12 ms·

Cue Putin apologists appearing out of the blue with their false equivalencies. Every time, like clockwork.

by Grue3 12y ago

BugBrother 12y ago
At least on this web site they need to work to have an old account, so your comment won't be at -10 quickly. Edit: Here is a business idea to get round the voting problem by paying money from China, Russia, Microsoft (they stopped after the court cases?) and other astroturfers. A browser plugin you install where you configure the bank account and web sites you have accounts on. The plugin votes for you and a bit of money is put into your bank account. You could instead work on detectors and honey pot comments (to detect these users), before HN et al are destroyed. Edit 2: It should be possible to hide the voting plugins better by voting up comments on sham accounts, which then are used for down voting. I see a whole new application for data mining to detect this. :-(
go13 12y ago
It is interesting, that as an argument of moral right to restrict basic civil rights or to start war in Ukraine or other shit, Putin's dolls use a thesis that the US or other countries did something similar like SOPA, war in Iraq, Guantanamo or shutting down of different protests. Usually these guys (Putin's apologist not major players) don't know much details about the subject (as well as most other people/all of us) but they use these arguments to justify crimes of Putin's regime. It is like to justify killing of innocent people in the USSR because Nazi Germany did this too. Disclaimer: i don't compare the US or other countries with Nazi Germany but used this example as a hyperbole to show the issue.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  The really funny part is that they use the same type of argument in other languages in other part of the world. Not "Your country also did something almost similar in other circumstances". But "A third party did something almost similar in other circumstances". As I've written multiple times in Swedish -- you must update your argument templates for the local environment!
- jacquesm 12y ago
  At the same time the outrage from the west about Ukrainian separatists shooting down a civilian plane versus a totally different attitude when the US shot down an Iranian civilian plane does not sit right with me either. These things should all be dealt with equally, no matter who the perpetrators are and who the victims.
  - go13 12y ago
    These things should NOT all be dealt with equally! Because if you state this then you mean that the politics and the relationship between Russia and the west are not led by LAW but by "bad things" an opposite side did. These things should be dealt by LAW and JUSTICE and you should not link one to another because if you do then you end up justifying the USSR crimes because Nazi Germany did this! UPD: A crime should be a crime in all countries. The problem is that some countries use other's crimes as an argument. I said "things should NOT all be dealt with equally" because the judgement should base not on what others think about this but what the moral and the law says.
    - arethuza 12y ago
      Can I invoke Poe's Law on your comment as I have no idea whether you are being serious or not. :-)
    - Ntrails 12y ago
      The point is, that if something is illegal for one party, it's illegal for all. The point isn't that the USSR crimes are ok because Nazi Germany did it, it's that if it is a crime for the USSR then it must be a crime for Nazi Germany, or the UK, or the US. This, of course, isn't how the world works. But if you believe it should be, it's hard to accept the Russians are the only ones who have crimes to answer for - they just seem to be the only ones being brought to account.
      - go13 12y ago
        I am confused with your reply: > But if you believe it should be - what you mean? >The point is, that if something is illegal for one party, it's illegal for all. - in some countries the law doesn't work and this country's elite don't act basing on the law and justice but use manipulation (like my example with USSR and Nazi Germany) to justify it's actions which results in more bad things. Example USSR-Germany is a parallel to what some Russians are stating: like the current law on blogging is okay because the US initiated similar law too. Bloggers, free media and readers are in fact victims of this manipulation because the US has nothing to do with Russia's internal policy. And still some Russians use this argument as a justification of this law. Please read my previous comment thoroughly.
- 7952 12y ago
  In conversation I have on occasions defended Putin even though I dislike his policies. People seem to give their own countries the benefit of the doubt based on the context at the time, For example, within the UK David Cameron championed laws in the 80s that made it illegal for goverment to publish material that could promote homosexuality. People shrug off resposibility for this by telling you that "it was a different time". Russia has introduced laws that are not dissimilar to widespread outrage. Whilst we are right to campaign against such things you cannot expect a country to modernise instantly overnight or welcome outside interference. People should be reminded that all countries are following a path, and some countries are further along than others. The west does not have a monopoly on justice.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    The gay laws that Putin has brought in seem to be about doing the minimum required to keep the Russian christian right happy while not actually making homosexuality illegal. I find this interesting, especially in light of Putin's many bare-chested photoshoots. I sometimes wonder if those laws might be partly a response to his advisers telling him that he was starting to get a bit of a gay following and that he needed to do something about it before the hardliners started suspecting his manliness. I mean, really. - http://38.media.tumblr.com/880d58b9b6c9abf8ecc9fdbe4da497e0/tumblr_mftwsoPtJr1rmrac7o1_500.jpg http://38.media.tumblr.com/880d58b9b6c9abf8ecc9fdbe4da497e0/...
    - Elhana 12y ago
      Since when everyone without tshirt became gay? Really: http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/7/a/X/2/obama-shirtless-photo.jpg http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/7/a/X/2/obama-shirtless-...
      - lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Last Wednesday. There was a vote.
    - 7952 12y ago
      It is funny how often that photoshoot come up, sometime as an ad hominem attack on him. Lets ignore the personality cult and massive nuclear arsenal to concentrate on his slighty chubby tummy. It is not interesting at all.
- imaginenore 12y ago
  This! I've gotten into a few debates recently, and like clockwork they use "well country x does it too herp derp". Sorry, but other's criminal behavior doesn't magically justify yours. You are adding to the problem instead of solving it. Same exact thing with religious debates.
- Elhana 12y ago
  I don't see EU implementing any sanctions against US for Guantanamo or Israel for slaughtering Palestinians. If you punish one country for a crime - be consistent and do it for all of them. Iran can't have peaceful nuclear tech, but Israel can have their Nukes. Kosovo is a "special case" allowed by EU, but other parties can't do the same. Even enthnic cleansing argument doesn't cut it - look at Ukraine, same thing pretty much, but KFOR is good, and DNR/LNR are terrorists.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    Guantanamo is (now, just) a military detainee facility, something which is permitted under international law for states undergoing armed conflict. In the U.S.'s case, they've been in a long running armed conflict with Al Qaeda and the Afghanistan Taliban. The camp could just as well be in Kansas at this point for all that the law is concerned (just where we kept German POWs back in the day), the detainees wouldn't get any substantive additional rights. Likewise, unless you can show that Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinian non-combatants then there's not going to be an international legal basis for sanctions. That certainly wouldn't stop individual countries from applying sanctions if they wish due to their own norms, but that's arguably a double standard as by that logic the world would have to sanction essentially everywhere but western Europe and maybe Canada. Iran can have peaceful nuclear tech, it's explicitly permitted by the Nuclear non-proliferation Treaty. If you seriously think this whole thing is just about turning the lights on in Tehran you need to pay more attention to this issue. Even the Western media doesn't refer to DNR/LNR as "terrorists", but as "separatists". They don't even simply call them Russian puppets either, they're always referred to as rebels or separatists of DNR or LNR, and only then possible ties to Russia mentioned. The one time I did see "terrorism" bandied about regarding either DNR or LNR, a Malaysian Airlines Boeing was burning on live TV... Where is "ethnic cleansing" going on in Ukraine?
    - Elhana 12y ago
      Torture is not permitted under international law last time I checked, but US doesn't care and neither does EU. And I love the argument that unless you can prove Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinians, they are innocent - that is extremely hard to prove, but very easy for Israel to tell that they "had intelligence". Obviously it is much easier to just blow up a building with a rocket if you've seen Hamas fighter entering it and noone seems to care if there are many civilians inside.
mike_hearn 12y ago
Starting a debate by immediately framing anyone who disagrees with you as an apologist and their arguments as false equivalencies (you mean "equivalances" by the way) is neither helpful to good debate, nor going to persuade anyone. You don't have to stretch out your reading very far to discover that lots of news sites, especially outside the USA, are flooded with comments from people who have been posting to them for years and yet are deeply skeptical about the current wave of anti-Russian stories being pumped by western media. This isn't being "pro Putin", it's about realising that our own governments are so deeply and nauseatingly hypocritical that anything they say can be safely assumed to be the opposite of the truth. E.g. whilst the western media is busy trying to claim that only evil authoritarian Russians would be so draconian as to forbid anonymous blogging, the NSA is busy de-anonymizing any blogger or any other internet user they wish bypassing the systems of law and democracy entirely. Is that really a false equivalence, or is it just pointing out the painful and obvious truth?
- BugBrother 12y ago
  Note that the democratic world's media are very heterogeneous. It isn't often they agree on much (see the Viernam war, Israel, Iraq war, etc in European media). On this subject, most everyone do agree. Again note -- that is unusual. Maybe unique. And you claim that is a conspiracy, based on that there are lots of spin used on every subject by everyone with a finger in a pie? That is exactly what Putin's media writes -- the whole [non dictatorial] world is in a conspiracy against Russia. Because they hate Russia! (I can tell you how unanimous this is in Sweden: Most of the left wing extremists don't support Putin re Ukraine. These people in Sweden are USA haters which have never supported a democracy in a conflict with a democracy...)
  - mike_hearn 12y ago
    Both Iraq and Israel are absolutely notorious for being subjects where all major western news outlets toe or toed the political line. Whilst Israel is treated somewhat neutrally outside the USA, the puppy-like behaviour of American media is so extreme it is itself worthy of news articles: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/american-media-israel-bias-netanyahu http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/america... The runup to the war in Iraq is widely considered to be one of the western media's biggest and most damaging failures, including by those outlets themselves: http://www.salon.com/2007/04/10/media_failure/ http://www.salon.com/2007/04/10/media_failure/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War With respect to your assertion that "most everyone do agree", did you read my comment? It's very much NOT the case that everyone agrees on this. Here's the Guardian's view: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/30/guardian-view-sanctions-against-russia http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/30/guardia... Hardly a ringing endorsement of sanctions. Now go look at the comments section. Pick comments pointing out western hypocrisy and take a look at the posting history of those accounts. For instance, check out TheGreatRonRafferty. Posting on the site for years, thousands of comments. Many other views like his expressed there. If you think this is all the work of the FSB you're delusional, I don't know how else to say it.
pjc50 12y ago
I see far more comments complaining about "apologists" and "brainwashed" than comments I think are actually Putin apologists. "The US does bad things as well" is not Putin apologia but a sincere plea for the US to recognise the idea of universally applicable international human rights law.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  As I wrote on another comment of yours -- Russia and China pay people to write comments [astroturf/50 cent army]. It was obvious in Swedish. Edit: The astroturf was obvious in the Swedish language. Very shortly: People with very bad Swedish started posting pro Putin comments, some obviously using G Translate. They were unable to discuss certain things -- like that international democracy indexes class Russia as autocratic. (They'd probably be fired.) There were systematic down votes (10-100 down votes in a minute probably going through a bot net, so web admins couldn't automatically detect it). This spamming with very, very unusual opinions were systematically half of all comments on those web sites I read. (After a few months the Swedish of the posts got better, some halfway to idiomatic.) Edit 2: Sprint, maybe. But not in the same volume in Swedish and not with that amount of fake votes.
  - schrodinger 12y ago
    Excuse my ignorance, but can you elaborate about it being "obvious in Swedish"? I'm afraid I'm unaware of the reference....
    - pjc50 12y ago
      I interpret that as BugBrother being Swedish and reading lots of Swedish-language discussion sites. While Sweden isn't adjacent to Russia like Finland is, it's obviously a looming neighbour.
      - schrodinger 12y ago
        Ah that makes more sense. Sorry, was legitimately unsure if I was missing something.

Cue Putin apologists appearing out of the blue with their false equivalencies. Every time, like clockwork.

by Grue3 12y ago

Cue Putin apologists appearing out of the blue with their false equivalencies. Every time, like clockwork.

At least on this web site they need to work to have an old account, so your comment won't be at -10 quickly. Edit: Here is a business idea to get round the voting problem by paying money from China, Russia, Microsoft (they stopped after the court cases?) and other astroturfers. A browser plugin you install where you configure the bank account and web sites you have accounts on. The plugin votes for you and a bit of money is put into your bank account. You could instead work on detectors and honey pot comments (to detect these users), before HN et al are destroyed. Edit 2: It should be possible to hide the voting plugins better by voting up comments on sham accounts, which then are used for down voting. I see a whole new application for data mining to detect this. :-(

go13 12y ago

It is interesting, that as an argument of moral right to restrict basic civil rights or to start war in Ukraine or other shit, Putin's dolls use a thesis that the US or other countries did something similar like SOPA, war in Iraq, Guantanamo or shutting down of different protests. Usually these guys (Putin's apologist not major players) don't know much details about the subject (as well as most other people/all of us) but they use these arguments to justify crimes of Putin's regime. It is like to justify killing of innocent people in the USSR because Nazi Germany did this too. Disclaimer: i don't compare the US or other countries with Nazi Germany but used this example as a hyperbole to show the issue.

BugBrother 12y ago
The really funny part is that they use the same type of argument in other languages in other part of the world. Not "Your country also did something almost similar in other circumstances". But "A third party did something almost similar in other circumstances". As I've written multiple times in Swedish -- you must update your argument templates for the local environment!
jacquesm 12y ago
At the same time the outrage from the west about Ukrainian separatists shooting down a civilian plane versus a totally different attitude when the US shot down an Iranian civilian plane does not sit right with me either. These things should all be dealt with equally, no matter who the perpetrators are and who the victims.
- go13 12y ago
  These things should NOT all be dealt with equally! Because if you state this then you mean that the politics and the relationship between Russia and the west are not led by LAW but by "bad things" an opposite side did. These things should be dealt by LAW and JUSTICE and you should not link one to another because if you do then you end up justifying the USSR crimes because Nazi Germany did this! UPD: A crime should be a crime in all countries. The problem is that some countries use other's crimes as an argument. I said "things should NOT all be dealt with equally" because the judgement should base not on what others think about this but what the moral and the law says.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    Can I invoke Poe's Law on your comment as I have no idea whether you are being serious or not. :-)
  - Ntrails 12y ago
    The point is, that if something is illegal for one party, it's illegal for all. The point isn't that the USSR crimes are ok because Nazi Germany did it, it's that if it is a crime for the USSR then it must be a crime for Nazi Germany, or the UK, or the US. This, of course, isn't how the world works. But if you believe it should be, it's hard to accept the Russians are the only ones who have crimes to answer for - they just seem to be the only ones being brought to account.
    - go13 12y ago
      I am confused with your reply: > But if you believe it should be - what you mean? >The point is, that if something is illegal for one party, it's illegal for all. - in some countries the law doesn't work and this country's elite don't act basing on the law and justice but use manipulation (like my example with USSR and Nazi Germany) to justify it's actions which results in more bad things. Example USSR-Germany is a parallel to what some Russians are stating: like the current law on blogging is okay because the US initiated similar law too. Bloggers, free media and readers are in fact victims of this manipulation because the US has nothing to do with Russia's internal policy. And still some Russians use this argument as a justification of this law. Please read my previous comment thoroughly.
7952 12y ago
In conversation I have on occasions defended Putin even though I dislike his policies. People seem to give their own countries the benefit of the doubt based on the context at the time, For example, within the UK David Cameron championed laws in the 80s that made it illegal for goverment to publish material that could promote homosexuality. People shrug off resposibility for this by telling you that "it was a different time". Russia has introduced laws that are not dissimilar to widespread outrage. Whilst we are right to campaign against such things you cannot expect a country to modernise instantly overnight or welcome outside interference. People should be reminded that all countries are following a path, and some countries are further along than others. The west does not have a monopoly on justice.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  The gay laws that Putin has brought in seem to be about doing the minimum required to keep the Russian christian right happy while not actually making homosexuality illegal. I find this interesting, especially in light of Putin's many bare-chested photoshoots. I sometimes wonder if those laws might be partly a response to his advisers telling him that he was starting to get a bit of a gay following and that he needed to do something about it before the hardliners started suspecting his manliness. I mean, really. - http://38.media.tumblr.com/880d58b9b6c9abf8ecc9fdbe4da497e0/tumblr_mftwsoPtJr1rmrac7o1_500.jpg http://38.media.tumblr.com/880d58b9b6c9abf8ecc9fdbe4da497e0/...
  - Elhana 12y ago
    Since when everyone without tshirt became gay? Really: http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/7/a/X/2/obama-shirtless-photo.jpg http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/7/a/X/2/obama-shirtless-...
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      Last Wednesday. There was a vote.
  - 7952 12y ago
    It is funny how often that photoshoot come up, sometime as an ad hominem attack on him. Lets ignore the personality cult and massive nuclear arsenal to concentrate on his slighty chubby tummy. It is not interesting at all.
imaginenore 12y ago
This! I've gotten into a few debates recently, and like clockwork they use "well country x does it too herp derp". Sorry, but other's criminal behavior doesn't magically justify yours. You are adding to the problem instead of solving it. Same exact thing with religious debates.
Elhana 12y ago
I don't see EU implementing any sanctions against US for Guantanamo or Israel for slaughtering Palestinians. If you punish one country for a crime - be consistent and do it for all of them. Iran can't have peaceful nuclear tech, but Israel can have their Nukes. Kosovo is a "special case" allowed by EU, but other parties can't do the same. Even enthnic cleansing argument doesn't cut it - look at Ukraine, same thing pretty much, but KFOR is good, and DNR/LNR are terrorists.
- mpyne 12y ago
  Guantanamo is (now, just) a military detainee facility, something which is permitted under international law for states undergoing armed conflict. In the U.S.'s case, they've been in a long running armed conflict with Al Qaeda and the Afghanistan Taliban. The camp could just as well be in Kansas at this point for all that the law is concerned (just where we kept German POWs back in the day), the detainees wouldn't get any substantive additional rights. Likewise, unless you can show that Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinian non-combatants then there's not going to be an international legal basis for sanctions. That certainly wouldn't stop individual countries from applying sanctions if they wish due to their own norms, but that's arguably a double standard as by that logic the world would have to sanction essentially everywhere but western Europe and maybe Canada. Iran can have peaceful nuclear tech, it's explicitly permitted by the Nuclear non-proliferation Treaty. If you seriously think this whole thing is just about turning the lights on in Tehran you need to pay more attention to this issue. Even the Western media doesn't refer to DNR/LNR as "terrorists", but as "separatists". They don't even simply call them Russian puppets either, they're always referred to as rebels or separatists of DNR or LNR, and only then possible ties to Russia mentioned. The one time I did see "terrorism" bandied about regarding either DNR or LNR, a Malaysian Airlines Boeing was burning on live TV... Where is "ethnic cleansing" going on in Ukraine?
  - Elhana 12y ago
    Torture is not permitted under international law last time I checked, but US doesn't care and neither does EU. And I love the argument that unless you can prove Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinians, they are innocent - that is extremely hard to prove, but very easy for Israel to tell that they "had intelligence". Obviously it is much easier to just blow up a building with a rocket if you've seen Hamas fighter entering it and noone seems to care if there are many civilians inside.

mike_hearn 12y ago

Starting a debate by immediately framing anyone who disagrees with you as an apologist and their arguments as false equivalencies (you mean "equivalances" by the way) is neither helpful to good debate, nor going to persuade anyone. You don't have to stretch out your reading very far to discover that lots of news sites, especially outside the USA, are flooded with comments from people who have been posting to them for years and yet are deeply skeptical about the current wave of anti-Russian stories being pumped by western media. This isn't being "pro Putin", it's about realising that our own governments are so deeply and nauseatingly hypocritical that anything they say can be safely assumed to be the opposite of the truth. E.g. whilst the western media is busy trying to claim that only evil authoritarian Russians would be so draconian as to forbid anonymous blogging, the NSA is busy de-anonymizing any blogger or any other internet user they wish bypassing the systems of law and democracy entirely. Is that really a false equivalence, or is it just pointing out the painful and obvious truth?

BugBrother 12y ago
Note that the democratic world's media are very heterogeneous. It isn't often they agree on much (see the Viernam war, Israel, Iraq war, etc in European media). On this subject, most everyone do agree. Again note -- that is unusual. Maybe unique. And you claim that is a conspiracy, based on that there are lots of spin used on every subject by everyone with a finger in a pie? That is exactly what Putin's media writes -- the whole [non dictatorial] world is in a conspiracy against Russia. Because they hate Russia! (I can tell you how unanimous this is in Sweden: Most of the left wing extremists don't support Putin re Ukraine. These people in Sweden are USA haters which have never supported a democracy in a conflict with a democracy...)
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  Both Iraq and Israel are absolutely notorious for being subjects where all major western news outlets toe or toed the political line. Whilst Israel is treated somewhat neutrally outside the USA, the puppy-like behaviour of American media is so extreme it is itself worthy of news articles: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/american-media-israel-bias-netanyahu http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/america... The runup to the war in Iraq is widely considered to be one of the western media's biggest and most damaging failures, including by those outlets themselves: http://www.salon.com/2007/04/10/media_failure/ http://www.salon.com/2007/04/10/media_failure/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War With respect to your assertion that "most everyone do agree", did you read my comment? It's very much NOT the case that everyone agrees on this. Here's the Guardian's view: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/30/guardian-view-sanctions-against-russia http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/30/guardia... Hardly a ringing endorsement of sanctions. Now go look at the comments section. Pick comments pointing out western hypocrisy and take a look at the posting history of those accounts. For instance, check out TheGreatRonRafferty. Posting on the site for years, thousands of comments. Many other views like his expressed there. If you think this is all the work of the FSB you're delusional, I don't know how else to say it.

pjc50 12y ago

I see far more comments complaining about "apologists" and "brainwashed" than comments I think are actually Putin apologists. "The US does bad things as well" is not Putin apologia but a sincere plea for the US to recognise the idea of universally applicable international human rights law.

BugBrother 12y ago
As I wrote on another comment of yours -- Russia and China pay people to write comments [astroturf/50 cent army]. It was obvious in Swedish. Edit: The astroturf was obvious in the Swedish language. Very shortly: People with very bad Swedish started posting pro Putin comments, some obviously using G Translate. They were unable to discuss certain things -- like that international democracy indexes class Russia as autocratic. (They'd probably be fired.) There were systematic down votes (10-100 down votes in a minute probably going through a bot net, so web admins couldn't automatically detect it). This spamming with very, very unusual opinions were systematically half of all comments on those web sites I read. (After a few months the Swedish of the posts got better, some halfway to idiomatic.) Edit 2: Sprint, maybe. But not in the same volume in Swedish and not with that amount of fake votes.
- schrodinger 12y ago
  Excuse my ignorance, but can you elaborate about it being "obvious in Swedish"? I'm afraid I'm unaware of the reference....
  - pjc50 12y ago
    I interpret that as BugBrother being Swedish and reading lots of Swedish-language discussion sites. While Sweden isn't adjacent to Russia like Finland is, it's obviously a looming neighbour.
    - schrodinger 12y ago
      Ah that makes more sense. Sorry, was legitimately unsure if I was missing something.