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Vladophilia
From the head of a think-tank, recent thoughts on Ukraine’s disinclination to be absorbed:
This is not an uncommon view, also expressed the other day by Noam Chomsky: it was unwise for Ukraine to resist invasion. If Russia wants your territory, you assume a supine position while gesturing broadly towards everything that was once yours, and is now theirs to control. If Russia is required to kill your people and level your neighborhoods to get what it believes is theirs, that’s on you.
Freedom is nice and all that I guess, but economic growth is the true metric of a society’s health. Really, those idiots in the tractors, do they care who the boss is? The tech sector of Ukraine – does it matter if they’re making West-facing consumer products, or working for the FSB? What counts is the end-of-the-year balance sheet.
Previously from the same account:
The means by which you add those 44 million are irrelevant. What counts is the world historical accomplishment.
The population of France in 1940 was 41 million, and I suppose absorbing it into the Reich was a world historical accomplishment, but history doesn’t seem to regard it with any particular affection. On the other hand, France did surrender, and while that made things difficult for the eventual defeat of the militaristic statists in Berlin, France was spared additional physical trauma. Except for the Jews, of course, but (bored continental hand-waving gesture)
Another earlier sentiment:
Men of a certain age of Ricochet: did you find a spring in your step after the invasion? Perhaps a sudden urge to make changes, act boldly? Did you feel a strange charge in the older-dude zeitgeist, as though men around the world about to walk over the border of 70 suddenly felt empowered and revivified?
Perhaps, because that Putin guy is a strong leader, and cares for his nation, unlike our guys. Granted, he’s presided over the wholesale transfer of wealth from his people to a select group of elites, and the craptacular state of his military suggests that he was either ignorant of the true state of his capabilities or uninterested in the human cost of shoving his shambolic forces into the meat grinder, and hey maybe the Defender of Christendom shouldn’t have lost a purported piece of the True Cross because his flagship wasn’t refitted because they were broke but the oligarch’s yachts had 5G and Roombas in the master suite. But at least he’s not woke. And it’s ridiculous to think he’s not strong. Just you wait. He’s going to kill a lot of people.
That’s what leaders do.
Published in General
I am amazed at how many Russia sympathizers I have come across in say the last ten years, especially from the right. Even today they are out there. What can I say.
Zafar, I think those who believe they are in a righteous existential battle should fight.
But I don’t believe that every crackpot idea regarding which battles are righteous existential battles and which are not is therefore legitimate.
Ukraine seems, to me, to have a reasonable claim to be in such a battle. The miserable collection of people steeped in hatred by successive Palestinian regimes do not, in my opinion, have a reasonable basis for believing they are in such a battle. The problem is not that they have the will to fight, but rather that they are deluded.
It seems to me you’re applying those standards backwards, aren’t those the “rules” that are supposed to apply to those who START what they claim to be a “just” war, not those defending themselves from attack?
See! It’s taken almost a decade but your steadfast example is having an influence, despite myself.
So for the Ukrainians:
And for the Russians:
Sure. So would you say that Ukraine’s war to re-take Donbas, or its determination (as per the Ukrainian Constitution) to join NATO are existential for Ukraine?
??
I get it, Henry, nobody likes cognitive dissonance.
Suggestion: don’t follow him down his rabbit holes.
Here’s a thought: ask an honest question.
Here’s a thought: be interesting.Okay, my apologies, that was uncivil.
How about: what’s dishonest about my questions?
Or is that just another rabbithole for the innocent and unwary?
The Azov Regiment knows what is likely in store for them if they surrender, much like the defenders at the Alamo knew what Santa Anna did with prisoners of war; there are/were other motivations, but that is certainly a factor. Also, we don’t really know how much they stockpiled before the war, though it seems reasonable to assume they are running out of supplies at this point. Waiting them out is probably the best strategy for Russia, but I suspect they will seek to obliterate them instead, in order to claim a ‘denazification’ victory before May 9th.
But as for why Ukrainians in general would prefer to fight, patriotism and the prospect of subjugation under Russia is reason enough, even without the hope of becoming ‘European’ (something I would personally prefer to avoid, but which I agree a majority of Ukrainians want). They do, after all, know what Russian subjugation entails, and thus far they have had a better grasp of their defensive capabilities than most outsiders, who expected something quicker, along the lines of 2014.
Epic.
Now do a map of the US.
More importantly (and directly refuting the purpose of the map) is the fact that many of the cities where the resistance to Russia is the strongest are in the Russian speaking zones-Kherson, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy etc- and a lot of it is locals.
When Donald Trump first ran for president, I would estimate that Trump only had about 5% support on Ricochet in the beginning. (The one initial vocal pro-Trump Ricochet person that I remember in 2015 left Ricochet years ago.)
When Putin invaded Ukraine just over 50 days ago, the percent of Ricochet members who supported Putin seemed to be much, much higher than 5% or 10%.
Whenever I have posted anything against Putin on Ricochet recently, an entire swarm of pro-Putin Ricochet members have descended upon anything I write with essentially zero Ricochet members willing to take the anti-Putin opinion.
For some reason the members of Ricochet have transformed this into a largely pro-Putin website. Life happens fast. Other than Kozak who has Ukrainian ancestors, I would have trouble even pointing to any specific anti-Putin members of Ricochet other than perhaps some of the podcasters.
P.S. The first people I met when I traveled to Ukraine were taxi cab drivers. One look at them and you knew that Putin was not going to conquer or easily conquer that country.
Wrong a couple of times.
The US has better luck with loyalty from the crapped-upon than from the crust. Our most equal citizens are actively working to destroy the place.
Language matters. Culture matters. Magic dirt does not exist, and if you are going to have a culture, then you will have a language. Anything else is new-age twaddle.
What is derided as “whiteness” is western civilization itself, and I do not care for the objections or the complaints of those who in 2022 wish to do something else. They can very well go someplace else.
Failure to engage one side is not tacit support of the other.
Hmmm. Doesn’t seem that way to me.
Unless your filter is set to identify anyone who wants us to stay out of direct conflict as “pro-Putin”.
It seems to me a majority of Ricochetti side with and empathize with the Ukraine, but want to limit our involvement to weapons and ammunition.
I will grant there are a handful of vocal members who want the Ukraine to lay back, take it, and die quietly. So they can get back to whatever crusade they were on before Putin’s invasion. I suspect the rest of us are just scrolling past their rants.
Here again is evidence of your unwillingness to call evil what it is. Here, and in a number of previous posts, you justify Russia’s invasion because Putin had reason for concern. But I have yet to see you answer this question plainly—did Putin’s concerns justify a full-scale invasion of Ukraine? Can you at least concede that to have invaded was immoral and an over-reaction to the concerns? If not, ugh…
Because English is the language of success, and we should not create ease in danger for those who were bequeathed an inferior culture by their inferior forebears. They wish for other than English because they are ignorant, and maintained in a state of ignorance by those who would Balkanize this country.
Federation is one thing — Illiteracy is quite another.
It is a small but persistent group- they frequently like each other’s posts and are immune to new information- everything they disagree with is Ukrainian disinformation….if the US would quit provoking Russia everything would be fine….everyone should just surrender….
JWT seems much more oriented toward governments than individuals.
There’s a separate section in the Catechism concerning the duty to defend oneself, and defend others.
I’m not actually applying them, just stating them. It’s obvious that an invaded people have the right to defend their land (just cause) and that the war they didn’t start is a last resort for them, etc. So, really, in the case of Ukraine, the moral choices they have to make come down to #5 and #6. Do they have a reasonable chance at beating back the Russians and are the means they’re using within ethical bounds for the desired outcome?
Russia already violated #1-#4 and #6, so I’m certainly not defending or admiring Putin! He’s a moral monster.
You can say “Maybe they’re not Russia sympathizers but don’t see any reason for the U.S. to go to war with Russia. Especially given the pre-revolutionary state of the United States right now.
Huh. Maybe they’re not pro-Putin, and that’s just a lazy smear. Maybe they just don’t think we should be involved. Or maybe they think “Gosh, if we had a trustworthy government, maybe we could do something, but we have the Biden administration.”
I recommend you unclench.
Up until what point, though? This is the tricky bit for Zelensky. For the Japanese, who had convinced their people American soldiers were cannibals and had their women throwing their children and themselves off cliffs to avoid being subjugated, it took being nuked*. None of us are in the position to make the call for Zelensky, but it’s fair to ask the question, “at what point are the regions under contention no longer worth the loss of life and suffering?” There is a line, it’s just not obvious where it’s drawn.
*Many Catholic just-war theorists would say the US violated proportional means to achieve the end to WWII. I’m not particularly sympathetic to the argument, since my dad probably avoided fighting in the Pacific theatre in part because of the abrupt end of the war.
BTW, some of these same theorists would say a tea-tax is also not a just cause for war. Ahem.
@DrewInWisconsin
When you were essentially about the only lone voice for about a decade to fight all the freedom-hating people on the gaming website, I always tried to support you.
You were outnumbered by a ratio of about 1 to 100 and had the entire website stacked against you.
I never told you to unclench!
Same here, WC. My dad was at Anzio, and probably would have been sent to the Pacific theater as well.
I disagree with your entire comment, but I’ll directly challenge specifically the idea that Putin was not interested in control of Ukraine, just the “protection of Donetsk/Luhansk and demilitarization of Ukraine”.
The strongest evidence that this is incorrect was the large push on the rest Ukraine that resulted in world backlash against Russia. Russia had tens of thousands of soldiers in tank units heading towards Kiev and surrounding regions. A large projection of power was sent against Zelensky in order to kill him and decapitate the Ukrainian government. This doesn’t look like someone who wants to take over some disputed regions in the east- it looks like a full scale invasion to replace the current leader of Ukraine with a puppet.
Looking back 2 months- everyone expected Russia to make a move militarily into Ukraine. Biden was making public comments about how to respond to a “minor incursion”. Even if you accept the premise that Putin is only interested in those regions (and I don’t), they were already nominally under Putin’s control and he could have sent his army into the region without much outcry from the world and minimal sanctions. What shook the world into reacting so strongly was Russia’s attempt to take the entire country. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see that Putin needed to attack the rest of Ukraine to merely take Donetsk/Luhansk.
Try to understand why people would be annoyed by being called Putin stooges. It’s like the constant barrage from the Left of being called raaaaacist for merely the accident of being born white. People are trying to sort through a complicated issue (like, when, if ever, is it the right thing for Zelensky to call a halt to Ukraine’s operations?). It doesn’t make them Putin allies.
You said it better than I.