The People's Cube - Political Satire

The politburo needs to hold an emergency meeting to decide what the Current Truth™ is regarding Julian. Is he a hero of The People™ or a threat to MTE and his O'liness?

Sure he hates America which makes one think he is on our side, however The Progressive World Of Next Tuesday will never survive without our secrets, our many many secrets.

Superkommissar Maksim wrote:The politburo needs to hold an emergency meeting to decide what the Current Truth™ is regarding Julian. Is he a hero of The People™ or a threat to MTE and his O'liness?

Sure he hates America which makes one think he is on our side, however The Progressive World Of Next Tuesday will never survive without our secrets, our many many secrets.

Well Superkommissar, the deal is, Julian is BOTH a hero of The People™ and a threat to the MTE and His Mighty O'liness.

His hatred for Amerika, may work out better for the proles. He might be a great candidate for Prez in a couple years. The issue of a Prezz needing to be a natural born citizen and hold loyalty to the US seems to be pretty well buried solved. Maybe the next election can be held on Twitter.

The current Current Truth may need to be on hold for a while until the Inner Party can digest which secrets are out.

Hmmm, Friend of people or Traitor to the Cause?????
His bold choice of clothing says "I'm a non-conformist; I'm gonna be my own kind of person, in the same way as all these other non-conformists"
His pale face makes him appear to be a charter member of NAMBLA [North American Man Bovine Lovers Association]
We may all be in grave danger because he spilled the beans, but that's a risk he was willing to take*

Collective, I submit my judgement: he MAY JUST BE the most dedicated Proggie Progg among us. As his efforts make us look weaker in comparison, I submit he must be shot on sight- For The Children™ , of course.

*bonus points for carefully styling his hair to appear like he dosen't style his hair

We have been criticized by some of our libertarian friends who support Wikileaks because "all diplomacy should be transparent."

To all those who believe that all diplomacy should be transparent - have you ever tried giving a transparent answer to your wife's question "Does this dress make my ass look fat?"

To all the rest, I'd like to present a historic quote:

Nikolai Bukharin wrote:We asked for freedom of the press, thought, and civil liberties in the past because we were in the opposition and needed these liberties to conquer. Now that we have conquered, there is no longer any need for such civil liberties.

-- Nikolai Bukharin, prominent Party theoretician (1917)

(Out of Karaketer)
As a libertarian I have had some issues with this. But I've reached the conclusion that it is reasonable for diplomats to be able to conduct secret discussions, and for the state to keep some secrets regarding national defense, negotiations with other nations, and whatnot. The best protection against the state abusing such privilege is an ever vigilant people and Congress. Neither of which we have.

I would have to say that I agree with you, Colonel. But obviously, there have to be limits established on back-door diplomacy.

So I propose this arrangement: Let the government keep whatever secrets it wants to hide under a fancy-shmancy system of concrete bunkers, deadly booby traps, agents under auspices of CIAFBIIRSEPA or some other long strings of government alphabets, and what-not. But once someone leaks them, the government cannot hound after that whistleblower.

It's all First Amendment, my fellow Americans.

Kim Jong-Un wrote:

I would have to say that I agree with you, Colonel. But obviously, there have to be limits established on back-door diplomacy.

So I propose this arrangement: Let the government keep whatever secrets it wants to hide under a fancy-shmancy system of concrete bunkers, deadly booby traps, agents under auspices of CIAFBIIRSEPA or some other long strings of government alphabets, and what-not. But once someone leaks them, the government cannot hound after that whistleblower.

It's all First Amendment, my fellow Americans.

We seem to be speaking freely in this post.

Travel with me back in time. It's in the middle of WWII in the Pacific. Our intelligence agents have broken the enemy code. An idiot/traitor in the government leaks the information to an American newspaper. Even though in that case, the newspaper acceded to the government's demands not to publish such information (the secrecy of which enabled victory and prevented defeat at Midway), would you have wanted the newspaper to print it? If the newspaper were to have done so, what would have been its relationship to the thousands of lives that would have been lost as a result?

Freedom of the Press does not negate the centuries-old common-law concept of being criminally liable as an "accessory after the fact" to a crime-- especially one that likely causes deaths of people risking their lives to protect us.

Absolutism on almost any issue is absolutely wrong. We all know that Freedom of the Press cannot be absolute-- the Constitution isn't a suicide pact.

What Assange has done is far worse than to shout fire in a crowded theatre. His form of narcicisstic "morality" will lead to more deaths of liberty-loving people, not fewer; more barbarity, not less. To describe him as pond scum would be an extreme insult to pond scum.

Now, regarding another comment. In order to illustrate the absurdity of absolutism, Red Square asked the question, "ave you ever tried giving a transparent answer to your wife's question 'Does this dress make my ass look fat?'"

Having met Red Square's very attractive wife, I would say that he shares the same luxury that I share: Whenever my wife asks such a question, the tranparent answer is always "Of course not" because she's such a gorgeous gal. Luckily for me, she didn't insist that her husband have correlative attractiveness.

--KOOK

An ever vigilant congress is the result of ever vigilant people, so the colonel is correct. As a former military man there are definitely things that shouldn't be transparent. What if the Manhattan project or the D-Day invasion had been transparent? I'm not saying, Colonel, that you are saying this, I'm merely pointing out that levels of confidentiality are sometimes necessary. People aren't bothering to vet their representatives (if they even know who they are) and therefore the Congress is emboldened to act in its own selfish interests, thinking, rightly it seems, that their constituents are either too stupid or too lazy to hold them accountable for their actions.

Many of the problems we have today would solve themselves if Americans would just be more active in making their elected representatives accountable. We've all been sold this bill of goods that the only election that matters is the one for the Chief Executive. For myself, I don't believe in popular elections. The Senate should go being appointed by the State representatives, and the President likewise should be chosen by the states who should be accounting for their electoral votes by district and not by an all or nothing system. This forces people to put their focus squarely on the person it needs to be on, their Congressional Representative. Also, they will take a greater interest in who they're electing at the State level.

SuperKommissar Maksim,

As usual in your depiction of people, you hit the nail on the head in how you depict Assange. But your question is whether the Cube should view him as a hero or as a villain. The answer is obvious-- Since what he's done mostly damages liberty, he's a hero; to the extent to which some of the revelations cast Collectivism in a bad light, he's a villain, but in its superior wisdom, the Collective sometimes accepts such ratios in its Machiavellian understanding that to make an omlet, one must crack eggs. Thus, on balance, I think the Left will consider him a hero (as will many on the fringes of libertarianism).

--KOOK

Judgement untempered by mercy is cruelty. Mercy without consequence is enablement.

But enough of this soft Western pablum. Have you reported your neighbor today?

Rikalonius wrote:
... Many of the problems we have today would solve themselves if Americans would just be more active in making their elected representatives accountable....

Dear Comrade Rikalonius,

This is the heart of the problem. Our side has passively allowed the Left's views to subliminally dominate the culture for at least the last 40 years through their headlock on the entertainment/news media. We who believe in the competetive marketplace have not until recently begun to attempt to compete in the marketplace of ideas to counter such nonsense which vast numbers of Americans accept subliminally and thus uncritically. The problem is not in how Senators are elected or how votes are cast for President.

It's the failure of our side (for decades) in failing to agressively compete in the marketplace of ideas. What we understand about the superiority of liberty over statism is common sense-- it's not rocket science. It's not beyond the kin of ordinary people. But the attitudes of ordinary people (those who are not political junkies or news junkies) will be formed-- whether we like it or not -- by what they perceive in the news/entertainment media. Thus, in order to get them to do what we know they're capable of doing (i.e., using common sense to actuate their willingness to embrace values to preserve liberty for their own posterity), we must learn how to "preach" the principles of liberty to those outside the limited-government/strong-defense "choir." In order to do so, we must first gain their attention. For decades, the Left has subliminally embedded leftist propaganda in entertainment. (Can you say, "Creative Coalition"?).

With few exceptions begun only within the last several years, our side has done nothing to counter that. There are many things on which Beck is right on target and a few on which he is, in my opinion, off-target, but one of the things he understands is the concept of "the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment." It's the only way to effectively counter the Left's still-overwhelming headlock on popular culture. The answer isn't to shut down the Left's propaganda-- it's to out-compete the Left. We know the correct answers are on our side, not theirs. We just need to be clever enough to make it interesting for non-politica/news-junkies to actually think about things. Common sense makes the folly (and tyrannical nature) of utopianism self-evident.


But everything Beck does isn't on target. By almost exclusively embracing the Declaration of Independence slogan "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," he has fallen into the trap of failing to recognize the Constitution rather than the Declaration as the founding document. The Constitution guarantees not "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" but "life, liberty [and] property." Why? Because, correctly understood, "property" is a "right"-- i.e., the right to enjoy and control the fruits of one's own labor. "Pursuit of Happiness" is merely a catchy phrase that redundantly describes an intrinsic element of "liberty." Property is a human right. The Bill of Rights says so. The Declaration of Independence doesn't.


The emphasis on the concept of a "right" (something one can do for himself and not what is done for one by others) is essential to understanding the Bill of Rights because virtually the entirety of the Bill of Rights is a list of what the goverment must not do to infringe upon our exercise of our rights. Finally, I have no objection to Beck's theological assertion that our "rights" come from God. That is the view expressed in the Declaration of Independence but not in the Constitution. The Constitution treats our rights as inherent in us as "people" and the government's source of power as being -- not from "God" as was claimed by Kings -- but from "We the People."


(By the way, I'm no Beck-hater-- quite the contrary. I think his analysis of many aspects of our problems are brilliantly correct. I went to the 8-28-10 rally despite my not being religious. Furthermore, on his absolute worst day, Beck is infinitely more ecumenical and religiously tolerant than are the Secular Fundamentalists on the Left on their best day. Secular Fundamentalists? That's the term I used more than a decade ago to describe the anti-theist secularists.) (If you're interest in elaboration on this, see https://GUTSPAR.Com.)


Pajamas Media, Breitbart, and RightNetwork are on the right track but need to radicaly expand their appeal. Currently, few outside the limited-government/strong-defense "choir" can even hear them singing, much less understand the words. They're trying to devise ways to fuse entertainment with enlightenment. But our side has a long, long, long way to go to even begin to be competitive on the battlefield of ideas in the minds of the vast swath of Americans who aren't stupid but merely uninformed (because they're not political/news junkies) and misinformed (because their views are still shaped by the culture overwhelmingly dominated by the Left's headlock on entertainment and news they consume.)


Is it a "sin" for our side (comprised disproportionately of geezers and soon-to-be geezers, the former of which am I) to "stoop" to "tittilating" tactics to gain the attention of as many as possible in the under-35 crowd in order to at least have a chance of luring them away from utopian propaganda? I think not.


--KOOK

Colonel 7.62 wrote:(Out of Karaketer)
As a libertarian I have had some issues with this.

[OFF]
Same here. The conclusion I have reached is that there is a difference between transparency of government, and transparency of diplomacy. The former is a must in any free society. The latter can only undermine us. For instance, hypothetically, everybody knows that our Air Force could, in their lunchbreak, vaporize North Korea. But, if, hypothetically, we have the Secretary of State on record saying: "During our Air Forces lunchbreak, we could vaporize North Korea.", it makes us looks bad. Most of what was on WikiLeaks is an "open secret", so to speak, everybody knows it, but we've never admitted it to save face. And I don't think anybody advocating personal and economic freedom should have qualms with our nation trying to bring about greater freedom in the world.

In the next video you can judge for yourself if they were simply looking to execute civilians or not.



If you're a civilian in a war zone and you see someone with a weapon it's a good idea to get away from them so there is no confusion. Or one might ask that the insurgents would be good enough to wear uniforms.

[off]

Me thinks if the turd were really doing as much damage as is being hyped, he would have turned up dead months ago.

Someone is "letting" this all go on...

Maksim, to answer your question of who's side this Assange guy is on, I must say he's a loose cannon on the Progressive deck. He thinks he's helping us but he's clumsy and self serving.

[OFF]
Buffoon, I tend to agree. All this best serves Obama. It damages US foreign affairs while casting Hillary (his real threat in 2012) in a bad light. A win-win for him.

Comrade W........

I was reading your post, and thought to myself " WWSD? "( What Would Stalin Do ?)
about Assange.......... and then I noticed your avatar and thought about Mexico.

KOOK wrote: Travel with me back in time. It's in the middle of WWII in the Pacific. Our intelligence agents have broken the enemy code. An idiot/traitor in the government leaks the information to an American newspaper. Even though in that case, the newspaper acceded to the government's demands not to publish such information (the secrecy of which enabled victory and prevented defeat at Midway), would you have wanted the newspaper to print it?

[OFF]

What big secret did this guy Assange leak anyway? Most conservatives embrace commonsense so we already knew that:

A) Saudi Arabia supports Al Qaeda.
B) Diplomats spy on each other.
C) Putin runs Russia like a mafia family.
D) Yemen let's us bomb terrorists. Did anyone think Yemen had Predator drones?
E) China hacks websites.
F) The Sunni Arab world wants to see Iran destroyed before it gets a nuke.
G) Afghan Prez Karzi is an unpopular dufus.
H) Italy's Berlisconni is a corrupt SOB.
etc.

Assange should change the name of his website to Wiki-Obvious.

mi wrote:

KOOK wrote: Travel with me back in time. It's in the middle of WWII in the Pacific. Our intelligence agents have broken the enemy code. An idiot/traitor in the government leaks the information to an American newspaper. Even though in that case, the newspaper acceded to the government's demands not to publish such information (the secrecy of which enabled victory and prevented defeat at Midway), would you have wanted the newspaper to print it?

Today -- as it was back during WW2 -- the sense of the journalist(s)/editor(s) holding the leaked information prevented the leak from doing harm. As Assange himself points out in his interview, not even the Pentagon alleges today, that anything exposed by Wikileaks has caused any actual physical harm to anyone... They aren't posting everything they have, and they carefully redact the names and other data, where actual harm is possible.

I'm yet to make up my own mind on all this, but, if I were asked, whether I prefer Obama (or anyone on his team) vs. a random self-professed Libertarian to determine, what piece of information should and what should not be secret, I would pick a Libertarian -- such as Mr. Assange.

I respectfully, but vehemently, disagree.


Regarding Assange:
https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704584804575644490285411052.html


Regarding harm caused by Assange-- more to come later.

--KOOK

Comrade Whoopie wrote:[OFF]

What big secret did this guy Assange leak anyway? Most conservatives embrace commonsense so we already knew that:

A) Saudi Arabia supports Al Qaeda.
B) Diplomats spy on each other.
C) Putin runs Russia like a mafia family.
D) Yemen let's us bomb terrorists. Did anyone think Yemen had Predator drones?
E) China hacks websites.
F) The Sunni Arab world wants to see Iran destroyed before it gets a nuke.
G) Afghan Prez Karzi is an unpopular dufus.
H) Italy's Berlisconni is a corrupt SOB.
etc.

Assange should change the name of his website to Wiki-Obvious.

I agree that some* information "revealed" by the documents merely confirms what anyone with common sense already knew.



But even as to that category of infomormation, the release is damaging nevertheless.



Additionally, Assange's claim that he's "scrubbed" names from documents to prevent "harm" to "anyone" is, in my opinion, laughable unless one were to assume that all adversaries are stupid. As any good reporter knows, it's often easy to discern identities from contexts in ways that would be wholly insufficient in a court of law but easily sufficient for purposes of the reporter. And there are many enemy agents much smarter than most "good reporters."



Furthermore, even when a particular person (whose identity may have been "scrubbed out") may have been physically "rubbed out" as a result thereof, sensible spokespersons for the Pentagon, CIA, etc. may understand the importance of not "validating" contextual clues drawn by an adversary (who rubbed-out a person he perceives to be someone "scrubbed out" by Assange) in order to avoid increasing the number of others whose names were "scrubbed out" also being "figured out" and then "rubbed out."


I think the conduct of Assange and the conduct of whoever leaked the documents to him are acts of war agains the United States.


*Footnote: We can't quantity whether it's "some" or "much" because we are dealing with many hundreds of thousands of documents purporting to be authentic and we're also lacking authoritive authentication of documents purporting to be authentic. We have no way to know how many forgeries are included.


--KOOK

A high caliber "Information Specialist" should be appointed to bring this business to an abrupt conclusion.

Comrade Tooorisky wrote:A high caliber "Information Specialist" should be appointed to bring this business to an abrupt conclusion.

Does WikiLeaks display Google Ads?

Who knows? Not I.



--KOOK

It's revealing that when Wleaks did the doc dump on the military, the administration was silent. In a saner world we would have "reached out to touch him" before he could do anymore damage.

Red Jim wrote:

In a saner world we would have "reached out to touch him" before he could do anymore damage

What Would Stalin Do? Why, What Would Santarchist Do?

By sheer definition, government and diplomats must be allowed some privacy at times to do their job. To what degree and how often that information is declassified is up to the people via their elected officials. To whit, I'm not going to get my party approved undies in a bunch over secret diplomatic chatter, and classified military documents. However the wikileaks incident raises the question of not only how much secrecy is good, but also when it is proper to breach that simply for the value of dumping a bunch of raw data.

Superkommissar Maksim wrote:
The politburo needs to hold an emergency meeting to decide what the Current Truth™ is regarding Julian. Is he a hero of The People™ or a threat to MTE and his O'liness?

Sure he hates America which makes one think he is on our side, however The Progressive World Of Next Tuesday will never survive without our secrets, our many many secrets.

I think the current truth for Julian is that his @sshole is sure going to be sore for a long long time where he is going. Pretty white boy .... Best send him some KY Global Warming Jelly ™ else he will need some

Red Square wrote:We have been criticized by some of our libertarian friends who support Wikileaks because "all diplomacy should be transparent."

To all those who believe that all diplomacy should be transparent - have you ever tried giving a transparent answer to your wife's question "Does this dress make my ass look fat?"

My wife IS fat and I don't need to tell he that she is, just don't let anyone at the politburo know she gets an extra ration of beets for vote rigging. Hell, she has so many chins that it appears as if she is trying to look through a Venetian blind!

So open diplomacy is alive and working well here. I just wish SHE was "transparent!"

KOOK wrote:

Comrade Tooorisky wrote:A high caliber "Information Specialist" should be appointed to bring this business to an abrupt conclusion.

Does WikiLeaks display Google Ads?

Who knows? Not I.



--KOOK

Comrade Kook,I am not sure who does his web hosting, but Googie was fighting for the business!So we should give them "the business".