Let them go, one day will understand that there's a middle way between being a (masked?) dictature and an US vassal
"Putin will kill or jail anyone who opposes him, but they sucked anyways. As soon as a good challenger comes along we'll for sure vote them in!"
I wasn't even trying to be snide, but actually writing out this scenario made it too absurd to signal any other sentiment.
It's not that a bipartisan system fixes any and all problems, it's that a system where any opposition doesn't fear for their life at least opens up the possibility of viable alternatives.
You saying
> as soon as there emerge a political forse which will feel like they may fix them we'll definitely vote for it
is waiting for a scenario that can't happen, by Putins/Kremlins design.
1. My approach is not pragmatic, but rather naive.
2. You seem to be a defeatist :-)
I don't agree with 1 - people die, Putin's no exception. People in ruling party rotate, change etc. The design you are talking about is, imo, overrated.
No, the reason I mentioned "they sucked" is that for an experienced politician killing his less dangerous opponent is a very stupid move. It wouldn't give any profit but will definitely harm the reputation. Сui bono tells us to search for another beneficiar.
> I wasn't even trying to be snide, but actually writing out this scenario made it too absurd to signal any other sentiment.
> is waiting for a scenario that can't happen, by Putins/Kremlins design.
I see only two options: waiting and starting your own party. I don't feel qualified for the second option.
> It's not that a bipartisan system fixes any and all problems, it's that a system where any opposition doesn't fear for their life at least opens up the possibility of viable alternatives.
This sounds reasonable. But it is in case a panacea.
Yet he spends 0 effort on finding the guilty parties when journalists/political opponents die. That you actually attempt mental gymnastics trying to explain it in more convoluted ways tells me that the Kremlin propaganda machine works.
Yes, you are right this is very disturbing and needs to be dealt with.
> That you actually attempt mental gymnastics trying to explain it in more convoluted ways tells me that the Kremlin propaganda machine works.
This is not a "convoluted mental gymnastics", this is a necessary exercise to resist the very propaganda. Talking about propaganda - could you come up with some particular example of it which makes me perform all these mental gymnastics attempt? I'm honestly curious whether I would be able to distinguish it.
Not sure, that US system is such a system https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
All important positions in government of USA are occupied by people from the oldest and wealthiest US families. Is it democracy? I doubt that.
There's no freedom of speech. Which we hear is "freedom" of speech, because censorship is performed by not government, but private entities like Facebook, Twitter, Google. Yeah, maybe formally it's not a censorship for some strict definition of the word, but de-facto it's censorship and it's stronger than censorship ever were in Russia.
Secondly, so-called "democracy" is weaponized by the West to oust regimes West doesn't like (e.g. that aren't willing to sell rights to exploit their natual resouces to Western corporations) or simply to bomb anyone they don't like. There's no need to explain anything: "We bombed Afghanistan because they have no democracy! Hooray!". "So, have people of Afghanistan started to live better after 20 years of bombing and killing?" - "You're banned from Facebook and Twitter for violating our TOS".
Sorry, I no longer believe in "democracy".
This doesn't contradict the fact that democracy is something to strive for. Most people would like to have their voices heard and not be subjugated by authoritarian leaders.
Alas, this is were it seems like a lot of Russians have just given up; "We'll have an authoritarian regime, because it's always been like that. This one isn't as bad as the previous ones, so it's fine."
Exactly. This is why it is also possible for USA to bomb or otherwise subvert any country because they don't confirm to some definition of democracy. Because there will never be perfect democracy, the strong bully can plunder any country saying: "You're not perfect democracy, so give up your resources to me!".
This doesn't contradict the fact that democracy is something to strive for. Most people would like to have their voices heard and not be subjugated by authoritarian leaders.
Is there any country in the world where your voice would be heard unless you're a highly ranked bureaucrat or media star? In US, which is considered a "near perfect" democracy you can't say a lot of things because either you'll be blocked by monopolistic Internet media (FB, Twitter, YouTube) or you'll be "canceled" (like RMS and many others) or both.
So what should we strive for?
And why would I care? What do I need to say to the government? There're 140,000,000 of us in Russia and all have different opinions and little understanding outside of our area of expertise. If we'll all say something, the result we'll be chaos and noise.
Besides, contrary to what western media says, there's more freedom of speech in Russia than in the West. E.g. I read critics of Putin every day on all Russian social networks. I have friends that criticize Putin for years openly. They were never even invited to police or their accounts blocked. So what?
I'm not going to entertain your tangential whataboutisms. There are a lot of problems in the world today, we can agree on that.