. We really don't have pure capitalism. Also the bigger companies can actually stifle innovation. Example: the Pandora, Caanoo etc may be an item that fills a niche but will never compete in a capitalist world because they are small and don't have the resources (money) of the mega-corporations like Sony etc. Could a smaller company come out with a better product than the iPad and survive? Probably not. So even if you have a great idea the "price of entry" into the market will probably keep you out.

The only problem isn't just "dumb assholes" it is also pure greed as well. In the US (I don't know where you are from it may be better) it is all about money. Money and only money. Money controls our government (Representitives here make laws to benefit big corporations so they get their bribes in the guise of "campaign contributions"). We have big money putting ads on the idiot box that make people vote against their own best interests and for the elite (The gap here from the rich to the poor is widening at an alarming and accelerated pace). If someone wants to pass a bill that would help citizens but would cost companies money, guess who wins. This is why banks aren't regulated and are bailed out with tax payer money when they fail. Here they privitize the profits and socialize the losses. Our system here is all "on the take" and is quickly moving towards fascism.

I guess that is where all that anarchism talk comes from. They see the government being corrupt so they want to get rid of it entirely. That isn't the answer either, the answer is to fix it. How to do that is a different thing.

 

[___]

I am not going to use the quote button as that would be silly with so much text and because I am lazy.

@sold: Okay, I can respect that. My remarks about being able to defend myself were not meant as a direct threat. I was reacting to you calling on stereotypes and basically calling us pussies in your first post: "I will close by suggesting that you get a hair cut and eat a goddamn steak before your vagina goes supernova and sucks you past its event horizon"

@DaveC: I never said it to be any different. That is MY ideal of a functioning egalitarian society. I am aware that political theory is far away from practical application. Public services, utilities and technology not being available though? I don't know about that. Anarchism does not contradict capitalism in any way either. There are anarchistic theories that propagate an even more open, anti-corporate free market theory that is very much capitalistic. Anarchism just wants to make it impossible for one person or a small elite to govern the majority however big that majority might be.

As for the idealism argument: Yes, back in times of monarchy, they thought their system was awesome and a republic would be an idealistc and unnecessary change to a well known to be working system. Then when some states became republics most people probably thought democracy would never be achievable and idealistic. I don't know if anarchism is the next step, but we are not done evolving our society and experimention with all kinds of approaches is inevitable. I think I speak for everyone as a self-reflecting freedom seeking individual here (unless there are any monarchists or people favoring dictatorships here) when I say that the attempt to achieve more individual freedom is the common interest in these "experiments".

I do not want to start a discussion about anarchism, libertarianism and political systems. I just wanted sold to reflect on how he was talking. I was offended and I don't have to take disrespect like that so I trolled back.

 

[Chaser]

Interesting discussion folks. I'll add this outside opinion rather late to the party from the day before this thread wound down graciously http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer89.html