Tuesday, January 5, 2021

btw, what do i think of the idea that assange can't go to jail in america because he's too retarded?

well, it's intriguing. assange didn't used to come off as autistic, but who knows what spending that much time alone can do to you. rather, it may be an example of a judge coming up with an excuse to avoid doing something she felt was unjust for other reasons. certainly, she didn't seem to agree with many of assange's arguments, or at least not in an official capacity.

this is such a strange fiasco, all around. there's certainly a history of the british state taking particularly hard lines on what it considers to be dissidents, and a resulting history of official state apologies, after the fact. assange may have been played for a fool, but to suggest it assigns him some kind of developmental disorder is perhaps stretching credulity. 

so, what do they do, now? do they assign him a social worker, and put him on disability? do they put him in a minimum security prison for the rest of his life? this is what they seem to want to do. but how long can the charade be upheld...?

again: i think it's better that mr. assange is out of the public focus. while there is a place for principled lawyerly critique and defenses of journalistic freedom, the reality is that no empire in the history of the world would have let him get away with that and that he had really become a liability, due to being played like a patsy. he really should have been more careful, and he had no exit strategy once he got caught, so it was just a matter of time. it's important that these arguments are made, but, at the same time, everybody is being delusional about the set of possible outcomes, here.