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Comment by yc1010 | Hacker News Reader

Ah "America does it" strawman, there must be a handbook on internet trolling or something made back in the old country now. Every single time, every single time, same crap gets regurgitated.

"Why are we invading yet another country? Oh because America did it too!"

"Why are our rights being eroded? Oh because America does it!"

and so on...

I been back to Russia and crisscrossed the US over the last decade, I would pick the US for all its problems over Russia any day as a place to live. Anyways I am quite happy here in Europe for now.

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Well, it's fine if you call out Russia on principle, as long as that principle applies to the US as well.

But you seem to suggest that the US is a nicer place to live, so it's fine that they've waged aggressive wars all over the globe for more than half a century?

Seem to suggest? SEEM TO SUGGEST! fuuuuu....

Look my grandparents died a few years ago in a small tiny village by the Volga, once you travel outside of Moscow and Leningrad(StPetersburg nowadays) you may as well be time travelling into the past. The place had no paved roads leading to it had to travel couple of says on grotty trains to get there. The farming being done is subsistence with remnants of old Soviet coop in the village, alcoholism is rampant so is depression. It is understandable how one who might never has left Moscow doesn't realise how truly and incredibly poor the rest of the country is

Now rural US or UK may as well be on a different planet when compared to that.

This is all from personal experience, what has happened and is happening in Russia is beyond tragic.

Now go ahead and come up with another "But but the US"

US and Europe have all sorts of issues and are not perfect and no one claims they are, but they are damned better places for my kids to grow up in.

My reply was ambiguous. The point was that you seem to be suggesting the US is always right because it's a nicer place to live, or that Russia is wrong because it is not such a nice place to live.

I lived in the West for a long time and returned with my children to eastern Europe. Sure it's poorer and less developed and plagued with problems. There are many frustrating things, but to categorically suggest it is impossible to live there (or Russia I guess) would be an insult to everyone who does.

You've found your happiness in Europe and that's great.

The US is, without question, a nicer place to live than Russia. If you think otherwise, you've either never been to the US or you haven't seen the level of poverty that is widespread outside Russia's major cities. There are small pockets of prosperity in Russia, outside of those, nobody acclimated to western standards of living would consider them equatable.

I didn't say otherwise. In general, for the average Joe (or Dmitri), the US is a nicer place to live. That doesn't excuse the behavior of it's government or serve as an argument why Russia is wrong and the US is right.

Can a 3rd party call Russia out on something if USA do it too, or should we all shut up?

Because right now the discussion looks like this:

  - Help! This thieve has stolen my bag!
  - Shut up, others do it all the time.

I am in no way suggesting people should not express their opinions.

I'd like to know whether those opinions are formed as a result of propaganda. In this case, whether any anti-russian opinions are out of principle (e.g. pacifist principles) or on the basis of consumed propaganda.

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