How Odd Is Putin's Russia?

[Stevicus]

I’m not sure if this is what you mean, but having preconditions of the sort involving pre-banning nations from applying to join NATO would cede too much to Russia. It would be a denial of something so fundamental to western society, the right to choose associations, which Russia agreed to in the Helsinki Accords, that it would represent a total moral capitulation.

Putin is many things, as you said earlier, like Berezovsky too, he is part street-thug. He does outrageous things, waits, and when he doesn’t get a response, he does something more outrageous. He had naturalised British citizens murdered on British soil, to virtually no response. Georgia, barely a whimper. Annexes Crimea, nothing. He has no reason to stop. A total military defeat and humiliation is the only thing that would stop the current conflict from dragging on and on, so it would be better for Ukraine if the West were to give Ukraine the tools it needs to finish the job. Safer, although worse for Ukrainians, would be for the war to drag out indefinitely into the sort of entrenched and pointless conflict Russia got itself into in Afghanistan. That way, the push against Putin would come from within Russia, whereas a total humiliation on the battlefield might actually help him consolidate power. If there’s one thing that can unite Russians, it’s the victim narrative.

I wasn't really talking about pre-banning any nations from joining NATO, although I think the original basis for forming NATO in the first place is no longer relevant in today's world. There seems to a dispute between those who believe that NATO's expansion is justified because Russia is hostile, while others counter that Russia became hostile precisely because NATO chose to expand. It's like a chicken-egg type question.

Obviously, every sovereign nation in the world has a right to free associations. But when you say "moral capitulation," the implication is that there is some moral obligation for other nations to intervene in another nation's conflicts. That, too, has been a sticky question for quite some time. As much as we would like the world to be moral, it really isn't, which is where concepts such as "realpolitik" come into play. It's a more realistic and pragmatic way of looking at things where we might have to choose among the lesser among many evils.

Putin is a thug, although compared to many of the other thugs the world has had to contend with, Putin seems more of a low-grade menace. Their poor performance of his troops in Ukraine would clearly demonstrate that the West really doesn't have that much to worry about in terms of Russian expansionism or any supposed plans to reconstitute the Soviet Union. But the bigger problem is driving them into the arms of China.

Another potential issue is that the US is also teetering on the edge of an abyss, politically speaking. I don't know how that's going to turn out, but considering your point regarding the right to free associations, the U.S. has that right as well. What if Trump gets elected and he pulls the U.S. out of NATO? What if he decides to ally himself with China and Russia? Would the remaining countries of NATO just take that lying down? Wouldn't they try to do something? (For the record, I don't think Trump would do that, and I don't even think he will be elected.)

But even setting aside Trump, I think people will have to get used to the idea that America is not a "white European" nation anymore. Not that it ever was, not officially, but we somehow always seemed to fancy ourselves as some kind of "Europe, Jr." (George Carlin reference.) Our Presidents in the future will look more and more like Kamala Harris and AOC, and not so much like Millard Fillmore. We also will have to accept the idea that this is a dual, bilingual society, with a large Spanish-speaking population with cultural and familial ties with Latin America. I would suggest that this will have the effect of slowly shifting America's geopolitical perceptions towards a more Latin American focus, as opposed to the Euro-centric view we currently hold. This could actually be a good thing in the long, for both the Americas and Europe.

 

[Tomef]

But when you say "moral capitulation," the implication is that there is some moral obligation for other nations to intervene in another nation's conflicts.

Not that so much, I mean even once accepted it would be doubtful if Ukraine could meet the conditions for joining NATO in the near future. What I mean is that denying the possibility would be a concession to Putin and others like him that the West can’t afford to make. It would mean ceding ideological ground in a way that would be irreversible.

 

[Tomef]

Their poor performance of his troops in Ukraine would clearly demonstrate that the West really doesn't have that much to worry about in terms of Russian expansionism or any supposed plans to reconstitute the Soviet Union.

I wouldn’t be so sure. Their initial performance was dreadful, but some of it was underplayed too. I mean the battle for Antonov airport was fiercely fought by professional Russian troops, it was a close thing that could have made things much tougher for Ukraine. The main problems were due to the same things that led to the unnecessary deaths of up to 40 million Soviet troops in WW2, the incompetence, indifference and corruption of the Russian state and armed forces. Conscripts were told they were going on exercise, and suddenly found themselves under fire. The whole thing was an utter debacle. They have learned, though. The problem they have now is the loss of so many of the best troops. Some of their divisions have been decimated. But don’t underestimate the sheer indifference of the Kremlin to their own people, they will drive massive numbers into any fight, and Darwinian forces come into effect. US forces lost a lot of men in their initial battles of WW2, but inexperienced troops soon turned into lean, mean fighters.

I don’t think there’s any wish to reconstitute the USSR, or not politically in any case, but the Kremlin follows a policy of seeding any territory they control with Russian citizens, formerly through mass deportations of locals, latterly by handing out passports, in order to then claim they are invading an area to ‘protect Russian citizens’. If Putin is not given a bloody nose, there’s no reason to believe he will stop. Moldova is the next obvious place after Ukraine. Russian agitators have been preparing the ground there for a false flag incident and following invasion for years.

 

[Tomef]

Another potential issue is that the US is also teetering on the edge of an abyss, politically speaking. I don't know how that's going to turn out, but considering your point regarding the right to free associations, the U.S. has that right as well. What if Trump gets elected and he pulls the U.S. out of NATO? What if he decides to ally himself with China and Russia? Would the remaining countries of NATO just take that lying down? Wouldn't they try to do something? (For the record, I don't think Trump would do that, and I don't even think he will be elected.)

Europe most definitely needs to re-arm, to beef up national militaries significantly. Whether or not the political will exists to make that happen is doubtful, however. The new GB govt seems to have put the urgent need for military investment on the back burner already.

 

[Stevicus]

Nobody’s perfect . With great freedom comes great craziness, I suppose. I think one of the keys is recognising one’s own faults, as a nation in this instance, which is what makes MAGAs so scary, i.e. they want their fantasy world so badly they’ll overturn an election for it. Putin lives in a world where it is true that the CIA somehow made Ukrainians want to be independent, even if he knows that isn’t actually true. That’s what I was getting at earlier, with the kind of inverse truth commission of the 1920s. The idea that the party makes the truth represents an integral part of how someone like Putin thinks, he has a very different relationship with truth than the bog-standard dissembling politician, more along the lines of someone like Trump, the difference being that Putin creates ’truth’ as a strategic tool whereas Trump does it on the fly for personal gain.

Well, even "truth" can be subject to interpretation. We have to use words to express our truths, and words can be funny instruments at times.

Not all, but most politicians are lawyers. Even those who are not trained as lawyers still have to make their case in the court of public opinion, which is a mixed bag. We have different factions in America with irreconcilable differences.

That also appears to be the case between Russia and Ukraine. For reasons we've already discussed, they also seem to have irreconcilable differences. As I saw, once both Russia and Ukraine seceded from the Soviet Union and became independent, both countries could start off fresh with a "clean slate," so to speak. There was no Soviet government anymore. What more could anyone have wanted? The mood in the U.S. was ecstatic over the whole thing, with people thumping their chests about how we "won" the Cold War.

Now, it appears that Putin is having some sort of "buyer's remorse." Russia agreed to all this back in 1991, they voluntarily seceded from the USSR, they signed the treaty with Ukraine which set the borders, but now they're thinking that they got a raw deal. The West's position is that they signed the paper, and that's the end of it. The West's position seems rigidly legalistic, and legally, they're absolutely right. Russia has invaded, they violated international law, and Putin is as guilty as a cat in a goldfish bowl. And the West's view is that the law must be enforced. That is the truth that our governments hold to.

But then, here we are in this quagmire, having to play it somewhat carefully. The greater danger here is escalation. Unless some egghead at the Pentagon can come up with some brilliant secret plan for Ukraine to win, then I'm not sure where this is headed.

Countries doing bad and stupid things is pretty much ineluctable. I’d much rather live under powers that as a bare minimum allow people to criticise them openly and that occasionally admit wrongdoing, or make a reasonable stab at trying to justify themselves at least, than under some idiotic ‘strong leader’ whose own brain is full of delusional nonsense. People who want that kind of a leader want them because they feed them a happy lie, a narrative of their own rightness and greatness. We have at least partially moved away from that kind of basic stupidity in the West, although Trump and his ilk are doing their best to revive it.

Trump is trying to revive the Old West, with posses, cowboys, gunslingers, and lynch mobs (along with robber barons and the like). But as we've learned from those old stories, the good guys always win.

 

[Tomef]

Well, even "truth" can be subject to interpretation. We have to use words to express our truths, and words can be funny instruments at times.

Sure, but Soviet style truth is something of a different nature. Imagine at some future time that some US prez and his lackeys decide it is necessary to invade Canada. Then imagine the prez writing a ‘history’ in which Canada has, in fact, always been part of the USA, and so-called Canadian identity is a historical myth. On invading Canada, all trace of Canadian intellectual life is utterly eliminated. Writers, philosophers, historians etc are completely removed from the historical record, utterly expunged from any mention, anywhere. Any nation coming to Canada’s aid is said to have always been an enemy of the US. Within a few years, any mention of Canada as anything but a part of the US has been entirely removed from the historical records. Canadians who ‘remember’ Canada are labelled as fascists and foreign agents, and are killed, jailed or ‘re-educated’. Children are encouraged to shop their parents and friends if they mention Canada. To maintain the lie, access to the internet and news are severely curtailed. Both public and private discourse are monitored, and soon former Canadian citizens find themselves parroting the same BS, just to stay alive, or to be able to get a job. An ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ attitude takes over.

That’s Soviet lying. I don’t think it really has an equivalent in the West, on anything like the same scale.

 

[Stevicus]

Sure, but Soviet style truth is something of a different nature. Imagine at some future time that some US prez and his lackeys decide it is necessary to invade Canada. Then imagine the prez writing a ‘history’ in which Canada has, in fact, always been part of the USA, and so-called Canadian identity is a historical myth. On invading Canada, all trace of Canadian intellectual life is utterly eliminated. Writers, philosophers, historians etc are completely removed from the historical record, utterly expunged from any mention, anywhere. Any nation coming to Canada’s aid is said to have always been an enemy of the US. Within a few years, any mention of Canada as anything but a part of the US has been entirely removed from the historical records. Canadians who ‘remember’ Canada are labelled as fascists and foreign agents, and are killed, jailed or ‘re-educated’. Children are encouraged to shop their parents and friends if they mention Canada. To maintain the lie, access to the internet and news are severely curtailed. Both public and private discourse are monitored, and soon former Canadian citizens find themselves parroting the same BS, just to stay alive, or to be able to get a job. An ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ attitude takes over.

That’s Soviet lying. I don’t think it really has an equivalent in the West, on anything like the same scale.

I don't really need to imagine anything like that regarding Canada, since the land I live on right now used to belong to someone else. What used to be the local culture has been totally overridden. So, Americans know what lies look like. We've been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Canada would be different since the US and Canada share a common language and cultural roots. It might be something more like Germany annexing Austria. The Austrians cheered loudly and welcomed the Nazis. I don't know if Canadians would do that if America invaded.

In fact, I remember reading about some contingency plan which theoretical military planners came up with - just in case we ever had to invade Canada for some reason. I don't recall much of it, except that it concluded that the U.S. could militarily conquer Canada, but we wouldn't be able to control it or have much of an impact over the long haul.

 

[Tomef]

I don't really need to imagine anything like that regarding Canada, since the land I live on right now used to belong to someone else. What used to be the local culture has been totally overridden. So, Americans know what lies look like. We've been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Canada would be different since the US and Canada share a common language and cultural roots. It might be something more like Germany annexing Austria. The Austrians cheered loudly and welcomed the Nazis. I don't know if Canadians would do that if America invaded.

In fact, I remember reading about some contingency plan which theoretical military planners came up with - just in case we ever had to invade Canada for some reason. I don't recall much of it, except that it concluded that the U.S. could militarily conquer Canada, but we wouldn't be able to control it or have much of an impact over the long haul.

Maybe there’s a parallel there, not so sure though. The experience of the Czech Republic is instructive, the expunging of people familiar to everyone from history, the constant living with lies, does something to people’s souls that is qualitatively different to old style kill the locals and take their land.

Germany annexed an at least partially willing Austria, mostly willing as I remember reading about, and didn’t delete Austrian history. They did remove all Jewish people from positions of any influence, of course, but were less thorough than the Russians when it came to removing all historical traces of a person’s existence.

 

[Kathryn]

TRUE STORY TIME! I think often about going into former eastern Europe after the Berlin Wall went down. It was super interesting. One thing that shocked me was this - I was trying to find Buchenwald and stopped and asked someone for directions and they told me to go up the road a bit, take the first left and I would be there, so that's what I did but it turned out to be the SECOND left, I guess, because I found myself in a former Soviet camp. OMG, I mean, it looked like something straight out of WW2 with guard towers and barb wire, but it was NOT Buchenwald, it was a Soviet camp, and people were still living there and walking around in it! All I could think was "We have been scared to death of THIS? THIS is who we were guarding the Fulda Gap against?" I feel like Russia is much the same. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Tomef]

TRUE STORY TIME! I think often about going into former eastern Europe after the Berlin Wall went down. It was super interesting. One thing that shocked me was this - I was trying to find Buchenwald and stopped and asked someone for directions and they told me to go up the road a bit, take the first left and I would be there, so that's what I did but it turned out to be the SECOND left, I guess, because I found myself in a former Soviet camp. OMG, I mean, it looked like something straight out of WW2 with guard towers and barb wire, but it was NOT Buchenwald, it was a Soviet camp, and people were still living there and walking around in it! All I could think was "We have been scared to death of THIS? THIS is who we were guarding the Fulda Gap against?" I feel like Russia is much the same. Maybe I'm wrong.

Do you mean that you saw a Soviet military camp, and weren’t very impressed by it?

 

[Tomef]

I don't really need to imagine anything like that regarding Canada, since the land I live on right now used to belong to someone else. What used to be the local culture has been totally overridden. So, Americans know what lies look like. We've been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Canada would be different since the US and Canada share a common language and cultural roots. It might be something more like Germany annexing Austria. The Austrians cheered loudly and welcomed the Nazis. I don't know if Canadians would do that if America invaded.

In fact, I remember reading about some contingency plan which theoretical military planners came up with - just in case we ever had to invade Canada for some reason. I don't recall much of it, except that it concluded that the U.S. could militarily conquer Canada, but we wouldn't be able to control it or have much of an impact over the long haul.

Chile under Pinochet offers a better parallel, maybe. The silence over ‘disappeared’ people, that mix of total indifference and calculated terror. There’s this Russian attitude, something that spread like a cancer among satellite states, that seems to be more than just Soviet. I remember reading an account by a Polish poet of witnessing military exercises on a frozen plain somewhere near St Petersburg, and his feeling of disgust at the total indifference of the higher ups towards troops killed or badly injured during manoeuvres. That sort of thing comes up so often. One of the most visceral representations is Olbram Zoubek’s disappearing man statue in Prague, then there’s Dumitru Bacu’s ‘the Anti-Humans’, and many other examples. Kundera cites an earlier Czech writer in an essay saying, ‘Russians call everything Russian slavic, so they can later call everything slavic Russian’, and that mentality seems to have spread like something in a hive mind. A read another anecdote about a Polish writer who complained that his books had been banned by the communists. He was asked by some Russian official ‘have you been jailed? Have you been banned from the writer’s union?’, making some comparison with authors in Russia, many of whom suffered worse fates. There’s this notion that Russian suffering and Russian greatness encompasses all, and that the concerns of other slavic peoples are insignificant to the point of not really existing at all. It’s what fuels Putin’s idiot notion that Russia and Ukraine are one country, and enables him to joke about the country being ‘raped’ for not falling in line. There’s just this attitude that the concerns of all these people in their unimportant little countries are so trivial they can be dismissed or laughed at. It extends to their own people to, there aren’t many countries where the govt can tell the whole country that something is good one day, and then be arresting people the next day because it is now ‘bad’, and the majority will just go along with it. What can anyone do with that? It might be hoped that Russia will become a more reasonable place one day, with better people in charge, but it seems a long way off.

 

[Stevicus]

Chile under Pinochet offers a better parallel, maybe. The silence over ‘disappeared’ people, that mix of total indifference and calculated terror. There’s this Russian attitude, something that spread like a cancer among satellite states, that seems to be more than just Soviet. I remember reading an account by a Polish poet of witnessing military exercises on a frozen plain somewhere near St Petersburg, and his feeling of disgust at the total indifference of the higher ups towards troops killed or badly injured during manoeuvres. That sort of thing comes up so often. One of the most visceral representations is Olbram Zoubek’s disappearing man statue in Prague, then there’s Dumitru Bacu’s ‘the Anti-Humans’, and many other examples. Kundera cites an earlier Czech writer in an essay saying, ‘Russians call everything Russian slavic, so they can later call everything slavic Russian’, and that mentality seems to have spread like something in a hive mind. A read another anecdote about a Polish writer who complained that his books had been banned by the communists. He was asked by some Russian official ‘have you been jailed? Have you been banned from the writer’s union?’, making some comparison with authors in Russia, many of whom suffered worse fates. There’s this notion that Russian suffering and Russian greatness encompasses all, and that the concerns of other slavic peoples are insignificant to the point of not really existing at all. It’s what fuels Putin’s idiot notion that Russia and Ukraine are one country, and enables him to joke about the country being ‘raped’ for not falling in line. There’s just this attitude that the concerns of all these people in their unimportant little countries are so trivial they can be dismissed or laughed at. What can anyone do with that? It might be hoped that Russia will become a more reasonable place one day, with better people in charge, but it seems a long way off.

Yes, I get what you're saying. Every country, it seems, has its own little quirks and peccadillos. There's both good and the bad.

It's easy to demonstrate and show that life in the USSR and/or Russia was bad, but oftentimes, it's told in the context of the West being so much better. The main difference is that the West has been wealthier, more affluent, with more creature comforts and luxuries (which makes us "better" in most people's eyes) - and that may be what makes people believe the West holds some sort of higher moral ground.

Another issue, one that you're mentioning here, relates to the banning of books and the degree of censorship. I've known that it happens, and even in the U.S., we're constantly told that freedom of speech is not an absolute right. I've discerned a certain ebb and flow, a spectrum where censorship varies by degree - not an either/or condition. Nevertheless, I have encountered many people and situations where there have been those who wanted some published or artistic work to disappear or be made invisible to the public. Even as Westerners try to pat themselves on the back for being so "free" and "open," when you get down the nitty gritty and take a long hard look, we're not really all that.

The U.S. has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, more than Russia and China combined (List of countries by incarceration rate - Wikipedia). As I said earlier, Americans are no strangers to the various scourges of the state associated with dictatorships and authoritarian governments. That's why many have viewed "freedom" as a kind of illusion. We may be relatively more free to talk about it, but that's about it (and even that might be debatable).

If we can at least look at ourselves and realize we're not as "good" as we think we are, then we might be able to a take a more honest, sober look at other countries and realize that maybe they're not as "bad" as we believe them to be.

 

[Tomef]

Yes, I get what you're saying. Every country, it seems, has its own little quirks and peccadillos. There's both good and the bad.

It's easy to demonstrate and show that life in the USSR and/or Russia was bad, but oftentimes, it's told in the context of the West being so much better. The main difference is that the West has been wealthier, more affluent, with more creature comforts and luxuries (which makes us "better" in most people's eyes) - and that may be what makes people believe the West holds some sort of higher moral ground.

Another issue, one that you're mentioning here, relates to the banning of books and the degree of censorship. I've known that it happens, and even in the U.S., we're constantly told that freedom of speech is not an absolute right. I've discerned a certain ebb and flow, a spectrum where censorship varies by degree - not an either/or condition. Nevertheless, I have encountered many people and situations where there have been those who wanted some published or artistic work to disappear or be made invisible to the public. Even as Westerners try to pat themselves on the back for being so "free" and "open," when you get down the nitty gritty and take a long hard look, we're not really all that.

The U.S. has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, more than Russia and China combined (List of countries by incarceration rate - Wikipedia). As I said earlier, Americans are no strangers to the various scourges of the state associated with dictatorships and authoritarian governments. That's why many have viewed "freedom" as a kind of illusion. We may be relatively more free to talk about it, but that's about it (and even that might be debatable).

If we can at least look at ourselves and realize we're not as "good" as we think we are, then we might be able to a take a more honest, sober look at other countries and realize that maybe they're not as "bad" as we believe them to be.

It depends what metric you use. Putin has a lot to say about ‘family values’, but in practice what that seems to mean is advantage male. Domestic abuse rates are pretty high in Russia, and as of fairly recently, the cops have no power to intervene. In his interviews with Oliver Stone, Putin makes a show of claiming it’s not illegal to be gay in Russia, but this is pretty disingenuous. Technically, yes, it is not actually illegal to be gay, but the rights of LGBT people are severely curtailed by a lack of all but the most basic right under law to exist. Primarily, for me anyway, the key metric here is freedom. Russia has very little, and not just on a personal level. The justice system as a whole, beyond dealing with petty crime, has no freedom whatsoever to act independently. Many opinions are literally illegal. The freedom to pursue basic things like a career is hampered by rampant corruption and cronyism/nepotism.

People adapt to anything. Polls show that ‘Russian greatness’ is a higher priority for many than things like freedom, or even good wages. But that is only true among the people at the top, who are already incredibly wealthy, and the bottom, who tend to be relatively uneducated. The middle classes, whom Putin seems to particularly dislike, value the same basic things Europeans do, with a little extra emphasis on bling perhaps.

 

[Kathryn]

Do you mean that you saw a Soviet military camp, and weren’t very impressed by it?

Yes. That's what I said. This was right after the Berlin Wall came down and they still had equipment and personnel there. Technically it was a FORMER Soviet military camp.

 

[Stevicus]

It depends what metric you use. Putin has a lot to say about ‘family values’, but in practice what that seems to mean is advantage male. Domestic abuse rates are pretty high in Russia, and as of fairly recently, the cops have no power to intervene. In his interviews with Oliver Stone, Putin makes a show of claiming it’s not illegal to be gay in Russia, but this is pretty disingenuous. Technically, yes, it is not actually illegal to be gay, but the rights of LGBT people are severely curtailed by a lack of all but the most basic right under law to exist. Primarily, for me anyway, the key metric here is freedom. Russia has very little, and not just on a personal level. The justice system as a whole, beyond dealing with petty crime, has no freedom whatsoever to act independently. Many opinions are literally illegal. The freedom to pursue basic things like a career is hampered by rampant corruption and cronyism/nepotism.

People adapt to anything. Polls show that ‘Russian greatness’ is a higher priority for many than things like freedom, or even good wages. But that is only true among the people at the top, who are already incredibly wealthy, and the bottom, who tend to be relatively uneducated. The middle classes, whom Putin seems to particularly dislike, value the same basic things Europeans do, with a little extra emphasis on bling perhaps.

"Freedom," just by itself, is kind of a vague abstraction. There can be no absolute freedom, so in practice, it's just a matter of a list of things you're allowed or not allowed to do in a given society or jurisdiction. It's contained in a Byzantine maze of various laws, policies, and legal precedents which can only really be understood and practiced by trained professionals called lawyers. Your "freedom" is only as good as the lawyer you employ, if you can afford one.

"Family values" is just a catch phrase referring to more conservative forms of Christianity often associated with intolerance, sexism, racism, and other odious ideas and practices. It's an idea often touted in the U.S., and up until the 1960s, was the dominant, prevailing influence encompassing nearly every aspect of society. It still has a relatively strong legacy and remains a formidable political force today. Yet they would still say that they believe in "freedom." It's written in our National Anthem, among other places, so therefore it must be true.

From what you're saying, they seem to embrace many of the same concepts of self-deception in Russia, but to a more extreme level, while the tendency in the West has been to try to restrain and challenge this puffed-up self-image of ourselves. But that has also been a source of consternation and dissension within the American political culture. A recent example has been all the arguing over Confederate flags and battle monuments, as people who embraced the Lost Cause version of Civil War history saw the Confederacy as "proud," "noble," and "heroic." Others saw that version as a steaming pile of bovine excrement and wanted to set people straight on the whole notion. But it's also led to other significant challenges against some of the more idealized, mythic images of our past, which also affect the image of who we are today.

I guess my point here in the context of what we're talking about is that these things don't just pop up out of nowhere. Oftentimes, "freedom" can also increase or decrease based on how politically stable things are. When the people are well-fed and contented, there's no immediate reason to restrict people's freedoms (since that, in itself, would be another government expense - and even tyrants like to save money).

It's when governments or other powerful factions get scared that the peasants might be getting restless (or in times of war when there is some external danger). That's when the restrictions on freedom start coming down. It's a recognizable pattern in any society, democracy or dictatorship.

 

[Tomef]

"Freedom," just by itself, is kind of a vague abstraction. There can be no absolute freedom, so in practice, it's just a matter of a list of things you're allowed or not allowed to do in a given society or jurisdiction. It's contained in a Byzantine maze of various laws, policies, and legal precedents which can only really be understood and practiced by trained professionals called lawyers. Your "freedom" is only as good as the lawyer you employ, if you can afford one.

"Family values" is just a catch phrase referring to more conservative forms of Christianity often associated with intolerance, sexism, racism, and other odious ideas and practices. It's an idea often touted in the U.S., and up until the 1960s, was the dominant, prevailing influence encompassing nearly every aspect of society. It still has a relatively strong legacy and remains a formidable political force today. Yet they would still say that they believe in "freedom." It's written in our National Anthem, among other places, so therefore it must be true.

From what you're saying, they seem to embrace many of the same concepts of self-deception in Russia, but to a more extreme level, while the tendency in the West has been to try to restrain and challenge this puffed-up self-image of ourselves. But that has also been a source of consternation and dissension within the American political culture. A recent example has been all the arguing over Confederate flags and battle monuments, as people who embraced the Lost Cause version of Civil War history saw the Confederacy as "proud," "noble," and "heroic." Others saw that version as a steaming pile of bovine excrement and wanted to set people straight on the whole notion. But it's also led to other significant challenges against some of the more idealized, mythic images of our past, which also affect the image of who we are today.

I guess my point here in the context of what we're talking about is that these things don't just pop up out of nowhere. Oftentimes, "freedom" can also increase or decrease based on how politically stable things are. When the people are well-fed and contented, there's no immediate reason to restrict people's freedoms (since that, in itself, would be another government expense - and even tyrants like to save money).

It's when governments or other powerful factions get scared that the peasants might be getting restless (or in times of war when there is some external danger). That's when the restrictions on freedom start coming down. It's a recognizable pattern in any society, democracy or dictatorship.

Yes, ultimately we’re talking about human behaviour, and that’s universal. It’s a matter of degree, I suppose. As a general trend, wider access to higher education leads to the antithesis of what characters like Putin stand for, that is a more open, equal society in which people act freely within the bounds of their own particular cultural milieu, rather than stunted and crude versions of it pushed by the ‘family values’ brigade. Of course, that could happen in Russia. Pre 2014 you could say it was heading that way, but maybe there are just too many barriers to it still. Putin’s obsession with ‘getting respect’ and eliminating opposition, enemies, and ‘foreign agents’, the national importance of regaining superpower status, the obsession with maintaining a wide sphere of influence, and so on. All of that makes it difficult for Russia to develop into a society led by the educated rather than the grasping or the delusional ‘great Russia’ fantasists. I suppose we’ll see what happens, but the future doesn’t look very bright.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

@TagliatelliMonster, these are my views. Ukraine, Russia, NATO and its friends, India or any other person is welcome to differ with them. This is in reply to your six comments today.

Your views are based in falsehoods.

Everybody is entitled to their opinions. But not to their own personal facts.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No, but they can benefit from living in peace as opposed to dying in a war they can't win.

How do you live in peace when an invading force is bombing your country to the ground?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

We don't know who will win that war.
If you told me to bet on it, I would bet on Russia, but that is a bet.

Depends on how you would define a "win".

If a "win" for Russia is accomplishing the goals they set out when they invaded, then I would say they have already lost.
Even if later down the road they succeed in toppling Kiev and take the whole country.

Russia failed in their war plan and they have burned loads of proverbial bridges in the process.
They have also suffered extreme losses of both people and equipment.
Economic relations with western countries will likely take decades to repair.

Russia has isolated itself and has become a pariah on the international stage.
And as long as the current regime stays in place, I don't see that changing.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes, I am against NATO machinations. Their purpose is to perpetuate American hegemony.

No. Their goal is to prevent aggression against member states.
It's a defensive alliance.

Ukraine is just a tool for them.

No.

But that will not come easily. China is helping / will help Russia.
Putin does not seem to be ending this.

Honest question:
Why do you feel like it's ukraine that should roll over and surrender to the will of a bully?
Why aren't you condemning the bully?

Direct involvement is not much different from indirect involvement. It is called 'proxy war'.

It's actually quite a big difference.

Direct involvement would mean enforcing no-fly zones and an army of several 100.000 well-trained, well-equipped elite troops on the ground.