Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wikileak Has Really Done It This Time

Where you and I disagree is that you consider his orders against general dissemination of classified information unlawful; I don't.

Children must be shielded and have information withheld from them because as children, they are not capable of deciding what is in their interests and therefore, there is no need to confuse or incite them with useless information.

Symbiotic, parasitic, the result would be the same.

A population without government, is easy prey for a Nazi Germany, a USSR, an 1812 Britain, a 2010 China.....

� Our government should be able to keep certain things confidential.

� The ability to keep certain things confidential shouldn't be abused.

A government that can not responsibly keep certain things confidential is at the mercy of the mob.

Is big daddy/mommy governmetn protecting itself or the public by hiding this? Is it protecting certain politicians? Was there treason involved? Really! What is being hidden and why?

C'mon!

Well, okay, I guess simple regurgitation of standard government propaganda it is. One works with what one has.

First, of course, is the possibility that that argument may be nothing but complete government fabrication. (So far it has been. Check it out on your own: to this point no WikiLeaks information has led to anything more serious than government officials being really, really embarrassed.) Governments, their politicians, and their intellectuals all lie for a living; that's why swallowing government propaganda is usually a dangerous thing.

But, just for the sake of argument, let's suppose it's all true.

Let's do a little thought experiment. Suppose a criminal has a knife to the throat of your daughter, and orders you not to move or he'll stab her, and you move, and he stabs her.

Who is responsible for your daughter getting stabbed? You? I don't think so. I think it's the criminal who put her in that position who's responsible.

So...you're concerned that there are people in the position of depending for their safety on certain information not being released. Suppose the information gets released and they're harmed.

Who's responsible for the harm that comes to them? The people who did the releasing, or the government that put them in that position without control over the information in question?

I think the answer to that question's pretty clear. What should also be pretty clear, I think, is that if the government is indeed responsible it will do anything in its power to convince people that the responsibility lies elsewhere.

If instead of just accepting the propaganda you actually examine it a little, usually it'll fall apart on its own.


From your keyboard to God's Internet browser, my friend. From your keyboard to God's Internet browser.


Once again, try to take a step beyond the propaganda rather than stopping right where the newsreader stops.

"Why" is frequently a good next question, just as a rule of thumb. Suppose it's true what they say about lots of people wanting to kill us. Why do you suppose that is?

I'll leave that one as an exercise for the reader.

I'm sorry it worked out this way; I was hoping you had something other than government propaganda to teach me. Most of the propaganda I've already considered.

� I'd be (and have been) honored to learn from you, if you have something to teach me. �

A drowning man is not picky about whether you toss him a cotton rope or a sisal rope, an old rope or a new rope, a half-inch rope or a one-inch rope.

Further fact....

Rules of engagement are proof the fed government doesn't care whether or not our troops return home safely.

Who that actually wants a job completed sends in people with their hands tied behind their backs?

Something is very, very wrong.
How long are you all going to keep supporting and worshiping government?

How long?

But a man who was formerly drowning but now has a good hold on a nice one-inch hawser won't like being pelted with monofilament fishing line while he's trying to concentrate on climbing out.

I love to learn; but what I love most to learn is stuff that's better or more true than what I already know. If I know that tomatoes are delicious and healthy and can be used to make wonderful Italian dishes, it doesn't do me any good to read a book from the 1700s telling me that they're deadly poison--other than that it's a mildly amusing piece of trivia that might be entertaining at parties.

Over the past dozen years or so, I've found many, many things that I formerly believed that turned out not to have been true, and I've joyfully replaced them with things that are much more true--although they may still not be completely correct.

If you have something for me that's more true than something I already believe, I will replace mine with yours just as joyfully. If you have something that's not as true as what I already believe, I'm interested in that too, simply because of the personal respect I have for you; but even in the face of that respect, more-true will trump less-true every time.

I hope that doesn't cause offense.

So carry on.

Obviously, you can learn nothing from me � as you've no doubt already noticed.

Okay, for the sake of argument, what's your alternative then?

'Tisn't a matter of what I know that you don't know.

'Tis a matter of what I know that you won't accept.

Is this the standard line about how a government fights for its subjects?

It doesn't, really, you know. A government forces its subjects to fight for it. A government threatened by a Nazi Germany doesn't think to itself, "Oh my goodness, our subjects won't like being subjects of Nazi Germany! We'd better fight to protect them from that!" It thinks to itself, "Oh my goodness, if Nazi Germany takes over, we won't have power anymore! We'd better mobilize our subjects to fight to protect us from that!"

And nobody has ever explained to me yet A) why such an aggressor would want to invade and take over a society without a government, or B) exactly how such an aggressor would go about it.

I mean, a society of sheep herded by a preexisting government is fairly easy to take over: you just replace the existing government with your own, and the sheep just go on being sheep. Easy.

But how do you take over a society of small wolf packs with no experience at being sheep? Why would you even want to subject yourself to such an experience?