Julian Assange is a prick.

blipblop

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roflmaoftw1 said:
It seems to me that a lot of people are missing the point regarding the charges against Assange - whether or not you see the charges as relevant or not doesn't matter.

The bottomline is this; Julian Assange is charged with rape under the Swedish definition of what such an act entails (Sweden might have a more encompassing definition than other countries, which I really have to struggle to see as a bad thing...). Thusly, when within the borders of Sweden, he is legally obliged to follow Swedish law. The charges brought against him indicates that maybe he hasn't, therefore he has to submit to the judicial system of Sweden and be tried in court. Why should he be exempt from that?

Lastly, one should keep in mind that Sweden has one of the least corrupt and politically affilicated justice systems in the world - placing at nr. 4 at Transparency Internationals Corruption Index*. Ecuador by comparison places at nr. 120. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that Swedish law expressly states that extradition will not take place if the charges connected with said extradition are political or military in nature or if the charges are not criminal in Sweden. Add the fact that this case is extremely high-profile, making the risk of foul play unlikely.

*Source: http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/
fianly someone who gets the point
 

Athinira

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itsthesheppy said:
To stand up for the truth, even if its risky. Because he's always banging on about honesty and transparency, so long as it has nothing to do with him having to own up to his own private dealings. And he's willing to throw in with a demonstrably shifty government like Ecuador if it serves his own ends.
What part of "Truth is irrelevant" didn't you get earlier? The justice system doesn't serve truth, the justice system uses truth as a tool to serve LAWS. Assange isn't facing up truth, he is facing up laws in a legal system that is historically known to have excessive laws in the department he is facing, plus he stands to face up to it in a country that has (secretly) bowed down to the US before.

Again, it's easy to play an internet hero when your own ass isn't on the line.

Fact of the matter is, Assange believes that his work for transparency and honesty is best continued by his current course of action.

itsthesheppy said:
As I've said many times, his fears of extradition to the US are immaterial to the rape accusations.
And that is just plain and utter bull if you ask me. So here we will have to disagree.

I personally believe that while the extradition theory is UNLIKELY to happen (although I'm sure the US will try), i still stand by my earlier point: No reason for him to take the chance.

itsthesheppy said:
And you're behind a computer screen too, genius. What point are you trying to make with that?
Difference is that i don't go around calling people cowards and tell them to take risks i believe they should take. You go around rafting up about how Assange should "stand up to truth" and willingly go to court in a system he doesn't trust. An easy thing to say behind a computer screen, but if your own ass one day happens to be in a similar situation, i bet you would start thinking less like an internet hero and more like Assange does :eek:)

itsthesheppy said:
Do you live in New Hampshire? We can grab lunch sometime and I'll happily tell you in person that Assange is a coward. If he wants to come along I'll tell him to his smug little face. That's unlikely, though, and since this is an internet forum here the use of which is defined as posting on a computer screen, you may as well condemn me for using electricity too.
The "internet hero" has nothing to do with meeting in real life. It's a metaphor for "Until you are in the same situation". You might be fine with calling Assange a coward to his face, but as mentioned, if you should ever find yourself in a situation where you believe that injustice is about to be done to you (by the "justice system"), you'd do a 180.
 

itsthesheppy

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Athinira said:
Oh how dull. You don't think I'm deserving of my opinion of the guy because I havn't been in the same position as him. [footnote]Or you assume I would do a thing based on your complete vacuum of any knowledge about me or my character.[/footnote] By that logic none of us should have opinions about anyone. Talk about a snoozefest. I'm more or less finished with you because talking to you is dreadfully boring, but I'd like to draw your attention to this gentleman:

roflmaoftw1 said:
It seems to me that a lot of people are missing the point regarding the charges against Assange - whether or not you see the charges as relevant or not doesn't matter.

The bottomline is this; Julian Assange is charged with rape under the Swedish definition of what such an act entails (Sweden might have a more encompassing definition than other countries, which I really have to struggle to see as a bad thing...). Thusly, when within the borders of Sweden, he is legally obliged to follow Swedish law. The charges brought against him indicates that maybe he hasn't, therefore he has to submit to the judicial system of Sweden and be tried in court. Why should he be exempt from that?

Lastly, one should keep in mind that Sweden has one of the least corrupt and politically affilicated justice systems in the world - placing at nr. 4 at Transparency Internationals Corruption Index*. Ecuador by comparison places at nr. 120. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that Swedish law expressly states that extradition will not take place if the charges connected with said extradition are political or military in nature or if the charges are not criminal in Sweden. Add the fact that this case is extremely high-profile, making the risk of foul play unlikely.

*Source: http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/
Quoted for truth. This man has the right of it. I appreciate the level-headed approach he has taken to explaining the facts of the case, though I'm personally a big fan of more colorful speech. Julian Assange is a hypocrite and a self-serving little weasel who leverages his celebrity to escape the responsibilities the rest of us would have to confront.
 

Athinira

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blipblop said:
roflmaoftw1 said:
It seems to me that a lot of people are missing the point regarding the charges against Assange - whether or not you see the charges as relevant or not doesn't matter.

The bottomline is this; Julian Assange is charged with rape under the Swedish definition of what such an act entails (Sweden might have a more encompassing definition than other countries, which I really have to struggle to see as a bad thing...). Thusly, when within the borders of Sweden, he is legally obliged to follow Swedish law. The charges brought against him indicates that maybe he hasn't, therefore he has to submit to the judicial system of Sweden and be tried in court. Why should he be exempt from that?
Well, according to certain muslim laws in the middle east (in the more barbarian countries), we here in the west are all guilty of being heathens and should by their laws be purged or punished. Why should we be exempt from that?

Obvious reason is obvious: Because the only law that truly matters in this world is Darwins.

Every country in the world has different laws that they believe to be fair. We here in the west believe that our laws are superior to those of the east and vice versa. If you happened to be in a middle eastern country one day, and got charged with something that by western standards were ridiculous but carries a harsh penalty down there, and you got the chance to escape back to the west, would you do it? I bet you would. But by your own logic, why should you be exempt from that? :eek:)

At the end of the day, laws are just an attempted appliance of power within a specified region. As human beings, we typically fight for what we believe is right. Assange fights for freedom because he believes he is being set up, the Swedish government fights to get their hands on him because they believe he is a rapist, and everyone else has different things they fight for. And there is NO supernatural power in the world that says that one is more right than the other.

Edit: Nice misquote :/
 

smithy_2045

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He didn't rape anyone, he had consensual sex and allegedly didn't use a condom despite the requests of the women. It makes him an ass of a person, not a crazed sex fiend who goes around penetrating helpless women for the laughs. While I believe he should face up to the charges against him, he has justified fears over being extradited to the US and being treated unfairly. It's not like the US has a particularly good record for how it treats its prisoners, especially politically charged prisoners.

tldr;
He is a complete prick of a bloke, and should face his sexual assault charges. But the US should back the fuck off.
 

Quiet Stranger

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I know of the guy because of Wikileaks but I don't know anything about this "female assault" business, I haven't seen a newspaper in a while.
 

Athinira

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itsthesheppy said:
Oh how dull. You don't think I'm deserving of my opinion of the guy because I havn't been in the same position as him. [footnote]Or you assume I would do a thing based on your complete vacuum of any knowledge about me or my character.[/footnote]
Oh you are fully deserved of your opinion. I never specified otherwise.

I just pointed out that i believe your opinion is ridiculous, and that several of your own expression are hypocritical because they can be applied against yourself in this debate :eek:)

As for your footnote: Yes i make assumptions. We all do. I might not be right about my assumptions, but I'd still be willing to be on them.

itsthesheppy said:
By that logic none of us should have opinions about anyone. Talk about a snoozefest. I'm more or less finished with you because talking to you is dreadfully boring
Funny how that one always comes out whenever people run out of arguments.

Talking to you isn't boring at all, because the important aspect of a debate is making your opposition THINK about what you say. I thought about your points, and concluded that they are very poorly thought through. You however doesn't seem to put much thought into your opinion at all, i can understand why you are bored. That you ended up that way doesn't concern me, however. All it means is that you consider your time here more wasted than i do with mine. Your loss.
 

Sneezeburger

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Stu35 said:
Sneezeburger said:
JochemHippie said:
You'd have to be really thick to not see that the whole sexual assault thing is a setup to prosecute him on the USA's soil.
This. Really. Can't pretend i know what really happened but since we're all chipping in thats my view.

Also http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/23/women-against-rape-julian-assange
Just popped up on my facebook wall.
I'd argue you'd have to be really thick to argue that this whole thing is just a set up to prosecute him on US soil. It's a smokescreen he's using to avoid facing trial for a crime he may, or may not, have committed.

I honestly weep that so many people would rather believe this is some kind of American Government conspiracy than simply face the possibility that there is a man who does not want to stand trial for rape.

As for the Guardian article (source says it all really), it's very easy to point out that the 'zeal' with which he is being perused is as much his own doing as anybodies - he's the celebrity who decided to skip bail and hide out in an embassy, it'd just be irresponsible for the UK government not to respond.

Oh... and I loved this bit from the Guardian article:

Whether or not Assange is guilty of sexual violence, we do not believe that is why he is being pursued. Once again women's fury and frustration at the prevalence of rape and other violence, is being used by politicians to advance their own purposes.
So, these women are against rape, but they're more okay with rape than the idea of a government prosecuting a rapist for their own selfish needs?

Cutting ones nose off to spite ones face?




For fucks sake... Assange would rather throw his hat in with Ecuador, one of the most corrupt, opaque(as opposed to the 'transparency' that Assange has crusaded for so vehemently) countries on the planet. Not to mention that, for somebody who demands that there be no secrets amongst western governments (even when to reveal said secrets poses direct threat to human life), he's hardly practising what he preaches is he?
To be fair i'm not saying its all one huge movie-type conspiricy. Personaly i think he should go to trial. I'm just dubious over how fair it would truly be.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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xen0blade said:
@Adam Jensen:
Embassies are NOT sovereign territory. The host country can revoke ANY diplomatic status at any time. Usually, however, they don't, mostly due to the sheer amount of trouble that it would cause. This is called the Vienna Convention. I urge you to read it so you know what you're talking about.
I didn't say it's a sovereign territory. I said it is considered a sovereign territory under international law. It's called a legal fiction. And of course it's only for as long as they have the permission to be there. But even if US government revokes their diplomatic status they still have to provide everyone inside with the safe transport back to their country. Even in the event of war between the two nations. So they still wouldn't have the legal right to take Assange as he's under the protection of foreign diplomats.
 

Stu35

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Athinira said:
Well, according to certain muslim laws in the middle east (in the more barbarian countries), we here in the west are all guilty of being heathens and should by their laws be purged or punished. Why should we be exempt from that?
Because we aren't in those countries. When we do go to those countries, we abide by their laws or face the punishment associated with it.

Look up recent cases of westerners being jailed in Dubai for an idea of what I'm talking about.


Obvious reason is obvious: Because the only law that truly matters in this world is Darwins.

Every country in the world has different laws that they believe to be fair. We here in the west believe that our laws are superior to those of the east and vice versa. If you happened to be in a middle eastern country one day, and got charged with something that by western standards were ridiculous but carries a harsh penalty down there, and you got the chance to escape back to the west, would you do it? I bet you would. But by your own logic, why should you be exempt from that? :eek:)
Would I flee back to the west, pull every string available to avoid getting my hands cut off or Imprisoned for drinking in public? Of course I would.

Should I be exempt from their laws? Of course not, that's why I don't go to Saudi Arabia or the UAE and drink in public.

Same way that, if Julian Assange didn't want to go to jail for Rape in Sweden, he shouldn't have (allegedly) raped two girls in Sweden.

Your argument is an attempt at reductio ad absurdum, but it doesn't really work.


At the end of the day, laws are just an attempted appliance of power within a specified region. As human beings, we typically fight for what we believe is right. Assange fights for freedom because he believes he is being set up,
No, he doesn't fight for freedom - he hides in an embassy and accepts asylum from a country that would grant him very few freedoms. Why he does this? We can't possibly know - maybe he does GENUINELY believe he'll go to Guantanamo Bay or something, or maybe he raped two women, we can't know until he faces trial.


the Swedish government fights to get their hands on him because they believe he is a rapist, and everyone else has different things they fight for. And there is NO supernatural power in the world that says that one is more right than the other.
Whilst I agree with your point, I fail to see the relevance in this particular argument, you argue that Assange thinking that rape in Sweden being illegal is as ridiculous as we in the west find drinking in public being illegal in Saudi Arabia is ridiculous, but as I've said - reductio ad absurdum, and it doesn't work because one crime is a devastating physical and emotional attack on a person(or people, as the case may be), whilst one is a fairly victimless crime.

In any case, it's an irrelevance because when travelling to other countries, I find out what their laws are, and either don't go or obey their laws. Sure if I did, inadvertently break a law I'd do my best to avoid prosecution, however that would not make me right - and as alluded to my crime would probably be a minor, victimless crime like speeding or drinking in public, I wouldn't go rape somebody. Nor would you (I'd hope).


Sneezeburger said:
To be fair i'm not saying its all one huge movie-type conspiricy. Personaly i think he should go to trial. I'm just dubious over how fair it would truly be.
Fair one.

For what it's worth, I reckon he'd get a fairer trial in Sweden than anywhere else on the planet. They're not exactly known for their corruption up there.
 

itsthesheppy

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smithy_2045 said:
He didn't rape anyone, he had consensual sex and allegedly didn't use a condom despite the requests of the women. It makes him an ass of a person, not a crazed sex fiend who goes around penetrating helpless women for the laughs.
You might need to brush up on what you consider rape. Rape is sex without consent. If a woman says she will consent to have sex with you only if you wear a condom, and then you have sex with her without one without her knowing, or with her knowing and just not caring about her opinion, that is rape.

Now, whether or not he actually did any of that we don't know. Me might have, he might not have. The reason we don't know is because he's hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy because he's a sniveling coward.
 

Athinira

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Stu35 said:
Because we aren't in those countries. When we do go to those countries, we abide by their laws or face the punishment associated with it.
...or escape if we believe their laws are ridiculous.

To pull up my own example earlier from this thread, i talked about countries where homosexuality carries a harsh penalty (up to death somewhere). Now you could argue that people should just avoid being homosexuals if they live there (just like we would have to avoid drinking . I'd on the other hand argue that people charged with homosexuality within the country have all the right in the world to try to escape, and i wouldn't fault them for it, just like i don't fault Assange for trying to escape a court case in a country where the laws and the odds are stacked against him.

Bottom line is that we all don't always get to chose what laws we have to adhere to, and if we believe that we are being wronged, then we should fight for what we believe is right. If you are charged with something, but you trust the justice system in the country you are charged in, then by all means go to court. If you don't trust the justice system, then by all means, attempt to flee. I won't fault you for it (just like i don't fault Assange), but i wouldn't necessarily recommend it either. At the end of the day, you should just do what you PERSONALLY believe is right. Just remember to consider the consequences. I'm sure Assange has :)

Stu35 said:
Whilst I agree with your point, I fail to see the relevance in this particular argument, you argue that Assange thinking that rape in Sweden being illegal is as ridiculous as we in the west find drinking in public being illegal in Saudi Arabia is ridiculous, but as I've said - reductio ad absurdum, and it doesn't work because one crime is a devastating physical and emotional attack on a person(or people, as the case may be), whilst one is a fairly victimless crime.
Except the "criminal", who is a victim of the law. If you do the drinking crime in Saudi Arabia, even though it is a "victimless" crime in the sense that you're the only guy involved with it, I'd still classify you as a victim - not of a crime, but of a ridiculous system.

Or the homosexuality example above. Homosexuality is a victimless crime in the countries where it is forbidden, but I'd consider the homosexual the victim of the system.
 

Paradoxrifts

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itsthesheppy said:
JochemHippie said:
You'd have to be really thick to not see that the whole sexual assault thing is a setup to prosecute him on the USA's soil.
I agree, bro. It's the Illuminati. They put microchips in his oranges and used their cold war spy satellites to beam mind control rays into those women to file those claims. It's all because of the JFK "assassination", which we all know was an alien cover-up.

Hang on, I had my stack of crazy person notebooks around here somewhere, I'll post more once I review my notes.
Actually they go out and do it in plain sight [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html], with their balls sitting on the dead center of your forehead. The truth of the matter whether the truth ever sees the light of day at all, only becomes clear many decades down the line. So compared with hawking an entire art movement that more closely resembles a bowel movement, setting up Julian Assange with a honey pot on sexual assault charges could be dismissed as being a little too pedestrian for the likes of the CIA.

Now if the CIA was involved, then I must say that I'm honestly a little disappointed that they didn't leave something for future generations to point and laugh at. Something completely crazy, like knocking up a honey pot using DNA harvested from a toothbrush.

The Ecuador asylum bid was a brilliant and shrewd move on behalf of Mr Assange. And by brilliant and shrewd I do mean, might result in armed conflict taking hundreds, possibly thousands of lives. Whether you like the man or not, he is playing the game like a boss by targeting the United States and British alliance in one of it's areas of greatest weakness. By seeking asylum in Ecuador, he serves not only to enlist the political leverage of her close political ally Venezuela, but might also manage to score the help of Argentina and her allies as well, because remember they're still calling the Falkland Islands the Malvina Islands to this day.

Ballsy, also really stupid, but ballsy. He might actually get assassinated if he keeps this sort of thing up.

They had it nicely wrapped up too. Whether Julian Assange ended up successfully defending himself from the accusations, sitting in a Swedish jail, an American jail or shot, buried and shipped back to his mother in Australia, it was a narrative that the US couldn't lose.

If the Americans catch him, justice is served one way or another. Win. If he gets convicted by the Swedish courts, all that anyone will ever remember is that he was a rapist. Win. He successfully defends himself in court and walks free then he was crazy nutter all along. Win.

It was literally a scenario that the US couldn't lose. Until Assange rewrote the scenario.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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Were he a real "freedom fighter" and "truth seeker" and person of great humility, he'd stand up and face the charges like a man and fight them, not run away scared.
Very few people who run from arrests are not guilty.
Also, while the business practices were alright, posting classified info on operatives (giving their names and faces and potentially putting them in harms way) and troop movements wasn't right.
Getting people killed or hurt or even putting them in that place is just as bad as a government that does shady things (which all governments do anyway...).
 

Stu35

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Athinira said:
Bottom line is that we all don't always get to chose what laws we have to adhere to, and if we believe that we are being wronged, then we should fight for what we believe is right.
I agree - Assange should totally go to Sweden and fight for his right to rape.

Except the "criminal", who is a victim of the law. If you do the drinking crime in Saudi Arabia, even though it is a "victimless" crime in the sense that you're the only guy involved with it, I'd still classify you as a victim - not of a crime, but of a ridiculous system.
Whilst I continue to advocate that countries, in particular those with strict Islamic interpretations (the ones being used for these examples) should change their laws, I will never feel that foreigners who go to those countries and commit those crimes are the 'victims'.

You use homosexuality as an example - Now, those who LIVE in countries where homosexuality is outlawed or they're otherwise persecuted, absolutely I would support their fleeing that nation for committing a 'crime' which, in any rational and sensible society, is not a crime.

But if you go to Iran to meet a bloke for sex and they arrest you? Sorry bud, thats your own damned fault.

Do you see where I'm coming from?


In any case, I don't see how this is relevant to the Assange case, given that the charge is Rape, and would be had he committed it in pretty much any other country in the world (especially the west).

If he was wanted by the Swedes for Any of these crimes [http://www.stupidlaws.com/laws/countries/sweden/], then I might have a bit of sympathy (but not much, Assange is still a tool).