. Is it worth killing to preserve it for a few more years? — frank

A few years? What are you talking about?

That is simply crazy. You think in a few years English language will just die out? Or is it just Finnish, Estonian, and other small languages that will "fizzle out", in a few more years? Do the Native Americans have a right to their language and culture? Are their demands for "nationalism" so bad, inherently evil? If your logical, I guess it would be so. Or do you just change the discourse when it's politically correct to do so?

But I guess with you the question is just what would you considered to be worth defending even with resorting to violence. This seems to be the typical ignorant attitude of someone who's own culture hasn't been under threat of possible extinction. So I guess for you culture, the language you speak and your heritage doesn't matter. It's all bad I guess.

That's some nationalistic values you have there: the grandeur of the state's legacy over the well being of the people? — frank

The grandeur in this case is of course the French state and the French language where prior there was a multitude of other different languages and cultures.

It was in 1790, barely a year after the Bastille was stormed, that the first ever linguistic survey of France took place. The Rapport Grégoire established that French was the sole language in only 15 of the 83 départements, and that over 12 million citizens – mainly in rural areas – couldn’t speak enough French to carry out a conversation, and that only 3 million people could speak French ‘properly’, with even fewer able to write it. In effect, Paris and its hinterland was virtually an isolated island of monolingual French speakers surrounded by a sea of regional languages.

French is the sole official language according to the second article of the French Constitution. Other languages spoken in the area, like Occitan, are now highly endangered. This hasn't happened because of the idleness of the previous speakers of those languages. The parents didn't just suddenly not teach their children the language. It naturally has been a crucial objective for the French state to create a uniform language and uniform French culture, because left with to the old the state of a true multiethnic country would be far more troublesome than the United Kingdom or Spain.

Language was to play a key role in this re-education of the French people. French, and French alone, was to be the language of freedom and the universal values embodied by the Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme. While it may have, theoretically, been done in the spirit of equality and democracy – a national language ensured that all citizens had equal access to the benefits of the Revolution – the practical application of the policy and the language had a decidedly authoritarian bent.

And do note how you conquer lands, you don't take them just over, you mold the people of those conquered nations to be part of your starting from the language and culture they had. If you don't assimilate the people you have conquered, you are just asking for trouble in the future. Likely the state will just collapse when people don't think they belong to it. There aren't many Empires left these days.

So it's not nationalism I'm preaching here (or you are confusing the term), but you @frank might not understand that what you say might unintentionally be promoting imperialism.

Yeah but your descendants aren't going to care what your nationality was, or what language you spoke, or what you looked like, or what your religion was. It's all vanity. — frank

You really think so?

During the 100 year war the Burgundians favored surrender to England because France was suffering so much from the conflict. 1/3 of the arable land wasn't being farmed. 1/3 of the churches were empty, many of them robbed by French soldier/brigands.

I can't say they were wrong. — frank

Yep!

And there's no independent Burgundy anymore.

Do note that independent Burgundy was absorbed to French crown lands and the Belgian part to Habsburg posessions not long after that. Now only about 50 000 people do know to speak some Burgundian.

So with that kind of thinking, history will remember you and your people/country like this:

What type of people do you think make dictators?! — Tim3003

You perhaps think of the person, but I think of the people that support dictators. They are the more interesting case here, because it opens up a bit this discussion on a new level.

You see, those that crave for power and have egotist traits of a dictator, can actually be so smart that they do hold onto power, but do go along even with respecting the democratic rules. Then we won't call them dictators. Or we can have various states of emergencies, when for example marshal law is implemented. And then nations can get back to normality.

Of course he's weak. Dictators are driven far more by egotism than ability. — Tim3003

Let's just remember that Trump's self-coup failed. Trump is a bully, not an ideologue and certainly not a dictator, even if he loves them. Trump bet everything on Pence and getting Republicans to back him. He didn't order a state of emergency because of the "steal". I think that someone like general Michael Flynn would have gone through with a real self-coup like that. He sure has totally taken the alternate-reality propaganda to heart. Yet it's likely that even with that and the Trump putsch would have failed as badly as the August Coup of 1991 in the Soviet Union. Even if the Jan 6th crowd would have been a great image for doing a self-coup.

But what about the people who genuinely support a dictatorship? You seldom have everybody fearing for their life, then it would be quite a shaky support. So who are these people?

The type of people that in Greece could choose tyrants to lead them or in Rome those who supported Ceasar and then Augustus. Basically quite ordinary people who did have a say in politics (now the voters in general). Do note that people end up supporting dictators because for them the country seems to be going to hell in a hand basket. And because history has just one way it's gone, we can only guess what might have happened without those various states of emergency, when freedoms have been curbed and the authoritarian policies have been implemented.

I look around at the people I work with, arguably educated and literate, and listen to their spoken values and am appalled at the profound absence of thought processes and shallow values being yammered about. These are the educated voters, Bachelors and Masters degrees all around, and very little substance or critical thought to be found anywhere. — Book273

Usually it's a problem of motivation. Who cares? Elections happen very rarely and it's a vote among millions. But let's say their careers where on the line with the choice they made in the election booth (which btw. goes against the crucial anonymity of voting). If their candidate does do what he or she promises they keep their job, if he or she doesn't, they lose their job. Suddenly there would be a lot of interest to elections and many of your colleagues and they would follow politics.

Would Ukrainians be better off if they ended the war and surrendered to Russia? — frank

Would you do that if you it would be your country and not Ukraine?

From my country's experience it's not only that give make an acceptable and somewhat beneficial option to Russia, you also have to make it clear that the surrender option isn't happening and that the annexation option will simply be too costly. With those options being off the table, then the "Finlandization" option is the one Russia is happy with. But notice, only with those two options out of the question.

Or then you simply have to have nuclear deterrence. Of some sort. (Which the Ukrainians, btw, gave away thanks to promises from the US, UK and Russia in 1994.)

(Dismantling of the Ukrainian nuclear deterrence)

Meanwhile in Europe, sabre rattling:

Earlier the Ukrainian President was worried about a coup plot, six days ago:

Ukraine’s president has said intelligence services uncovered a plot involving a group of Russians and Ukrainians to overthrow his government next week.

Speaking at an hours-long press conference, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian intelligence had obtained audio recordings of the plotters discussing their plans, which he said involved tying to enlist the support of Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov.

“We have challenges not only from the Russian Federation and possible escalation – we have big internal challenges. I received information that a coup d’etat will take place in our country on December 1-2,” Zelenskiy said.

Belarus teeming up with Russia:

The West realizes that if it sets off a conflict on the Russian border, Minsk won’t stand aside, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at a Defense Ministry meeting on military security on Monday, according to the BelTA news agency.

"They understand perfectly well that if they once again start a war in Donbass or somewhere else on the border with Russia, Belarus won’t stand aside. And it’s clear whose side Belarus will take. They understand it, which is why they have begun to strengthen their northern border, the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. Although there is no reason to do it at the moment," Lukashenko pointed out. "Nevertheless, they are deploying troops there, making clear statements about it. It’s about approximately 8,000 troops at this stage," he added.

According to Lukashenko, "intense actions are underway around Russia under the assumption that it plans to attack Ukraine. "I don’t have information about Russia’s plans to attack Ukraine, while if such plans existed, the Belarusian military, me included, would have been aware of them," he said.

Biden administration sending a warning:

The Biden administration warned on Wednesday that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would trigger “high impact” U.S. sanctions that would surpass any previously imposed on Moscow.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in the Latvian capital of Riga after meeting with his NATO counterparts, said Russia’s large-scale troop buildup on Ukraine’s border and other pressure tactics resembled steps Moscow took before it invaded Ukraine in 2014 and seized the Crimean peninsula.

“Now, we’ve seen this playbook before in 2014, when Russia last invaded Ukraine. Then as now they significantly increased combat forces along the border. Then as now they intensified disinformation to paint Ukraine as the aggressor to justify pre-planned military action,” Blinken said.

But it remained unclear if Russian President Vladimir Putin planned to order an invasion, Blinken told reporters.

Sounds worrying? Well, let's hope that it's just like earlier people being extremely jittery. But of course, the war is still going on in Ukraine.

Without a doubt the closest country to having an actual ‘democracy’ on Earth is Switzerland. The thought of that system on a global scale fills me with dread not hope. — I like sushi

If you just copy-paste the Swiss system into an existing power structure in many countries, yes, that would be something to be dreaded. Or simply would tarnish the name of the Swiss model. Because having the institutions and system in name only wouldn't help many countries.

Hence it doesn't go like that. For example, Liberia has similar Constitution as the US, yet that hasn't prevented a military sergeant taking power and shooting the whole government (the story goes that he got the inspiration of making a coup when the President inspected the troops in pyjamas and bathrobe). The civil wars that the country has endured were gruesome.

It all comes to those institutions, how well the system operates, some basic educational level, social cohesion and, as Marx pointed out before Bill Clinton: it's the economy, stupid.

I think it's simply racist to think that some people (unlike others) would be incapable of having a democracy. It's the above mentioned things that have to work.

Do you all realize that bans in cyberspace are equivalent to capital punishment in the real world? — TheMadFool

Not for those that have been on the forum for one or two days.

For those with over 10k posts and years of participation, that may be the case...

if the person banned really wants to get back in, it’s realistic to assume they will. — Xtrix

And realistically speaking, likely they cannot change their ways and will get banned again. You aren't a cordial debater otherwise only to lose it totally at one specific issue.

Democracies are not kept in check by informed citizens, they are kept in check by powerful legal institutions and as well as various other rules and systems. — Judaka

This is true, but any government or regime has to have a support base. There simply has to be people who at least think that supporting the present leadership and system is better than the alternative. Otherwise the whole apparatus will come apart in a drop of a hat.

What when it's the government/state who is the actor who uses dubious methods? — baker

Shows only the integral weakness built into the regime. Why once in power, do you still have to attack others as viciously as before? Your showing your weakness. What your base actually would want is for you to do what you promised to do, simple as that. It's the populists dilemma: once in power, you are those "powers to be" that you have criticized. Hence if you want to follow that act and not keep your promises, you have to enlargen the "conspiracy" to the international level. Good luck with that. In the end you do have to have a support base and they have to be happy.

Yes, governments can control the media, but then they simply distort the political debate not to show the real opinion that there is. Going from verbal assault to physical assault is actually easy. Coming back from that isn't anymore. An authoritarian simply cannot know just how much popularity he has and going down that rabbit hole isn't actually a smart move.

The really smart move is to get the whole political class to follow your tune, and then you would have to stay quite silent, be above the political debate. Have perhaps someone below you be the lightning rod that can be replaced. You don't do that by ferociously attacking others.

Oh it's far more simple than you think! From the view of the government/state:

a) keep the economy robust and in good health.
b) provide the services the people want, starting with safety and listen to their demands.
c) Uphold transparency and keep corruption low.
d) basically keep the people happy.
e) and don't rest on your laurel's if you have reached the above. It's a constant struggle, and in the end the voters will likely just get bored with you and replace you with someone worse. At least people will then later note how good things were back in your time...

People who are content are difficult to get to be hostile at each other, ready to take the barricades. The criticism will be left to the true "fringe" or to the "intelligencia", which actually the latter is quite beneficial. Nothing works as well as honest open laughter when someone comes up with something outrageous. Being angry at them only turns on a conspiracist: remember, for him or her you are just the brainwashed sheeple.

If then everything is going to hell in a hand basket, then the vicious circle can be so bad there's not much to do. Might be worth noting to people who are important to you what is happening and how to prepare for even worse time. I think simply making a hilarious joke that tells the real truth in a funny short way spreads far better than demonizing the other side. For example, cartoons can be far more effective than a grotesque images filled with absolute hatred and loathing. That kind of propaganda turns people off, if they aren't already extremely angry about the issue. If people are truly really fed up with a politician and hate his or her guts, then by all means do make images of him or her as the worst of the worst. But then it's just incitement.

Where is geothermal? Where is tidal energy? When the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow there's trouble a'brewin. — jgill

Geothermal isn't a resource for every place,and so is tidal. They can assist, but basically one has to remember that energy production is and will be determined by demand and supply of today. The fact is that we can have those long term plans, but the economic situation of today has a huge impact of just what actually will happen.

Where are the fossil fuels, you should start with:

The price of coal:

Coal usage has rebounded in the past year, wiping out declines in 2020 and interrupting a decades-long downward trend of use in advanced economies.

The price of oil:



Although for renewables and alternatives it's basically good that fossil fuel prices are high in the long run, what we seem to have is going to be a possible energy crisis. Rolling blackouts in China isn't a great indicator where the energy market is going.

Trying to bounce back from Covid, the world has run headlong into an energy crisis. The last spike of this magnitude popped the 2008 bubble.

Crude oil is up 65% this year to $83 per barrel. Gasoline, above $3 per gallon in most of the country, is more costly than any time since 2014, with inventories at the lowest level in five years.

Meanwhile natural gas, which provides more than 30% of all U.S. electricity and a lot of wintertime heating, has more than doubled this year to $5 per million Btu.

Even coal is exploding, with China and India mining as fast as possible. The price of U.S. coal is up 400% this year to $270 per ton.

The situation is considerably worse in Europe, where electricity prices have quintupled and natgas prices have surged to $30/mm Btu—the energy equivalent of paying $180 for a barrel of oil.

All this is feeding into the inflation loop, pushing up the prices for energy-intensive metals like nickel, steel, silicon. Fertilizer, mostly made from natural gas, has ramped past 2008 record highs to nearly $1,000 a ton, obliterating the $300 to $450/ton range of the past few years. China announced this week it would halt fertilizer exports. Copper, perhaps the most vital raw material in building out a wind and solar industry, is near a record at $4.50 per pound. We’ll have to deal with inflation after surviving the challenge of not freezing to death this winter. “Only some form of government intervention that mandates large-scale power cuts and rationing to certain sectors can curb gas demand and temper gas prices materially this winter,” wrote Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects last week.

Do note that what has happened now has a lot to do with the central banks printing trillions. And that the World has, at least officially, turned away from coal and fossil fuels without thinking where the additional energy needed to replace them will come.

Whom can we blame for this mess? A combination of factors. It starts with central banks persisting with artificially low interest rates and a flood of cheap money despite record levels of consumer spending and a 30% surge in Chinese exports—all of which is straining against pandemic-constricted supply chains. Add to that Russia not flowing nearly as much gas into Europe as expected (perhaps as a passive-aggressive tactic to force approval of Nord Stream 2).

But the roots go deeper. The ESG and carbon divestment craze has so demonized fossil fuels (and nuclear power) that institutional investors and governments have cut them out of portfolios entirely, and have instead been flowing capital to more socially acceptable low-carbon alternatives.

If oil prices go over 100 dollars per barrel, that will put on an handbrake on the global economy and we might be looking at a global economic recession/depression.

The problem is once you sacrifice some individuals to “collective objectives” you ruin the collective whole in favor of certain individual members of it. — NOS4A2

How wrong you have it. If you "sacrifice" someone, you start with yourself.

Yes, but if well-meaning democrats find they can't compete except by copying that approach we get into Animal Farm territory - the pigs become men.. — Tim3003

Exactly. One of the most perilous strategies is to think that if in a democracy some actors use dubious methods, to protect democracy you have to use similar dubious methods.

The truth is that populist conspiracy theorists promote the most excessive, incredible and most pure propaganda on purpose: they just assume that everything is propaganda, so you fight "the powers that be" with your own propaganda.

I fear that most are concerned with whom the wealth is given to rather than the fact that it is stolen in the first place. In effect they accept that state institutions are above and beyond common morality. — NOS4A2

And just how high do you think common morality is? Sometimes it can get ugly, you know.

Sorry, but fancy-pants libertarian individualism entrenched in la-la-land utopia doesn't cut it when you belong to a people who are and have been quite a "dispensable", unimportant people. With only few million people in a tough part of the neighborhood you know that others wouldn't care a shit if my country would have been conquered and the people assimilated to another culture. Or if your nation wouldn't have existed at all. Many would actually see it only as logical. History has seen a multitude of larger nations and people simply vanish away.

There are firm reasons for societies to have some collective objectives, that unfortunately have to put the individual second. We can surely argue just what those are, but not if they exist at all. The individual isn't a god-like figure put onto a podium to be worshipped. Just as there are firm reasons for the rights of the individual.

Just upholding one or the other (the individual or the collective) isn't idealistic, it's simply stupid.

Simply put it: Authoritarian regimes and governments in general have now learned how to control and use (or abuse) the new media called the internet and social media. That's just it.

Of course there's more to this as the negative sides have not happened because of some sinister actors like Russia (or the vast hordes of different lobbyists). I think the historian Neil Ferguson has made a clever comparison with the time we live in:

To understand the current era, Ferguson believes we need to look more at what happened after Johannes Gutenberg developed the printing press. Like the Web, the use of these presses was difficult to centrally control. “At the beginning of the Reformation 501 years ago, Martin Luther thought naively that if everybody could read the Bible in the vernacular, they’d have a direct relationship with God, it would create ‘the priesthood of all believers’ and everything would be awesome,” said Ferguson.

“We’ve said the same things about the Internet,” he added. “We think that's obviously a good idea. Except it's not obviously a good idea, any more than it was in the 16th century. Because what the Europeans had was not ‘the priesthood of all believers.’ They had 130 years of escalating religious conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War – one of the most destructive conflicts ever.”

The more he studies that period, the more echoes Ferguson sees in the 21st century. “What one can see in the 16th and 17th centuries is polarization, fake news-type stories, the world getting smaller and therefore contagion is capable of spreading much faster,” Ferguson said. “These big shifts in network structure led to revolutions against hierarchical institutions.”

Ferguson points to recent studies showing that fake news can spread faster and farther than real news when it’s especially sensational. “The crazy stuff is more likely to go viral because we're kind of interested in crazy stuff, but this is not surprising historically,” he said. “The idea that witches live amongst us and should be burned went as viral as anything that Martin Luther said ... Indeed, it turned out that witch burning was more likely to happen in places where there were more printing presses.”

Let's just remember the religious wars that rocked the Christian world back then at the time after Gutenberg.

Voltaire was right: In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another. — NOS4A2

The irony here is that many agree with this. They only disagree just who is actually stealing from whom.

Obviously some have this problem of living in a society with some issues that are collective.

I don’t like that view because it limits application of rights, and makes them subject to abridgement or suppression by the authority that confers them. — NOS4A2

States exist, no matter how benevolent they are. You don't live with without your beloved Canada even you don't need it to assist in your breathing, Nos.

Hm. I presume that you thinking of more than Covid vaccinations?

I don’t think democratic policy change should entail the violation of basic human rights. — NOS4A2

So NOS42A2,

Which article does fighting a pandemic that has killed millions violate? Which article from 1 to 30? See the articles at the UDHR page of the UN

Or is a declaration by the UN too pinko-liberal and not your human rights? :smirk:

There's no surprise in the Rittenhouse verdict knowing the gun laws in the US and the fact that guns are bought basically for self defense, not for hunting or a shooting hobby.

But on the (positive?) side, you didn't have riots in the US because of the verdict, did you?
I think people have been lucky that there hasn't been an incident where two Rittenhouse -characters on opposing sides (like Michael Reinoehl) with semi-automatic weapons face off. There simply are so many guns.

the reasons for Finnish authorities not talking about Russian migrants were incredibly specific (as you yourself have described them), not symptomatic of a broader problem in discussing immigration (same goes for the UK's wilful blindness on illegal alien numbers). — Kenosha Kid

You got it.

But still... would Crimea be in Russia if the Ukraine had done the obvious thing and acted on its intent to join? — Kenosha Kid

A bit sidestep from the thread, but I cannot help myself:razz: :

For Putin offense is best defense. Russians think that way. Napoleon and then Hitler were such traumatic experiences, that many in Russia gather that West is up to no good, still. Putin rides on this sentiment. But the real tragedy here is that I think it's unlikely that Ukraine would have gotten to NATO. Ukraine's economy is a disaster zone, it's internal politics a total mess and if Putin would have just sat and waited, Ukraine would have continued just the way it had been. People can disagree with this, but I think that NATO membership of Ukraine wouldn't have happened. Likely outcome would have been like the present and the relationship that Sweden and also Finland have with NATO: cooperation, but no membership.

In fact Russia had to just wait that the US got unfocused and overstretched in Central Asia, which was to Putin a very successful strategy: After 9/11 the US had bases all around the -Stans and now it has nothing, and Russia is holding military exercises with the countries. But yes, Crimea still would be part of Ukraine then, but half of Ukraine would be pro-Russian and the EU would have continued to dismantle it's various armed forces and Russia would have been seen in a better light. Perhaps just to get Crimea back to mother Russia is a prize for Vladimir the Great.

But back to the subject!

I mostly agree, but as I said immigration is discussed openly, however the narrative is more or less owned by hate. Brexit was an immigration discussion. The remain side argued for pragmatism and humanitarianism. The leave side faked images of swarms of migrants queueing at our borders. It didn't matter that such propaganda was outed as such prior to the vote. Hate is blind but vigorous. — Kenosha Kid

Or fear. The UKIP argument was a great example how a complex issue like EU membership was taken over by fearmongering (perhaps the hoards of refugees should have been placed with pictures of hoards of truck drivers to show the actual reality). Try then having an intelligent discussion about the membership, but that's the main point with populism. It isn't about having a true open debate. The worst part is that populists that believe in conspiracy theories are for totally open an unadulterated propaganda. Since they believe that all what the powers at be do is propaganda, they go with their own propaganda. Hence issues that they know aren't actually true are upheld, because it's all a way to fight the establishment.

And do notice how the narrative is controlled. It's said that the woke-left virtue signals, but similar yet totally different virtue signalling goes on with the populist right, where in my view even more strict adherence to the narrative. Try saying anything positive about immigration and one is on thin ice. It's like US Republicans trying to talk about Trump. Best example of this is actually Trump himself. Trump seems to be actually fearful of losing his crowd, his base. You can see this how he immediately backed down from encouraging people taking the Covid-vaccination after getting immediate boos. For the Trump crowd in the age of tribalism, being for Covid-shots is the message of the other side of the "culture war", even if Trump's 'Operation Warp Speed' was in the end a success. A politician like Trump goes with this crowd.

Trump stepping out of his Overton window, gets booed and immediately tries to backtrack...a sign of leadership?

It is the _quality_, not the amount, of discussion that is the problem. In service of better, more open discourse, the onus is on all parties to be honest, thoughtful and self-representing. — Kenosha Kid

I'm starting to fear that the way how the discussion is dumbed down to low quality is done on purpose. It's like making politics into a show like professional wrestling in the US. I fear this kind of stupid politics will be mimicked here in Europe too. Why engage with the other side on actual (boring) policies when you have these wonderful fictional stereotypes to attack?

If Trump supporters for instance have a problem with being "censored", i.e. being called racists when they e.g. call Mexicans rapists, the onus is on them to up the quality of their discourse, not on others to self-censor accurate descriptions of their behaviour. — Kenosha Kid

That was the deliberate and successful way for Trump to get into the limelight of media attention. It angered the people Trump wanted to anger, just like muslim ban or the Wall-thing. Let's take Trump's famous Wall. Any politician could say how they would increase border control (and not be picked up even by the reporters following the elections), but to get to the people, you make up this idea of "Building a big, beautiful wall and make Mexico pay for it!". Easy idea that can be a slogan and a meme to be spread around. Same thing with Colin Caepernick and "taking a knee". With George Bush (the elder) similar issue was trying to make the burning of the US flag illegal. I guess American policy wonks have a name for this.

The real problem is that with populists like Trump, they are only showmen, not politicians who during elections would resort populist rhetoric, but behind closed doors would morph back to be actual statesmen. The election show never stops, it just goes on and on. And when you have that show going on 24 hours, having the ability to actually lead and get political consensus is the last thing on your mind. Trying to reach a political consensus, making deals with the opposition, would be seen as a defeat. This makes political leadership dysfunctional as we saw with the Trump administration. Or with the Chavez-Maduro administration, if we take an example of left-wing populism.

The worst result is of course that actual policies will be a mess. And this, unfortunately, has happened with immigration policy in many countries.

You started out in your OP claiming that this was somehow subject to censorship, a point I take issue with, but you seem to be sticking to that line. That's a very common claim these days from your side of the political divide. People can't shut up about not being able to speak. — Kenosha Kid

Perhaps I should clear a bit more this as this censorship isn't about the political divide you are talking about, which is related to the "culture war" issue etc.

If a Finnish high ranking officials make a statement of Russia using refugees as a pressure, that is far more than just me or you making the argument. It will be understood as a response from the government of Finland and will immediately get a response from Russia. Relations with Russia are of the highest priority to Finland, so it's not a laughing matter here. Hence the official wouldn't say this publicly... especially a few years ago. The problem back then was that nobody (or few if any) were publicly stating this, which would be quite easy to see from the bizarre and totally different nature of the incident compared to the larger mass-migration of 2015 and 2016.

The problem, it isn't about censorship, but more of self-censorship. Or even more basically the attitude that if you made the argument that this incident was actively perpetuated by Russia being a trope of the anti-immigration activists. My main point was that it's not healthy for a democracy if the public discourse doesn't debate actual realities, but that is only left to be done behind closed doors. This can happen when the public discourse is dominated by ferocious lobby-groups, hyper-partisan activists or there's deep polarization. Immigration policy has fallen into this and yes, it has been basically the extreme rights favorite issue so much, that any criticism of the policy is seen as far-right.

Now in the case of Belarus the EU itself has said that Belarus and president Lukashenko has taken these actions and used refugees as political pawns. And here you see then the change: the media does report this while understanding the plight of the refugee themselves. The only one holding the line that Belarus has nothing to do with this refugee crisis in the Polish/Lithuanian border is Lukashenko himself.

(A short review of the situation in Belarus)

But my point is that it doesn't follow that the world not talking about Russian cyclists has anything to do with immigration being taboo. — Kenosha Kid

(Btw a small correction, the cyclists weren't Russian, but the refugees from Syria, Afghanistan etc.)

Immigration isn't a taboo. We just have lithurgies how to talk of it. On both sides of the so-called "culture war".

As for why Finland didn't talk much about it, sure, maybe you're all nuts (my Norwegian friends assure me of this), but here's another theory: it's not that immigration is a taboo subject, but rather that the failure to protect borders at the height of paranoia about Russia was politically awkward. — Kenosha Kid

Maybe we are nuts. But I assume you never have heard about Finlandization. But the thing is that non-aligned countries like Sweden and Finland talk about Russia differently than NATO members like Estonia, Poland or Norway.

We have a comparable thing here. The foreign office has been trying to get a count of how many illegal aliens are in the UK for decades, but it's consistently blocked by No. 10 and the home office. Why? Because if you don't have the numbers, you don't know how "bad" it is and don't have to deal with grief about it from your anti-immigration backbenchers and constituents. You'd have to _deal_ with it (and them) then. So they just don't talk about it. Not because it's taboo, but because it's a topic poisoned by right-wing hate. Even right-wing leaders don't want to face that. — Kenosha Kid

Being open right from the start is in my view the correct way to do things, because otherwise you will just give ammunition to anti-immigration populists who will concoct conspiracy theories around immigration policy and the role of the government. It's far more damning if the government withholds information or just looks as if it is withholding information of a "hot potato" issue.

The possibility of a lab leak, which China fervently will deny to the end, is a possibility. That China uses this as biochemical warfare sounds very strange and more like a way to put the lab leak hypothesis into question altogether, to be a silly nutjob conspiracy.

There is the possibility we will never know.

Let's check first how wide of the mark I am. Correct me where I deviate from what you say you meant. - The problem is that right-wingers don't seem to be able to talk about Russian invasion of Finland and Norway without bringing up Mexican immigrantion to the US, which makes the debate not only toxic but meaningless except to like-minded paranoiacs, who therefore dominate the discourse. And this holds pretty much across the spectrum of politics. — Kenosha Kid

Notice Kenosha, that the OP isn't at all about Mexico. I brought up Mexico (and Mexicans) to specifically answer the comment @baker made about the role of the character of people and how society works, which basically a totally different topic than immigration itself. And yes, it's different from European immigration and especially the use of refugees by third countries.

So bunching up different topics is a bit confusing for me, hence I have a bit of a problem to follow your reasoning.

You're obviously very concerned about immigration (you started a thread on it). — Kenosha Kid

More concerned about the ability to have an open discussion in this forum without people being put into the molds that political polarization wants to put us. And people hearing dog whistles (or assumed dog whistles) if you start a thread about some politicized issue.

Could you imagine a redneck giving a crap about Russian cyclists in Norway? — Kenosha Kid

Something the same happening in let's say the US-Canadian border, and I could evade the crap only with simply not following the media here, which does report even all the small things that happen in the US, like what Biden has said or what the Rittenhouse verdict was etc. (And no, both don't have anything to do with the thread)

How can that be then, how can the society not work, when, as you say, the vast majority are honorable, decent and abide the rules of the society? — baker

Thanks for asking, this is an important point.

Simply if they have a lot to lose themselves and are not desperate, they won't stand against braking of those rules. Sure, they won't like it at all, likely will be disgusted about how low things have gone in their country, but will try to go on with their lives. The simple fact is that a lot of people aren't interested in politics and just want to live their lives. Hence democracy can be dismantled even with the majority of people are decent and law abiding.

Let's say that in your country after a terrorist attack, political turmoil or something, the ruling administration makes a self-coup and hence demolishes democracy, yet promises that the actions taken are only temporary. Those people that accept the administration's promises, are they suddenly not honorable, decent and law abiding?

It's not clear that the existence of an effective police force is what keeps crime levels manageable, or how this correlates with a particular socioeconomic system. — baker

It's more like a canary in the coal mine. The simple fact that tourists are not advised to call the police if something happens to them, but to contact preferably their embassy does say something about the institution. It just tells that many issues are off, not that the reason would just this institution in the society for why it's dysfunctional.

On the other hand, there is the Christian doctrine of rendering unto Caesar. — baker

Yep. You can quote part the Bible here directly. Explains well why Roman Emperors finally accepted Christianity and threw out the old Roman gods.

I'm sorry, I'm quite spent. The government of the country I live in has passed a law recently according to which all police commanders and some other high officials in the police were automatically demoted to acting commanders etc., and now there is an open competition for those functions, by new criteria. And more. — baker

But ironic (or sad), but I cannot immediately know what country you are talking about. Would it be Slovenia? Slovenia is so small that it barely surfaces in English news media...

Kenosha Kid, sometimes the answers one gets unintentionally make exactly the point you are trying to make. Thanks!

If I confuse you, I hope I can make my point more clear by commenting your response. I'll start from the end and go backwards.

If we all just agree that, if the Russia story is true, it was a bad thing to do, does that satisfy you? — Kenosha Kid

Would be somewhat rare if people would do that. Many wouldn't bother to read it through, but just to assume what the person will talk about from few words. Those that read it through, I would think that some would think that the whole story is just thing invented by people with anti-immigrant attitudes and wouldn't care to give a moment to look at the story. People get confused about Russian 'active measures'. Just look at the other example of Trump and Russia. Perfect example of polarization and the dumbing down of the discussion.

Your second image suggests that, contrary to your assertion that people can't talk about Russian emigration, people are in fact talking about it. Even the cartoonists. — Kenosha Kid

Actually, the point I was making was that IN THE YEAR 2018 there wasn't this debate or those cartoons. As I stated, NOW things have changed. If you haven't noticed, the EU has adopted a different strategy or basically has had the time to come up with a strategy.

On your first image btw, I'm reminded of Farage's tactics in Brexit campaigning. Photos of groups of people allegedly from abroad are no doubt extremely potent to the right wing, you guys go nuts over that stuff. They're just not all that scary to the rest of us. It's just a photo of a group of cyclists to me, and it doesn't concern me at all where they've come from. — Kenosha Kid

I assume that if I start a thread with "Discourse and Reality" and have pictures that remind you of Nigel Farage, do you assume I'm in his camp? (Well, I think he is one of the most irresponsible British populists, but that I guess doesn't matter.)

Ok, do you have any idea how remote the Norwegian-Russian border is? And how absolutely bizarre someone cycling to the border is in the winter? It's basically tundra, wilderness. Few inhabitants, few if any villages on both sides of the border. The reason for the bicycles was of course that Russian law bans people just walking over the border. But do note that just how hilarious it is to assume that suddenly a black market would swing up in bicycles in Murmansk. That some "entrepreneurial" Russians noticing the sudden arrival in Murmansk would have the ability to give thousands of them the 136 mile ride to the border and then have bicycles there for them to go over the border? And note that once bikes weren't allowed, the refugees suddenly (but not before) had cars. The fact is that smugglers don't have such organizational skills (or basically incentive) to suddenly come up with bicycles and later cars and fly people to the arctic makes it obvious that this was an active measures operation by Russia.

It's perfectly straightforward to condemn Russia's experiments with the Finnish border _and_ support helping refugees from war at the same time. This only appears contradictory if you're an extremist (i.e. have the view that immigration must always/never be supported). — Kenosha Kid

Of course. Have I been saying anything else? I think you assume so if I start a thread about migration with "Discourse and Reality..."

he implicit part two as far as I can tell has the following logic:
1. Russian warfare via immigration against Finland is bad.
2. Therefore immigration is bad.
3. Therefore immigration of refugees is bad.
4. Therefore "silenced" (and yet ubiquitous) ab initio anti-immigration arguments are justified. — Kenosha Kid

No,I'm not saying that. But seems you think that I am.

And what you are describing is the typical right wing anti-immigrant view. Hence the referral of making my point.

Population growth is the most natural reason for economic growth and if you don't have population growth, but negative growth, then immigration would be very beneficial. And countries like US and Canada have benefited hugely from immigration. Yet one kind of immigration, those that are refugees, has historically been viewed negatively and not all refugee problems have been resolved. Everybody loves tourists as they bring money to the community, but refugees are viewed as a burden to the community. In many cases that hasn't been true, and in many cases refugees are accepted, especially in the cases of internal displacement. Yet that countries use refugees pawns in their political games is simply disgusting. One should have a debate about that without the typical polarized mantras. That's my main point.

You prove the point yourself by making the instantaneous leap from Russia's typical wrongdoing (a non-controversial topic except to the Putinbots) to Mexicans-have-the-wrong-culture arguments that have no analogy with Russian cold warfare. — Kenosha Kid

Sigh.

At least I tried to make the OPPOSITE case: that people are the same. Mexicans put into Finnish society behave quite similarly as others and there isn't really much cultural difference. The point was that the societies themselves, the institutions, are different and people have to adapt to this even if they, the vast majority, are totally honest hardworking people.

If dialogue about immigration is difficult and heated, that's because it's been poisoned by racist, nationalistic, traditionalistic i.e. conservative sentiment. — Kenosha Kid

Well, @Kenosha Kid, can we have a discussion without the poison of polarization? It's not about "winning" the argument, proving others wrong, but exchanging views and learning from others.

Migration is the inevitable cost that West should pay for fucking up the other countries throughout recent history(and I don't only mean via wars of course). — dimosthenis9

Let's look at what have been the largest refugee crisis in the World:

They have been:

1. WW2 in Europe (11 to 20 million)
2. The Partition of India (14 million)
3. The Bangladesh Liberation war (10 million)
4. The Soviet Afghan war (6,3 million)
5. Syrian Civil War (6,7 million)
6. Venezuelan Refugee Crisis (6 million)
7. The Korean War (5 million)
8. War in Indochina -wars in Vietnam, Cambodia (3 million)
9. Yugoslav civil war (2,4 million)
10. Great Lakes refugee crisis (Rwanda)

Of these basically 4, 5 and 6 are ongoing crises. But looking at the list it's not so evident that it's the West that has created all these problems. With basically Afghanistan (and Iraq, which is later) you could argue that, but for example the Venezuelan refugee crisis has happened because of Venezuelans themselves and the economic policies the ruling regime has implemented. To argue that the West is behind everything that happens simply isn't the case. You can do something, assist, have fair trade policies, but inevitably the countries and people have to solve the issues themselves. And when you look at the list, some countries have solved their problems.

I only need to look at the situation in the country I live in, and I see that democracy doesn't work. — baker

Just remember what the alternative is: authoritarianism. It is just like the alternative to individual freedom is regulation, control and supervision by some authority. Nothing in between.

I think that what matters most for a functioning society is that people (everyone, those in positions of power included) are honorable, regardless of what the officially declared system of government is. — baker

I think that people are quite similar in every country. The vast majority are honorable, decent and abide the rules of the society and in every human population there is the fraction of people who are unsocial and those who are criminals. It's not an issue of individual character. The problem is that people are highly adaptable and do adapt to situations where the society doesn't work. When it doesn't work, people adapt to the reality. It's best explained by an example:

My wife is Mexican and I've been many times in Mexico and know her relatives and friends. They are basically similar kind of people that Finns are and the cultural differences are in the end basically just small nuances. Yet the two countries are totally different with huge parts of Mexico having been collapsed into total anarchy and lawlessness. I try to explain the situation to Finns by telling that Finland would be similar - if criminals could do just whatever they want and the police wouldn't operate at all or would work with the criminals. Quite quickly the trust in the police and in officials in general would erode and social cohesion would take a hit. It would become similar to Mexico. That hasn't happened here, so the people, even the Mexicans living here, do trust the Finnish police. And Finns participate in various associations as eagerly as they take baths in saunas, so democratic participation comes naturally.

(Reality in Mexico, a town's whole police department was arrested after the killing of a mayoral candidate. Even the tourist guides warn of ever approaching the police.)


I think it's the societies themselves, which mold people to behave in a certain way. And how, why, societies change is the crucial part. How they change for the worst is the crucial issue. Key factors are the basics services any state should provide. The most basic issue that the state should give is the most important: safety of it's citizens, the monopoly over violence as Weber would put it. The argument for keeping borders intact and letting people in who have permission is a similar issue to this.

Here the crucial factor is the military and the security forces. Comparing the Finnish and Mexican armed forces and police forces and you find a difference similar to the large Atlantic ocean separating the two countries. The worrying signs of what is happening in the US make me really wonder how bad is it there.

In September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, Elliot Ackerman, an ex-CIA paramilitary officer writing about the War on Terror, makes a note that is in my view notable and important. He writes about the US armed forces in this way:

For now, the military remains one of the most trusted institutions in the United States and one of the few that the public sees as having no overt political bias. How long will this trust last under existing political conditions? As partisanship taints every facet of American life, it would seem to be only a matter of time before that infection spreads to the U.S. military. What then? From Ceasar's Rome to Napoleon's France, history shows that when a republic couples a large standing military with dysfunctional politics, democracy doesn't last long. The United States meets both conditions. Historically, this has invited the type of political crisis that leads to military involvement (or even intervention) in domestic politics. The wide divide between the military and the citizens it serves is another inheritance from the war on terror.

Do notice the reference to "partisanship tainting every facet of American life" and to "dysfunctional politics". Ackermann doesn't even have to argue for why he sees it like this, it's quite common knowledge. That the US military has had to state publicly that it basically accepts the election results and will work with the new administration is in my view a warning sign of things not being normal. And so is the text above written in the magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relations.

In my view the US is on a dangerous path, that easily could blow up again. All it take is an economic downturn, a monetary crisis or both. The immigration issue will just add to this as it will keep the sides in their "tribes". Because I see now examples of tensions easing out and things getting back to normal...whatever that was.

Viruses are alive when they have a host. Meme's aren't alive. If they would be alive, then basically "Ideas" would be alive.

Yes, ideas, the classical name that social sciences (and philosophy) has used for the phenomenon, but the natural scientist Richard Dawkins in his hubris decided to promote a more 'biological' way (as he doesn't hold social sciences in great respect).

Really? When has AOC, or any Democrat, put themselves in a situation where they have to debate someone on the other side, or not on any side as they now exist in the U.S. (the number of independents now outnumber both Reps and Dems), like Maher, Rogan and Rubin? Will AOC accept the invitation of Maher to be on his show - doubt it — Harry Hindu

.
Why do something that might make you look bad, get you into trouble, and in the current American political climate you don't have to do?

Even some Trump supporters felt disappointed when their hero backed off from having a debate with Bernie (which, now knowing the guy would been a disappointment). But then why would Trump do it? Attacking a caricature of the opposing politicians seems to be all what you need to do, not have a debate about actual policies with them. Or then trying to get points from being 'viciously attacked'.

Just think about this thread. In a way proof of it.

What's the use of discussing a problem if no workable solution is in sight, or worse, when there's reason to believe that there is no workable solution at all? — baker

It never will be perfect, but democracy has worked up until now somehow. I guess the point is to notice the vicious-circles where can really go downhill compared to those times that were just "more restless" than others. In my view open discussion in a democracy upholds the system. Democracy is the best safety valve we have. It's also the best way we have to legitimize the state as not many of us believe in monarchs having been given the rule by God.

Worth doing something about it, at least getting informed, wouldn't you agree?

That is, if a vicious regime in South or Central America is causing a refugee crisis even a thousand miles to its North, the US and the other affected countries can, should, and we're coming to must, say to to the offending regime that they get their house in order now or their neighbors will put their house in order for them now - details for another discussion. — tim wood

The problem is that the US only threaten of making more of a mess, instill more disorder, it simply cannot threaten to get countries that are verge of collapse to "into order".

And since the US has only one nation at it's southern border and the level of engagement with this country is at the level of "We'll build a wall and you will pay for it", where the country correctly gave the finger to such idiotic nonsense, then it's totally understandable that things don't work. In fact, Trump's famous election promise of 'Building a wall and Mexico paying for it' is a perfect example of the rhetoric that is purely focused on the domestic voters without any thought being given into it actually working as real foreign policy. No thought is given for the idea to actually to work on another sovereign state. It is pure show for an eager audience.

This approach obviously won't work in Europe, unless by combined European pressure against, e.g., countries like Syria. — tim wood

Again, Syria is already under sanctions. In fact, Belarus is already under EU sanctions, so there already is combined preassure.

Since October 2020, the EU has progressively imposed restrictive measures against Belarus. The measures were adopted in response to the fraudulent nature of the August 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, and the intimidation and violent repression of peaceful protesters, opposition members and journalists. The EU does not recognize results of the Belarus elections, condemning them as neither free, nor fair.

A total of 166 individuals and 15 entities are now designated under the sanctions regime on Belarus. These include Belarusian President, Alexandr Lukashenko and his son and National Security Adviser, Viktor Lukashenko, as well as other key figures of the political leadership and of the government, high-level members of the judicial system and several prominent economic actors.

This of course may well be the reason just why suddenly there happens a refugee crisis on the Belarussian-Polish border.

And do note it's not the countries that have the refugee problem. In them creating a refugee problem might be one strategy to win the war (which in rather ugly way seems to be what is happening in Syria), but wars, crime and poverty creates on it's own these problems naturally. It's more about those transit countries that can create a problem. And of course in the case of Libya, it is doubtful that the country with two governments fighting each other can perform the basic task of border control as other countries in the first place. The plight of the refugees is real, but so is that they are sometimes pawns in a political game between countries. Admitting both can make it difficult to come up with simple solutions that can be used as political slogans.

The liars, propagandists, manipulators are simply very good at what they do, and as well undertake their efforts with corporate strength and purpose. — tim wood

I agree. And now thanks to the way media has been reorganized by social media and the internet. The much hated "mainstream media", the journalism that intended to be non-aligned and objective, isn't the gatekeeper anymore and media seems to go back to the classical times of the 19th Century "Yellow Paper" journalism and people following the media of their own echo chambers. It seems to work so well.

Can't believe he'd follow a coward like Trump, but it's not my party. — James Riley

Dan Crenshaw? He has criticized Trump's actions on Jan 6th and basically for the ex-soldier Trump "isn't the Devil, but isn't Jesus either". I think that is actually a very representative attitude of how Republicans really think of Trump, when you toned down the hype.

Never underestimate the tribalism of US politics (and how that tribalism is instigated and perpetuated by both sides). The vast majority of Americans put their party before the consistency of their values, just as the politically oriented media shows them. And they just love the politicians who make the other side fuming in anger and NEVER, ever agree that the other side would have a point. That would be like giving your little finger to the devil. And naturally Trump makes democrats and other pinko-liberals like those in Hollywood absolutely crazy. For many that is the real thing they like in Trump.

I learned the tribalism actually when Obama came into power. During the Bush years, the democrats and left-leaning media were in my view totally correctly pointing out the illegalities of the War on Terror. But when Obama came into power and basically continued the same policies, they all fell silent. Totally silent. Suddenly such investigative reporters like Seymour Hersh didn't continue reporting on the War on Terror. He uhh...had some other book to write. That Obama permitted the killing in a drone strike a 16 year old American citizen who hadn't done anything else than had been borne to his father (who had radicalized only after being tortured in an Egyptian prison, and then himself been killed by a drone strike), was hardly reported. Did not stir up a debate on how even American nationals ought to be treated. And all that time Afghanistan was getting worse and worse. Many become suddenly defenders of their side when in power and "understand" things that if it was the other party in power, would be totally against.

If there are others, they need to stand up and push back. — James Riley

I think Mitt Romney is another of those rare Republicans.

Again, I'm hoping that local politicians here don't mimic the ways of US politicians. The Media surely tries to...

I can't imagine being a Holocaust survivor listening to all these equations. :roll: — James Riley

They tend to be old and rare these days. When you make an international investment here, they don't ask anymore if you have participated in the holocaust or not anymore (something obviously that American legislators had successfully pushed forward earlier in Europe).

These people are still colleagues regardless of the fact they represent different interests — Benkei

...and should be terminated for harassment or?

Double standards is the other name for politics.

And then the reality check of what the true policies are:

President Joe Biden, concerned that gasoline prices at a seven-year high are stoking inflation in America, has called on the 23-nation alliance (OPEC) to turn on the taps and bring down crude prices.

But perhaps a response to this more in line with COP26?

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates signaled OPEC+ will continue raising oil output cautiously and won’t bow to U.S. pressure to pump faster. - OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, is currently increasing daily output by 400,000 barrels per month.

“That should be enough,” UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said in an interview in Abu Dhabi, where he’s attending the ADIPEC oil and gas conference.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and partners next meet on Dec. 2. Crude prices have climbed around 60% this year to more than $80 a barrel, with several energy executives and leaders such as Vladimir Putin saying they could get to $100.

Let's hope awareness continues to spread and that businesses, investors and consumers continue to make better choices so that environmental friendly products are no longer optional but necessary to survive as a company. — Benkei

People do make the link from the political leadership to the economic performance: if the economy is bad, it's the fault of the politicians. People don't make this link with the climate or weather... especially when it's trend that matters, not individual specific years.

It may be too much to ask (as people do take the climate and weather as an act of God), but should we start similarly check the performance of our politicians as with the economy?