On social media, people frequently ask the question “Do Russians support Putin?” I find it curious how “freedom loving” westerners turn everything into a loyalty test. George Orwell’s 1984 comes to mind. It is not enough to tolerate Big Brother, you have to love him, and will be tortured until you do. If I love Big Brother, then logically, the Russians must love Russian Big Brother.
This results in confusion in how to view Russians and Palestinians. In the eyes of a westerner, if people loudly support their leader and consent to his actions, then they are just as guilty as him and must be killed. After the first week or so when it became clear that Russians weren’t going to turn on “Dictator Putin” like westerners hoped, their attitude got exponentially more bloodthirsty. Russians must be destroyed along with Putin.
We see this logic in action in Palestine too. Palestinians did not immediately turn on Hamas after the start of the Israeli “rescue operations” in Gaza. If they did, then westerners would likely sympathize more. But since Palestinians seem to support Hamas, then they must be completely exterminated. I see quite a few Westerners express this opinion on social media, and feel no shame about it.
This boils down to consent. If Russians, Palestinians, Iranians, Chinese, or whoever are simply oppressed victims under the boot of an evil dictator, then they deserve pity. If they show signs of positive affirmation toward their government and policies, then they are evil and must be exterminated. The westerner’s logic here is perfectly sound. If a person does not show positive affirmation of consent, then he is a victim. If he does, then he is just as evil as the dictator and must be exterminated. It is only genocide to kill good people, not evil people.
Actually, it is even okay to actively kill dissidents, because that is motivation for them to try harder to overthrow their dictator.
Western ideas of consent applies just as much to ourselves as our enemies.
It has become completely normal for journalists to ask American leaders and candidates if they swear allegiance to Ukraine, Israel, or whatever “good” country is in the news. If he doesn’t give the correct answer, then he’s loudly condemned. This is what happened to Trump when he refused to commit himself to Ukrainian victory. If Trump was trying to be president of Ukraine it would certainly be concerning for him to not want them to win. But he’s trying to be president of the USA, not Ukraine, so it is a strange loyalty test to demand of him.
But again, this is perfectly logical. If Trump refuses to show positive affirmation of consent for supporting Ukraine, then he is just as evil as Putin and the Russians.
Our idea of positive affirmation of consent applies to the common people too.
Recently, a guy on Quora claimed that I as an American am too obsessed with the rule of law rather than the pursuit of justice. Part of the reason why I was so surprised by this critique is because America founding principle is liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And yet, judging everything on a “freedom metric” is the same as judging based on the rule of law, as the law defines what people are free to do and not free to do. That got me thinking, and it is relevant here.
Earlier, I wrote about Russian ideas of tolerance and how it differs from ours. In that post I said:
The propaganda about Russians being tolerant is true. Even if a Russian person doesn’t particularly like foreigners, LGBT, or some other group, he’ll generally keep the thought to himself and be polite. In the USA, people are forced to be tolerant – you are forced to pretend to like everyone and everything, even if you don’t. In Russia, people actually are tolerant. That’s the difference.
Law and justice are related to each other, and both are related to people’s tolerance. Tolerance directly relates to consent. Consider the following example. You tolerate a drunk neighbor playing his music too loud at night. If his behavior becomes intolerable, you ask him to stop. If he does not stop, you make a noise complaint to the police.
The way justice and freedom plays into this situation is self-explanatory. If you tolerate your neighbor’s annoying behavior, you’re silently consenting to it. If you don’t consent and ask him to stop, and your request is reasonable, there’s some social expectation for him to modify his behavior, even if it isn’t technically illegal. If you just silently suffered without making your unhappiness known, then there really isn’t any basis for complaints about him. Maybe he just didn’t know his music was bothering you and you never said anything about it.
Now for a second example.
A woman tolerates a man who is being too aggressive on a date. If his behavior becomes intolerable she asks him to stop. If he does not stop, she leaves. If he does not let her leave then she calls the police. This is all just as self-explanatory as the first scenario.
Now let’s modify the situation. The woman drinks too much and accepts his advances. The next morning she wakes up and regrets going to bed with a clown. Or perhaps he “over-promised and under-delivered.”
So what is to be done about it now? I would say the stereotypical Russian attitude is that she should have just said “No.” But the stereotypical American attitude is the opposite. If she did not say “Yes” (preferably in writing), then he committed unlawful sex, rape.
Now let’s apply this idea of tolerance and consent in a third context, being gay. A few days ago a young European guy on Facebook directly accused me of “enjoying the suffering of others” because I live in Russia and it is illegal to be gay in Russia. I told him it is not illegal to be gay in Russia and no one cares if you are gay. He just didn’t believe me and there was no arguing with him.
This is because as a westerner, he has an entirely different idea of tolerance and consent than Russians do.
If you are gay in Russia, your neighbors will probably know that you are gay, or at least some of them. At the very least the old women who sit on the park benches will notice you bringing various young men back to your apartment and gossip about it. Your neighbors, even very homophobic ones, are unlikely to say anything and they certainly won’t beat you. What are they really supposed to do? Tell you to not be gay? Loud music at night affects your neighbors, but bringing young women (or men) to your apartment is your business, not theirs.
This is just not a western attitude. Back in the era of sodomy laws, it wasn’t enough to just keep your homosexuality to yourself. Remember the concept of positive affirmation of consent. It was necessary to actively pretend to be straight. Gay men who failed to prove that they were straight, like Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing, were criminally prosecuted with Draconian penalties.
When homosexuality was legalized, of course, western ideas still prevailed. After all you can’t just tolerate Big Brother. You have to love him. At first, it became legally mandated to tolerate gay people. You can’t fire them or deny them housing. Okay, fine. But now you must love gay people.
I lived for around six years in a quiet Iowa town and it was amazing to see how the LGBT movement transformed it. The LGBT movement started with the young and college age kids. There’s not much to do there except drink and do drugs, so the LGBT movement was a great way for people in their teens and 20s to feel special and empowered. Then I think around 2017–18 it started getting really aggressive. If a local business owner or employee was insufficiently enthusiastic about LGBT, he had to be canceled.
During a pride parade, a local guy who owned a popular sports bar made some derogatory comments about this event happening right on his doorstep. Unfortunately he was recorded on a cop’s bodycam making these comments, which was leaked to the internet and started a scandal. Even to this day, many years later, I still see people in the LGBT movement on Facebook trying to get his bar closed down by mass-reporting it for health and safety violations. It was not enough for this guy just to tolerate gay people and let them into his bar. He had to actively pretend to love them. It is in principle no different than forcing Oscar Wilde to pretend to be straight.
Consider the football player Mohamed Kamara from French Monaco who covered LGBT symbols on his uniform last May and received a four-game suspension for it. As I said, it is not enough to just tolerate the LGBT movement, everyone under a western regime is forced to actively participate in it.
Ian Kummer
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Off comment, but I do rather miss the occasional comments of your girl. She’s a bright one. Are you still treating her like a princess? None of my business, but i wish you both well.
Yes I passed it on to her. Maybe she will write some more soon 😀
Hi there, he doesn’t address me as Your Royal Highnesses, but he is being nice)).
Thank you both for accepting my rather rash intrusion into your lives in the spirit that was intended. May God grant you health and happiness! Bill
I second Bill’s wishes.