> I'd also encourage you to consider separating your concerns about the Russian government and individuals living in Russia, just as you might other governments and their citizenry.
That's a big ask, because the Russian government's relationship with its citizenry is very different from the relationship of a free country's government with its citizens. Namely, I am confident that there is substantially zero risk that my country might compel me through extra-legal channels to modify my work product to target a foreign adversary. If they did, I would have many avenues to resist them, including the courts and the free press. But we know that this is not the case in Russia, being that they have neither rule of law nor a truly independent media. And we know that the head of that country is at best a violent and evil man, and so is an entity to be feared by those whose interests are misaligned with his.
So, as much as we might want to, it's not quite possible to separate the risks imposed by the Russian government from individual Russian people.
> And we know that the head of that country is at best a violent and evil man, and so is an entity to be feared by those whose interests are misaligned with his.
I’m not quite sure which country you were talking about?
While I agree with your general point, it just occurred to me that that could be applied to both leaders. It’s the country and the structure of that country that is different (e.g. leaders will change, vs not).
I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but he has not annexed any provinces of Canada or Mexico, nor has he ordered the assassination of journalists or opposition party members. Maybe he would in a different timeline, where the U.S.'s rule of law was as frail as Russia's is. Maybe, although I happen to believe he is not quite that bad. Fortunately we don't live in that timeline, in any case. How evil the guy at the top is matters more to the degree his acts are unconstrained by the rest of the system.
Whataboutism. And, yeah, that was super bad. So, for that matter, was the whole colonial era. But none of those guys are still the leaders of nuclear-capable nation states, so they're a little less relevant than Putin to our prospects going forward.
> are not proven beyond reasonable doubt.
This is not a court of law. My standard for "observing events as likely true on internet comment threads" falls somewhere below "beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt" and somewhere above "preponderance of evidence." But I'd say for these cases we're way closer to the former than the latter.
> Wikipedia link.
On the other hand, Russian nationalists and apologists of Russian politics are sometimes criticised for using allegations of "Russophobia" as a form of propaganda to counter criticism of Russia.[14][15]
The argument here is that USA cannot claim moral high ground when USA is actively committing the same act. Blindly claiming whataboutism without even attempting to refute this argument and is, therefore, a form of intellectual dishonesty.
> This is not a court of law, so that's kind of irrelevant.
It is important to make reasonable arguments in defense of your claims even outside courts of law.
> On the other hand, Russian nationalists and apologists of Russian politics are sometimes criticised for using allegations of "Russophobia" as a form of propaganda to counter criticism of Russia.
This is neither here nor there. This whole argument is inconclusive.
That's a big ask, because the Russian government's relationship with its citizenry is very different from the relationship of a free country's government with its citizens. Namely, I am confident that there is substantially zero risk that my country might compel me through extra-legal channels to modify my work product to target a foreign adversary. If they did, I would have many avenues to resist them, including the courts and the free press. But we know that this is not the case in Russia, being that they have neither rule of law nor a truly independent media. And we know that the head of that country is at best a violent and evil man, and so is an entity to be feared by those whose interests are misaligned with his.
So, as much as we might want to, it's not quite possible to separate the risks imposed by the Russian government from individual Russian people.