>I accuse you of being a pedo!
>Please report yourself to the authorities. I would like you to reflect the next 5 years on the logical flaw of the argument.
I realize you're being hyperbolic, but there's a big difference between some random person slinging around accusations on the internet, and a police force in a sovereign nation deciding that a criminal complaint lodged by one of its citizens warrants the arrest and questioning of a suspect in the case.
The problem is that Sweden has thousands, or tens of thousands outstanding rape cases, but has only pursued Assange with this level of detail. If they vigorously extradited every accused rapist who had fled Sweden, that would be highly respected, and Assange would have had far fewer sympathizers for holing up in an embassy.
> The problem is that Sweden has thousands, or tens of thousands outstanding rape cases
That phrasing makes it sound like these numbers come from your ass; feel free to correct my impression.
> but has only pursued Assange with this level of detail.
What level of detail? They happen to know exactly who their suspect is and exactly where he has run off to, and thus far what they've done is ask that he be returned.
>If they vigorously extradited every accused rapist who had fled Sweden, that would be highly respected, and Assange would have had far fewer sympathizers for holing up in an embassy.
What does this even mean? How many accused rapists flee Sweden every year? I have no idea, and I bet you don't either. Maybe Assange is the one guy who's fled the country in the last year and this is what they do. Maybe they do vigorously attempt to extradite every single accused rapist that flees abroad. Maybe the Swedish authorities are working harder on this case because it's high profile and they're trying to avoid a PR mess domestically.
You're assuming skulduggery where there's perfectly reasonable explanations, and - this is me guessing here, so if you can reasonably show me to be wrong, I'll happily admit that - you're pulling assertions from your ass to back that assumption up. Stop that.
Keep beating that dead horse. Most reasonable people recognize that the changer are disturbingly high that the charges are trumped up, and to distract attention away from larger, more important issues.
That may be your opinion, but I see nothing to back up you r assertion that 'most reasonable people' believe the charges to be trumped up. Why bother trumping up charges through an intermediary instead of just issuing a warrant for Assange's arrest on espionage grounds?
Really? I've heard the charges. He held one plaintiff with his body weight and had rough, condom-less sex and he had sex with other plaintiff while she was asleep. In both cases the sexual encounters were consentual. He was originally charged by plaintiff one to take an STD test, rather than jail.
Not to mention that the translation (and gravity ) of the crime is closer to "sexual misdemeanor"/"sexual misconduct" rather than "rape".
Aside from your misleading assertion the encounters were "consensual" (you can't consent when asleep, and consenting on the condition that your partner wears a condom doesn't mean consenting to having sex without the condom) both seem like clear cut allegations of sexual assault to me. If you really think his alleged behavior is no big deal, well there's no civil way of saying this but that makes you an apologist for rape.
And that's without even getting into how little sense the conspiracy theory itself makes.
> Most reasonable people recognize that the changer are disturbingly high that the charges are trumped up, and to distract attention away from larger, more important issues.
There's a fairly high standard you have to meet to make a claim like that, and just stating that "most reasonable people recognize" your claims of an anti-Assange conspiracy don't suffice to carry the point.
In all fairness accused is not convicted. If convicted, any and all rapists should be jailed. But there's a number of conspiracy theories around his charges and there's enough concern that his trail would be railroaded for all the wrong reasons. What happened to innocent until proven guilty anyway?
What happened to innocent until proven guilty anyway?
Doesn't mean you can run away and avoid facing trial. For example, in Australia, if you flee from a Breath test (drunk driving) without being tested, your punishment is guaranteed to be as bad or worse than as if you were caught drunk driving. Presumption of innocence is a right granted to you as part of a legal system. When you refuse to operate within that legal system... you can't pick and choose the bits you want to apply to you.
To me the case is so murky- I would have no trouble believing that Assange was completely set up, but at the same time from his behaviour I would have no trouble believing he was guilty either. But as long as he avoids facing a trial, you can't just say "we must assume he is innocent". That is a right granted to you as part of a process where you will face a courtroom at some point.
I'm inclined to think that he acted like a douche (that is perfectly fine to assume based purely on the parts of the explanations that he has not contested), and wasn't set up but faced two women that wanted to cause him embarrassment, and that the two women got caught up in between the prosecutor and the lawyer appointed for them who both have possible political motives:
They're both known for wanting to substantially tighten rape laws in Sweden, and the lawyer in question is a partner in a law firm that also includes a former Swedish minister of justice from the time Sweden was complicit in illegal CIA renditions - as revealed by Wikileaks. Rather than a conspiracy, they might just have decided he was a convenient person to make an example of, score some political points on, and as an extra bonus he was someone they don't like.
Note that the above is not mutually exclusive with him actually being guilty of a crime. He could perfectly well be guilty and a victim of an overzealous prosecutor.
I really don't want to make a judgement either way. I do think that there's something fishy about the way the case has been pursued, though, but I'm inclined to think that a Swedish prosecutor with ambitions is sufficient - there's no need to infer outside interference.
Wanting to run from what seem likely to be kangaroo court proceedings doesn't imply guilt in my mind. Innocent until proven guilty isn't just a legal doctrine, it's also a philosophy that citizens of functioning democracies need to believe in fervently.
Presumption of innocence is not explicitly enshrined as a right in the US constitution. Rather, it's entered from other rights, like the 5th amendment. In the case of rape, many local US jurisdictions have weakened it in the interest of deterrence.
In all fairness, can we stop using the phrase "in all fairness"? In all fairness, it's just weasel words, and in all fairness the phrase reliably shows up several times in every Hacker News comment page.
Is this where we start parsing what exactly a woman really means by 'rape'? "It's OK, she didn't say she was raped, she said he had non-consensual intercourse, clearly a different thing!"
No, it is where we note that neither of the women filed a complaint against Assange about anything at all. They showed up at a police station asking if they could compel an HIV test.
They were interviewed by a friend of one of the women, in violation of police procedure, and the police on that basis decided to start an investigation without a complaint from the women. An investigation the first prosecutor closed down because she claimed there was no case to answer at all.
One of the women have since consistently refused to sign the police interview protocols.
Now, this might happen if someone is raped. But as it stands, it is unclear to what extent the women even agree with the police transcripts, much less with the police's interpretation of what they said.
Please report yourself to the authorities. For the next 5 years I would like you to reflect on the logical flaw of the argument.