Russia Plans To Block VPN In March 2024 (reuters.com) 150
Russia's communications watchdog plans to block VPNs from March 1 next year, a Russian senator for the ruling United Russia party said on Tuesday. From a report: Demand for VPN services soared after Russia restricted access to some Western social media after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Senator Artem Sheikin said an order from the Roskomnadzor watchdog would come into force on March 1 that would block VPNs. "From March 1, 2024, an order will come into force to block VPN services providing access to sites banned in Russia," Sheikin was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA.
No more... (Score:3)
smuggled Barbie Movies for you, you will watch Russian propaganda on Ukraine and thank us for it!!!
Sometimes I feel disdain for how much the Russian public is willing to tolerate from Putin, but their endearing feature is that they really do wish there were living in the West. Just need for them to figure out what has to happen for Russia to become part of the West
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but their endearing feature is that they really do wish there were living in the West
It would be nice if that was true but it's not. The Russians most Westerners meet are likely to feel that way. I've had some truly great experiences with Russians, in the States before Putin went totally off the deep end, and abroad in friendly countries. They all hated Putin. I'd like to be encouraged about that, except, it's a self-selected audience when you meet them outside of Russia. It's like meeting an American abroad and concluding from that experience that all Americans hate Trump.
What you need to remember about Russia, it's essentially a third world country outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow, and Putin maintains the support he has by blaming the West for that predicament. All media is tightly controlled. The Russians (like the Soviets before them) flood the zone with so much disinformation that whatever glimmer of truth slips through is lost amongst the noise and/or dismissed as more of the same. If you watch Russia Today it makes Fox News look like PBS. That's the watered down version they export to the rest of the world. What the Russian people get is even worse.
Putin has actual support amongst the Russian people, how much is difficult to say, but it's a mistake to assume it's insignificant. You'd like to believe the Russian people will rise up, if enough Russian boys come home in body bags they just might, but don't expect a liberal democracy to emerge from the ashes. That has never happened in Russian history, except perhaps for the 90s, and it's a reach to call the kleptocracy of the Yeltsin years a liberal democracy. That's the decade that set the stage for Putin after all.
Short of a Chinese Operation Barbarossa I'm hard pressed to imagine anything that would bring Russia into the West. We might find some common ground with them after some horrible event like 9/11 but I don't anticipate them joining the EU or NATO in my lifetime. I'd love to be proven wrong. It's a rich civilization with a fascinating history that frankly deserves a lot better. :(
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" it's essentially a third world country outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow, " That's very true, and all the other stuff you mentioned that goes along with it. And, the Russian (internet) TV is off-the-hook crazy as you mentioned. I really don't think people get the intensity and duration of the propaganda machine. 99% of that population are not watching the Ukraine victory videos we are seeing on Youtube. People in the Russian boondocks don't have a clue what's going on. Though to be fair, the Ukrainians are very much still the underdogs in this war, and some Youtube T-90 tank turret vids won't change the fact Russia still has the capacity to lay waste to Ukraine for years to come.
I would also say that those in the metro centers are still benefitting from Russia being a petro state. That oil money that Putin stocked up on for nearly seven years is still working, and they are still selling oil today in a $5 gallon gas market (thank you Saudi Arabia...no wait...eff you Saudi Arabia) . Yes they are getting only 2/3rds the going rate for oil since China is twisting screws on them, but it's enough to keep the Russian proletariat happy for now. Or at least sated enough that they aren't going to risk their livelihoods and go protest or something.
Prigozhin should have gone all the way to Moscow. Once he left Rostov-on-don and downed a couple airplanes he was condemned. Better take your chances, oust Putin, install some other politician from the Duma, and live to see another year.
I do think Russians want to live a Western lifestyle, but their pride and a bizarre unwillingness to let go of the strong man leader crap sinks them every time.
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Very quickly we will see Russia revert to how things were during the Soviet U
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And, the Russian (internet) TV is off-the-hook crazy as you mentioned.
I do not doubt that this is true. I would like to see some of it (with translations), so I can understand the types of manipulation used and then compare it with the types of manipulation we have here in the West. Do you know of any source for this? (Why does the West engage in manipulation at all? Is there no respect for the individual?)
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Prigozhin should have gone all the way to Moscow. Once he left Rostov-on-don and downed a couple airplanes he was condemned. Better take your chances, oust Putin, install some other politician from the Duma, and live to see another year.
It's clear he didn't get the political support he wanted, so advancing would have been pointless, he'd be hung instead of poisoned/falling off a balcony/plane crash.
I do think Russians want to live a Western lifestyle, but their pride and a bizarre unwillingness to let go of the strong man leader crap sinks them every time.
I think the Russian people do want to live a western lifestyle as well... However what the Russian people want is absolutely immaterial to the Russian government. Just because they vote doesn't mean they're a democracy. They're still an oligarchy (maybe Kleptocracy would be more fitting) where the wealthy and powerful get to make all the decisio
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Russia produces many very good engineers and scientists which the USA needs and can easily afford.
No worries. They are smart enough to know the truth, no matter the government propaganda, and have been fleeing in droves over the last year. We in the west will be happy to have them, after appropriate security screening of course.
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Why do you think they have twice the police force per capita as the US. Hint... it isn't to fight crime in the context of theft, homicide, etc.
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Also lots of crimes are simply ignored in US - store lootings, property crimes like muggings and so on, house break-ins. I don't know about how Russia is now but the crimes were not ignored in early 90s. Someone from Russia may comment.
Is your comment from personal knowledge or just pulling facts out of your ass?
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Apparently Russia does not need mass shootings to stay well ahead of the US in murder rate
A similar ratio is found for the homicide rates; for the total population and for each gender, the homicide rate is approximately 70%-90% higher in Russia than in the United States. [nih.gov]
Re:No more... (Score:4, Insightful)
Russia has almost no mass shooting compared to US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]... [wikipedia.org] vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]... [wikipedia.org]
Shithole dictatorships often have low crime rates. I'll leave it to you to ponder why that may be. Complete lack of any legitimate courts or due process may be a hint.
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Shithole dictatorships often have low crime rates. I'll leave it to you to ponder why that may be. Complete lack of any legitimate courts or due process may be a hint.
More likely is simply censorship of the news. And punctually here we have a flawed comparison, of course Russians don't do many mass shootings because they can't buy guns at the local Walmart equivalent. For a fair comparison, compare shootings in the USA with Molotov attacks in Russia, you will see Russia leading.
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Russia has no mass shooting because access to assault rifles is difficult for civilians, but they use other means, like Molotov cocktails [wikipedia.org]
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smuggled Barbie Movies for you, you will watch Russian propaganda on Ukraine and thank us for it!!!
For you, new totally original hit Russian movie coming soon! x 2!!
Olga - heartwarming story about woman who lives in decadent pretend world, think she happy. Then she is forced into modern real Russian world - hijinks ensue as she learn REAL happiness is loving Mother Russia!
Kurchatov - heroic story about Russian nuclear bomb father!
Already trending on patriotic Russian social media! Many people rave about Olgatov!
P.S. Bite my shiny Soviet ass!
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Check out the NPR story, transcript follows: [npr.org]
MAYNES: Culture Ministry officials, in turn, argue Russians should be enjoying Russian-made films, ones that reflect Russian values and tell stories that affect Russian lives.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SVIDETEL")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character, speaking Russian).
MAYNES: Films like "Svidetel," or "Witness," a fictionalized version of the start of the war in Ukraine. It portrays Kyiv as a city overrun by modern-day fascists preparing an attack on the Russian homeland
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Russia is becoming more and more like North Korea. And outside of relevant cities, it pretty much is.
Most of what the West knows about Russia is Moscow and Petersburg. Maybe some other large cities west of the Ural. This changes considerably if you get deeper into Russia and further away from outside influence (i.e. reality). People there really don't have any source of information other than what the state propaganda provides. They do believe what they're told because that's all they have.
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Sometimes I feel disdain for how much the Russian public is willing to tolerate from Putin
While Russia is subjectively and objectively a worse place to live for the average person, I would have to say the same thing about the American public. Converting Social Security funds into debt rather than cash on hand, the Savings and Loan situation, the invasion of Iraq, etc. How did the American public sit idly by while all of that shit was going down? The vast majority of us are effectively much more poor than we were in the 1960s... and nothing.
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smuggled Barbie Movies for you, you will watch Russian propaganda on Ukraine and thank us for it!!!
Sometimes I feel disdain for how much the Russian public is willing to tolerate from Putin, but their endearing feature is that they really do wish there were living in the West. Just need for them to figure out what has to happen for Russia to become part of the West
The thing about Russia is that the people are quite happy to accept a boot on their necks as long as it is a Russian boot.
The rest of the former Soviet Union (Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Romanian, et al.) are emphatically not.
This is likely going to hurt Putin as it makes the strongman look weak. However he's not worried about the people, rather his oligarch buddies who are losing money over his "3 day special military operation" of which we are past day 550.
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They've been systematically demonized for the past 30 years
And why do you suppose that happened? Surely Russia never did anything to deserve it?
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US is trying to make Ukraine to join NATO.
Can't imagine why Ukraine would have wanted that ROFLMAO. In reality they never should have given up their own nukes. That was a profound mistake others will see as a lesson for evermore.
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...they never should have given up their own nukes...
I don't think they had launch codes and most modern nukes fizzle out if tampered with. Besides who wants to disarm a booby trapped nuke?
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Question of priorities (Score:2)
...they never should have given up their own nukes...
I don't think they had launch codes and most modern nukes fizzle out if tampered with. Besides who wants to disarm a booby trapped nuke?
That was part of it; the thing was they had physical access to the weapons themselves, and the technicians who'd have been responsible for maintaining them. They could have recovered the pits at least and built their own. The thing was it wasn't their priority at the time, the collapse of the soviet economy left folks queuing for bread. Redeveloping and maintaining nukes safely costs a lot of money, they had other priorities.
Re: No more... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, Russia is trying to make everyone join NATO. Or at least, that's an obvious consequence of their raping their way across various former Soviet states.
Re: No more... (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much this right there.
Sweden and Finland were staunch neutralists ever since WW2. One attack on a neutral country later they run head over heels into NATO.
Support for trying to join NATO in Ukraine was below 30% before 2014. And even after Russia stole Crimea, pro-NATO sentiments hardly reached the 50%. Today you can't find a single person who wouldn't give some a right arm (some even their own right arm) to join now rather than later.
Russia had some international esteem and was considered a reliable partner. This, too, changed considerably after the invasion of Ukraine, because we now know that a Russian promise is worthless and their word is moot.
The Russian army was feared as one of the strongest, if not the contender to being the strongest, rivaled only by the US. After that invasion it has become obvious that they can't even win against a comparably insignificant military power. From the second best army in the world to the second best army in Ukraine within less than a year.
At this point I have to wonder whether Putin is a Western mole. That man has single-handedly turned Russia from a feared world power to a meme factory.
Re: No more... (Score:4, Informative)
Part of the Russian military problem is that they don't want to just go flat out full scale war. The troops are overworked, they're populated primarily by soldiers who are not ethnically Russian, as in poorer enclaves. Ie, the minorities die in their war in larger numbers than ethnic Russians, and the middle classes want no part of this optional war that serves no purpose. The troops were not trained or prepared for this war, it was sudden and unexpected to them. Military readiness was just non-existent, surprising the West that the feared Russian might was just a lot of barking.
Putin is trying to control all the strings himselves and that hamstrings the military leadership (the ones who aren't just inner circles stooges). Like Dubya Bush going into Iraq, Putin was fooled into believing that the natives would support him and it turns out even native Russian speakers in Ukrained dislike him.
The West bears a lot of fault here though; we KNEW Putin was a dictator in the making and this was ignored. He was coddled and allowed his foibles because we thought there might be some economic benefits that he'd like and he'd see reason. Every aggressive action Putin did was met with hand wringing. Hastily written cease fires were torn up in less than a day and this only caused more hand wringing but no real sanctions or retaliations, while overtures were still being made to Putin hoping he could be molified. We had congress and senate members roundly critizing him who were ignored by multiple administrations. Just like Putin was emulating Hitler, the West were emulating Chamberlain.
Re: No more... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ukraine was killing Russian speaking people in Donbas and Ligansk, and US is trying to make Ukraine to join NATO.
Jesus fucking christ. Can you Russians stop with bullshit? No, Ukraine was not killing Russian speaking people in either Donbas or Ligansk. You know how we know this? Because the Russian speaking people in those areas were alive and speaking Russian AND Ukrainian. No one was doing anything to them.
But you know who is killing Russian speaking people in Donbas and Ligansk? Russia. Every day Russia sends Russian-speaking people into the war through forced conscription.
As for your NATO bullshit, no one is forcing anyone to join them. In fact, one has to ask become a member and meet certain conditions. You know why countries keep asking to join NATO? Because Russia keeps threatening them [kyivpost.com]. Ukraine asked to become part of NATO in 2008. Here we are 15 years later and they're still not part of it. Explain how, if NATO was trying to force Ukraine to be part of it, Ukraine is still not part of NATO.
Re: No more... (Score:5, Insightful)
They probably think you're Russian because it's a known fact that Russia has vast troll farms that they use to push false flag propaganda online. That doesn't mean you're Russian, of course. The Russian trolls are fairly effective at influencing a certain gullible section of the online community into parroting their opinions. There are, I'm sure, also people who have arrived at the same conclusions that the Russians spout entirely independently, but that group can be expected to be quite small relative to the other two groups. It doesn't help your case of not being Russian that you attempted to use the Russified version of the name for Luhansk (even if you spelled it an unusual way).
So, ultimately, it's actually pretty rational to treat the things you're saying like Russian propaganda since it essentially matches their talking points. The simple fact is that all your points are based on a ridiculous contortion of the actual facts. The reality is that Russia invaded Ukraine with the intention of annexing its territory. The presence of Russian speakers in Ukraine does not somehow justify Russia's actions. Also, recognizing those regions as "independent republics" and then almost immediately annexing them telegraphs what was really going on there pretty clearly to those who aren't willfully blind. Then there's characters like Leonid Pasechnik who was a member of the United Russia party. Then there's the "little green men" in all of those regions of Ukraine controlled by Russia. It's all very obviously a Russian invasion with a flimsy cover of being a popular uprising.
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Why do you think that I am from Russia or Russian? Anyone who points out something you don't like is Russian. I have never lived in Russia a day of my life.
You should be thankful for that.
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Ok, ok, we believe you, you're not Russian.
So you're stupid enough to fall for their propaganda, if you like that better.
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Sure, all Europe and US were calling for peace. "Lets have peace, here is more guns and rockets".
The whole world called for peace all the while Russians amassed an attack force on Ukraine's border intended specifically to wage a war of aggression and conquest against an internationally recognized sovereign state.
Russia put troops on the ground for 2 reasons - Ukraine was killing Russian speaking people in Donbas and Ligansk
This is exactly what Hitler said only substitute Russian speaking for German speaking. What you are saying is pure Russian propaganda divorced from all reality.
https://ukraine.un.org/sites/d... [un.org]
and US is trying to make Ukraine to join NATO.
NATO is a defensive alliance intended primarily to promote peach thru strength in the face of Russian aggression. NATO expansion is driven primarily by fear of Russia.
In Feb 2022 when Russian invasion was scaled up to "annex" the entire country Ukraine had exactly ZERO prospects of joining NATO anytime in the foreseeable future so to say that NATO membership was the trigger is an excuse completely without merit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Don't know which is the bigger reason. Even NATO head admitted as much.
Don't know how anyone can be so misinformed as yourself. The sad part of this the propaganda is easily dispelled with minimal effort.
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NATO is a defensive alliance intended primarily to promote peach thru strength in the face of Russian aggression. NATO expansion is driven primarily by fear of Russia.
In Feb 2022 when Russian invasion was scaled up to "annex" the entire country Ukraine had exactly ZERO prospects of joining NATO anytime in the foreseeable future so to say that NATO membership was the trigger is an excuse completely without merit.
Worse than that, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US and western European nations were deliberately keeping Ukraine out of NATO and the EU expressly to avoid antagonising Russia, despite a large number of Ukrainians wanting to join. After the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Finland (who NATO had been trying to get to join for decades) who fiercely guarded their independence from NATO in no small part over concerns about antagonising Russia couldn't join NATO fast enough. The invasion of Ukraine sho
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Re: No more... (Score:4, Insightful)
I find your handle, "nonBORG", to be deliciously ironic: defending the need of the largest nation in the world to assimilate more land.
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"Both sides"
lol fucking idiot
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I cannot be bothered to look it up but it was in the news
You lost all credibility at that point.
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I found this insightful:
xwin: Russia put troops on the ground for 2 reasons - Ukraine was killing Russian speaking people in Donbas and Ligansk
wafflemonster: This is exactly what Hitler said only substitute Russian speaking for German speaking. What you are saying is pure Russian propaganda divorced from all reality."
The techniques are the same, only the people have changed.
Secondary evidence:
"The Kremlin-appointed head of the Zaporizhzhia region has openly said Russia should invade and occupy the Baltic St
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Russia still needs to learn what Germany learned the hard way after WW2: That the days of military conquest are simply and plainly over. We have arrived at the point where military destructive power outweighs any gain you could possibly have. Even if you win the war you're fucked. Billions of resources wasted, billions of infrastructure destroyed and nothing of value left you could plunder.
Germany turned from a military to an economic power, and today they are more prosperous and the average German way, way
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The second on isn't a reason - every nation has the right to join whatever club, group, or organisation they like.
The first is a reason to convince the UN to send in independent observers and peacekeepers.
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You don't understand what "peace" is. Peace is not surrendering your to an invading country, allowing it to destroy your own culture (which Putin claims is nto real), destroy your language, indoctrinate your children into hating you, etc. Only a moron would think that surrending immediately is peace, just as only a moron would allow a home invader to shoot their dog, steal their jewels, and then set the house on fire because that was the peaceful solution.
The US does not really want Ukraine in NATO, despi
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People should really watch "Servant of the People" - it's on Netflix these days with English subtitles, and not only it's interesting to look at the thing that more or less made Zelensky president, but it also tells a lot about his personal politics and views, including the language issue.
Re: No more... (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling for peace? What peace? Russia's been the one attacking its neighbors and stealing their land. Georgia, Moldova, and now Ukraine. The only reason Putin is begging for peace is because he knows he lost and needs some way to stop the destruction of what's left of his military.
The West bent over backwards to bring Russia out of its malaise and for a time Russia seemed to be responding and understanding it was better to work in cooperation than antagonism. Then along came the midget muscovite who wanted to resurrect another of the many failed empires the world has seen and threw everything away.
Russia has only itself to blame for what's happening. If Russia wants peace all they have to do is remove all their soldiers from Ukraine and peace will come in an instant. Until then, thousands and thousands and thousands of Russians will keep dying for no reason.
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So much for that "peace"" [kyivpost.com] you are talking about.
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"The Kremlin-appointed head of the Zaporizhzhia region has openly said Russia should invade and occupy the Baltic States in order restore the Russian empire to its borders before the Revolution in 1917."
"Balitsky’s provocative remarks come amid a growing wave of propaganda in the Russian Federation advocating for the re-establishment of not only the USSR but the Russian Empire."
Largest nation in the world, but they need more.
Russia: Using 20th century tactics to support 19th century strategies.
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I think that you spelled, "failing to feed their own people while squandering money on failed military projects, then collapsing into separate countries and selling off their warheads for money while the West kept every single nuclear system they wanted active" when you typed, "calling for peace"
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...selling off their warheads for money while the West kept every single nuclear system they wanted active...
Nope. Turns out that the US eliminated more nuclear warheads than the Russians did under the New START treaty.
See the graphs: https://www.statista.com/chart... [statista.com] or https://www.armscontrol.org/fa... [armscontrol.org]
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I did say, "every single nuclear system they wanted active", and considering the desire to reap a "peace dividend" the US went from a high of over 30,000 nukes to about 5,000, with Russia backing off from similarly high Soviet Union stockpiles
I think that the US nuclear arsenal is just as effective as it has ever been, AND we have ABM systems installed strategically on a global basis where past ABM systems were doomed to target saturation.
They are more feasible now as Russia has fewer active missile systems
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That's some nice spin and dog-whistling you got there. Pretty much every part of your post is anti-West propaganda.
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They've been systematically demonized for the past 30 years
No, the Russian government has been systematically criticized for being shitty. The Russian people has been pitied for having to ensure that garbage government.
The Western zeitgeist is now actively hostile towards traditional lifestyles. There's nothing here for a predominantly Orthodox Christian civilization here.
Not at all. In the West you can live whatever lifestyle you want, traditional or not. If you want to life in perpetual terror of God's judgment, have 4 hour masses thrice a week to try and save your soul from that judgment of His, and stay drunk the remaining of the time to all but forget about that judgment, be our guest, no one will prevent you.
Now, if your idea having a traditional lifestyle means forcing others to also have that lifestyle, well, then we'll have a problem with that, yes.
Re:No more... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if your idea having a traditional lifestyle means forcing others to also have that lifestyle, well, then we'll have a problem with that, yes.
Anytime someone mentions "the erosion of traditional family values", they are always referring to the loss of their ability to force others to live under said values.
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You might notice that there is a magnitude difference. Like, say, standing up to your ankles in shit and standing up to your neck in shit. Both is not exactly a pleasant experience, but the latter is usually considered a worse one.
But hey, if you like that...
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How many people have left Russia for the US in the last decade? How many have gone the other way? I assume that soon your karma will be so low that nobody will even see your posts and then you will sign up for ano
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The US people can be pitied for have to cope with a garbage government.
Yep, they can. Healthcare coverage and cost is one area in which the US people can be pitied. But so what? Let's make a small, decidedly biased, table, shall we? I'm including Brazil, my country, and a generic "Europe" from hearsay.
* Place: US / Europe / Brazil / China / Russia
* Quality of life: High / High / Medium / High / Low
* Freedom of speech: Yes / Yes / Yes / No / No
* Political imprisonments: No / No / No / Yes / Yes
* Healthcare access: Medium / High / Medium / High / Medium
* VPNs: Allows / Allows /
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They've been systematically demonized for the past 30 years while trying to become a part of Europe
There was a time Russia absolutely could have become a valued and productive member of civilized society. They chose (or more properly it was chosen for them, they don't actually have a choice as they are not a democracy) to become just another kleptocratic shithole dictatorship instead (again).
It is possible one day they might yet become part of the democratic western world, but that will never be with little man Putin in charge.
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Why would they want to be a part of the "West" at this point? They've been systematically demonized for the past 30 years while trying to become a part of Europe, with increased economic antagonism from the US at every turn.
The cold hard truth Russia is a corrupt oil cursed shithole that has only itself to blame for their own gross mismanagement of their economy and society.
There's nothing here for a predominantly Orthodox Christian civilization here.
Nice try but the reality is Russians are less christian than Americans.
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Nobody is hostile against traditional lifestyles, unless of course your tradition requires you to be hostile to other lifestyles. Yeah, we don't like that.
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The Russian government and it's dictator maybe, not the Russian people. But there are tons of Russian propaganda to it's people that they are being demonized and discriminated against and that the west hates them, which all ties into their propaganda that they must destroy Ukraine to top the west from cancelling them. These are all lies though, either you're a Russian troll spreading the same propaganda, or you're naively believing the lies coming from Putin. Russia is not Putin, and Putin is not Russia.
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Aw, lookit that you actually thing that you are insightful and convincing... how cute!
FYI, Trump is being prosecuted in multiple court cases for the crimes he has committed [apnews.com], when has Putin ever faced justice for having his political opponents killed off? [reuters.com]
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We did rise up against Trump, that is why he lost his election. That is how we hold our elected officials accountable. Certainly not a perfect system but it does have a semblance of serving the people. People refer to Yeltsin kleptocracy but from everything I heard, very little changed under Putin.
One of the reasons Ukraine is fighting so hard for sovereignty is that very reason, they were casting off a kleptocracy and trying to embrace democratic ideals. I won't really want to call it western ideals altho
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One of the reasons Ukraine is fighting so hard for sovereignty is that very reason, they were casting off a kleptocracy and trying to embrace democratic ideals.
Huh? Ukraine is still one of the most corrupt, undemocratic countries in Europe.
Here's two articles from the US during the last couple of days. Maybe show them to your troll-farm handler before posting more claptrap and claiming your food stamps.
Leaked U.S. strategy on Ukraine sees corruption as the real threat
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
Juncker: Ukraine is totally corrupt
https://www.politico.eu/articl... [politico.eu]
If most of their corrupt people left Ukraine, then that's a problem for the countries that took the
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Humorous interpretation of what I've said. I mentioned Ukraine was in-process. Agenda much?
You pretend like I whitewashed their problems when I specifically called them out.
Feel free to make whatever additional assumptions you like about me, you clearly think in absolutes which is just a waste of everyone's time.
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Hey, you used that "I have a bridge to sell you" insult in the right context! I'm proud of you today, Boris!
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Putin has very high approval rating, much higher than Biden in US.
Hitler was also supremely popular securing about 90% of the vote in his bid to become fuhrer. This despite a month earlier publicly admitting to murdering scores of his political opposition.
Putler is rather pathetic, lame and feckless in comparison to Hitler opting merely to stick his political opposition in prison after failing in half assed attempts to properly assassinate them with nerve agent.
He is probably the best president that Russia had in a long time. Just read and listen to people who study Russia for a living, not to some propaganda outlet.
When I look at their economy and society retaliative to land, natural resources and population what I see can o
Remember, Russia doesn't have due process (Score:5, Informative)
If they see an encrypted (essentially random) data stream to a location they don't know about, they can just come get you if they want. They don't have to prove anything.
So anyone who thinks they can say "Well, they can't KNOW I'm accessing a VPN because it's encvrypted" isn't understanding how Russia works. All they have to see is that they don't know what you're doing.
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In Soviet Russia, you due process.
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In Putin's Russia, the process does you!
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In Putin's Russia, you get processed!
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Soylent Green Vodka is made out of dissidents!!!
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I don't believe you understand how VPN and proxy technologies work.
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I don't believe you understand how geolocation, service detection, ip to owner mapping, and allow/block listing works. If I can block most VPNs with my mid-range firewall what do you suppose a nation-state is capable of doing?
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Some years ago, I traveled to Beijing. My OpenVPN connections were blocked -- even on non-standard ports. It appeared that there was some traffic analysis that recognized it as not just encrypted, but also that it was a VPN. However, SSH wasn't blocked, so I used that.
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hopefully you were not using openssh [thehackernews.com], they may well have hoped that you would
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I had control of both ends of the connection which means that this wasn't true:
"we noticed that a remote attacker, who has access to the remote server where Alice's ssh-agent is forwarded to, "
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good for you man in the middle is tricky, plus I am sure that you switched to elliptical encryption and replace pass-phrases with 2fa
all the cool kids are doing it
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All they have to see is that they don't know what you're doing.
And that is a most serious crime.
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The US absolutely has actual due process in almost all cases.
While nothing is perfect, there are multiple steps to ensure the system generally works as it should.
Two things being imperfect does not make them equally imperfect.
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the problem is not the lack of due process.
the problem is that due process still affords them countless opportunities to destroy you.
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The US doesn't have due process, either. Sure, it's in the books that we do. But that's not the prevailing practice. If something happens with regularity which isn't written as a law... that IS the effective law, whether it's inscribed in a legal book or not.
You should totally go live in Russia and report back to us all the ways the US and RU legal systems are equivalent in practice.
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As for Russian legal system, I don't know how it works and I bet you know even less.
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You are effing beacon of "democracy and due process" - "I don't like your opinion, go live in Russia".
If you are going to quote me then quote what I actually said. What I said was "You should totally go live in Russia and report back to us all the ways the US and RU legal systems are equivalent in practice."
The point of my statement was NOT to tell someone don't like it GTFO... it was an attempt to suggest they are engaged in false equivalences.
Just look at all the true crime cases where people sit in jail 10s of years just to be found not guilty after. Look at the all these people in Guantanamo, how is US due process working out for them?
As for Russian legal system, I don't know how it works and I bet you know even less.
The US legal system is indeed royally fucked up. I can sit here all day droning on about the bullshit that goes on here.
Prior to the wars my understanding is Russ
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What? is the lonely St Petersburg internet troll tired of failing to abuse the American institution of free speech?
kudos on trying to sound like an American, you are about 80% there (p.s. it's not enough)
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Oh please, like we haven't seen fake charges against people who dared to not kiss Putin's ass.
This isn't Russia. We can actually access news outlets other than what we are "supposed" to.
In Soviet Russia... (Score:2)
It's a shame Cloudflare banned domain fronting (Score:2)
Re:It's a shame Cloudflare banned domain fronting (Score:4, Informative)
I had to look it up:
Domain fronting was a technique used to obscure internet traffic but was discontinued by Cloudflare and others due to potential abuse.
- Domain fronting involves hiding the true endpoint destination of web traffic by routing it through an allowed domain as an intermediary.
- For example, traffic to a banned site would be routed through a domain like Facebook or Google as a front, since those are allowed by censors.
- This allowed people in repressive regions to secretly access prohibited sites and services by using major whitelisted domains as fronts to mask where data was actually going.
- However, domain fronting was also susceptible to abuse by bad actors for malicious goals.
- In 2018, Google and Cloudflare discontinued support for domain fronting on their services to prevent misuse through their platforms.
- This was controversial, as it disabled a key mechanism activists and journalists relied on to circumvent state censorship.
- But the companies argued domain fronting's potential for enabling criminal/terrorist activity posed an ethical dilemma they were not comfortable with.
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Putin playing Whack-A-Mole (Score:2)
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For every asshole who has a computer, there's another asshole with a computer. People are way smarter than the computers they use.
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China is probably less repressive to it's own people today than Russia.
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The difference is maybe that in the US, people would just shrug and ignore it.