When a card says to discard X cards from your hand to satisfy doing Y, unless it says randomly discard do you get to chose what to discard?

For example,

Nute the Barber
Any Phase: Discard 1 card from your hand to give Nute the Barber +1 STR until the end of the phase.

Yes, you get to choose in those cases.

Be careful with one thing here:

- Although you get to pick the identity of the card you discard, you do not "choose" the card in game terms. This is important because it means the discarded card is not a target of the effect (or a target of the cost, as the case would be here...).