I read the linked article by Michael Hobbes which is responding to Anne Applebaum's piece. Michael's response gives a pretty clear picture of the basic contours

I read the linked article by Michael Hobbes which is responding to Anne Applebaum's piece. Michael's response gives a pretty clear picture of the basic contours of Anne's thesis. Certainly enough for me to have an opinion about it. If the bar for commenting was to read the OP article AND all of its longform linked references, there wouldn't be any comments on Hacker News.