Noooo, because then there’s a jury trial, and sentencing, where all those things will come into play. So she’s not guilty yet, upsetting as that may be for you. But you know that already. And it’s perfectly possible for someone’s case to never even GET to court, as the prosecution decides it’s not worth it Probably not in this case, as she made powerful entities look stupid, but there you go. It’s not black and white, nothing ever is, much as you’d like it to be. End of story.
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You couldn’t be more off. Mine would be “We don’t live in anything resembling a ‘Dark Nightmare’, as our lives are pretty comfortable and our problems totally manageable”
Yours would be “Everything is worse than it’s ever been before, but only by virtue of my complete lack of perspective.”
HELLS YEAH!
You always drive BELOW the speed LIMIT, right?
She does have a history of activism. A friend who’s currently part of the Guantanamo protest in D.C this month said he recognized her from previous protests, and had wondered why she wasn’t present this year.
@Salgak NB: When Jesus threw the money-changers from the temple, he was DISTURBING the PEACE, ASSAULT with a DEADLY WEAPON, DESTROYING Property, etc. charges. He may have been a Messiah, and calling it “cleaning out a den of theives”, but calling a hand a foot does not make it one. He was a violator of the CRIMINAL code, not the Civil code. .
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He typed on his computer, sitting on a relatively comfortable couch, in a climate controlled house with a steady supply of electricity, clean drinking water, internet access and cable television being pumped in for pennies a day. He continued to ruminate on the frightening and terror inducing state of the society surrounding him in as he walked down the street relatively unafraid as the chances of him being robbed, murdered, kidnapped for ransom, or persecuted for his political, social or religious beliefs was infinitesimally small. “I’m just not sure I’m going to be able to take it any more” He thought as he arrived at his destination. And as he walked down the long aisles of the grocery, well stocked with not only the basic staples needed to sustain life, but nearly overflowing with a myriad of choices in fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, delicacy’s, fine cheeses and beer he began to contemplate taking his own life. “It’s so awful here, living in this dark nightmare of a country. Perhaps it would be better not to live at all?”
To get a perspective: Basically everything you said is true for someone living in Peking, Minsk or Moskau right now. So it’s no problem if the US drifts toward an authoritarian regime as long theres clean water water and stocked grocery aisles? Complacent people like you are what got you in this mess or an even better response is this cheesy quote by Edmund Burke:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
BTW The “dark nightmare” rhetoric was not mine so you can stop repeating it.
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Again - she wasn’t breaking in in order to expose the security flaws at this complex. She isn’t some whistleblower who saw a flaw in security and went out to expose it. She’s a vandal who, in the process of her vandalism, also happened to expose some glaring security flaws. Is it good that she exposed those flaws? Absolutely. Is she still guilty of vandalism and breaking and entering into a federal facility? She hasn’t faced trial yet, but the facts of the case as presented certainly seem to point in that direction.
Should she go to jail for the rest of her life for it? Well, I guess it depends on what laws are there for. Are the harsh potential sentences for breaking and entering into a federal facility there to deter would-be break-and-enterers from doing it? Or are they there to punish people who have already done it, based on how serious the damage they do? If the former, well, then obviously she should go to jail for the rest of her life, to prevent potential bombers from trying it themselves (since we have already shown that as long as you don’t appear to be threatening, you’re not going to be shot). But if the latter, well then yes - if they break in and just spray paint a wall? Slap on the wrist. If they break in and blow some shit up? Life in jail. But the question of “what purpose does the law serve, punishment or deterrent?” isn’t one that I know the answer to, in all honesty.
(Edited for formatting purposes, and this message added because Discourse won’t let me just change formatting, I need to change content too)
So – she’s either a whistleblower, or a vandal? Nothing else?
Where, exactly, did I say that she’s nothing else?
To me, it seemed to be implied with: “She isn’t some whistleblower who saw a flaw in security and went out to expose it. She’s a vandal[.]”
What is a whistleblower? Somebone who blows a whistle, usually in order to draw attention. Snowden is [arguably] a whistleblower, but he blew no whistle – he is a metaphorical whistleblower in that he drew attention, by theft and exposure of documents, to activities he felt should be known. So, a whistleblower is someone who performs an action in order to draw attention to something others are overlooking. Chaining oneself to an entrance gate, or setting oneself on fire, in order to bring out the media and shed light on a facility or regime seems to be attention-drawing activity. Just not the neat and orderly “here’s a bunch of documents I stole from my employers” sort of whistleblower. [Note I do not consider all attention-drawing activity to be whistle-blowing - there’s a socially-redeeming aspect beyond pure self-aggrandizement.]
For example, Daniel Ellsberg just brought up the FBI burglary in Media, PA that brought out domestic spying.
Yet, you say
“She isn’t some whistleblower who saw a flaw in security and went out to expose it. She’s a vandal[.]”
So, somebody who breaks in and steals things to draw attention is a whistleblower, but somebody who breaks in and paints on things to draw attention is not a whistleblower, but a vandal?
You may not be restricting her to one category or the other, but your strictions do seem fairly arbitrary from here.
The guy who did not shoot her got fired. I would not be surprised if all the other security guards are being trained to immediately shoot the next time this happens.
Well, now I think we’re arguing semantics. I think that those people chaining themselves to things or setting themselves on fair are certainly protestors, but not whistleblowers. Did this woman expose some seriously alarming security flaws in what should be an extremely secure facility? She sure as heck did. But she did it by accident. She wasn’t trying to draw attention to the security flaws at the facility, she was trying to tell people how much she disapproves of atomic weapons.
If somebody breaks in to steal things in order to expose the very things that they are stealing, then yes, they are a whistleblower (presuming that’s what they were going there to steal). But if they go in there to steal diamonds, and in the process of stealing the diamonds also manage to expose how crappy the security was on said diamonds, they are not a whistleblower. They are just a diamond thief (see also: my white hat vs script kiddie hacker comparison earlier in the thread). The exposure of the crappy security is really only incidental to the act. So yes, in my opinion, this nun isn’t really a whistleblower. She’s a vandal, she’s an anti-nuclear-weapons protestor, and she falls into many other a category, but I don’t think she’s a whistleblower.
Point out where I said anything of the kind, and I’d be happy to respond. To re-re-re iterate the point I was trying to make: One describing life in modern America as a “Dark Nightmare” in spite of the fact that one enjoys an unprecedented amount of freedom and access to he tools and resources to effect lasting positive change is a hyperbole of the highest order. Is that at least one thing we can agree on and put to rest?
As far as drifting into an authoritarian regime. If you can find me a point in time in the last 50 years that whatever given hot topic of the day wasn’t touted as proof that fascism was just around the corner, I’ll concede that you aren’t just another chicken little trying to convince me that the sky is falling. Till you can provide some proof that your fears hold any more credence than the dozens upon hundreds of people before you who’ve gotten the doomsday bug up their asses, I’ll assume you’re views of cataclysmic tyranny are no more relevant or realistic than those of Y2k-ers, or preppers.
Perhaps the root of your problem is that you some how believe that you deserved to inherit a world that wasn’t a little fucked up. What gave you that idea?
Complacent people like you are what got you in this mess
You seem to be having this discussion with some else at this point. Where have I espoused complacency? How does “You have the resources to effect positive change, perhaps you should use them.” translate into complacency?
This conversation would be a lot easier if you simply addressed the points I’ve made, instead of supplying rhetoric that I’ve never stated to provide yourself something to argue against.
To summarize my views:
- Life in modern America (with a few exceptions) can not with any seriousness be described as a dark nightmare
- We are not without our problems, and the state of having problems is nothing particularly new.
- We should use the resources we have at our disposal to fix said problems
- More problems will arise, which we should then fix.
- (and this one is only because you brought it up) We are not likely on a slippery slope to absolute tyranny.
Now unless I’ve missed my guess, we both agree on #1-4. #5 is where we’d differ, but the result of that difference doesn’t amount to much as we both believe #3. Would you agree? If yes, then I’d ask what is the point of your original reply to my post? Putting aside the views and ideologies that I don’t hold and the text that I typed does not imply (and yet you projected them onto me anyway), what are you trying to say?
BTW The “dark nightmare” rhetoric was not mine so you can stop repeating it.
But it was the direct subject of my post which you replied to, so if you don’t think we live in a dark nightmare, just say so as opposed to painting me with a brush and pigments that you supplied yourself and have nothing to do with anything I’ve yet said.
does the usa still use uranium? I thought the usa used plutonium in bombs
ooh, you might have me there. I did read a prior article that explained the situation at length, but for the post you’re replying to, I was just parroting the OP
Mike from Mother Jones sez, "Josh Harkinson writes about the upcoming sentencing of Megan Rice, an elderly nun and Plowshares activist who broke into the Y-12 enriched uranium facility with two fellow aging activists.
Did a bit of clean up. Reminding everyone to stay on topic. This behavior has to stop, I don’t want ‘nun’ of it anymore.
Someone was bullied in high school.
The law is supposed to be for both punishment and deterrent, but it’s been shown that the risk of punishment is not enough to stop people committing crime - whatever the punishment people still commit crime. Incarceration is theoretically for rehabilitating the person into someone who will not commit the crime again but in this case that’s nonsense since given the opportunity she would likely do it again (and there will be an endless supply of people doing it after her). It wasn’t like she was trying to sneakily do it and then escape, part of activism is getting arrested to make your point heard.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be some consequences, but in this case the punishment does not fit the crime. @Salgak’s America sounds like a shitty place to live if he’s so cool with prosecutors going for maximum penalties in situations where they’re entirely not appropriate. Meanwhile the white collar criminals who caused (and profited from) the subprime mortgage crisis go unpunished while the prosecutors are busy dealing with the bigger fish of 80 year old nuns throwing liquids on stuff… Federal stuff.
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