Trump v. Biden

[Wrecker45 3,378]

20 minutes ago, dieter said:

I'm including all of the 'Colonial' Escapades of the West. Um, tally up the victims of their weapons of mass destruction before we even reached the end of the 19th Century. Then we had two -so-called World wars indulged in mainly by Western/'Christian' powers when weapons of mass destruction reigned.

The we had the unnecessary use of Atomic bombs in Japan- once again, the WEST.

Since then, the US has made horrific war in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Granada, Somalia, it raped Libya, attempted to rape Syria, destroyed Iraq by using one of the biggest lies in history, and is still raping Afghanistan. If Netanyahu had his way, it would have raped Iran by now as well.

Between you and me, Grr-owl, I don' t trust the so-called West. It lies, time, and time, and time again. For example, you are no doubt aware of the pretext for invading Afghanistan, aren't you? Come on, you remember, it was to capture Bin Laden...

Now, give me, please the tally of deaths caused by the ones you claim can't be trusted with weapons of Mass Destruction?

By the way, have you ever experienced the horror of War? Has anyone ever bombed your town or your city?

 

 

Yeah my city gets bombed all the time. It's called Melbourne. It happens most weeks 

 

[dieter 3,325]

17 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

Yeah my city gets bombed all the time. It's called Melbourne. It happens most weeks 

 

But only during the Footy Season...

[Pickett2Jackson 3,904]

3 hours ago, dieter said:

I'm including all of the 'Colonial' Escapades of the West. Um, tally up the victims of their weapons of mass destruction before we even reached the end of the 19th Century. Then we had two -so-called World wars indulged in mainly by Western/'Christian' powers when weapons of mass destruction reigned.

The we had the unnecessary use of Atomic bombs in Japan- once again, the WEST.

Since then, the US has made horrific war in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Granada, Somalia, it raped Libya, attempted to rape Syria, destroyed Iraq by using one of the biggest lies in history, and is still raping Afghanistan. If Netanyahu had his way, it would have raped Iran by now as well.

Between you and me, Grr-owl, I don' t trust the so-called West. It lies, time, and time, and time again. For example, you are no doubt aware of the pretext for invading Afghanistan, aren't you? Come on, you remember, it was to capture Bin Laden...

Now, give me, please the tally of deaths caused by the ones you claim can't be trusted with weapons of Mass Destruction?

By the way, have you ever experienced the horror of War? Has anyone ever bombed your town or your city?

 

 

 

You don't need weapons to be in a war.

China are at war right now with the U.S and to a slightly lesser extent, Australia.

I was going to call it a 'covert' war but it is so blatantly obvious it needs to be called for what it is.

 

[dieter 3,325]

37 minutes ago, Pickett2Jackson said:

 

You don't need weapons to be in a war.

China are at war right now with the U.S and to a slightly lesser extent, Australia.

I was going to call it a 'covert' war but it is so blatantly obvious it needs to be called for what it is.

 

Who started the war, man?????????????????????

[Grr-owl 1,244]

6 hours ago, dieter said:

I'm including all of the 'Colonial' Escapades of the West. Um, tally up the victims of their weapons of mass destruction before we even reached the end of the 19th Century. Then we had two -so-called World wars indulged in mainly by Western/'Christian' powers when weapons of mass destruction reigned.

The we had the unnecessary use of Atomic bombs in Japan- once again, the WEST.

Since then, the US has made horrific war in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Granada, Somalia, it raped Libya, attempted to rape Syria, destroyed Iraq by using one of the biggest lies in history, and is still raping Afghanistan. If Netanyahu had his way, it would have raped Iran by now as well.

Between you and me, Grr-owl, I don' t trust the so-called West. It lies, time, and time, and time again. For example, you are no doubt aware of the pretext for invading Afghanistan, aren't you? Come on, you remember, it was to capture Bin Laden...

Now, give me, please the tally of deaths caused by the ones you claim can't be trusted with weapons of Mass Destruction?

By the way, have you ever experienced the horror of War? Has anyone ever bombed your town or your city?

 

 

No, I haven't experienced war. Except when someone disagrees with me on Demonland....

Perhaps you aren't aware of the histories of other civilizations because you can't or don't care to read Chinese or Russian or Farsi or Hindi or Urdu or Arabic or Japanese or whatever the Mughals spoke or the Mongols or the Ching or the Aztecs or the Khmer or the Han or the Qin or the Tang or the Ming or the Yuan or the Ottomans or the Romans or the Greeks or the Vikings or Soong or the..... there's a very long list.  How could anyone possibly tally up all the deaths? 

I do know that the number of dead in the last 70 years of rule by the CCP is pretty similar to the total of deaths in WWI and II combined. They got nukes. How many did Stalin murder? Read the Gulag Archipelago and tell me life was better in the USSR. As for Afghanistan, the Russians invaded in 1979. The had already invaded or at least backed the oppressive regimes of the Eastern block. They got nukes. How quickly we forget.

In any case, only in the West is there a free media over many generations that allows us approach historical events from a variety of points of view in English. We can compare official points of view with unofficial points of view. We can make all kinds of tv shows and films and stuff. You think the CCP allows people to write an accurate or critical history of China? Each successive Chinese regime rewrites history to suit itself. Unless you read Chinese, you'd have to read it in English to get the truth. Ironic that the culture you decry is the only one that allows open and unfettered examination and criticism of itself, such as you display above. 

Yes, the West lies, but it also tells the truth. There's nothing our government can do to stop us from telling it. That's why it is so good.

If I was to say any one of your criticisms of the West about the govt where I live, I would be imprisoned, possibly tortured, and certainly deported. Freedom of expression is the greatest thing. One of our best characteristics. If you don't appreciate it, fair enough, but I do because while I haven't been bombed, I have been and am gagged.

If I was to merely mention in public, or on social media etc, a country beginning with the seventeenth letter of the alphabet in public I would risk jail and deportation. Until recently, another country, the one beginning with the ninth letter of the alphabet, one which you freely type without a second thought (I assume), was in the same boat. My wife is a librarian; she is required to erase that county's existence from maps and books in her library. She uses a marker or white out. People from the govt come regularly to check, as they check for other banned forms of expression -- pictures of greek statues, for instance.

The rationale for the use of the bomb against the Japanese is fairly rock-solid. Although, I would argue that they could have dropped them off-shore and asked the Japanese to take a look and when the waves subsided, see if they really wanted to go on... Might have worked. A number often bandied about is that the bomb spared 2,000,000 lives, but I'm open to other arguments. Here's some good info on the debate:

https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/debate-over-bomb

[dieter 3,325]

10 hours ago, Grr-owl said:

No, I haven't experienced war. Except when someone disagrees with me on Demonland....

Perhaps you aren't aware of the histories of other civilizations because you can't or don't care to read Chinese or Russian or Farsi or Hindi or Urdu or Arabic or Japanese or whatever the Mughals spoke or the Mongols or the Ching or the Aztecs or the Khmer or the Han or the Qin or the Tang or the Ming or the Yuan or the Ottomans or the Romans or the Greeks or the Vikings or Soong or the..... there's a very long list.  How could anyone possibly tally up all the deaths? 

I do know that the number of dead in the last 70 years of rule by the CCP is pretty similar to the total of deaths in WWI and II combined. They got nukes. How many did Stalin murder? Read the Gulag Archipelago and tell me life was better in the USSR. As for Afghanistan, the Russians invaded in 1979. The had already invaded or at least backed the oppressive regimes of the Eastern block. They got nukes. How quickly we forget.

In any case, only in the West is there a free media over many generations that allows us approach historical events from a variety of points of view in English. We can compare official points of view with unofficial points of view. We can make all kinds of tv shows and films and stuff. You think the CCP allows people to write an accurate or critical history of China? Each successive Chinese regime rewrites history to suit itself. Unless you read Chinese, you'd have to read it in English to get the truth. Ironic that the culture you decry is the only one that allows open and unfettered examination and criticism of itself, such as you display above. 

Yes, the West lies, but it also tells the truth. There's nothing our government can do to stop us from telling it. That's why it is so good.

If I was to say any one of your criticisms of the West about the govt where I live, I would be imprisoned, possibly tortured, and certainly deported. Freedom of expression is the greatest thing. One of our best characteristics. If you don't appreciate it, fair enough, but I do because while I haven't been bombed, I have been and am gagged.

If I was to merely mention in public, or on social media etc, a country beginning with the seventeenth letter of the alphabet in public I would risk jail and deportation. Until recently, another country, the one beginning with the ninth letter of the alphabet, one which you freely type without a second thought (I assume), was in the same boat. My wife is a librarian; she is required to erase that county's existence from maps and books in her library. She uses a marker or white out. People from the govt come regularly to check, as they check for other banned forms of expression -- pictures of greek statues, for instance.

The rationale for the use of the bomb against the Japanese is fairly rock-solid. Although, I would argue that they could have dropped them off-shore and asked the Japanese to take a look and when the waves subsided, see if they really wanted to go on... Might have worked. A number often bandied about is that the bomb spared 2,000,000 lives, but I'm open to other arguments. Here's some good info on the debate:

https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/debate-over-bomb

Genghis and his type learned their trade from Alexander the so-called Great.

I include Russia as a 'western' so-called Christian country.

I have studied the A Bomb issue at length. It ranks with the most cowardly, atrocities in history. That it stopped the war is a lie.

That we are so smug about being able to propose the most preposterous nonsense points not to how 'free' we are, rather, it points to how we delude ourselves by saying, How free are we! It doesn't seem to bother you that a millimetre behind this veneer of freedom - why, in the USA I am free to own as many guns as I like - are the war machines which have encircle the globe, the war machines which point the finger constantly and declare, How virtuous am I. There are no mirrors in their universe, it is always 'the other' who is at fault.

 

[hardtack 10,593]

On 12/12/2020 at 4:07 PM, Wrecker45 said:

So no fraud or just a little bit? I'm interested in your opinion 

If there is any fraud, it would most likely not be on any scale that could influence the outcome of the election AND more importantly, it is likely that it would have occurred on both the Democrats' and the Republican's sides, in which case it would probably balance itself out... also, and I may be wrong, but didn't the early recounts that Trump demanded result in the Democrats gaining votes?

[Pickett2Jackson 3,904]

18 minutes ago, hardtack said:

If there is any fraud, it would most likely not be on any scale that could influence the outcome of the election

lolz

 

[hardtack 10,593]

5 minutes ago, Pickett2Jackson said:

lolz

 

Why are we still awaiting the proof P2J? So far the only recounts that have occurred, increased the Dems lead, did they not? It must be getting very lonely in that echo chamber; RUOK?

[Wrecker45 3,378]

58 minutes ago, hardtack said:

Why are we still awaiting the proof P2J? So far the only recounts that have occurred, increased the Dems lead, did they not? It must be getting very lonely in that echo chamber; RUOK?

There is no evidence because the scrutiniers were booted out. Things are hard to prove without whitnesses

The closest thing is the anomities but given Covid it impossible to prove.

 When Trump won Florida it looked very Likely he would win. Then other key states stopped letting scrutiniers in over night and the vote magically swing out of all proportion to Biden.

[Axis of Bob 11,839]

1 minute ago, Wrecker45 said:

 When Trump won Florida it looked very Likely he would win. Then other key states stopped letting scrutiniers in over night and the vote magically swing out of all proportion to Biden.

Wrecker, I think that (unlike P2J) you are very genuine in your beliefs about this and data in the US has shown that there are many people in your position too, especially on the Republican side. However, I think that many of the facts that you've been bringing up are incorrect, which is skewing things. For instance, the quoted statement is not true. There has been no evidence (even through the many legal cases) presented that scrutineers were not allowed in to check votes. The legal fight on the night was about how far they could stand from the votes. 

The 'blue shift' depended entirely on when mail in votes were counted. Some states (like Ohio) counted them first, leading to it appearing that the Democrats were winning, but as the in person voting occurred (which skewed Republican) it showed that the Republicans were going to carry the state comfortably. The opposite happened in states that counted votes the other way around (most states), such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia etc. That isn't an indication that there's fraud, it's just the way the elections normally work .... but COVID meant that many more people voted by mail that had previously. 

Like I said before, it's simply too hard to rig enough elections in the US to change the result. The voting systems of states are just too stupid and convoluted to make it work!! There are ways to rig the election (voter suppression, gerrymandering, electoral college) in the US because they have a terrible democratic system, but their presidential election is really difficult to rig in the ways the GOP are claiming.

[hardtack 10,593]

52 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

There is no evidence because the scrutiniers were booted out. Things are hard to prove without whitnesses

The closest thing is the anomities but given Covid it impossible to prove.

 When Trump won Florida it looked very Likely he would win. Then other key states stopped letting scrutiniers in over night and the vote magically swing out of all proportion to Biden.

Where is there any solid evidence that scrutineers were denied access to the counting?  I have done a lot of googling and have not been able to find anything that either confirms nor denies it, and definitely nothing that proves it.  The fact that his claims have now been rejected by the very Supreme Court that he stacked with his own people, certainly doesn't lend his claims much credence. 

[mauriesy 7,352]

3 hours ago, hardtack said:

Where is there any solid evidence that scrutineers were denied access to the counting?  I have done a lot of googling and have not been able to find anything that either confirms nor denies it, and definitely nothing that proves it.  The fact that his claims have now been rejected by the very Supreme Court that he stacked with his own people, certainly doesn't lend his claims much credence. 

Trump said it. It must be true.

[Grr-owl 1,244]

6 hours ago, dieter said:

Genghis and his type learned their trade from Alexander the so-called Great.

I include Russia as a 'western' so-called Christian country.

I have studied the A Bomb issue at length. It ranks with the most cowardly, atrocities in history. That it stopped the war is a lie.

That we are so smug about being able to propose the most preposterous nonsense points not to how 'free' we are, rather, it points to how we delude ourselves by saying, How free are we! It doesn't seem to bother you that a millimetre behind this veneer of freedom - why, in the USA I am free to own as many guns as I like - are the war machines which have encircle the globe, the war machines which point the finger constantly and declare, How virtuous am I. There are no mirrors in their universe, it is always 'the other' who is at fault.

 

No, I don't agree at all. We constantly and continually criticize ourselves in books, film, TV, art. For every claim of virtue, there is an acknowledgment of sin. How else would we get demonstrations in the street against the invasion of Iraq, and every other social evil?

I'll give you an example from my life, again. A couple of years ago, every single citizen of that country beginning with the 17th letter of the alphabet was kicked out of the country I live in. Was there any protest against this racism? Did people march? Did people protest in print media? Did people even comment on social media?

Like f$@k they did. They would have been murdered.

So when you write this: "It doesn't seem to bother you that..." it sticks in my gut, because it does bother me. It bothers me a lot.

People here deserve the same freedoms that Westerners have, but they don't get them, Deiter. I will point it out again: they would be murdered if they even commented.  

I might as well say to you it doesn't seem to bother you that other civilizations do exactly the same thing but you give them a free ride. In other words, you don't hold others to the same standard that you hold the West. You write, "There are no mirrors in their universe, it is always 'the other' who is at fault," but for you it is The West who is always at fault. You also wrote, "Genghis and his type learned their trade from Alexander the so-called Great" as if Genghis is not responsible for his own behavior, as if he needed a Westerner to teach him, as if 'others' don't have any of their own agency, as if Westerners are always pushing everybody else around and forcing them to do bad things against their own will.....as if they are puppets.

There is in your ideas an underlying assumption that somehow Westerners are responsible for their own behavior and for everyone else's too. It is bollocks. It is fundamentally racist: "Only Westerners do bad things. Anyone who isn't a Westerner who does a bad thing is not responsible because no doubt a Westerner made them do it. Non-westerners are just poor inferior others who can't make their own decisions."

Bollocks. 

See if this one fits your idea: It was the West's fault that during the cultural revolution when Red Guards identified a female counterrevolutionary, they would pass a steel hook into their [censored], through the intestinal wall and out their anus, then drag them naked through the streets to their execution. 

That bothers me. Does it bother you?

Edited December 14, 2020 by Grr-owl
clarity

[Grr-owl 1,244]

Just now, Grr-owl said:

That it stopped the war is a lie.

This issue is covered in the material I pointed you to.

[Grr-owl 1,244]

2 minutes ago, Grr-owl said:

I include Russia as a 'western' so-called Christian country.

I believe this is a category error.

[Grr-owl 1,244]

4 hours ago, Axis of Bob said:

Wrecker, I think that (unlike P2J) you are very genuine in your beliefs about this and data in the US has shown that there are many people in your position too, especially on the Republican side. However, I think that many of the facts that you've been bringing up are incorrect, which is skewing things. For instance, the quoted statement is not true. There has been no evidence (even through the many legal cases) presented that scrutineers were not allowed in to check votes. The legal fight on the night was about how far they could stand from the votes. 

The 'blue shift' depended entirely on when mail in votes were counted. Some states (like Ohio) counted them first, leading to it appearing that the Democrats were winning, but as the in person voting occurred (which skewed Republican) it showed that the Republicans were going to carry the state comfortably. The opposite happened in states that counted votes the other way around (most states), such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia etc. That isn't an indication that there's fraud, it's just the way the elections normally work .... but COVID meant that many more people voted by mail that had previously. 

Like I said before, it's simply too hard to rig enough elections in the US to change the result. The voting systems of states are just too stupid and convoluted to make it work!! There are ways to rig the election (voter suppression, gerrymandering, electoral college) in the US because they have a terrible democratic system, but their presidential election is really difficult to rig in the ways the GOP are claiming.

Also, the votes from the cities tend be counted later. Country votes Republican. City votes Democrat... largely.

[Demonstone 22,792]

[dieter 3,325]

56 minutes ago, Grr-owl said:

No, I don't agree at all. We constantly and continually criticize ourselves in books, film, TV, art. For every claim of virtue, there is an acknowledgment of sin. How else would we get demonstrations in the street against the invasion of Iraq, and every other social evil?

I'll give you an example from my life, again. A couple of years ago, every single citizen of that country beginning with the 17th letter of the alphabet was kicked out of the country I live in. Was there any protest against this racism? Did people march? Did people protest in print media? Did people even comment on social media?

Like f$@k they did. They would have been murdered.

So when you write this: "It doesn't seem to bother you that..." it sticks in my gut, because it does bother me. It bothers me a lot.

People here deserve the same freedoms that Westerners have, but they don't get them, Deiter. I will point it out again: they would be murdered if they even commented.  

I might as well say to you it doesn't seem to bother you that other civilizations do exactly the same thing but you give them a free ride. In other words, you don't hold others to the same standard that you hold the West. You write, "There are no mirrors in their universe, it is always 'the other' who is at fault," but for you it is The West who is always at fault. You also wrote, "Genghis and his type learned their trade from Alexander the so-called Great" as if Genghis is not responsible for his own behavior, as if he needed a Westerner to teach him, as if 'others' don't have any of their own agency, as if Westerners are always pushing everybody else around and forcing them to do bad things against their own will.....as if they are puppets.

There is in your ideas an underlying assumption that somehow Westerners are responsible for their own behavior and for everyone else's too. It is bollocks. It is fundamentally racist: "Only Westerners do bad things. Anyone who isn't a Westerner who does a bad thing is not responsible because no doubt a Westerner made them do it. Non-westerners are just poor inferior others who can't make their own decisions."

Bollocks. 

See if this one fits your idea: It was the West's fault that during the cultural revolution when Red Guards identified a female counterrevolutionary, they would pass a steel hook into their [censored], through the intestinal wall and out their anus, then drag them naked through the streets to their execution. 

That bothers me. Does it bother you?

Yes, indeed, and I say this sincerely, it does bother me. But just as you think I only highlight Western horror, I also believe you try to overlook it and almost justify it because we are free to talk about our horror. In the meantime, you keep pointing the finger - and this does get to me a bit - at the misdeeds of Mongols, Persians, and all the other Barbaric invasions from the East. What bothers me about this is that the last so-called Barbaric atrocity  - Genghis Khan etc - happened many centuries ago. In the meantime, because he came and conquered via the East and because he was Greek, Alexander he is revered as 'Alexander The Great.' ( Some people also revere Napoleon, for that matter.)

You may also wish to keep in mind, that post Christopher Columbus, what can only be described as the rape of the Americas, of Asia , Africa, the INdian sub-continent  and Australia by Colonial powers, and the slaughter has been massive and one-sided. In the US, historians - those who can be bothered - are still coming to terms with the final death toll on its Native Population. How often do you hear about this? How often do you hear about the real death toll on the Indian Sub Continent under British rule, of the death toll of the Chinese during the so-called Opium wars. And if you want to bring up The Red Guards, do you want to talk about the US torture camps in Iraq and Guantanamo?

So, yes, things are crook in Talarook and Qatar, as they are in Yemen - two so-called 'allies' which the West arms to the hilt - but we also have a desperate need for amnesia about our crimes. So, for example, Westerners love to point the finger at Tiananmen Square: I didn't see Bob Hawke weep when US troops opened fire on students at Berkely:

'On 4 May 1970, the Ohio national guard shot at hundreds of students protesting against the invasion of Cambodia, wounding eight and killing four. Kent State was seared into the national consciousness. The US government had authorized the killing of its own (white) children.'

And, by the way, Russia has always been a so-called Christian country. Lenin and Co sent it underground for a few years, but the Orthodox Church is still big in Russia.

[Jara 1,153]

2 hours ago, Grr-owl said:

Also, the votes from the cities tend be counted later. Country votes Republican. City votes Democrat... largely.

Many of the swing states had Republican legislatures which forbade the counting of absentee and postal ballots until the upfront ones were counted. This was because they knew that Democrats - quite sensibly wary of the virus - were less likely to vote in person.  Diaper Don's plan was to win the first day, scream fraud as the absentees rolled in, then try and sue his way to the Supreme Court, where he thought he had the numbers. This litigious technique is how he's conducted his whole career.

 

The result was cartoonish. I've lost count of how many morons I've seen fuming: 'Trump had rallies with thousands of people! Biden had only drive-ins. How could our man have lost?' Or 'We went to bed winning, and woke up to find we were behind. We was robbed!' 

 

Laughable. And The Diaper's laughing the hardest - laughing all the way to the bank as his idiotic acolytes hand over their hard-earned. $200 mill last I heard. 

 

His war cry: that fat orange smirk as he mutters: 'Oh I love the poorly educated!'

[Grr-owl 1,244]

2 hours ago, dieter said:

because he came and conquered via the East and because he was Greek, Alexander he is revered as 'Alexander The Great.' ( Some people also revere Napoleon, for that matter.)

Depends where you go. Where I am he is referred to as 'the horned one,' as in the devil incarnate. Apparently he had horns on his forehead.

 

2 hours ago, dieter said:

you try to overlook it and almost justify

Absolutely not. But for me it is not a dealbreaker. The crushing of freedom of expression would be a dealbreaker.

 

2 hours ago, dieter said:

How often do you hear about this? How often do you hear about the real death toll on the Indian Sub Continent under British rule, of the death toll of the Chinese during the so-called Opium wars. And if you want to bring up The Red Guards, do you want to talk about the US torture camps in Iraq and Guantanamo?

Constantly. Often. And, yes.

 

2 hours ago, dieter said:

nd, by the way, Russia has always been a so-called Christian country. Lenin and Co sent it underground for a few years, but the Orthodox Church is still big in Russia.

Not the point I was arguing against. Russia is not the West. In fact, any Orthodox dominated country is not the West. The division between Catholic and Orthodox is profound. The division between Orthodox and Protestant, even more so. In any case, Russia is not culturally European, though a part of it is in Europe. The Russ are an ancient Slavic tribe from Ukraine that spread far and wide, conquering and slaughtering as they went, and still go....

The point I am trying to make is the the crimes of the Rest are just as bad as the crimes of the West. But we have at least one saving grace that makes our societies better. Freedom of expression is the mechanism by which we acknowledge our mistakes and try to correct for the future.

Ever wonder why so many emmigrants want to go to the West? If life is so much better where they come from, why would they bother. 

[Grr-owl 1,244]

In case anyone is interested in some issues relevant to this discussion, here's a couple of links to carefully composed and constructed articles:

https://www.aspi.org.au/report/cyber-enabled-foreign-interference-elections-and-referendums

https://www.aspi.org.au/report/mind-your-tongue

[dieter 3,325]

7 minutes ago, Grr-owl said:

Depends where you go. Where I am he is referred to as 'the horned one,' as in the devil incarnate. Apparently he had horns on his forehead.

 

Absolutely not. But for me it is not a dealbreaker. The crushing of freedom of expression would be a dealbreaker.

 

Constantly. Often. And, yes.

 

Not the point I was arguing against. Russia is not the West. In fact, any Orthodox dominated country is not the West. The division between Catholic and Orthodox is profound. The division between Orthodox and Protestant, even more so. In any case, Russia is not culturally European, though a part of it is in Europe. The Russ are an ancient Slavic tribe from Ukraine that spread far and wide, conquering and slaughtering as they went, and still go....

The point I am trying to make is the the crimes of the Rest are just as bad as the crimes of the West. But we have at least one saving grace that makes our societies better. Freedom of expression is the mechanism by which we acknowledge our mistakes and try to correct for the future.

Ever wonder why so many emmigrants want to go to the West? If life is so much better where they come from, why would they bother. 

The West is 'Christian', and all of its catalogue of atrocities, Christian Russia included. Where's your sense of history, man?

[dieter 3,325]

10 minutes ago, Grr-owl said:

Depends where you go. Where I am he is referred to as 'the horned one,' as in the devil incarnate. Apparently he had horns on his forehead.

 

Absolutely not. But for me it is not a dealbreaker. The crushing of freedom of expression would be a dealbreaker.

 

Constantly. Often. And, yes.

 

Not the point I was arguing against. Russia is not the West. In fact, any Orthodox dominated country is not the West. The division between Catholic and Orthodox is profound. The division between Orthodox and Protestant, even more so. In any case, Russia is not culturally European, though a part of it is in Europe. The Russ are an ancient Slavic tribe from Ukraine that spread far and wide, conquering and slaughtering as they went, and still go....

The point I am trying to make is the the crimes of the Rest are just as bad as the crimes of the West. But we have at least one saving grace that makes our societies better. Freedom of expression is the mechanism by which we acknowledge our mistakes and try to correct for the future.

Ever wonder why so many emmigrants want to go to the West? If life is so much better where they come from, why would they bother. 

Most of those who flee - like Solzhenitsyn - agree that we are way worse than them because we pretend we are free and democratic. Mister Gulag actually returned to Russia cleansed of his illusion that we had a better system.

[Jaded No More 68,972]

Just a few more hours... and then let's see what the narcissist and his brain-washed deluded followers have to say next. 

We all know they'll desperately try to cling onto power and spread fake news until their last day in office. 

What an embarrassment this guy and his administration is to American politics.