Over an hour and a half, a portrait emerges of a brilliant, socially awkward crusader, a “hard-core geek” who would rather interact with a machine than a person but who was also determined to change the world.

The friend is intensely guarded, as many of Assange’s friends are, but the admiration for him is abundant. Assange is described as a humanist, a man who serves no masters, a Renaissance man with 21st-century tools at his disposal, who “decided early on that the world is not as fair a place as it could be, but that the internet provides a way of creating a more level playing field in terms of justice”.

Asked about Assange’s political beliefs, the friend says he flirted with the Left but became disillusioned. He returned from one political meeting in Melbourne in the early 2000s “completely contemptuous of them, because they were fuzzy thinkers”.

Rather than belonging to the Left, Assange “can see flaws in both Left and Right” but if anything, he is “more closely aligned to the libertarian values of the Right”.

It is a purposeful comment, since the extreme Right in the US is baying for Assange to be jailed over publication of voluminous leaked US diplomatic cables, although no crime has been identified.

Today, Assange is the most famous man in the world. In four years, he has gone from obscurity to a potential Nobel laureate and Time magazine person of the year. He is regarded by his supporters as an apostle of free speech and by his increasing army of enemies as the most dangerous man alive – all on the strength of an idea.

More…   http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/julian-assange-wild-child-of-free-speech/story-fn775xjq-1225969230839