Russia: Bear Trap Alliance?

newsmax.com ^ | Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2001 | Steve Montgomery & Steve Farrell

[lavaroise]

Note what Toqueville said, it is timeless. It is time America started to focus on the values of Lincoln.

[wjeanw]

Values of Lincoln? You mean the ones that caused him to dissolve by force the duly elected legislature of Maryland and took away the civil liberties of hundreds of citizens? Or how about the ones that set up military courts in place of civilian ones? No thank you!

[lavaroise]

Values of Lincoln? You mean the ones that caused him to dissolve by force the duly elected legislature of Maryland and took away the civil liberties of hundreds of citizens? Or how about the ones that set up military courts in place of civilian ones? No thank you!

He gave our liberties back after the war. It's people like that who are on peace and civil liberties welfare who end up inviting terrorists and separatists on US soil, because they are too damn lazy to raise a finger to secure the nation.

Sure, sending a few boys out there to get whacked is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to give up a little liberty to conduct a fight like Lincoln requested, the lazy welfare addicted Americans come whining like a bunch of trailer park trash under the guise of peace marches, libertarianism, liberals, democrats, or even college future wall streeters of the 60s who don't want to be drafted.

You are all a bunch of selfish welfare addicted leftists.

Give me Liberty give me death.

[wildandcrazyrussian]

I hadn't realized that de Tocqueville had written about Russia, but if the above excerpt is representative, it sounds like his countryman Custine, who wrote another hit piece on Russia in the mid 1800's. I guess you couldn't expect writers from post-Revolutionary France to be interested in the fact that Russia was the LARGEST CHRISTIAN EMPIRE IN THE WORLD, with free settlements and churches stretching thousands of miles to the Pacific Ocean and beyond (counting Alaska). The item about America expanding by the ploughshare and Russia by the sword totally ignores that the long history of expansion was very similar in both cases (considering the native popoulation density was very slight both in the Great Plains and in Siberia). Note that the Russian Empire didn't push the natives of Siberia (Ostyaks, Buryats, Komi, etc) onto small undesireable reservations as was done here. They just stayed where they were and paid tribute (as they had paid tribute to some previous empire in most cases).

This is just to say that if the NewsMax article bases its premise on such a misleading quote, we can be justified in mistrusting the entirety of their analysis.

[meenie]

The main thrust of this article, to me, is the danger of having an overly centralized system of government. There is nothing that encourages misconduct more than a bureacracy that gets so far from the citizens it is supposed to serve, that it becomes untouchable.

[Straight Vermonter]

Note that the Russian Empire didn't push the natives of Siberia (Ostyaks, Buryats, Komi, etc) onto small undesireable reservations as was done here.

It has to be remembered that Siberia was, for the most part, not settled by Russians so there would be no need to push the native peoples off their lands, as was done in this country. Not to excuse what Americans did, just not to give the Russians undue credit.

[Don Myers]

bttt

[lavaroise]

This is just to say that if the NewsMax article bases its premise on such a misleading quote, we can be justified in mistrusting the entirety of their analysis.

All analysises, ever so thorough, are based on axiomatic premises that cannot be proven. The key is to be open minded and be ready to scrap the analysis in case the axioms and assumptions were wrong.

[Stavka2]

Lets not forget a few other things about Lincoln. He did not free the slaves. He freed the slaves in the rebel territories, which were a recognized independent nation. Those slaves in territories under Union control, to include Maryland and eastern NC were still slaves. Jefferson Davis freed the slaves. And lets not forget about releasing Sherman and his little walk about the south. As for freedoms, modern day post-communist Russia is freer in many ways then modern day Politically Correct transitional to authoriatrian rule America.

[Stavka2]

Yes it's always so great to give up those liberties...they'll give them back to you, sure will, after 70 years of Communism. Only a fool surrenders any liberty...or didn't you know what your own founding father Benjamin Franklin said: "Those who give up liberty for security will have neither."

[Stavka2]

No one wants to mention that after 1861 all serfs were freed and that by 1914 almost all farmers were free farmers and owned their own land, thanks to the genius Stalipen, why the communists assassinated him. Even in death he crossed himself with his last strength. Newsmax is a sensationalist, anti Russian garbage that writes half truths at best. ie: Ebola break out in Afghanistan. Crap reporting by a bunch of tin hat psychos.

A few things about Custine. He was such a flaming homosexual that he was ousted out of French society. The reasons for his travels and sensationalist writings was to keep himself off the street begging. In his racist garbage book, while still in Germany and not yet in Russia, he already starts talking about Russians as Chinese in disguise, about how rude and crude everything is. This before even seeing a square meter of Russia. The best part, and from a French man, is about how bad Russians stink. Funny, we bath every day, have banyas and public baths everywhere and the Frogs just invent perfume.

As for libery, the French should know all about that, they invented the liberty of wiping out whole classes of peoples, the Terror.

[Stavka2]

Russians didn't slaughter the mongols or other asians either after we conquered them. Even Yeltsin was part Asian. If we are so horrible like the usual Newsmax caltrap preachs, then why are almost all Indians in Alaska still Orthodox and many still speak Russian? And that's from personal experience of dealing with several Inuets and listening to their stories.

[MarMema]

Just say YES to Russia. A magnificent country and people.

[wildandcrazyrussian]

Funny, we bath every day, have banyas and public baths everywhere and the Frogs just invent perfume.
**********
You're great! I'm going to use that one! Also thanks for contributing to my comments.

[jimt]

Sure, sending a few boys out there to get whacked is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to give up a little liberty to conduct a fight like Lincoln requested, the lazy welfare addicted Americans come whining like a bunch of trailer park trash under the guise of peace marches, libertarianism, liberals, democrats, or even college future wall streeters of the 60s who don't want to be drafted.

You are all a bunch of selfish welfare addicted leftists.

Give me Liberty give me death.

Funny, seems to me our Russian friends on this thread seem to understand the concept of liberty much better than you do. Lincoln was hardly a hero from the viewpoint of "liberty". From the viewpoint of federal power, sure, but not from that of liberty.

[Straight Vermonter]

If we are so horrible like the usual Newsmax caltrap preachs, then why are almost all Indians in Alaska still Orthodox and many still speak Russian?

Did I say you were horrible? I don't think so. I merely pointed out that the experience in Siberia differs from that in the American plains.

[The_Reader_David]

I am unsure whether the current "the Russians are coming" brigades are just so nostalgic for the Cold War that they can't understand that we won, or whether they suffer from a slavophobia not based on anti-communism. After all Eastern Orthodoxy, which is now again a major social force in Russia as it was in the days when "Holy Russia" would have been near to the truth, is deeply troubling to a lot of Westerners: its existence and history provide evidence against the Roman Catholics' claim to be the original Church, against the protestant's claim to have fixed the Church, and against most freethinkers anti-Christian talking points, which are directed against abuses by the Roman Catholics and the Western European wars of religion.