The reason I think the elimination of these secrets will be a good thing is that there are a lot of people who earnestly believe that "we" are the "good guys" who don't do things like that. The government maintains its apple pie home-baked goodness image, insisting that it's always the other guys that are the bad-people-du-jour who are out to kill us because they hate our freedom or something like that. When you reveal the kinds of evil the government does to other people, then folks can start to see why (or even if) "they" are actually fighting "us" instead of what the propaganda machine spouts all the time. The more people get to see reality, the more they will no longer be able to hide in their fantasy worlds that help them sleep soundly at night. But I'm confused. Are you trying to say that you don't know all the crap the U.S. government has done (if this is the case, read a history book; no wacky conspiracy theories necessary), or are you simply trying to say that you don't care, or that you think it is pointless to publicize it regardless of if it's right or wrong? (Honest question. I really don't know exactly what you were trying to get at in your comment.)

The more vague, the better, IMO. It leaves plenty of room for people's uninformed imaginations to run rampant, it's more plausible, and people aren't really going to ask for evidence before they consider him guilty. Murder, though, still requires a certain amount of evidence in people's minds (means, motive, opportunity), so a baseless accusation would not be nearly as effective. It's easy to imagine a guy like Assange as a perv, since he doesn't "look normal" to the average idiot.

The way I see it, governments kill all kinds of people directly and indirectly in secret--and the U.S. has a particularly rich history of this. As such, I want every government's secrets to be plastered everywhere. The number of people that may conceivably die as a result of these leaks is absolutely nothing compared to what has been done in secret for decades. Of course, I'm a pacifist and an anarchist, so I consider the idea of having to balance secrecy and disclosure so that the state can continue to exist in its preferred form (I believe it's called "national security") kind of moot. YMMV.

I don't think the goal is to make him go away. I think the goal is to publicly discredit him so Ma and Pa Amerkin will never listen to the information he releases that paints the U.S. government in a negative light. Given the stigma attached to sex crimes in the U.S., I think it is the perfect vehicle to try to discredit somebody. You never have to be charged or convicted to be considered guilty of sex crimes here. It is enough to be accused.

How often does Interpol get involved in sex crimes cases? Specifically, I'm wondering if this is common practice, or if it's only common practice when the suspect is as famous/meddling/troublesome-to-xyz-government as Julian Assange.

Exactly! Mod parent up insightful.

I understand your point that my abstinence from voting isn't much of a statement unless I actually state my reasons. I'll be honest, though... I believe that the world is a bit more complicated than that. There are a million reasons why me showing up with a bullhorn and a sign is going to accomplish nothing more than perpetuating various mentalities that I believe are contributing to the perpetuation of this whole system, but I am honestly not in the mood to try to explain them all.

Wow... I'm a little late to the party. Didn't realize this poll and most of the comments are from Saturday and Sunday.

Not true. By not voting, you are stating that _neither_ candidate or party represents your interests (or, if you are an anarchist like me, that the whole system runs counter to what you believe in). You are no more responsible for the outcome than you would be for refusing to answer a sadist who asked you to choose which of two strangers he should murder.

Look, I know that this goes against everything they taught you on MTV's Rock the Vote ("Choose or Lose" bus, anyone?), but you have bought into a brilliantly engineered false dilemma that perpetuates the system as it stands.

CowboyNeal 2010, anyone?