@ReinhardGeiger @georgetakei For example, the USSR and some of the Eastern European communist regimes went on having ostensibly antisemitic purges long after almost all the Jews were gone. "Jew", "Kulak" and various other terms meant whatever they wanted them to.

@ReinhardGeiger @georgetakei

That is a big #Difference to democratic #Countries:
You're #Citizenship and #free #movement are #guaranteed by the #Country you're living in.
In a #Dictartorship like #Putin's they can #switch on and off these human #Rights whenever they want. So there, these Rights are not worth the Dirt from the Street under your #Sole.

@ReinhardGeiger @georgetakei

This is painfully and profoundly true. And I get the sense that a lot of people just aren’t really digesting it.

The aim of authoritarian use of power is not to make you conform to a coherent set of rules, but to make you so frightened that you will anticipate rules they haven’t even thought up yet.

You can be entirely innocent of what they’ve accused you of, and if you can prove it, they’ll punish you for weakening the state by exposing its mistakes.

@ReinhardGeiger @georgetakei this joke was so spread that even now in Russian there is an expression "prove that you're not a camel". for example: "I'm going to my HR department, need to get a paper from my employer to prove the tax office I'm not a camel". Or: "It's you who know I'm not the culprid in this road accident, but try to prove the police I'm not a camel!".

@ReinhardGeiger
so why did the US try to deny Assange due process?

@georgetakei