Putin's Party?

[joG]

Could you be more specific about where, exactly, the contradictions occur, or use an example? I'm having a hard time grasping your criticism.

Think about pre-Bismarck Germany. It was organized as a multipolar system of competing states. They built varying coalitions along shifting alliances of secret treaties and everyone had to have a standing arme. Nonetheless, there were sporadic skirmishes and sometimes real wars over hundreds of years.
Bismarck changed that order and created a unipolar system of security and safety for the populations. There were never again wars between the German states.

 

[JumpinJack]

If those Emails contain only personal stuff like she said, and zero emails related to her job as SoS, then it wouldn't be an act of espionage anyway. More like a personal attack, which still isn't ok, but a far cry from calling for a foriegn power to steal government secrets, or however your trying to spin this.

And are you seriously denying that this is full dial fear mongering? And then following with:



This is straight out of the McCarthy era! Should we start doing air raid drills in the schools again? Or are you just trying to get voters to duck and cover until after the election?


I've been bombarded with reasons to be afraid of the Trump-Putin ticket the republicans are running this fall for 4 days now. The DNC went from 0 to 60 in record time and has been in high gear the entire time spinning conspiracy theories that are, at best, very weakly supported. All in response to the obvious corruption exposed by the recent email dumps, in an attempt to smother the outrage with fear and to keep people's memories short.

Funny how this "Russia wants Trump to win" narrative only showed up this week. They've been attacking Trump ruthlessly for months. You'd think if there was so much evidence of the Trump-Putin ticket they would have been riding this horse for some time now. Or maybe they spun this on the fly when they needed to discredit the leaks.

The point is not the subject of which emails he wanted hacked. The point is that Trump openly asked an adversarial foreign government to illegally hack American emails.

That borders on traitorous behavior.

Second point: Trump has tried to do business (but failed) on at least two occasions in Russia. He is using this nomination as a way to try a third time. He desperately wants a big business venture in Russia.

Third point: He has taken Russia's side when it grabbed part of the Ukraine as its own....the side Trump took was counter to America's and the world's position. Why? He wanted to do business in that area.

Only a fool doesn't see what's going on with Trump and Putin/Russia. Trump is using this nomination for his own business gain in Russia, even if it involves anti-American behavior, positions, and statements. Even if it means Russia forcefully takes over other territories.

Trump works for his own gain, and no other. That's who he is. He owes no loyalty to any country or any person other than himself. He's HUGE, as he tells us all the time.

 

[Coldwine]

That is true. "The state" is not the unethical entity. It is every person in it.So it makes sense to say the state is evil.

By 'every person in it', do you mean 'every citizen'?

Also, one can construct a state to make it more difficult or less for the players to act like Stalin and the Russians of his system. And so it makes sense to speak of an evil political order.

I don't think that that's true. I think that all states tend towards collapse into that sort of corrupt situation, and that the best that we can do is create a state which is structurally resistant to it. And the structure of a state is dictated to some degree by its geopolitics. That's why Russia is predestined to autocracy: it's geopolitical security has always been founded on the control of various populations by the Russian heartland in order to create a buffer zone extending West to a more defensible position, and to control the land along the Ural river to the East as a fallback position. That sort of situation requires a hard rule, and even the most enlightened rulers of Russia (Catherine the Great comes to mind) were heavy-handed in controlling those crucial zones. In the US we don't have that problem, because instead of incorporating the Native Americans we just displaced or exterminated them, so there was no need to crack down on culturally disparate breakaway factions to maintain geopolitical integrity. Stalin wasn't particularly evil because of his autocracy, if you're going to make that argument; I think that it's much more feasible to say that he was evil because of the caprice with which he wielded that absolute power.

 

[Coldwine]

Think about pre-Bismarck Germany. It was organized as a multipolar system of competing states. They built varying coalitions along shifting alliances of secret treaties and everyone had to have a standing arme. Nonetheless, there were sporadic skirmishes and sometimes real wars over hundreds of years. Bismarck changed that order and created a unipolar system of security and safety for the populations. There were never again wars between the German states.

How does that undermine the central premises of realism?

 

[joG]

By 'every person in it', do you mean 'every citizen'?



I don't think that that's true. I think that all states tend towards collapse into that sort of corrupt situation, and that the best that we can do is create a state which is structurally resistant to it. And the structure of a state is dictated to some degree by its geopolitics. That's why Russia is predestined to autocracy: it's geopolitical security has always been founded on the control of various populations by the Russian heartland in order to create a buffer zone extending West to a more defensible position, and to control the land along the Ural river to the East as a fallback position. That sort of situation requires a hard rule, and even the most enlightened rulers of Russia (Catherine the Great comes to mind) were heavy-handed in controlling those crucial zones. In the US we don't have that problem, because instead of incorporating the Native Americans we just displaced or exterminated them, so there was no need to crack down on culturally disparate breakaway factions to maintain geopolitical integrity. Stalin wasn't particularly evil because of his autocracy, if you're going to make that argument; I think that it's much more feasible to say that he was evil because of the caprice with which he wielded that absolute power.

1. Yes. Every citizen is responsible for stopping dictatorship and mass murder.
2. The Constitution of the land is only a protection for citizens till democracy fails and a strongman takes control. The situation of stabilising his position will often requite extremely harsh measures. This is often also the situation in and in the aftermath of revolution and more so, when a dictatorship is replaced.

 

[joG]

How does that undermine the central premises of realism?

I'm not quite sure, what you mean. It must be a misunderstanding.

 

[Glowpun]

Well my oh my, I'm almost scared enough to vote for Shillary. Almost. Ok, not really.

Sounds like you still will vote for that guy who quite frankly from his behavior may be showing signs of instability.

 

[Captain America]

Putin's Party?

The neo-conservative political analyst and commentator William Krystal bemoans Donald Trump steering the GOP closer to Vladimir Putin.

The Siberian Candidate..... :lamo

View attachment 67205137

 

[Coldwine]

1. Yes. Every citizen is responsible for stopping dictatorship and mass murder.

That's a bit of a ridiculous rubric. So the throat-singer, who lived in Tuva while the border of the USSR overtook his own country's with little impact on his own life, was 'evil' because of Stalin? The Chechens who were relocated to Kazakhstan were 'evil' because of Stalin? When they finally returned, the old grandmother who had one grandchild left, who has watched the rest of her family perish, and has decided that she's going to tow the line because she wants to protect the only thing she has remaining to her in this world is 'evil'? Using this definition, evil seems like a meaningless term.

2. The Constitution of the land is only a protection for citizens till democracy fails and a strongman takes control. The situation of stabilising his position will often requite extremely harsh measures. This is often also the situation in and in the aftermath of revolution and more so, when a dictatorship is replaced.

Constitutions are all dependent on the conditions under which they are established. As Machiavelli concludes at the end of the 55th chapter of Discourses I, 'Republics, therefore, can be established where a great equality exists or can be established, and, on the contrary, a Principality can be established where a great inequality exists; otherwise they will lack proportion and have little durability.' This is born out in the present day; the greatest predictor of the success of any established democratic republic is a strong middle class (lower wealth inequality). Human nature hasn't changed in all of those years, and it isn't going to change now. Wealth inequality in Russia is absolutely enormous, and so long as it stays that way any of the trappings of Republicanism that they adopt will be chimerical.

 

[joG]

That's a bit of a ridiculous rubric. So the throat-singer, who lived in Tuva while the border of the USSR overtook his own country's with little impact on his own life, was 'evil' because of Stalin? The Chechens who were relocated to Kazakhstan were 'evil' because of Stalin? When they finally returned, the old grandmother who had one grandchild left, who has watched the rest of her family perish, and has decided that she's going to tow the line because she wants to protect the only thing she has remaining to her in this world is 'evil'? Using this definition, evil seems like a meaningless term.



Constitutions are all dependent on the conditions under which they are established. As Machiavelli concludes at the end of the 55th chapter of Discourses I, 'Republics, therefore, can be established where a great equality exists or can be established, and, on the contrary, a Principality can be established where a great inequality exists; otherwise they will lack proportion and have little durability.' This is born out in the present day; the greatest predictor of the success of any established democratic republic is a strong middle class (lower wealth inequality). Human nature hasn't changed in all of those years, and it isn't going to change now. Wealth inequality in Russia is absolutely enormous, and so long as it stays that way any of the trappings of Republicanism that they adopt will be chimerical.

She certainly supported the "evil" that was done. If you pay for mass murder, you need not be the executioner to be an associate in the crime. Every person has an obligation to prevent those that represent them and they pay to do so from committing crimes against humanity. Or do you think living it up and waiting for the storm to pass is enough? Let the child drown, while you watch or decently look the other way?