> But Assange hasn't disobeyed his government, the Australian government.
I'm fairly sure there is an Australian law that (indirectly) says you are not allowed to steal from the U.S. government.
> That's true, even more clear in the Gorgias than the Crito dialogue, that Socrates despised public persuasion by manipulation of the crowd's emotions.
That's true, I wouldn't advocate this persuasion tactic either.
> However, I don't recall mentioned even once that some truth aren't good to divulge; in fact, though this idea appears precisely in "the Laws", it's quite saliently the only Plato's dialogue where Socrates is absent...
Are you suggesting no secrets are good to keep? I'm fairly sure Socrates would have kept his credit card number in 2011. I'm fairly sure Assange wouldn't divulge the name of his leakers.
All I'm saying is that in a free society, there are better ways to improve the world than breaking laws, one of them being persuasion. Otherwise, we fall in a dangerous trap where everybody is free to judge for themselves which laws they regard as moral or not. The leaks were probably a good thing but there is a greater principle at stake here.
Note that I'm saying this as a libertarian so I'm certainly not biased towards big government secrecy.
> All I'm saying is that in a free society, there are better ways to improve the world than breaking laws, one of them being persuasion.
At times when there is lots of pressure for generalised control and surveillance because it's simply made possible, it's in the contrary of tremendous importance for some courageous people to go against mainstream, to prevent what remains of our decadent democracies to fall into fascism. Free society is not a state of the matter, it's a process.
I'm fairly sure there is an Australian law that (indirectly) says you are not allowed to steal from the U.S. government.
> That's true, even more clear in the Gorgias than the Crito dialogue, that Socrates despised public persuasion by manipulation of the crowd's emotions.
That's true, I wouldn't advocate this persuasion tactic either.
> However, I don't recall mentioned even once that some truth aren't good to divulge; in fact, though this idea appears precisely in "the Laws", it's quite saliently the only Plato's dialogue where Socrates is absent...
Are you suggesting no secrets are good to keep? I'm fairly sure Socrates would have kept his credit card number in 2011. I'm fairly sure Assange wouldn't divulge the name of his leakers.
All I'm saying is that in a free society, there are better ways to improve the world than breaking laws, one of them being persuasion. Otherwise, we fall in a dangerous trap where everybody is free to judge for themselves which laws they regard as moral or not. The leaks were probably a good thing but there is a greater principle at stake here.
Note that I'm saying this as a libertarian so I'm certainly not biased towards big government secrecy.