Assange Smear 8: “He’s a narcissist/megalomaniac/jerk.”

Assange has been enduring hardships far worse than most people ever have to go through in their lifetime because of his dedication to the lost art of using journalism to hold power to account. If that’s what a narcissist/megalomaniac/jerk looks like to you, then whatever I guess.

But really the primary response to this smear is a simple, so what? So what if the guy’s got a personality you don’t like? What the hell does that have to do with anything? What bearing does that have on the fact that a journalist is being prosecuted in a legal agenda which threatens to set a precedent which is destructive to press freedoms around the world?

So many of the most common Assange smears boil down to simple ad hominem fallacy, in which the person is attacked because the smearer has no real argument. Pointing out the absence of an actual argument is a more effective weapon against this smear than trying to argue that Assange is a nice person or whatever. Plenty of people say Assange has a pleasant personality, but that’s ultimately got nothing to do with anything. It’s no more material to meaningful discourse than arguing over his physical appearance.

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This is an excerpt from the mega-article “Debunking All The Assange Smears”.