I feel like you're fighting a different battle than the one that exists. One in which Manning uncovered and released targeted evidence of clear war crimes, instead of a bunch of unflattering information along with some evidence that was at best ambiguous and at most showed bad judgment on the part of some soldiers.

> The stubborn application of law is not justice. It is authoritarianism

No it's not. The stubborn application of the law is called "rule of law" and it's the foundation of the political theory coming out of Enlightenment liberalism. Authoritarian governments are characterized by personalistic/charismatic rule, and the use of fiat/decree in the place of pre-existing legal standards.

Bradley Manning knowingly violated a long-standing law in the military code of justice that he was fully aware of since signing up. Applying the law to Manning is an example of rule of law not authoritarianism.

This trial was political: people vs. government. The government won by not upsetting the people "too much" by giving him a "light" sentence of only 35 years (what a deal). He will lose 5 years of his life for the service of the greater good.

"The stubborn application of law is not justice. It is authoritarianism, which Wikipedia defines as [...]"

That is super stupid. You don't understand authoritarianism, then, citations of Wikipedia aside. You do a disservice to the actual victims of authoritarianism.

EDIT: Look at the downvoting.. and this is nice compared to what I wrote at first. Since I'm already -3, I'll remove the politeness filters and say that this comment is idiotic. Stubborn application of the law is authoritarianism? How is that not the dumbest thing written on the internet today. Perhaps I'm the stupid one for believing that WORDS have MEANINGS beyond what is convenient at the moment. It's like people saying that food stamps are socialism. It's not opinion, it's INCORRECT.

It sounds like a totally reasonable definition to me. All you've done is to repeat over and over again that the definition is stupid, without identifying why it is stupid or how it could be improved. That's why you got downvoted, not because of your opinion.

Let's examine typical examples of authoritarianism: Stalin, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Franco, to name a few. Note these are people, not nations, yet they they instantaneously identifiable with the USSR, Cambodia, Chile, and Spain. This is a key aspect of authoritarianism - the origin of laws and their enforcement are from a person or cabal, not from the people of that nation. Dictatorship is not synonymous with authoritarianism, but they have a large overlap.

All of my examples are universally considered extremely immoral. However, there are also some countries that are mostly authoritarian, but are arguably not immoral (some middle eastern sultanates come to mind). There is an enormous body of though on the morality of laws. This starts in Greek time with Plato and The Republic, and has had contributions from Aquinas, Hobbes, and more recently MLK. A non-authoritarian state can easily pass immoral laws, too.

Finally, the degree of enforcement of law is a concept which I consider separate from the system of government and the particular laws of the society.

So my objection is that the post commingled three separate ideas: the origin of law within a society, the morality of law, and the rigor of law enforcement. I think the commingling was incorrect. I think some of this is so obvious that not recognizing it can be fairly characterized as stupid. Hope that I hope that clarifies things.

To offer my opinion, the US is not close to being an authoritarian state. However, it has some immoral laws. That can be rectified via a democratic process. I think the enforcement of those laws in this case was actually fairly lax, because he clearly committed crimes and it would not have been difficult to have made a case for treason which would have been eligible for capital punishment, as another commenter noted.

Much more useful. I would point out, however, that many people have begun to wonder whether bad laws can truly be rectified through a democratic process at this point. I am of the opinion that we have, or will soon, hit a sort of tipping point beyond which changing bad laws becomes unfeasible. At that point, aren't we essentially ruled by a cabal of economic and political elites, pushing us into the realm of "authoritarianism"?

I think the entire concept of an entire body of law without a single bad law is implausible on its face. We can't even get computers to do "good things" in all situations and they do exactly what we tell them to and obey what are essentially very simple rules.

So the question shouldn't be "why hasn't the democratic process rectified bad laws", but rather "is there a better process than the democratic process for rectifying bad laws"? I know this sounds like Churchill, but it's also a bit of Gödel if you think about it.

You may need a few more throw-away accounts after this one, friend.

I created it to allow myself a different degree of expression from my normal account. Sometimes I just want to release my id - say, for engaging with a not-unsubstantial population on HN of people whose intellect doesn't keep pace with their arrogance. I still try to be constructive and take care of as though it was a primary account. But I really don't care about karma/points. The account is serving precisely the purpose it was created for.

> Perhaps I'm the stupid one for believing that WORDS have MEANINGS beyond what is convenient at the moment.

Funny. That is exactly the point this "retarded" commment is making.

Explain how. Also, I removed that word. You were right to call me out for that.