My hate for Russia, explained

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's a post to end 2016. This will likely be my final post of the year.

It may be true that McCain and Romney said things anti-Putin (not to mention Palin who was saying absurd things and make her support of Trump all the more hilarious) and the Democrats might've mocked them for that. To be honest I wasn't quite in that, since I was staunchly opposed to Russia when they attacked Georgia and wish the US had aided Georgia more. However it wasn't really right wingers that shaped my opinion.

My disgust that grew came from the moronic squad of pro-Putin people on the left. People such as Snowstalker, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Glenn Greenwald, Lee Camp, Michael Tracy and Eric Draitser. But mostly just randoms on message boards in recent years, who keep raving about the "Nazi government" of Ukraine or something something neoliberalism, something something NATO imperialism. It's absurd because Putin has done nothing to stymie neoliberalism anyway and I'm failing to see how on earth anything NATO has done in the past 25 years could be described as "imperialism". This is not a strawman, just read Tracy's Twitter (he all but supported Trump due to this), or this article. It's nothing but knee jerk anti-Americanism, I've even seen some defend Russian war crimes in Chechnya, or the "gay propaganda" law. Yes seriously. Common points made:
1-Gay bashing still occurs in the US, therefore no American can ever criticize gay bashing anywhere else.
2-Some American evangelicals like to spread anti-gay sentiment in countries like Uganda, therefore it's wrong for any American to criticize any other country's government or people's anti-gay policies (the contradiction of this with point #1 is apparently lost on them.)
3-Some US states still had laws against gay sex before Lawrence v. Texas over 10 years ago, so it's still wrong and hypocritical for Americans to criticize any anti-gay laws anywhere else.
4-Some US states still don't have gay marriage yet (at the time), therefore these states are just as repressive and unfriendly to LGBT people as any notably anti-gay foreign country and thus no American can criticize any other country.
5-Cultural relativist bulls[inks].

It's pretty easy to see how infuriating this garbage is. And that was BEFORE Russia took action to make Trump President.

So I'm just fed up. F[inks] that country and f[inks] anyone who defends it. And for that matter f[inks] anyone who supports that regime. Why are people crying more over some career diplomat gunned down than all the thousands of innocents in Aleppo the assassin was motivated by? Please note that on most liberal websites after said assassination happened the general sentiment and posts in response were "oh well haha, you reap what you sow". And here's the thing: Would all these pearl clutching conservatives cry decades ago if a Soviet ambassador was assassinated.

So yeah. Just f[inks] that country and all its lovers.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You do realize the Putin loving clowns I'm condemning and that infuriated me so much are in favor of Russia's government though?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A country and its government - or even system of government - are not the same thing. Russia has generally had appalling governments, yet it has produced great art (this is the land of Dostoyevsky, Shostakovitch, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Prokofiev, Diaghilev, Mussorgsky, Bulgakov, Tchaikovsky...) and much of the culture of day-to-day life is frankly charming (i.e. this is a society in which it is common to add jam to tea). One can express disgust at the current regime in the Kremlin and its actions abroad (and domestically!) without engaging in Russophobic chest-beating.

That's too much nuance for BRTD.

Yeah you understand nuance quite well. After all you were able to give out criticisms of Hillary Clinton that weren't just raving about "NEOLIBERAL CORPORATIST NEOCON IMPERIALIST WARMONGER" and took Bernie's endorsement of her in stride understanding why he did so instead of disappearing from the forum completely the day it happened until literally the day after the election.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Actually most liberal sites I read were actually celebrating the assassination. DU was holding up the assassin as a hero.

What's your opinion of Herschel Grynszpan?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD murder is never really something to be celebrated. There are instances where it may serve a greater good, but still. I really don't even know who that Russian is.

A close friend of Putin and someone who had worked in the reprehensible regime of the f[inks]ing SOVIET UNION.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So question guys: If we had a poster from Ukraine, and they had the same sig as me currently, would you be as harsh on them?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Look if I was a government official in a government doing immoral things I'd resign. I wouldn't continue to "just follow orders". Yes that would apply if I was an ambassador now to some country that Trump was planning on screwing over. Not that that thought EVER crossed this guy's mind because he was actually a friend of Putin's, not some generic bureaucrat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, I take it you oppose the United States' ban on assassination, then.

Well not really. I wouldn't have a problem if it was lifted under Obama, but I sure as hell wouldn't want it lifted under Bush or Trump.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So in regards to this, here's a hypothetical ethical scenario. You're a journalist during the Cold War. You're in a country under a democratic leftist government that the US is poking. You uncover information of proof of a Pinochet style coup. You can leak the info, which will almost certainly result in the arrest of the coup planners and inevitable failure of the coup.

However if you do so you will also expose an undercover CIA operative. Said operative is heavily involved in planning the coup, but is "just doing their job" and being ordered by higher ups at the CIA. If exposed, they will likely be apprehended by the KGB and killed.

Is it morally acceptable to expose the information and effectively give a death sentence to the CIA operative?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well I did. I bet this one will get complaints too based on the precedent though.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That's not true since Shoshanna was just some French Jewish girl who decided to blow up a theater full of German government officials.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It was a deliberate Vox reference. I've done that on AAD before too, like when I explained my feud with Gully Doyle.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

....I probably have more knowledge of history and geography (especially the latter) than the average person.