Reply to A difficult truth to accept: Liberal democracy is not favored around the world

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "A difficult truth to accept: Liberal democracy is not favored around the world"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Op is spot on

[/quote]

Go raise your family in Russia.  It will be so great.[/quote]

Isn’t Russia a good-ish example? After the fall of communism, they had voting rights but the economy was miserable. Putin came to power and restored stability, including economic stability, which underpins his popular support. Individual freedoms were eroded. Clearly that didn’t suit everyone but it seems it suits the majority. [/quote]
DP.
I think a good source of knowledge on how average Russians feel is the Trauma Zone documentary.

Basically, they believed in liberal democracy and were hoping they would live “no worse than those in the U.S. and Europe”. However it was very very different, and now there is disillusionment.
People are starting to understand that liberal democracies are an elite club, and a country can either join them at great costs, losing economic and industrial independence, becoming their second class citizen so to speak, or a country can adopt a government that is resistant to becoming basically a servant to the club. This government starts protecting the country’s geopolitical interests, which is in turn framed by The Club as tyranny and all the other bad things. This causes the government in question to resist even more and become an even worse guy in the eyes of the western media and public, and so the vicious circle begins.

TLDR: there are only two ways for a country today to improve its economic situation- either to become subservient to the U.S. or to become a bad guy (gradually) while trying to protect its economic and geopolitical interests. [/quote]

Completely disagree with your analysis.

Many US allies are far from subservient to the US. Many of them disagree on trade and human rights issues but express that in appropriate forums such as WTO/ UN/ diplomatic talks.

Russians have never had a functioning democracy and life under both communism and then Putin’s weird empire mongering dictatorship have not been kind to a majority of Russians. The cost for them never having a liberal democracy are

Would never in a million years want to swap life with free press, messy democracy, and individual freedoms for life in a dictatorship. 
[/quote]

The non-subservient allies are Western European countries, and even that can be disputed (but okay I’ll give it that).

There was at least 10 years, maybe more, of trying to build a functioning democracy in Russia (1990-2000 or so). Even the 2010s weren’t so bad yet. The problem is that most Russians are completely disillusioned by that decade. They also see what happened to the Baltics which went all in for democracy.

Finally, Russia would be totally ok and not a villain if the U.S. and Western Europe listened to them and stopped their NATO and EU expansion flirting with the countries bordering Russia. 
However it simply could not have happened as the ultimate goal of any larger country or union is to stop other countries they perceive as threats from expanding their influence.

So, Russia could have let “the west” have Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova. Or they had a a choice of becoming a contrarian and trying to stand their ground, which they did. 
I think they have overestimated themselves and underestimated the clever PR and politics of the west, but the fact remains: it’s either doing what you are told and being a good friend or standing one’s ground and becoming the villain. 
[/quote]

Again completely disagree.

Russia would have nothing to worry about from the NATO defense alliance if it did not plan on invading NATO countries.

Its latest aggressive foray into sovereign neighbor’s country reminded everyone everyone why NATO is essential to defending Western democracies from Russia’s insatiable lust for dominance in the world that is only matched by its indifference to the well being of ordinary citizens.

Putin is the villain because he acts with cynical disregard for international laws and human life as well as the needs of his own people. He is doubling his military budget at the expense of education, health and infrastructure so he can continue his illegal and immoral war in Ukraine.

It is not clever PR working against him but common human decency and common sense. [/quote]

Pretty much everyone who knows anything about the region agrees that NATO expansion led to the Ukraine war. [/quote]

Pretty much that’s an RT talking point that’s not gonna fly here. Also, there is an entire thread dedicated to Ukraine and you can take it over there. Thanks. [/quote]

Is George Kennan RT? How interesting.

[/quote]

Or John Mearsheimer 
-DP[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics