Assange is Free

When Julian Assange made headlines for his famous leaks of classified US military information back in 2010, I was a simple, patriotic American that bought the mainstream narrative; Assange was a mere treasonous criminal as far as I was concerned.

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Fourteen years later, and two years down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, however, I’ve come to appreciate just how corrupt and broken the US Department of Defense and other agencies are. The DoD in particular has overplayed its hand to say the least and, more often, engaged in full-on criminal activity. Julian Assange paid the price for providing us access to damning information about US military operations while on the run and, ultimately, during his time in prison.

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The terms of his plea deal required that he admit some degree of guilt. But he is now home, safe from further prosecution (at least from what we can tell).

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This is not to say that an intelligent person couldn’t make a compelling case against Assange’s tactics. He received criticisms about leaving certain details of documents unredacted, even if in general many agreed with his willingness to shine light on government crime. My point is not that Assange was perfect or deserves no critique himself, only that on the net his actions were justified. A government “by the People and for the People” is not possible if we the People don’t know what corruption lies in government.

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One of the most important traits you can acquire through studying Bitcoin is a healthy, predisposition to skepticism. Things aren’t always as they seem, and things are rarely what we are told by talking heads on news networks and in high-level positions of authority.

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The world hasn’t always been consumed by the systems we know today, and it is worth questioning if our status quo is really “best” or rather an emergent series of decisions made by elitists that operate under terrible political and financial incentives.

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Studying Bitcoin means learning about the commencement of central banking in the modern era, which means further unpacking what terms like “bailouts,” the “military industrial complex,” and “Big Pharma” mean in practice. And in practice, these are evils that result largely from broken money; money that can be printed at will with no material cost and then ushered to special interests of all kinds.

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Assange risked everything and paid a high price for his commitment to disseminating truth to the public. His newfound freedom should be celebrated by liberty-loving individuals around the world.

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His story should give us pause to consider whether any remaining trust in government is well-founded. If you dig deep enough, you’ll find it likely isn’t.