WikiLeaks' Julian Assange says US gave 'tacit approval' to embassy attacks

[JDPriestly]

8. Unfortunately, it isn't a stretch.

The problem is that a law or rule has to apply equally to everyone. When you do something to others, then others will assume they have the right to do the same thing to you.

A lot of people don't understand that concept that everyone is equal before the law and that when you deprive another of a right or a protection or even a privilege, you are in a sense giving up your claim to that same right or protection or privilege. That is what is called equal justice, universal justice, equality before the law, the universality of the law.

It's tough, but that is true. It isn't a stretch at all.

And this is precisely why I sometimes criticize our government on a lot of civil liberties and privacy issues.

I don't like many of the things, the snooping and interfering that Anonymous does. It is very distasteful. But then, our very own government and corporations set the example in secrecy for the things that Anonymous does. Same for Wikileaks.

With Wikileaks, the government does not like it when its "secrets" or claimed secrets are published for all to see. But the government takes the liberty of reading all of our private e-mails, intimate love letters (not at my age), family gossip, shopping preferences, etc. It even collects them. And private corporations do the same.

You have to have one law for all -- and that law has to apply with only very limited exceptions even to our very government.

Assange makes a good point. As I have pointed out, we kept Cardinal Mindszenty, a Catholic, in our US embassy in Hungary for a very long time -- 15 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Mindszenty

Yet we complain when Ecuador grants the same right to Assange. We disagree on the grounds of ideology. We judge what Assange did as illegal. The Hungarian government judged what Mindszenty did as illegal. Who knows? We think we are right, but that is our judgment -- and it reflects our bias. The law, the real law, knows no bias.

Hard for people to understand, but that is the way it is if you have government by laws and not by privilege.