3 ms·

I think you missed the point which probably means that I expressed it poorly. He has to guess which country he will be more at risk in. He can't /know/ any mor

by harry8 6y ago

I think you missed the point which probably means that I expressed it poorly. He has to guess which country he will be more at risk in. He can't /know/ any more than you or I can know. He has the right to make his best guess and potentially be wrong about it because he has everything at stake. If you or I or anyone else thinks he has made the wrong guess. Fine. But acknowledge that he has the right to make the best guess he can and had rather more at stake with that guess than a mere opinion. What has changed utterly is the formerly bogus claim that he need not worry because the US were not pursuing him. The people who claimed that, of which there were very, very many had nothing at stake and were completely, totally and utterly wrong. I haven't seen anyone acknowledge "Yeah I thought he was making excuses but it turns out he was right when he said the US were after him and I was wrong about that one thing at least." Easy to say anything at all when there are no consequences to us. We should acknowledge it. Indeed from a different angle we should cherish it and protect it.

ben_w 6y ago
Hmm; you start off with a point I agree with completely, but then you seem to take further steps I don’t think are warranted. Everything up to this sentence, we are on the same page: > But acknowledge that he has the right to make the best guess he can and had rather more at stake with that guess than a mere opinion. I would say he has the capacity, not the right. The right stopped the moment his appeals against his extradition to Sweden ended. I do totally agree that people think differently when their skin is on the line. That’s part of why I’m in the “well I recon” rather than “totes innocent” or “he’s a wrong’un” camp. At the time, and now, it feels logically incoherent to argue that Sweden is less safe for Assange than a country which has literally just decided to extradite Assange. Doubly so if you want to claim that Assange did not commit the offence and America conspired to fake it, because of the latter was true America could easily have done so with other offences that would have him sent to the USA direct. America not liking Assange was obvious even back then, but it felt (and still feels) irrelevant to the specific claims in Sweden.

by harry8 6y ago

ben_w 6y ago

Hmm; you start off with a point I agree with completely, but then you seem to take further steps I don’t think are warranted. Everything up to this sentence, we are on the same page: > But acknowledge that he has the right to make the best guess he can and had rather more at stake with that guess than a mere opinion. I would say he has the capacity, not the right. The right stopped the moment his appeals against his extradition to Sweden ended. I do totally agree that people think differently when their skin is on the line. That’s part of why I’m in the “well I recon” rather than “totes innocent” or “he’s a wrong’un” camp. At the time, and now, it feels logically incoherent to argue that Sweden is less safe for Assange than a country which has literally just decided to extradite Assange. Doubly so if you want to claim that Assange did not commit the offence and America conspired to fake it, because of the latter was true America could easily have done so with other offences that would have him sent to the USA direct. America not liking Assange was obvious even back then, but it felt (and still feels) irrelevant to the specific claims in Sweden.