[calibas]

There's authoritarianism, where government knows what's best for everyone and keeps secrets to "protect" its citizens. Then there's democracy, where the government is open and honest so the people can make informed decisions on how best to run their government.

In my opinion, one of the best ways of identifying an authoritarian is to ask them their opinions on Snowden or Assange.

[throw10920]

> ask them their opinions on Snowden

In your "opinion", what fraction of the documents that Edward Snowden stole were directly related to spying on American citizens?

[wunderland]

Which governments would you consider “open and honest” democracies?

[calibas]

It's a spectrum, and certain countries embody the ideal more than others. I don't think a completely open and honest democracy exists yet though.

[fmajid]

Iceland or Switzerland?

[hulitu]

> Iceland or Switzerland?

Yeah, right. Switzerland, where contracts with private companies are censored so the public does not see how much money they lose.

[Gud]

This is by democratic choice though. If the public don't want this, they can always hold a binding referendum. Unlike any other country on earth.

[shp0ngle]

Isn't Putin nowadays for Assange and definitely for Snowden? This is a stupid test.

[throw10920]

Snowden and Assange are also completely incomparable situations - you're right, it's an extremely stupid test, to the point of being non-nonsensical.

[DANmode]

OP is blatantly obviously referring to populace in Western nations.

[taskforcegemini]

Putin has done much worse things to people who did less than what Snowden, Manning or Assange did. Regarding Snowden, Putin is just being opportunistic.

[ip26]

Congratulations, you’ve managed to construct this into a classic “with us or against us” framework, a popular tool among authoritarians.

[calibas]

It's two diametrically opposed political ideals, with most people (and governments) falling somewhere in between the two extremes. That's the framework that already exists, not something I've constructed to divide people.

If you truly support democracy, then you accept that even the authoritarians should be given a voice, and you just pray they're not in the majority. That's very different than the "with us or against us" paradigm that's popular among authoritarians.

[justinclift]

> If you truly support democracy, then you accept ...

Heh Heh Heh

That sounds like you just did the "with us or against us" thing the commenter above you just pointed out.

Very ironic. ;)

[hulitu]

> a popular tool among authoritarians

And a popular tool among the so called "democracies".

[JumpCrisscross]

> one of the best ways of identifying an authoritarian is to ask them their opinions on Snowden or Assange

These are complex situations. If you’re basing your binary judgement of an even-more complex political spectrum (it isn’t really a spectrum) on these cases, your model is mis-tuned. I’m sure, for example, Putin would find both exemplary figures. That doesn’t make him a Solon.

[rocket_surgeron]

>In my opinion, one of the best ways of identifying an authoritarian is to ask them their opinions on Snowden or Assange.

As far as Assange goes I think he is a liar.

The primary piece of evidence I use to support this is that he claims that his media firm, Sunshine Press was a non-profit when its documents of incorporation list it as a private limited company.

https://www.facebook.com/WikiLeaks.SunshinePress

>Official Facebook Page-- The Sunshine Press (Wikileaks), is an international non-profit organization

(That's all I've got as its website is dead now)

Incorporation document: https://www.scribd.com/doc/47601520/SUNSHINE-PRESS-PRODUCTIO...

Definition of EHF: https://island.is/en/limited-liability-companies

A second piece of evidence is that the original release of Collateral Murder was edited to remove the armed men accompanying the journalists who were killed and the unedited version was only released after public outcry. The presence of armed men escorting the journalists may have been used to justify the attack, which occurred just a couple hundred meters from an active firefight, so the context was deleted in the initial release.

A third piece of evidence is that Assange lied to John Young, a highly-respected member of the "leaking" community to get him to register the original Wikileaks domain waaaay back in the day and then the Wikileaks community turned on John when he dared speak out.

https://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm

Finally, a fourth piece of evidence is that they used Wau Holland (Chaos Computer Club) as an initial fundraising arm to funnel money to Sunshine Press, and Wau Holland promised an audit of the substantial sums of money being directed to Sunshine Press, but they only ended up publishing three bare-bones "transparency reports" after millions had been spent and their tax-free status had been revoked for funding a for-profit enterprise. Once it became impossible to funnel donations tax-free to the for-profit business through Wau Holland donations slowed, communications stopped, and the association between the two ended. Please note that none of the banking shenanigans going on at the time impacted Wau Holland.

https://wauland.de/en/projects/enduring-freedom-of-informati...

Does any of the above make me an authoritarian?