Rising fascism in the US

What was considered disinformation which would result not long ago in censorship from social media platforms is now widely accepted as true.

(...)

Mill argued that there are positive externalities to other people's freedom of expression: the chance for us to improve our own beliefs and to better understand them. I have argued that this cannot be assumed for objective truths in the way that it may be for opinions about ethics or politics. Proponents of pluralism are wrong when they argue for 'letting a thousand flowers bloom' - that the presence of vaccine-autism or holocaust-denial claims in public discourse enhances a society's quality of debate and hence understanding on these topics. Democratic debate is exactly the wrong way to treat claims about rational truths and facts. At the least, there is no good reason to encourage such pluralism.

In fact there may be negative externalities if false claims are publicised and individuals are unable to evaluate their truth. There may be direct harm, as when children die of measles because their parents read in newspapers that there really is a debate among doctors about whether MMR vaccines cause autism. There may be indirect harm if people come to believe that because they can't evaluate truth claims themselves the truth itself must be a matter of opinion (e.g. the politicisation of climate science).

(...)

Mill also argued that the exercise of refuting even false claims provides the valuable benefit of improving our own understanding of the truth, by having to think it through for ourselves. Thus, in refuting false claims about climate science, you would presumably come to better understand the scientific credibility of proper climate science.

Is this plausible? Climate science goes back over a century and integrates the refined expertise of dozens of distinct scientific disciplines and sub-disciplines, from meteorology to physics to biochemistry to computer modelling to statistics, as well as specialised techniques such as for analysing pre-historic temperature records from ice-cores or preserved pine-cones. Just how much of this are we required to master in order to claim to be 'thinking for ourselves' in rejecting heterodoxy? Bear in mind that the proponents of these ideas may dedicate their lives to coming up with detailed and complex arguments and defences for their positions, and a truly open minded engagement with them would be extraordinarily demanding. And don't we have other things to do with our lives, including other heterodox claims to refute?

Just treating claims about the truth as contributions to the democratic market for ideas in the first place distorts their character and assessment. It suggests that we should treat such claims as opinions, and engage in constructive mutually respectful debate about them, as if they were of the same kind as other people's opinions about immigration reform or the Republican presidential nomination. But unlike those subjects, the claims of climate science [or a lab leak] do not depend on how agreeable they seem to us. Thinking that is so allows an invasion of truth status by political status.

Reports from friends of Assange reveal worsening mental and physical health. I’m afraid even if he were released today, he’d never recover.

Because he revealed facts about people in power.

A journalist.

Many of those people are still in power.

I’m a plain-speaking honest speaker pulling no punches.
You have an overriding agenda and refuse to honestly entertain my statements.

You are a bad faith actor in this conversation. You have lots of company.

Brendan, I’m going to have to put you on the permanent kybosh for that filthy business.

Please stop hating humanity, but do that elsewhere.

Padre Hijo y el Espiritu Santo

If he's innocent, let him have his day in court. Like Daniel Ellsworth or Chelsea Manning did.

An Australian court.
He is not a US citizen and should not be subject to US laws.
You have no right to inflict your laws on us.
It's imperialist, anti democratic and an assault on another country's independence.

Why were you trying to inflict your laws on Anne Sacoolas then? She isn't a UK citizen.

She drove the car and killed Harry Dunn with it in England, not in an area of US extra-territorial jurisdiction.

Sacoolas was an employee of the CIA, thus her claim for diplomatic immunity was considered obsolete.

On 20 October 2022 the Old Bailey heard and accepted Sacoolas's plea of guilty.

Julian Assange has already been murdered by the Obama administration. His body has not yet shut down.

Julian Assange, martyr to free speech