Free Republic

A Kingdom and a Village. By Simon Morrison. Knopf; 528 pages; “Do you love Moscow?” Not long after this reviewer moved there in 2004, he was asked that question by his grizzled landlord. A bit early to know, was his cautious response. “Good,” replied the landlord. “Foreigners who say they love it here soon run back to the airport—with no luggage.” Simon Morrison of Princeton University, a devotee of the carnivorous city since the last days of the Soviet Union, is less equivocal. “Moscow is hard to love,” he acknowledges, “but I love it.” His is a love without illusions,...

Old Russia is no more. Current RUssia is doomed. New Russia will emerge. Examples of Russian society disintegrating: Senator Gurilov asserts that: 1. 80% of Russians approve of everything Putin does; 2. The remaining 20% should be exterminated. The monument of Desse Ukrainka, an Ukrainian heroine whose statue is in Moscow, is often gifted with flowers by Russians, whenever there's a strike in Ukraine in which many civilians are killed. The layers of these flowers are routinely arrested. Human rights organizations are being destroyed all over Russia. One politician promises returning refugees from Russia a welcome back to their "wonderful"...

The Russian nation is more dependent on an autocrat and security state than any other European nation, and it has been for centuries — even before the Soviet era — whether it was the streltsy, Preobrazhensky Guard, Okhrana, Cheka, KGB, or siloviki. The wealthy aristocrats, now called oligarchs (previously boyars) never made a serious bid to circumscribe the autocrats’ power, unlike in most European nations; the Russian Orthodox Church has been dependent on the state since at least 1700; and, as for the masses, they have always been viewed as an instrument of the state or a resource to be...

Mark Levin has proposed a series of "Liberty Amendments" to the Constitution through an Article 5 state convention. I have my own set of amendments which I hope to share here and add to the proposed Liberty Amendments. The first involves the resurrection of the city-state. This plan would take our largest cities, governed primarily by socialist Democrats, and separate them out as independent, self-governing, self-funding political units, with no connection to the states, but within the exclusive oversight of the federal government, just as the states are. There is a huge separation in this country right now between the...