tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post3377995093645345628..comments2024-03-29T10:51:27.752+13:00Comments on Not PC: Putin’s libertariansPeter Cresswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699845031503699181noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-40844436817630909162022-03-02T16:28:37.640+13:002022-03-02T16:28:37.640+13:00It's been 8 years, but as this article is topi...It's been 8 years, but as this article is topical again now, and the Right's useful idiots are coming out of the woodwork in the comments above, I thought I'd add a link here to Robert Tracinski's skewering of them:<br />https://www.discoursemagazine.com/politics/2022/02/28/putins-useful-idiots-on-the-american-right/Andrew Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16938498951651948409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-35329321566723818792022-03-02T16:27:20.979+13:002022-03-02T16:27:20.979+13:00It was a while ago, but the fascism of Ukraine was...It was a while ago, but the fascism of Ukraine was minor compared with that of Putin's Russia:<br />https://www.cato.org/commentary/smear-loathing-close-look-accusations-ukrainian-anti-semitismAndrew Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16938498951651948409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-73884566023422641352022-03-02T16:25:34.243+13:002022-03-02T16:25:34.243+13:00Sure, and the British had no business banning the ...Sure, and the British had no business banning the practice of sati in India in 1829, right?<br />That was just the business of the people who lived (or burned alive) there? <br /><br />You would say that.<br /><br />Here's why the free world should care about Ukraine: https://www.discoursemagazine.com/politics/2022/02/18/why-americans-should-care-about-ukraine/Andrew Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16938498951651948409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-30483496465931718842017-08-01T05:00:08.747+12:002017-08-01T05:00:08.747+12:00I constantly spent my half an hour to read this we...I constantly spent my half an hour to read this web site's posts daily along with a <br />cup of coffee.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-4928634382925331622015-03-20T01:48:41.130+13:002015-03-20T01:48:41.130+13:00I have no problem to accept that a libertarian doe...I have no problem to accept that a libertarian does not like Putin, who is obviously a statist. But what this article contains (beyond the obvious factual error about "government and religion intertwined" for the anti-religious atheistic USSR) is a whitewashing of the ukrainian fascism. All points of the checklist - except for the one-party-system, which has not yet been established, because there are several fascist fractions - hold for the Ukraine. <br /><br />In particular, a true libertarianism would be illegal - simply because it is an extremal variant of separatism, which gives everybody the right to separate. But separatism is illegal. <br /><br />In general, if libertarians evaluate different statist actors, the question can be only about what is the minor evil. Here, the general rule is quite simple: Separatism is less evil than big states. And a multipolar world order is less evil than a unipolar world order. The reason is simple - more states means weaker states, more poles means more freedom of choice between them. Above criteria favour the Putin-supported separatists in the Easter Ukraine. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-72657298504488306202014-09-27T08:00:19.940+12:002014-09-27T08:00:19.940+12:00Great article. Thank you very much. Great article. Thank you very much. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-3289310619689020212014-08-22T08:37:00.633+12:002014-08-22T08:37:00.633+12:00Blair
What you have written is along similar line...Blair<br /><br />What you have written is along similar lines to what I've heard. <br /><br />AmitAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-54454554458744096752014-08-22T07:44:11.878+12:002014-08-22T07:44:11.878+12:00Neocon Scott
The issues are that not only do you ...Neocon Scott<br /><br />The issues are that not only do you not know what you are on about but that it is none of your business in the first place.<br /><br />You whine, "Who knows what individuals in east Ukraine want?", as if somehow that question leads towards justification for your favoured brand of statist violence making. <br /><br />"Who knows what individuals in East Ukraine want?" They do. You most certainly do not. You ought not to ascribe to them your lusts, wishes, prejudices and yearnings. It is none of your business. It is not the business of your fellow travelers whether war-mongers, neocons or whatever collectivist outfit you care to hang with. It is up to the individuals directly to decide what they want, what to do and how to go about dealing with the matters of concern to them. It is not up to some collectivist neocon busybodies in the West. And that is the take-home lesson for you today. Learn it. <br /><br />You write, "The choice in east Ukraine is between a highly flawed but relatively open and liberal regime run from Kiev, where there is plurality and choice, or under the Putin dictatorship."<br /><br />This is false. For a start the mob presently in power in Kiev are not accurately described as you have written. You are telling lies by describing them as such. Whether this is deliberate malice on your part or merely repeating of propaganda in your ignorance (readers should be aware you have never lived there so it is clear you don't actually have a serious knowledge or understanding of the individuals who are there, of the region, of the history, let alone present circumstances & what has been and is now going on- you have no direct contact to find out) I won't comment. Suffice to say, how you have characterised those presently in power in Kiev is grievously inaccurate. <br /><br />As to the available choices that the individuals involved face, there are more options available to them then the false choice between two alternatives you present. But, let's accept for a moment (and just for the one moment only) that the false choice you present is indeed the only choice faced, even then the decision is up to the individuals concerned. There ought to be no violence arraigned against them and certainly none resourced, financed, trained, influenced or directed from the West (as there has been and presently is). It is their business to make their choice, not to have one forced upon them by violence. <br /> <br />You write this, "Your moral equivalence is that both are the same and it doesn't matter if some people get to live under tyranny, as long as the majority want it.'<br /><br />Odd how you support democratic majority rule when it suits you (for example, in Kiev or Kosovo), but simultaneously express dislike of it when that suits (when the result goes against your preferences). I'm not a supporter of democratic majority rule of some by others. Had you bothered to read what I posted previously you'd have been able to figure that out. So much for your language comprehension. As for your "moral equivalence" comment, that fails to justify your position. Perhaps it makes you feel good to smear me with your own moral corruption. <br /><br />There is an important assumption you make which also require correcting. Only individuals possess sovereignty, not states. The lines on a map colloquially referred to as borders are merely that- arbitrary lines on a map. They are not permanent. They do not supersede or trump individual rights or the lives of individuals.<br /><br />Amit<br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-27147839162791306162014-08-21T15:43:51.047+12:002014-08-21T15:43:51.047+12:00I completely accept that there are human rights is...I completely accept that there are human rights issues in Russia. But frankly, Putin doesn't need to violate them to be extraordinarily popular. Anyone who genuinely believes Putin would lose in a "fair fight" is completely deluding themselves.<br /><br />Likewise, claims of fraud and impropriety in Crimea, whether true or not, are completely irrelevant, given that most of the population there is ethnic Russian, speaks Russian, and is understandably pissed off that a government they helped elect was overthrown. Clearly most of the population there wanted to be part of Russia, and they got their wish. Whether they had "help" is irrelevant. The right result was achieved.<br /><br />Claims that Ukraine is some sort of oasis of democracy have no credibility whatsoever. In fact, this whole crisis started because a democratically elected government changed its policy, as governments sometimes do, and instead of using the democratic process, the "ethnic Ukrainian" Uniates - who are indeed assisted by fascist elements and meddling by Western powers - decided to riot. Why should ethnic Russians tolerate this? <br /><br />This nonsense about the Russians being "thugs" - well there is thuggish behaviour all around, and there are good thugs and bad thugs. It is the Uniates who hijacked the government and the democratic process - that's where the thuggery started. The best way to fight thuggery is not some pussy liberal tolerance of dissent, it's to be a bigger thug and beat the other thugs back. There's no choice here where one side is liberal and democratic, they're all thugs. So I am on the side of the people who don't want to be oppressed, who don't want their Priests persecuted, and want to be ruled by those with their best interests at heart. The Eastern thugs just want the East to themselves. It's the Western thugs who think they have a right to rule over the Eastern minority, aided by the US and the EU.Blairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02865567065778234500noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-61592377393714871712014-08-21T10:59:54.517+12:002014-08-21T10:59:54.517+12:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01464327568169764909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-69586629833246989512014-08-20T21:40:48.539+12:002014-08-20T21:40:48.539+12:00Amit
The issue is whether you apply the same mora...Amit<br /><br />The issue is whether you apply the same moral clarity to say that the conflict in Eastern Ukraine is also not the business of Russia. If you're committed to the idea that internal political conflicts in sovereign states are to be resolved by the people within them, then you too would reject Russian involvement in Ukraine, but somehow I doubt you apply the same standards given your bias against the West.<br /><br />Who knows what individuals in east Ukraine want? The recent "referenda" were the usual Soviet style fraud, where anyone who campaigned to stay in Ukraine was harassed, bullied and given absolutely no airtime on the Russian controlled media. In short, the thugs who "govern" east Ukraine (whose discipline and behaviour have been exemplified by how they treated the downing of the Malaysian airliner) don't tolerate dissent. If there were to be a referendum it should be held as the one in Kosovo was - with equivalence granted to both sides of the argument and no intimidation. <br /><br />The choice in east Ukraine is between a highly flawed but relatively open and liberal regime run from Kiev, where there is plurality and choice, or under the Putin dictatorship. Your moral equivalence is that both are the same and it doesn't matter if some people get to live under tyranny, as long as the majority want it.<br /><br />This is exactly the faux-libertarianism embraced by the "anti-war" mob, who are simply anti-establishment, and no friends of freedom.Libertyscotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12741049550997300680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-55792145539424465442014-08-20T19:24:25.717+12:002014-08-20T19:24:25.717+12:00The article was worse than poor stuff in that it e...The article was worse than poor stuff in that it encouraged the usual Western collectivist mythologies to be proudly excreted. Talk about confirmation bias! <br /><br />Ron Paul is right. The conflict in Eastern Ukraine is not the business of Western powers, politicians or Western agencies. It is the business of the individuals who live there. <br /><br />There ought to have been (and be) no continuing expenditure of money or resources by Western governments to destabilise Ukraine and fuel unrest and violence (as there has been and as has been carefully omitted from the above article). There ought to be no expenditure of resources, supply of weapons or training of combatants and agents provocoteur by the West. The political arrangemnets and status of those who live in East Ukraine is the business of those who live in East Ukraine. <br /><br />If people who live in East Ukraine want to be independent of the outfit in Kiev then they have the right to be. If they are foolish enough to want to have the government of Russia as an authority over them, it is their right to choose to have that. No-one, not Western governments, Western agencies, Western media, Western military, Western financiers and bankers and so forth and so on, have any right to prevent, let or hinder them in the expression of their choice. Similarly, the outfit in Kiev has no right preventing individuals in Eastern Ukraine from making the choice and acting on it either. They ought not to be using force (let alone military force) against individuals who do not want to associate with them or who do not want to accept their authority. <br /><br />Amit<br /><br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-27428112669224780882014-08-19T19:48:12.145+12:002014-08-19T19:48:12.145+12:00Too many Western libertarians have jumped on the c...Too many Western libertarians have jumped on the counter-culture anti MSM trend that sees Western media as inherently in cahoots with mainstream politics or worse some corporatist conspiracy. So when RT came along challenging most of the Western MSM, they embraced it and got sucked it. RT takes the framework of a true story and layers multiple levels of fiction on top of it. It's hardly new, it is what TASS used to do, and Radio Moscow in its day (today Voice of Russia, still beaming out a 24/7 English service on various platforms). Those layers involve everything from lies, to quoting deranged nobodies who are asserted as experts to simply not covering facts that don't fit the Kremlin's point of view.<br /><br />It's insidious, and bear in mind that there is no real counter to this for most Russians, as half don't use the internet, and foreign news channels have largely been dropped from redistribution within Russia, and the age of listening furtively to the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Liberty on shortwave has largely gone. <br /><br />Oddly few really trust the Chinese equivalents (CCTV, CNC) perhaps because the Chinese channels by and large don't go for the confrontational approach of RT, but tend to avoid embarrassing China by simply not reporting on matters that do that, or by not reporting that point of view. Libertyscotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12741049550997300680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-67783976904309583512014-08-19T03:06:50.635+12:002014-08-19T03:06:50.635+12:00Thank you for your article! Hope it will allow peo...Thank you for your article! Hope it will allow people to understand that Ukraine has nothing to do neither with fascism nor with nazism.OFPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05439065155439076599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-18009767951460468422014-08-18T23:20:25.572+12:002014-08-18T23:20:25.572+12:00Thank you for such a well written, honest account ...Thank you for such a well written, honest account of the situation in Ukraine & Russia. It truly is disheartening that Libertarians in the west have accepted the lies and propaganda used by the Kremlin and jumped on any opportunity to blame the west for the misfortunes in Ukraine. <br /><br />If you are ever in London, or indeed wish to visit western Ukraine (my birthplace), please let me know. In London I'll buy you a few drinks (some good pubs around) and in western Ukraine we can drink Russian Baby's blood (local delicacy)... but very hard to get fresh :) haha<br /><br />regards,<br />Ukrainian Libertarian Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-50644350595852523062014-08-18T22:13:15.056+12:002014-08-18T22:13:15.056+12:00Thanks for posting quite an informative post.
B W...Thanks for posting quite an informative post.<br /><br />B WhiteheadAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-27851194297415276902014-08-18T16:03:16.327+12:002014-08-18T16:03:16.327+12:00Thank you for that interesting article.
"The ...Thank you for that interesting article.<br /><a href="http://search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/?q=The%20Return&refx=&uilang=en" rel="nofollow">"The Return"</a><br />[Auckland] library book - mentions Putin trained by Andropov the KGB head who organised crushing Hungary '56, Czechoslovakia '68; that Putin laid a wreath on Andropov's grave; reinstated Soviet era music to anthem; thought the Soviet break-up the biggest geo-political error, ever. Book's Author unsure just how corrupt Putin is - but lists how his spy mates from earlier era ended up extremely wealthy<br /><a href="http://search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/?q=The%20Return&refx=&uilang=en" rel="nofollow">Communist past</a><br />Another book that supports the contributors about authoritarianism and intrusion of basic individual rights.<br />Mentions that the Orthodox Church leaders were discovered to be high level informants for KGB<br />PeterAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com