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Criticism from Both Sides as an Indicator of Neutrality
I just put out issue No. 78 of my newsletter, and I got a couple of critical emails about my mention of the Russians hacking the Macron campaign.
Here’s a piece of the first.
And here’s a piece of the second.
So the first is blasting me for being too right wing, and the second is blasting me for being an extreme liberal—but both comments are based on the exact same position. I suppose I take that as a compliment for being neutral?
First, just to state the obvious, I’m neither an extreme liberal nor a conservative. Being generally anti-religion, pro-choice, and believing in a role for government in basic services takes me out of the conservative camp. And my support of logical gun policy, immigration reform, and a growing distain of the extreme left has all but ejected me from the liberal ranks.
In truth, there’s no place for me in any party right now, and I don’t feel the need to force myself into one. I have positions on issues, and that’s it.
So the irony here is that it’s actually both of these commenters who are showing their allegiances. They have rejected a narrative because they believe it to belong to the opposing party, when facts actually don’t have a party.
FACT: Russia has been engaging in information warfare campaigns around the world, focused around key elections, in an attempt to further is political goals.
That is a statement without a political affiliation. If you are in information security or the intelligence community, and you lack some sort of raging bias that blinds you to evidence and reason, you will have reached this conclusion many, many months ago. It’s so obviously true that it’s ceased being interesting.
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But somehow the crazy right wingers think it’s a liberal conspiracy once the New York Times writes about it, and the crazy liberals think it’s a right-wing, colonialist campaign if the intelligence community confirms it.
Grow the fuck up. Read more. Find more inputs to formulate your opinions.
If you cannot look at many sources, and many pieces of evidence, and then use that information to determine the most likely truth, then you’re just lost. You’re left to close your eyes and swing wildly at anything that’s been marked as false by your betters.
As I said here before, if you believe nothing you can be convinced of anything.
That Russia is engaging in information warfare around the world is not a liberal or conservative fact, because those don’t exist. It’s just a fact.
Does this mean everything is Russia? Automatically? In all cases? No. Of course not.
But if you read a lot, from a lot of different sources, have a basic understanding of history and the relevant fields of infosec and Intelligence, and you aren’t horribly biased by some political bent yourself, then you should be able to tell the difference.
Try harder.