in the case. They insist they know the truth. They go from one BS claim to another. And it's all about worship for a great man, while the victims are less than noting to them. I saw one person on another site with a user name someone uses here: he said he wished those woman would be raped for real as punishment for bringing charges against Assange. That is the level of misogyny that underlies at least some of this.
Then some will say, "it's not illegal here, so it doesn't matter." Well, firstly that's not true, but even if it were, Sweden establishes and prosecutes its own laws. What is legal or illegal here is irrelevant.
The thing is these are people who insult everyone else as third way, while they show they not only don't respect equality before the law, they actively argue against it by insisting someone Assange should have special treatment, concierge justice. They argue against US imperialism, while making absurd claims that show they think Sweden is obligated to conduct itself like America.
Their arguments are entirely devoid of principle. It's all about worship of a single man and making sure he is not held to account for the laws of mortals, least of all for allegedly violating a lowly woman.
It's also symptomatic of the tendency of far too many on this site to make everything about individuals. The issue of NSA spying turned into fights about Greenwald, as if that mattered at all. They project all of the ills of capitalism and our current political system on Clinton, and they insisting freedom of speech and transparency depends on Assange not being held account for rape. Though the only thing they talk about is their worship or contempt for those individuals, as though they have no capacity to discuss larger issues. It's like they have to make every discussion as simplistic as possible to cope with it.
And evidence, forget that. Truth is what they want it to be. One in particular ignores all the legal evidence while droning on constantly about "facts." They assume facts are what they believe, and nothing else matters, least of all the legal evidence in the case. I've systematically taken apart their claims and excerpted and linked to legal documents that prove them wrong, and they respond entirely emotionally and insist they know the truth, even though they have no evidentiary basis for their views. Their claims even relates to legal matters about the case, when they insist the legal documents aren't "worth the paper they are written on." When one is talking about the legal standing of a case, the legal documents ARE the pertinent evidence. How does someone not get that? Instead, it's all about ego: Assange's ego and their inability to distinguish their own egos from absolute truth.
When people who consider themselves the left devote all of their energies to personality cults, is there little wonder they have no effect on politics, that they have rendered themselves irrelevant? Imagine if a fraction of that energy were spent to advancing some policy or proposal for social change.
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