Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Russian imperialism: Only a bare majority of Russians wants Russia to stay within its current borders

Only 57 percent of Russians say that their country should be satisfied with and continue to live within its current borders, while nearly a quarter – 23 percent – say that Moscow should use all means, including military force, to bring under its control the former Soviet republics, although 65 percent disagreed, according to a new Levada Center poll.

At the same time, the new survey found, only one Russian in ten – 10 percent – says that Russia does not have the right to annex what are now foreign territories to its own and that it must act according to international law governing any such border changes.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/03/24/only-a-bare-majority-of-russians-wants-russia-to-stay-within-its-current-borders/

The only Russian Politician to vote against annexing Crimea is now living in exile.

Last summer, after a period of remarkable public demonization in the wake of the Crimea vote (a billboard in the center of Moscow described him as a “national traitor”), Ponomarev was on a trip to California when he was told that he wouldn’t be allowed to return to the country. In response to a civil suit alleging that he improperly took money out of the tech development-based Skolkovo Foundation, Ponomarev says that the Russian state used legislation designed to keep people in the country to keep him out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/23/a-year-ago-he-was-the-only-russian-politician-to-vote-against-annexing-crimea-now-hes-an-exile/

Why Conspiracy Theories Take Hold in Russia

I’ve been saying this for months. It’s even deeper than the author of this article assumes. There’s something conspiratorial in Russian metaphysics.

See: The conspiratorial, supermarket-tabloid thinking of Russians (observed in 1893)

All it takes is an hour or two of Russian state television to learn that someone is plotting against Russia. Watch for a few more hours, and you’ll find that everyone is plotting against Russia. Watch for a few more days, and the truth comes out: Russia is plotting against Russia.

Thanks to the increasingly baroque explanations of “what really happened” to Flight MH17, the Western media have turned their attention to a feature of post-Soviet Russia that is all too familiar to those of us who’ve been paying attention: Russia has become a world leader in the production of conspiracy theories.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eliot-borenstein/why-conspiracy-theories_b_5626149.html

Russian bid for Czech hearts and minds (via propaganda)

Ugh. So stupid.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32070184

Dear Russia: Many of us Westerners WANTED you to be an alternative to the West. Putin would have been many people’s hero (including mine) if he achieved this by establishing Property Rights, Rule of Law, and Truth Telling.

Instead you try to achieve this by Lying, Threatening, Corrupting, and Demoralizing. You will fail. Europe’s preference for truth is more powerful than your preference for strength.

Russia has to change on a very fundamental level — their mythology, their collective meta physics — before they consider Property Rights, Rule of Law, and Truth Telling to be in their self interest.

Why does Russia want Ukraine? (worth repeating)

1) Short term – To punish Ukraine for overthrowing a corrupt Russian puppet, and recast the anti-corruption narrative as an anti-Russian one. (This prevents Russians from following Ukraine’s example.)

2) Medium term – To prevent more successful states (like Estonia and Finland) from emerging on Russia’s borders and demonstrating property rights, rule of law and the associated prosperity to Russians.

3) Long term – Russian history is a lie. Until Czar Peter, in the 18th century, decided to call the Muskovites and all the conquered people “RUSSIAN”, there was no such thing. They stole Ukraine’s history. The ancient RUS people are Ukrainian. Russia has an identity crisis without Ukraine.

Principled vs Practical Libertarians re Ukraine & Russia

I think a lot of the Putin-apologists are trying to have it both ways.
Regarding the American military, they pretend to be super principled non-intervention (even if intervention happens on behalf of property rights).
But if you’re principled you’re opposed to ALL aggression, not just American aggression.

The minute I point out what’s happening here, they abandon their principles and switch to pragmatic arguments — oh, it’s too far, too confusing, none of our business.

You can either be principles or pragmatic, but you’re a hypocrite if you take one position in one place and another in another place.

The principled position on Ukraine is to condemn Russia’s invasion, torture, mass murder, crack down on press freedom, intimidation of civil society.

The practical position (from the point of view of Ukraine) is to get help where ever we can, because we’re struggling for survival.

I have NOT advocated that anybody help us, mind you. I have only advocated an accurate portrayal of what’s happening here.

An ANCAP from Crimea

from a Facebook friend of mine taking part in a libertarian argument about Ukraine / Russia:

Вы тупые, кто за Россию! Я анкап из Крыма. Однако кремлевская хунта, благодаря тому, что оккупировала мой дом, сделала жизнь крымчан в разы хуже! Да, я также против того, чтобы американские чиновники убивали американцев за счёт американцев. Но оправдывать большевика Путина – это уже не в какие ворота не лезет! Тупые этатисты!

My Translation:

You’re stupid, if you’re for Russia!

I’m an ANCAP from Crimea. The Kremlin Junta is generous in that they occupied my home [sarcasm], and made life many time worse.

Yes, I’m also against the American politicans killing Americans for Americans. But apologizing for the Bolshevik Putin — this is ridiculous!

Stupid Statists!

I continued in the FB thread:

– Shane Trejo, Michael Barnett, Dan Sanchez, William Houston, Scott Horton, Daniel McAdams — Here’s a great opportunity for you to correspond with an ANCAP who LIVES IN CRIMEA.

Is there anything you want to ask him?

– I suspect the Kremlin shills from anti-war dot com and the Ron Paul Institute will be about as interested in him as they are in the Libertarian Party of Russia: An appeal to western libertarians about the war in Ukraine