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"It is only because these people are touched by the long finger of empire that the appearance of their name in a text file is compiled into danger. Manning's he

"It is only because these people are touched by the long finger of empire that the appearance of their name in a text file is compiled into danger. Manning's heroism tends toward ending that empire and making these people (and those in a similar role in generations to come) safer and freer." This is ideolgically anarchist and ridiculous. There is no 'Empire'. There is just 'stuff you, as a citizen vote for'. Have you ever been outside the Western World + Japan? Do you know how crazy it is out there? Do you know how instantly things would collapse without the international framework we have today? Are you too young to remember the Cold War? Do you realize that it's still going on, that Russians are grabbing territory and they still have 3 000 nuclear weapons pointed at us and, just a few months ago Putin bragged, over dinner, that he could 'wipe out the USA' in 45 minutes? This is not a video game. US foreign services do extremely important work in the world, and if you'd read the cables that Manning released, you'd see how true that is, and also how mundane most of it is relative to your anarchist hyperbole. Manning swore an oath to serve the interests of his people selflessly, instead, he naively, and selfishly released information which caused a lot of damage and could have caused a lot more damage. It would be one thing if Manning were some intellectual, knew what he was doing with conscience, but he was a very low level private - with severe social and identity problems, thinking that somehow he had 'answers'. I think that he thought he was doing the right thing, but he's severely deluded. And by the way - I am not American. Also - I should add - that the person who released the photographs from Abu Gharib - and caused the big scandal/uproar was definitely in the category of 'whistle blower' and did the right thing.

jMyles 10y ago
It's hard to know how to respond to your comment as whatever logic it may contain is camouflaged by ad-hominem presumptions (if you'd read the cables that Manning released, you'd see...) and impossible-to-take-seriously fear mongering ("3 000 nuclear weapons pointed at us"). I remember the cold war. And I thought that the government did the best thing it was able to do. Did the governments of both the USA and USSR behave childishly? Yes. Were they operating in a short-term feedback loop? They sure were. Did they, perhaps against the odds, avert a nuclear holocaust, at least for 40 years? Yes in fact they did. But that's really not the point. As I've said elsewhere, my argument (and I think the argument you see coming from much of the HN community) is not that government has always been unnecessary, but that it is being deprecated. It doesn't matter that this one human leaked these troves of information; the internet will always tend toward making them available regardless of which individuals happen to be involved with the particulars. Government secrets aren't merely immoral, they're increasingly impossible. So all of your nostalgia about worldwide wars being "the international framework we have today" is just completely irrelevant. The internet will not abide government, and human evolution will continue to be the internet.

jMyles 10y ago

It's hard to know how to respond to your comment as whatever logic it may contain is camouflaged by ad-hominem presumptions (if you'd read the cables that Manning released, you'd see...) and impossible-to-take-seriously fear mongering ("3 000 nuclear weapons pointed at us"). I remember the cold war. And I thought that the government did the best thing it was able to do. Did the governments of both the USA and USSR behave childishly? Yes. Were they operating in a short-term feedback loop? They sure were. Did they, perhaps against the odds, avert a nuclear holocaust, at least for 40 years? Yes in fact they did. But that's really not the point. As I've said elsewhere, my argument (and I think the argument you see coming from much of the HN community) is not that government has always been unnecessary, but that it is being deprecated. It doesn't matter that this one human leaked these troves of information; the internet will always tend toward making them available regardless of which individuals happen to be involved with the particulars. Government secrets aren't merely immoral, they're increasingly impossible. So all of your nostalgia about worldwide wars being "the international framework we have today" is just completely irrelevant. The internet will not abide government, and human evolution will continue to be the internet.