I wish the gentleman and his family well, but the number of people who bask in utterly unfounded illusions about Putin and Russia is stunning. Putin is a thuggish dictator who routinely resorts to murder, and Russia is an autocratic state where dreams of democracy go to die.
When You Sup With the Devil, Best Bring a Long Spoon
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
“There must be, fifty ways to leave your lover.”
( Make that fifty one, Paul.)
He should of just divorced her.
Putin: “an American fighting on the front lines for the Motherland… I like it.. make it so.”
“He should of just divorced her.”
My mistake….people must make their own way even if it seems like a dead end. Who would of thought five smooth stones and a sling could make a difference?
I think certain brands of traditionalist/conservative Westerners fall for Putin hard for a few reasons:
1. He’s genuinely funny and communicates well across cultural lines despite not being multilingual.
2. He projects a certain connection to traditional values, broadly speaking, with some evidence for a genuine, if horrifically-flawed, connection to Russian Orthodoxy. He uses that well in conjunction with No.1. Despite having divorced his wife and taken up with a ballerina who bore him children, along with becoming a billionaire through the endemic corruption which has been a staple of Russian life since the fall of the Tsars. That, and the whole killing countless people without hesitation part.
3. He condemns degenerative trends in Western life (“enemy of my enemy”). Think Solzhenitsyn, only without the same moral integrity in the personal life. To be clear: he is no Solzhenitsyn.
4. Old Russia fascinates many Western Christians, and he waves the ancient banners (and grievances) when it suits him.
All that said, he’s an old KGB hand who knows how to manipulate, use and kill people as necessary and without compunction. Anyone who puts himself under his reign will eventually learn that to their regret.
Not quite the same level, but lately I’ve seen some YouTube ads trying to convince American healthcare workers to move to Canada and work for their NHS.
They show scaremongering clips of Trump signing things and whatnot… I can imagine more than a few far-left healthcare workers will take them up on that offer, but there will be some parallels when they find out that the Canadian system it isn’t quite as idyllic as that imagined by the left-wing media.
“Free” for sure. Good and timely… not really.
Good- for us.
The fewer liberal healthcare workers here, the safer we are under medical care. Liberals know everything and want to control everything. Combine that with the usual medical arrogance. That’s why I won’t seek medical help except as a last resort.
The people who had a congenial disposition toward Russia prior to 22 February 2022 are unsurprising. It’s the people who have a madcap hostility to the Ukraine and its government that are surprising. Steve Sailer had a nest of those types in his comboxes. You’ll recall a generation ago that Thomas Fleming presided over a 70% drop in the subscribers to Chronicles after he insisted on making it a press agent for violent Serb particularists. The various coteries within the alt-right are all collecting pools of weird cranks.
For the most part, heads of government in Europe, North America, and the Antipodes seem to be drawn from and in tune with classes in society who despise their country’s vernacular population. No clue what Putin actually thinks. He did prior to 2022 give off the air of someone who did not subscribe to that view.
In related news: https://notthebee.com/article/black-woman-who-fled-us-for-russia-to-escape-racism-beaten-up-by-racist-neighbors
OT, but the headline (Long spoon, sup with the devil) reminded me of a description of the difference between heaven and hell. In this story, people are sitting on both sides of a long table with wonderful food on their plates. The problem is that no one has elbows.They cannot put the food on their plates to their mouths. The ones in hell are focused on their food and feeding themselves, and, thus, go hungry and are furious. The ones in heaven extend their long arms with their utensil across the table to the other person’s plate and help that person eat. The person across from them, in turn, does the same, and all in heaven are satisfied. (I hope I explained that correctly.)