4 ms·

At least they didn't say "just overthrow your government", I've seen that one plenty...

by jhugo 4y ago

908B64B197 4y ago
Freedom is never granted, it is earned and paid for at the highest price [0]. What's their excuse? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  That popular revolutions rarely work in this day and age, especially when the majority of the participants don't know how to wield a gun? In the Colonial Era, every able-bodied New England male knew how to at least, hunt and shoot. Every successful "revolution" in the modern era has depended on whose side the Army was on. Why? Because the Army is composed of people who's sole purpose is to get good at using guns.
  - 908B64B197 4y ago
    Wait, then why are most modern western government trying to impose stricter gun control measures?
    - Dracophoenix 4y ago
      They impose stricter measures In a heavily misguided attempt at trading rights for security. Suffice it to say it's not really an effective solution.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      Assuming the person you were responding to is accurate, one reason would be to prevent a revolution that kicks those in power out.
    - jhugo 4y ago
      Why would any government encourage its citizens to get better at revolution?
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    >That popular revolutions rarely work in this day and age I'm curious if you have any list of revolutions that have succeeded and failed. I can't really think of any in recent times. I don't think revolutions in Africa or the Middle East to be a good comparison and those are the only ones I can think of.
    - Dracophoenix 4y ago
      Is there a reason that the Arab Spring isn't a good example?
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        There are a few reasons. 1. The culture is different. It may work, but I feel like Europeans are a bit more passive. As long as things aren't too bad they will let the status quo remain. 2. The Middle East / Africa had a lot of weapons that Europe doesn't. In some areas they had CIA training as well (albeit a few decades ago in some area). 3. Several of the Arab Spring required the West to get involved to aid in the overthrow. It is possible the CIA or others had to help in the others. There is no guarantee the West would be willing to get involved to oust Putin especially since he has nukes. Seeing how the West is mostly providing monetary aid and surveillance in Ukraine and not direct military support we could possibly see the same in Russia. 4. I think the Russian surveillance state is better than the Arab Spring countries. Might not make a huge impact, but it could stop things before it got started. I am curious, since I don't keep up with the Middle East a huge amount, how many of the countries are in a better state now then they were 10 years ago? Didn't ISIS take over part of Syria? Having a successful revolution doesn't mean anything if a worse government gets in power. Perhaps I'm just being cynical. I just don't think it is quite comparable.
        jhugo 4y ago
        > Seeing how the West is mostly providing monetary aid and surveillance in Ukraine and not direct military support we could possibly see the same in Russia. Indeed, I'm sure Western support would be forthcoming if a movement gained traction — but the effective surveillance state and history of severe suppression make that exceedingly unlikely. The risk is enormous and the likelihood of success tiny.
- jhugo 4y ago
  While the average person does theoretically have the option of revolution, it's realistically a very difficult and dangerous thing to even attempt to arrange, so most people -- in any country -- would watch their leaders do many terrible things before they would even consider such an option. The US invaded and occupied a sovereign state based on outright lies less than 20 years ago, and I doubt even the strongest critics of that war were seriously considering a revolution. Expecting some programmer in Russia to do it, and punishing them with sanctions for not doing it, is frankly insane, and since the leaders implementing these sanctions must know that, it's dishonest too.
  - darthrupert 4y ago
    Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning did something pretty revolutionary in that war. Has any russian done anything comparable?
    - jhugo 4y ago
      You're attempting to reframe the conversation away from "overthrow your government" to "release embarrassing information about your government". I hope you can see that these things are wildly different. The US treatment of both Assange and Manning no doubt serve as a potent warning to anyone considering a similar leak in the future. Russians have also had plenty of similar warnings. From the start of this thread: > If you share liberal values with the rest of us, you need to emigrate. If not, well, perhaps you can create a github clone for Russia. Even after clearing the enormous hurdle of emigration, Russian citizens face discrimination in opening bank accounts, getting jobs, starting businesses and so on. Even GitHub will likely force them to prove somehow that they are no longer tied to Russia, which may be very difficult depending on where they emigrated to and how they got there. The treatment of ordinary people who had nothing to do with the war this way is against all the values we claim to hold, and ultimately damages the credibility of the countries complicit in it.
      - darthrupert 4y ago
        > You're attempting to reframe the conversation away from "overthrow your government" to "release embarrassing information about your government". I hope you can see that these things are wildly different. Yes, I did do that. My bad. > Even after clearing the enormous hurdle of emigration, Russian citizens face discrimination in opening bank accounts, getting jobs, starting businesses and so on. I’m sure this is not terribly different from the checks that the western world would (and, I say, very well should!) do on every citizen immigrating from a hostile country. It’s not a perfect situation, but nothing in this whole situation is exactly perfect. Did you read about the Russian spy that was caught trying to infiltrate the International Criminal Court? He had been working on a cover story since 2010. That’s the level of the threat that we need to be prepared to thwart. Of course, this diligence should be handled by the authorities and once a person passes all those checks, they should be considered just like anyone else.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  The excuse? Probably the same as during the times of USSR. Could you give some examples of kleptocratic dictatorships that have fallen due to a revolution bottom-up, as opposed to external force or a change of power at the top, for inspiration? One example I can come up with myself is Ukraine, but in that case US explicitly supported the change and its representative was present on the ground during critical time*. If US were willing to do the same for Russia, I'm sure this could make a difference. * https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-victoria-nuland-wades-into-ukraine-turmoil-over-yanukovich/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-victoria-nuland-wades-into-u...

At least they didn't say "just overthrow your government", I've seen that one plenty...

by jhugo 4y ago

At least they didn't say "just overthrow your government", I've seen that one plenty...

Freedom is never granted, it is earned and paid for at the highest price [0]. What's their excuse? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre

Dracophoenix 4y ago
That popular revolutions rarely work in this day and age, especially when the majority of the participants don't know how to wield a gun? In the Colonial Era, every able-bodied New England male knew how to at least, hunt and shoot. Every successful "revolution" in the modern era has depended on whose side the Army was on. Why? Because the Army is composed of people who's sole purpose is to get good at using guns.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  Wait, then why are most modern western government trying to impose stricter gun control measures?
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    They impose stricter measures In a heavily misguided attempt at trading rights for security. Suffice it to say it's not really an effective solution.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    Assuming the person you were responding to is accurate, one reason would be to prevent a revolution that kicks those in power out.
  - jhugo 4y ago
    Why would any government encourage its citizens to get better at revolution?
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  >That popular revolutions rarely work in this day and age I'm curious if you have any list of revolutions that have succeeded and failed. I can't really think of any in recent times. I don't think revolutions in Africa or the Middle East to be a good comparison and those are the only ones I can think of.
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    Is there a reason that the Arab Spring isn't a good example?
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      There are a few reasons. 1. The culture is different. It may work, but I feel like Europeans are a bit more passive. As long as things aren't too bad they will let the status quo remain. 2. The Middle East / Africa had a lot of weapons that Europe doesn't. In some areas they had CIA training as well (albeit a few decades ago in some area). 3. Several of the Arab Spring required the West to get involved to aid in the overthrow. It is possible the CIA or others had to help in the others. There is no guarantee the West would be willing to get involved to oust Putin especially since he has nukes. Seeing how the West is mostly providing monetary aid and surveillance in Ukraine and not direct military support we could possibly see the same in Russia. 4. I think the Russian surveillance state is better than the Arab Spring countries. Might not make a huge impact, but it could stop things before it got started. I am curious, since I don't keep up with the Middle East a huge amount, how many of the countries are in a better state now then they were 10 years ago? Didn't ISIS take over part of Syria? Having a successful revolution doesn't mean anything if a worse government gets in power. Perhaps I'm just being cynical. I just don't think it is quite comparable.
      - jhugo 4y ago
        > Seeing how the West is mostly providing monetary aid and surveillance in Ukraine and not direct military support we could possibly see the same in Russia. Indeed, I'm sure Western support would be forthcoming if a movement gained traction — but the effective surveillance state and history of severe suppression make that exceedingly unlikely. The risk is enormous and the likelihood of success tiny.
jhugo 4y ago
While the average person does theoretically have the option of revolution, it's realistically a very difficult and dangerous thing to even attempt to arrange, so most people -- in any country -- would watch their leaders do many terrible things before they would even consider such an option. The US invaded and occupied a sovereign state based on outright lies less than 20 years ago, and I doubt even the strongest critics of that war were seriously considering a revolution. Expecting some programmer in Russia to do it, and punishing them with sanctions for not doing it, is frankly insane, and since the leaders implementing these sanctions must know that, it's dishonest too.
- darthrupert 4y ago
  Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning did something pretty revolutionary in that war. Has any russian done anything comparable?
  - jhugo 4y ago
    You're attempting to reframe the conversation away from "overthrow your government" to "release embarrassing information about your government". I hope you can see that these things are wildly different. The US treatment of both Assange and Manning no doubt serve as a potent warning to anyone considering a similar leak in the future. Russians have also had plenty of similar warnings. From the start of this thread: > If you share liberal values with the rest of us, you need to emigrate. If not, well, perhaps you can create a github clone for Russia. Even after clearing the enormous hurdle of emigration, Russian citizens face discrimination in opening bank accounts, getting jobs, starting businesses and so on. Even GitHub will likely force them to prove somehow that they are no longer tied to Russia, which may be very difficult depending on where they emigrated to and how they got there. The treatment of ordinary people who had nothing to do with the war this way is against all the values we claim to hold, and ultimately damages the credibility of the countries complicit in it.
    - darthrupert 4y ago
      > You're attempting to reframe the conversation away from "overthrow your government" to "release embarrassing information about your government". I hope you can see that these things are wildly different. Yes, I did do that. My bad. > Even after clearing the enormous hurdle of emigration, Russian citizens face discrimination in opening bank accounts, getting jobs, starting businesses and so on. I’m sure this is not terribly different from the checks that the western world would (and, I say, very well should!) do on every citizen immigrating from a hostile country. It’s not a perfect situation, but nothing in this whole situation is exactly perfect. Did you read about the Russian spy that was caught trying to infiltrate the International Criminal Court? He had been working on a cover story since 2010. That’s the level of the threat that we need to be prepared to thwart. Of course, this diligence should be handled by the authorities and once a person passes all those checks, they should be considered just like anyone else.
throwaway290 4y ago
The excuse? Probably the same as during the times of USSR. Could you give some examples of kleptocratic dictatorships that have fallen due to a revolution bottom-up, as opposed to external force or a change of power at the top, for inspiration? One example I can come up with myself is Ukraine, but in that case US explicitly supported the change and its representative was present on the ground during critical time*. If US were willing to do the same for Russia, I'm sure this could make a difference. * https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-victoria-nuland-wades-into-ukraine-turmoil-over-yanukovich/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-victoria-nuland-wades-into-u...