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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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Julian Assange Walks Free

A long time ago in a political climate far far away, there was a confluence of movements rallying around concepts of peace, openness, and freedom. There was the anti-war movement, which has a long and storied history across many cultures at many times, which was in the midst of a high-water mark in the US, due to war fatigue (and war struggles) in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There was the free and open tech/software/internet movement, still riding the old 90s consensus that digital devices connecting people and places could only be a force for good in the world, believing that the only threats to tech's ability to bring peace, harmony, and utopia to the world would be if corporations killed freedom and openness with closed source control or if governments did anything at all to regulate tech. Finally, this all came together with the movement that "information wants to be free", that if only sunlight could be let in to disinfect all the places where government and shadowy cabals (but I repeat myself) were gathering to close things down and control stuff, then it can again, only be for the good of the world, cleaning up any questionable actions people might want to take in secret due to the threat of it being revealed. Of course, the tech/software/internet axis was the Anointed One that could deliver all information into the Promised Land of Freedom.

Julian Assange, Wikileaks, and The Forever Wars formed the peak of this confluence, and to many, he delivered precisely what they were hoping for. Troves of classified documents and videos streamed through the web, potentially from all sorts of sources, who could hopefully conceal their activities via the magic of internet technology. Some of those sources would ultimately be discovered and become household names: Manning, Snowden, and to a lesser extent in importance, but greater extent in nominative anti-determinism, Reality Winner. Leaking classified information is not new to the US (see also Pentagon Papers, etc.), nor is it solely a US phenomenon (who remembers the Panama Papers or a list of other et ceteras here, too?), but for a US-centered audience, these are some of the most well-known examples which contributed significantly to the general zeitgeist of the times.

Many leaks have been somewhat more-or-less routed through "traditional journalistic" outlets. This line has always been fuzzy, and it remains so today, with examples like Matt Levine's fascination with Hunterbrook, a newspaper that is also a hedge fund. But the inherent fuzziness of the boundaries here left the situation wide open to competing and clashing intuitions. Was Wikileaks a "journalistic outlet"? Was Assange a "journalist"? Was there just some quantity of editorial writing that they must produce to go along with their document dumping in order to clear the bar? Was there some other set of "journalistic duties" that they must uphold in deciding what to publish, or how? Some people thought that there could be distinctions to be made and harangued over what precisely they should be. Others just thought, "Information wants to be free; tech will get us that; utopia follows," and figured that the most expansive interpretations of First Amendment law were either just correct or at the very least a useful cudgel to drag more traditionalists into accepting the movement. Others yet, such as CIA Director Mike Pompeo, representing the forces of closedness and government control, called Wikileaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service", trying to sever any link from journalism or First Amendment protection.

Most of the story is well-known. Assange was arrested by US allies and kept in limbo under various political pressures. The US obviously pushed for extradition, so he could be prosecuted there. Other governments worried about such a fate and pushed back. The result of his precarious situation was that he was stuck hiding out in Ecuador's embassy in the UK for years until he was ultimately arrested and then imprisoned for years further. This week, an agreement was made - the US would drop a variety of charges they wanted to bring against him, he would plead guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act, and he would now walk free to return to his home country (Australia).

Assange's case followed the ebbs and flows of the general movement regarding openness/freedom of tech/internet/information being sunlight disinfectant. In the early 2010s, he was not charged for his role in the major Manning leaks; at that time, the Obama administration said that they could not distinguish his actions from that of a journalist. But then Trump happened. Assange was never charged for any role he played in Wikileaks' involvement in the Mueller-era Trump/Russia saga, but I don't think this event can be understated for how significantly it impacted the general movement. Suddenly, a huge number of folks had to figure out how they felt about a discordance between their love of the movement and their hatred of Trump, for it seems that the very principles espoused by the movement helped Trump in some way, which was the most verboten of cardinal sins. Losing many of these supporters was likely, from a practical standpoint, a major factor that enabled all of the subsequent developments in getting Assange charged, arrested, and ultimately, this plea deal "resolution".

In the aftermath, the core fuzziness and major tensions remain fuzzy and tense. The NYT describes it well:

The result is an ambiguous end to a legal saga that has jeopardized the ability of journalists to report on military, intelligence or diplomatic information that officials deem secret. Enshrined in the First Amendment, the role of a free press in bringing to light information beyond what those in power approve for release is a foundational principle of American self-government.

The agreement means that for the first time in American history, gathering and publishing information the government considers secret has been successfully treated as a crime. This new precedent will send a threatening message to national security journalists, who may be chilled in how aggressively they do their jobs because they will see a greater risk of prosecution.

But its reach is also limited, dodging a bigger threat. Because Mr. Assange agreed to a deal, he will not challenge the legitimacy of applying the Espionage Act to his actions. The outcome, then, averts the risk that the case might lead to a definitive Supreme Court ruling blessing prosecutors’ narrow interpretation of First Amendment press freedoms.

“He’s basically pleading guilty to things that journalists do all the time and need to do,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It will cast a shadow over press freedom — but not the same kind of a shadow that would have been cast by a judicial opinion holding that this activity is criminal and unprotected by the First Amendment.”

They emphasize that the fuzzy, tense aftermath remains "ambiguous", with no clear resolution on how to draw specific lines. In essence, I would say that the article espouses a position that, if the First Amendment were actually held to its true meaning, then what Assange did was not actually a crime; it was just a normal, protected act of a normal, protected journalist. They worry that the ambiguity could have been resolved in the other direction, with courts deciding that such prosecution does not violate the First Amendment, which would be a result that they think is wrong as a matter of, I don't know how to put it, "True Law".

...which, of course, brings us back to where everything ultimately brings us back to - Donald Trump. I can't pass up incredible hypotheticals that cut to the crux of things and make all the partisans want to switch sides. Suppose Trump made what could have been argued to be a false business record in the state of New York with the intent to conceal something about Assange's actions related to this guilty plea. Would the NYT still think the true reality is that Assange actually pled guilty to a non-crime? Would they say that Trump could have an appeal to the courts of law, not the courts of fact, by saying, "No dawg, that's not a crime"? Or would they say that Assange's plea deal settles the matter, thoroughly establishing the fact that such actions absolutely are a crime, with no First Amendment defense?

Kind of fitting for a free speech post but the SC rejected a case on the government pressuring social media on censoriship. They did it on standing.

Alex Berenson says he has a better case. This was a bit of a punt. But I do wander why they didn’t or can’t just rip the band-aid off and do the case now since I assume someone should have standing. Maybe they just hope everything works out? Or want a better case later?

Regardless whatever they do looks like it will be messy because drawing a bright line anywhere of overreach isn’t going to be hard. And if the gov overreaches in the future saying they did wrong later will once again take years till you have a new administration so coming down very harsh would seem the only way to prevent this behavior.

Alex Berenson says he has a better case. This was a bit of a punt. But I do wander why they didn’t or can’t just rip the band-aid off and do the case now since I assume someone should have standing. Maybe they just hope everything works out? Or want a better case later?

No one will have standing unless there's some other reason to reject the case. This is the Supreme Court giving the green light to Federal government pressure on social media companies.

Assange was arrested by US allies and kept in limbo under various political pressures. The US obviously pushed for extradition, so he could be prosecuted there. Other governments worried about such a fate and pushed back.

I think the real problem here is that The Powers That Be see his actions as criminal (which I don't have the strongest objections to, honestly), but that the actual written laws across The West aren't written today to cover such actions. It's not a good look for US authorities to prosecute someone who as far as I know, other than online interactions, never set foot in the US, even though he worked American sources (who have themselves been prosecuted) and published what they consider to be US secrets. But, as far as I know, the actions weren't directly against the laws of the (Western!) countries he was in.

Spycraft has its own sets of ethics and rules, but non-state-affiliated actors like Wikileaks aren't really subject to them. But at a fundamental level, those actions aren't particularly dissimilar to Bellingcat publishing exposes of Russian cruise missile targeting. It's not generally seen as a crime for Americans to snoop on and publish details of Russian military units. But the State Department already looks askance at Chinese law enforcement reaching overseas, and would probably loudly object if they started arresting, extraditing, or even just intimidating Bellingcat.

Realistically, Western-aligned governments should probably sit down and establish what the acceptable rules are: this entire case would have been easier if Australia had a law on the books that private citizens soliciting and/or publishing secrets of Australian allies (like the US) was subject to similar rules as Australian secrets. But that has some subtleties, because broad laws like this could threaten IMHO reasonable things like Western journalists criticizing the way Western allies fight wars.

It's not a good look for US authorities to prosecute someone who as far as I know, other than online interactions, never set foot in the US, even though he worked American sources (who have themselves been prosecuted) and published what they consider to be US secrets. But, as far as I know, the actions weren't directly against the laws of the (Western!) countries he was in.

I don't know of any on-point cases for the Espionage Act, but extraterritoriality is an absolute mess in general. I recall that since the Obama administration, there has been a push to publish "name and shame" indictments against Russians/Chinese individuals who commit 'crimes'/'actions disliked by TPTB' over the internet, even though they have zero chance of ever bringing those folks into a US court. I think if they ever managed to nab one, it would be quite a blockbuster case on extraterritoriality, and we might get more info that could shed light on whether Assange could have been successful with this type of defense as well.

The general space is mostly ungoverned/ungovernable, and agreed that the State Department would look askance at Chinese law enforcement reaching overseas, but in international relations, it pretty much seems to always come down to, "What are you going to do about it?" Assange found himself in the country of a US ally, so he got caught in the muck. The ugliest of mucks, where you're really at the mercy of great power politics rather than what is absolutely Right and Just.

Unfortunately, not only do I think that there are no established acceptable rules; I think this is an area where it is extremely unlikely that we are going to develop established acceptable rules anytime soon, given the geopolitical situation. For the meantime, I think all we have is muck.

I don't think extraterritoriality is a huge concern in this case. It's an issue in things like banking regulations where the actions are only peripherally related to the United States, but not in cases where domestic activity is at the crux of it. For instance, if someone in the UK who has never set foot in the US hires an American hit man to kill a US citizen in the US, I don't think there are any extraterritoriality concerns about prosecuting him here. Similarly, international espionage has US interests at the core of things. This is fairly rare because most spies who never leave their home countries simply aren't likely to be identified, and when they are they are usually employees of foreign governments that are at least somewhat hostile to the United States, e.g. China. If it's a country we're close to then we're more likely to deal with the situation via diplomacy than to demand extradition and put a further strain on the relationship. When the perpetrator is a private actor whose home country had no involvement in the espionage (or, as in the case of Assange, whose home country isn't even that relevant to the legal proceedings), then it's much easier.

The marriage of the woke left and military industrial complex is something few of us would have expected. The "Bush lied, people died", crowed demonstrating against the patriot act got turned into war hawks. Palestine is the one exception however it is exceedingly difficult to pin Hamas on Putin-bots. Assange should be a hero of the left who fought against the actual power structure, the surviellence state and the military industrial complex. Instead, the military industrial complex became the guardians of woke on a moral crusade against evil Putin. If the deepstate is running social media, that is considered good as the military industrial complex ensures that the woke values of the rand corporation.

In 2003 the media allowed for some criticism of the war in Iraq. Bagdad Bob was on TV. Today no journalist beside Tucker would ever interview a Russian. Those who don't support Lockhead Martin financed think tanks are equivalent to MAGA voters and transphobes.

Granted this is somewhat similar to what happened to the right during the Bush years. People who were nominally libertarian became supporters of spending trillions of dollars on wars with no real benefit while supporting measures that expanded state power to unprecedented levels. It will be interesting to see if the left has an equivalent realization to Iraq had no WMD.

The most obvious reason why more people questioned the Iraq war than oppose Russia is that the Iraq war was more questionable than opposition to Russia.

Is it? I can see that when you're looking at the issue from within the media landscape of the US, but I don't see how you can draw that conclusion when you're able to access a variety of sources and see what the other side is actually saying.

Part of me hopes that the left just rewrites history and acts like they were never against whistleblowers or whatever. If that's what it takes to make this not permanent.

Today no journalist beside Tucker would ever interview a Russian.

Requests have been made for interviews with Putin. The BBC still has Steve Rosenberg in Russia and I feel safe assuming there are other western journalists, some of whom interview Russians.

The idea that the Democratic Party was categorically opposed to the Iraq War in 2003 is a fiction that was created some years later to dunk on Bush for his bungling prosecution of it. While there was certainly some opposition, a good number of Democrats supported it (40% in the House and over 50% in the Senate). Even the so-called "liberal media" didn't mount much opposition. There was a call throughout the early '00s for a "liberal alternative" to the big conservative media figures like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, most notably evidenced by the brief existence of Air America Radio. MSNBC threw their hat into the ring with Phil Donahue. In the run up to the war, Donahue's show was cancelled because the network couldn't stomach his opposition to the war. They claimed it was because of low ratings and cited the fact that his numbers never got anywhere near O'Reilly's, which was true, but he still had the highest-rated show on the network. As someone who was politically conscious at the time, I distinctly remember that being anti-war was seen as a somewhat extreme position; once the war actually started, anti0war protestors had the same cultural status as the pro-Hamas protestors on college campuses do today. Mainstream opposition really only started once the war was going badly and the administration didn't have an exit strategy other than doubling down. While the 2004 election was seen as a referendum on the war, Kerry was quick to criticize Bush over getting us into it but he didn't act like he had an exit strategy, and, IIRC, he specifically said he wasn't going to withdraw a la Howard Dean. Full-scale opposition didn't really crystalize until the tumultuous fall of 2005 put Bush in the doghouse within his own party and bashing him over Iraq became acceptable among Republicans (who essentially adopted the 2004 Democratic position), giving Democrats enough cover to call for actually ending the fiasco.

As someone who was an anti-Bush, anti-war liberal in the 2000s its been incredibly black pilling for me to see the Democratic Party become the very thing I was fighting against.

That said, it was common knowledge that many of the neo-Conservatives during the Bush years (such as Paul Wolfowitz) were former liberals who never really abandoned their liberal beliefs. To them, invading Iraq was a utopian project to bring a western-style democracy to the Middle East. This pairs perfectly with a lot of woke ideology - which is both blank-slatist and militant. And indeed today, we see some of these same Bush-era neoconservatives being lauded as the "Good Republicans" by the elite establishment.

I think rather than say there's some actual philosophical link between domestic and foreign policy, it's both easier and more accurate to say that foreign policy is this strange third wheel of American politics that rarely makes a difference but is talked about quite a lot. Because it's so out in the woods, we get strange bedfellows all over. I don't think it has any strong link with domestic fundamentals or worldview. Kennedy (D) and LBJ (D) were interventionists, Nixon (R) was mixed, Ford (R) was non-interventionist, Carter (D) non-interventionist, Reagan (R) and then Bush Sr (R) both interventionist, Clinton (D) mixed, Bush Jr (R) super-interventionist, Obama (D) mixed, Trump (R) and Biden (D) both relatively non-interventionist. I don't see a pattern, do you? Maybe that's a little reductionist, but overall, it just feels like you have political opinions, and then foreign policy is tacked on after. Highly relevant to Latest Issue Here, and who happened to be the incumbent. It's highly reactionary.

Kennedy (D) and LBJ (D) were interventionists, Nixon (R) was mixed, Ford (R) was non-interventionist, Carter (D) non-interventionist, Reagan (R) and then Bush Sr (R) both interventionist, Clinton (D) mixed, Bush Jr (R) super-interventionist, Obama (D) mixed, Trump (R) and Biden (D) both relatively non-interventionist. I don't see a pattern, do you? Maybe that's a little reductionist, but overall, it just feels like you have political opinions, and then foreign policy is tacked on after. Highly relevant to Latest Issue Here, and who happened to be the incumbent. It's highly reactionary.

It looks like misread my post and then insulting the strawman you created.

Yes, there is nothing inherently interventionalist in the Democratic or Republican parties. Where did I ever say there was? In 2024, the Democrats are more into war than Republicans. Trump will stop escalating in Ukraine. Biden won't. And, yes, this is the Latest Issue. In 2003, the Latest Issue was the Iraq War. I care about foreign policy and it affects my vote. I am even so gauche to care about the Latest Issue. What I don't care about is the (R) or (D) next to someone's name. The meaning of that changes over time.

What's the point of talking about JFK? There have been 1.5 realignments since then. Might as well talk about Polk and the Mexican American War.

I went back and forth about it, but since the Vietnam War is a natural starting point in the discussion, and Kennedy kicked that whole thing off, starting somewhere later felt too arbitrary. Anyways, why did I make this illustration? My point the list was intended to illustrate was that foreign policy rarely coincides with fundamental worldview. It's like an orthogonal axis of political belief. Most presidents find themselves taking foreign policy positions due to circumstance rather than an affirmative/assertive foundational worldview! You'd think, for example, that because Reagan was all "small government best government", that he'd feel the same way about the military, but nope! Neither does "big government best government" do anything to predict how a president might act foreign-policy-wise when in office. Or really, any other of the classic left-right axes, but that one usually is the most natural when comparing Dems and Reps.

Perhaps it might be better to ask you to define what you mean by "liberal beliefs". Why would "blank slatism", which as I understand it is the "nurture >> nature" philosophy, necessarily be a militant ideology as well? Why would classical liberalism's emphasis of strong individual rights and the social contract have anything to do with foreign policy either?

And relevant, but a side-bar: I disagree that 2024 Democrats are more "anti-war" than 2024 Republicans. What does anti-war even mean? Hatred of war in general? A stronger predisposition to use diplomacy first, force last? A total renunciation of military action, or the military? Or simply, weighted-average less likely to get involved in a war-level conflict? Are limited military strikes war? What about funding foreign combatants? Not only are these not the same question, but also, there is no common agreed-upon answer yet for the question of whether the US is best served by peace-through-strength or peace-through-dialogue.

My point the list was intended to illustrate was that foreign policy rarely coincides with fundamental worldview. It's like an orthogonal axis of political belief.

I agree with this take. I would extend this from foreign policy to policy in general. The fundamental compass for most politicians is their own personal power. That's why you see revolutionary groups like the Bolsheviks flip from anti death penalty to extremely pro death penalty the second they gain power. Neither party in the U.S. can claim an anti-war mantle. If the Republicans are peaceful now it's only because they don't hold the reins of power. A younger me believed that anti-war Democrats had actual principles. It was blackpilling for me to learn that they don't, and disgusting to see them celebrating the death and destruction in Ukraine.

Why would "blank slatism", which as I understand it is the "nurture >> nature" philosophy, necessarily be a militant ideology as well?

I didn't say it was, but I actually do believe that, if strongly believed, blank-slatism must become militant. Why? Because it's wrong.

The blank-slatist believes that all races have (somehow) exactly the same IQ. Therefore any group differences must be explained by racism. Based on this flawed worldview, they make policy prescriptions to fix the problem. But it never gets fixed because all races don't have the same IQ. Convinced of their erroneous belief, they double down and take stronger actions, which still don't work. Etc... Etc...

If your belief set is that

  1. Racism is the most important problem that trumps all else

  2. Any differences in group performance is caused by racism

Then you will tear the world apart trying to fix what cannot be fixed. It's similar to how Communists, confronted with the failure of their ideas, blamed it on "wreckers" and resorted to totalitarianism.

As someone who was an anti-Bush, anti-war liberal in the 2000s its been incredibly black pilling for me to see the Democratic Party become the very thing I was fighting against.

I don't think the Biden administration has gotten involved in any new land wars in Asia - in fact they got out of one by implementing Trump's surrender to the Taliban.

Both parties are pro-war when it comes to Ukraine, but the Democrats more so. Trump is far more likely to bring an end to that war then Biden, whose administration seems gleeful at the opportunity to bleed Russia at the small cost of a few hundred thousand lives.

To which, of course, the reply is "but this is a good war". People thought the same thing about Afghanistan and Iraq too until they didn't. Ukraine will end the same way or worse if it isn't stopped.

What do we mean by "pro-war" here?

Neither party favours America fighting the war in Ukraine. America has various other levers that they can use to influence the result - Biden thinks that America should use them to work towards a Ukrainian victory, Trump that America should use them to work towards a Russian victory (his policy only makes sense if he is planning to jawbone Ukraine into surrendering). I don't see why an aggressor winning is an "anti-war" outcome.

As someone who remembers the '90s, 9/11 caused both parties to do an about face on war. If you remember the 2000 election, Bush criticized Clinton for his international meddling and promised a "more humble" foreign policy. Nobody was really opposed to Afghanistan (Barbara Lee said later that she only voted against it because it gave the administration a blank check on terrorism and would have supported the resolution if it were limited to the immediate objectives), and there was still strong Democratic support for Iraq. That support collapsed when the war turned into a fiasco and it became de rigeur for conservatives to double down on it during roughly 2004–2006. It was only really about a 10 year period where Democrats could firmly claim the mantle of being the anti-war party and it was de rigeur among Republicans to speak favorably about any military intervention. The last real instance of this was around 2013, when Assad crossed Obama's "line in the sand" over chemical weapons and Obama took heavy criticism for letting it slide. Or possibly 2015, when there was some suggestion that Obama could have gotten a better Iran deal if he made it clear that military action wasn't off the table, though this sentiment wasn't as widespread.

I'd like to say that this ended with the rise of Trump, but that's not really the case. While the Republican base will criticize Democrats for any of the current administration's foreign adventures, there's still widespread support for the shots we don't actually take. I actually hang out in bars with a lot of conservative-leaning people and most of them will make some comment about how we need to bomb Iran back into the stone age every time they're in the news for doing something aggressive. Every time Biden makes a concession to some foreign leader I hear remarks about him not being tough.