US wants to ban the truth as terrorism

Post Reply New Topic

Aside from the Bradley Manning case, just yesterday Yemen released a journalist that Obama wanted imprisoned on the grounds that as he reported the truth that the US launched a deadly attack, and not the Yemeni government as agreed to by the parties, that this served the terrorists and thus he belonged in prison as a terrorist. Abdulelah Haider Shaye was sent to prison for years simply for reporting a truth that was considered to be contrary to US interests and in this way serves the Enemy... that's the whole logic of charging Bradley Manning with Aiding the Enemy; the idea is that by reporting truth to the public through media, the Enemy will read that truth and be encouraged by this and this will be bad for US interests, and thus the War of Terror demands that the truth be suppressed.

I have seen commentaries where notable people argue in favour of intervening against people receptive to truths that reflect badly on the US for fear that this will turn them into terrorists and that this intervention includes trying to convince these people that these truths are lies. Thus, official lies become necessary to be promoted in the name of public security and those who attack those lies or promote the truth must be dealt with harshly.

Obama by the way has expressed his displeasure at the realease of Abdulelah Haider Shaye...

Release of Abdulelah Haider Shaye...

If the US government (or any other government, but the nature of the sizes of the US, Russia and China mean it's usually one of those) does not like the way the truth reflects on it, then it should stop behaving that way.

I feel this is especially true for Snowden, who has leaked things that only confirm what everyone has suspected for a long time but is suddenly branded a "traitor". It's childish.

So?

Most "truths" just don't matter to someone whose only goal in life is to earn a living.

I see, so that justifies locking people up for telling the truth, it justifies ruining them for telling the truth, and it legitimises the use of all means to promote official lies... if it's all about earning a living, well, people who want to do that better accept those lies or else they certainly won't be able to do that!

As usual it's in the name of Freedom...

Surely this is the most cut-and-dried case of the sort of stuff the first amendment protects?

It doesn't matter that the first amendment only applied to American citizens, it's the principle behind it. If you are in favour of the first amendment, you should be in favour of some Yemeni journalist being able to voice his opinions and display facts, even if they inconvenience your government.

"Should"?

No, I shouldn't. There is no reason for me to care what a Yemeni journalist does or what happens to him because of it.

As I said, this Administration, and it's bipartisan this consensus, has been forwarding the case for banning truth in the name of the War of Terror, that truth inconvenient to the government's so-called natonal security objectives if propagated risks public security and must be banned on those grounds. This applies to everyone. The Bradley Manning example is this principle applied against an American. The same with Edward Snowden.

Perhaps you don't understand the government's logic in accusing Manning of "aiding the Enemy". They say that Manning, by serving as a source to journalists, journalists who then report the information from that source, is allowing info unfavourable to the government be broadcast to the people of the world and that this undermines the prestige of the US security state and gives comfort to the Enemy. Thus, they're saying that any info unfavourable to the government broadcast by the media is a form of aiding the Enemy! They could say that mentioning the 1953 CIA involvement in Iran's coup is illegal because it is used by the Enemy to argue against it. That's where this is going. It's wholesale banning of truth.

So ... how's that Dorner memorial coming?

You called that one wrong, too.

The left has been known to label the truth as hate when the truth doesn't agree with what they want us to believe.

What truths? Claims that certain races are inferior and so forth?

the right have been know to label their objective opinions as truth to shut down debate on certain issues to suit their own agenda.

Objective opinions are truth

some things are greyscale which the right tries to uphold as absolutist truth.

For example

1)- The idea that abortion = murder
2)- The infallibility of Israel's position and treatment of the arabs
3)- The cons of economically motivated immigration
4)- The merits of unilateralism
5)- The right to bear arms (in the US).

/\ Yes, we're quite awful.

That is in the U.S. Constitution which is supported by -all- political parties.

It is right there after free speech, free press and no established religion.

Do you think the U.S. Constitution is some party platform? It is not. It is the Law of Our Land.

ruveyn

Neither of these sins is unique to a particular ideology, unless we're now counting idiocy as a belief system.