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The Unending Hatred for Russians
I want Putin to lose. I want him to learn that if a country wants freedom, he cannot take it away. I’m cheering for Ukraine. But the insane escalation of anti-Russian measures is disturbing.
Banking sanctions are one thing, but some of the petty elements are just insane. People who live in Russia cannot receive money via Patreon or other donation services. One guy I support was developing a video game trading market, and got completely cut off. He can’t even use online development tools. Speaking of games, several games have cut off Russians from the ability to buy any items in the game using actual money (For a lot of free games, that’s the game company’s revenue stream).
Some of the attacks on Russians are just bizarre, like going after vodkas made in Latvia (Stoli) and the US (Smirnoff). We even have places refusing to allow Tchaikovsky music to be played. Does anyone think Putin gives a damn about these ridiculous measures? The point of sanctions and such is get Russia to leave the Ukrainians and other former satellites alone.
Putin probably appreciates when crazy people do things like argue for deporting Russians and having Russian citizens lose their jobs. There’s nothing like insane criticism to get people to sympathize with a side. I remember reading the Philadelphia Trumpet‘s anti-Catholic propaganda and thinking that it made the Roman Church sound awesome. They had a guy dressed as a cardinal drawing a sword, and the issue was called Crusade. They wanted to blame Catholics for Islamic terrorism, I wanted to yell Deus Vult!
One last note: I have the sneaking suspicion everyone enacting these anti-Putin measures would really like to use them on all of us here. Maximum Trudeau, in other words. Doesn’t change the Ukraine situation, but it does make me worried.
Published in Foreign Policy
Okay, so Russian elections are free and fair, more so than the US’?
I doubt it. Sounds like one rule for thee and another for me.
Every bit of biology I know says that race is a thing. However, I agree with you that prejudice is a word that works for many different things. Humans need an out group to hate from what I’ve observed. Henry Racette disagrees with me in a brilliant fashion but I still think I am right.
I’m just saying that Skyler’s assertion — “A people are responsible for those they allow to rule them” — only works in a system with secure democratic voting. I can’t speak for Russia but we certainly don’t have that here. Therefore I am not responsible in any way for the evil Biden administration. (And I sure as hell didn’t vote for him.)
Unless he’s saying that to “allow” means we aren’t setting up necessary guillotines in the public square. And because we’re not, we must share guilt.
Would you agree that this is a war crime?
They don’t have that in Ukraine either. We overturned one of theirs in 2014.
Bigotry is a much more benign and broadly understood word.
I think it beats prejudiced. Regarding another word that’s more or less synonymous, I’ll never forget, as I’ve written here before, reading a sign outside a bar in Ocean City:
No Harley Hats
No Harley Patches
No Harley Leathers
No Harley Anything
And a guy standing outside saying, But that’s discrimination.
And the hostess said, That’s right. We’re discriminating here.
Well I think you are wrong, As much as the Democrats cheated last election, (and they cheated alot) Trump would still have lost in a free and fair election according to Molly Hemingway.
Americans are responsible for the Biden presidency and the Canadians for Trudeau. May G-d have mercy on our souls.
He didn’t, and she’s wrong.
That’s not a constraint he included, but okay
@skyler ??
Yes, that’s reality. People can change their government by revolution when peaceful means fail. When one’s government applies their tyranny internally, it is only the those people who suffer for their failure to change their government. When such a government crosses the border to tyrannize the neighbors, those neighbors have every right to blame the people of the country that invaded them. Yeah, Karina may be justifiably afraid to stand up to Putin’s government. But weigh that against the Ukrainians who have no real choice but to stand up against Putin’s government.
History shows that no government can stand against the will of the people. Even in Russia.
This is the fundamental truth to “just war” theory–civilians may not be soldiers, but they are part of any war. Whether they want to be or not. Changing one’s government when it behaves immorally is a moral obligation of every person. Peacefully if possible. Violently if necessary. Danger is no excuse. Excuses by civilians of an aggressor are exactly sufficient to make those civilians responsible for their own suffering in return.
Sorry, Karina, you lose because you and your fellow citizens didn’t change your corrupt government. Doesn’t matter what your excuse it. Deal with it.
While Democrats used the pandemic to rig the election, that is legal, and it is Republicans fault that they did not address this before the election.
The election, like all elections, was rigged. (In Arizona we have an early closing of the polls at 7:00 p.m. In Republican Kentucky and Indiana the polls close at 6:00 p.m.! In liberal New York, the polls close at 9:00 p.m.!) The 2020 election was rigged more than most elections, but given the pandemic, the rigging was mostly justified.
However, the election was not stolen.
History is full of examples of tyrants deposed by their people. And with peoples perfectly happy to participate in the tyranny. No democracy required. Heck, history is fully of tyrannical democracies (looking at you, Athens).
But you are. As am I. Did we speak about politics and morality to enough of our neighbors? Or did we hide because we have too many neighbors on the opposing side? Or family was involved? Maybe even threatened? Or work obligations interfered? Or work itself is on the opposing side? Et cetera, ad nauseum.
Doesn’t matter what the excuse is. Everyone can come up with one. Doesn’t change the need to act for the good. Unless we’ve died fighting to change our immoral government, we are still responsible.
War is Hell!
Would they object to a burly, bearded fellow wearing a leather jacket with Vespa and rainbow patches? 🌈
On the other hand, several Ukrainian Parliament members gave long interviews to Rudy Giuliani exculpating Trump and incriminating the Biden administration of wrongdoing. It culminated in a three-hour presentation on One America Network, but was pretty much ignored by all the press, including the conservative press.
https://www.oann.com/oaninvestigates/
But didn’t we hear that something like 80%+ of Russians support Putin?
This is false equivalence.
At best, it assumes that inconveniencing Russian citizens has an effect on Putin’s actions. The ordinary Russian citizen has no more control of what Vladimir does than and average Ukrainian.
I don’t think that depriving Russians -of all people – of modern goods and services will translate into a revolution or insurgency for quite some time, considering their history of enduring hardship.
I don’t think anyone expects you to feel equally sorry for someone who is inconvenienced at an ATM versus someone who is losing home, country and life. Is there someone who is expecting that? If not, why say it?
Is it that you want to see pain inflicted on the Russian people? For tolerating Putin? If indeed, your assumptions are correct, that some level of pain inflicted on the Russian people will cause the downfall of Putin (assuming someone less tyrannical emerges) at what point would you be satisfied? Or, when would you start feeling equally sorry for them? When they get bombed and over-run? But then, they started it, right?
I’d be interested to hear you talk about how American citizens are responsible for civilian deaths and various atrocities in Viet Nam, Iraq and elsewhere. We should have elected McGovern?
This is fundamentally leftist ideology that plays on envy, and the concept of privilege.
What world do you live in? Must be great to feel like your country and your leaders are so good, you don’t have to personally stop them!
Agreed. Agree that discrimination is not always bad. I am discriminating about many things
That’s quite an image, like something out of Raising Arizona.
But I doubt they would object. I think I recall a Vespa parked somewhere about that may have belonged to the hostess.
The state governments of the Southern United States for awhile were enthusiastically for Jim Crow. Now I know that black-Americans for over a decade have fled blue states for red states and I don’t want to bash white Southerners. But Jim Crow was sadly popular among whites for a long time. (Especially among white Democrats.) I would say that the white Southern Democrats have some responsibility for the stupid Jim Crow laws.
I’m all for using terms in their proper context, like the word “racism.” It shouldn’t be used willy-nilly to describe any form of bigotry, no matter if it involves race or not. Lefties too often distort the meanings of words until they become meaningless. I resist falling in line with leftist language-twisting.
Well, the moment we go around invading peaceful countries, then yes.
Ukrainians belong to about the same exact racial group as European Russians, but everyone loves them. Weird. I guess we’ll never know the answer.
:) Yes. And like race, discrimination can mean two different things to two different people in the same conversation.
The term you are looking for is “bigotry.” It includes not only racial bigotry, but all forms of dislike based on other factors. You can be bigoted based on people’s color of underwear. [edit] As Henry remarked, the word “prejudice” also works.
Here’s what Mariupol looks like right now:
It’s not hard to find out what’s going on, if you’re interested in knowing.
I discriminate against people who smell bad or who are convicted pedophiles. I discriminate against he lazy and towards the hardworking. I also discriminate against the small number of whites who are white supremacists as I discriminate against black supremacists.
Let’s look at this. A lawyer who should understand the meaning of terms, cites “genocide” with zero evidence. Genocide is a very strong term and you have to kill a lot of people – specific people of some tribe or race, systematically.
He throws around this charge, cheapening the term – which to me is outrageous – I really don’t know what the punishment should be for this kind of loose rhetoric (maybe refusal of services from Visa?) and then negotiates downwards to “war crimes”. Either this man doesn’t understand the meaning of “war crimes” or he is just another lawyer throwing around words to accomplish a result for his client.
The first part of your argument is fine, I agree with all of that.
The second part is antithetical to American ideals. We support and empower the notion of liberty and justice for all, be they behind an iron or bamboo curtain or a burka. To deny the fruits of freedom to people in restricted nations, just because we don’t like their leadership flies in the face of our own ideals and makes a mockery of those who went to great lengths to beam Reagan’s broadcasts into the Soviet Union, or smuggle bibles into China, Iran, etc…
You want to deny Karina freedom of commerce and opportunity to live a better life than her circumstances provide. America was founded on the opposite principle.
The ones who didn’t invade another country