jonolan on Asian Beauty: “That's good. More of us – and, by that, I mean all of us – need to do so. I…” Mar 28, 13:04
An Odd Ambivalence
Current events and the odd the ways that reality messes with people in general has left me with an odd feeling – Ambivalence, which is quite odd for me.
I’m truly torn over the moral and ethical implications of my involvement, such as it is, in the whole Julian Assange and WikiLeaks debacle.
On one hand, I put up a post that included content that upset and outraged a number of Australians enough that they were willing to violate their own laws to threaten me and my family with death. That, in and of itself, showed me that my post was egregiously wrong and I chose – No, my provider only required that I remove certain specific content – to delete it.
On the other hand, my actions seems to have convinced an avowed enemy of America and fugitive from the international judicial – note, I don’t say justice – system to surrender himself into UK custody. For support of that very odd and unexpected turn of events I refer you Julian Assange’s own words which were published as Op-Ed in The Australian just before he surrender himself to British authorities.
[Sic]…There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be “taken out” by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be “hunted down like Osama bin Laden”, a Republican bill sits before the US Senate seeking to have me declared a “transnational threat” and disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister’s office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.
I am that American blogger that Julian Assange referenced just before he submitted himself to the legal system. That infers or alludes that I was was part of the reason why he did so.
Hence, the ambivalence I feel, in the true and denotative sense of the word.
Ambivalence
Pronunciation: \am-biv-uh-luhns\
Function: Noun
Date: 1909Definition(s):
- Simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action
- Continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite)
I did something that, even by my attenuated standards of Right and Wrong, was reprehensible and it seems to have had a net positive impact, especially for the citizens of America and the Western World.
This leaves me in an odd position and one that I was, and am, frankly unprepared to deal with. I truly never expected – hoped, certainly – my lone voice in the wilderness of the internet to have any measurable on the world at large.
Truly, I’m going to have think about this – and assess and reassess how much of this is ego on my part – for a while. This will likely affect the frequency on content of this my posts for a while. 🙁
Tags: Assange | Australia | Crime | Ethics & Morality | Law | Politics | Wikileaks
Recently I published a post, which I’ve since deleted. It was quite an angry post because I was quite angry when I wrote and published it. In point of fact, I’m still angry about Julian Assange’s and Wikileaks’ behavior and their willingness to harm, or potentially harm so many people.
from their album, 
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