Thursday, January 17, 2013

I’ve been thinking of writing some version of this post since the days immediately after the Newtown shootings. It overlaps with but is distinct from the division between people who are pro-gun or anti-gun or pro-gun control or anti-gun control. Before you even get to these political positions, you start with a more basic difference of identity and experience: gun people and non-gun people.
So let me introduce myself. I’m a non-gun person. And I think I’m speaking for a lot of people.
Josh Marshall is a Zionist

Again: This is Zionism at its most liberal
I'm not asking Israel to be Utopian. I'm not asking it to allow Palestinians who were forced out (or fled) in 1948 to return to their homes. I'm not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis, since that would require Israel no longer being a Jewish state. I'm actually pretty willing to compromise my liberalism for Israel's security and for its status as a Jewish state.
"I'm not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis."
Israel has never been a country for all its people. It has never been modern or democratic, and has only gotten worse.

Zionist liberalism in America is equal rights for all where you live and Jim Crow back home, in Alabama, or Tel Aviv: Jim Crow and the gun.

Commenter Sebastian H at Crooked Timber
If you really want anything good to come out of the Aaron Swartz case, I would be loathe to link it to the Manning case. I believe that Manning is being mistreated. I believe that he has a legitimate case with respect to some of the disclosures he made. But he also dumped essentially all of the diplomatic secrets he could get his hands on. I have no idea what Aaron believed in his heart of hearts. Maybe he was a full on Wikileaks supporter. But his actions were a lot easier to defend. The data he liberated in the Pacer investigations was already public domain. The JSTOR data was widely available scientific data. Aaron’s actions are easily distinguishable from Manning’s. The argument against prosecutorial overreach, nasty plea bargaining tactics, and unjust piling of charges for jury effect is already going to be almost impossible. Saddling it with the freight of the Manning case seems like a very bad idea.
Also the comments by "rea"

Manning is more important and more deserving of the effort.

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