On a serious note, libertarians who are reluctant to criticize Putin puzzle me. So much for your passion for liberty.
You need to learn more about the deep state.Originally Posted by DanJ
"He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
"dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
"You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
"When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q
"Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul
"Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."
Because that's the key to understanding Putin? $#@! logic right.
If he gave me half the gold he stole I would pretend to like him . Otherwise , pretty much like all the other KGB . I am not going out for dinner and drinks with any of them but I will send Danke .
Do something Danke
He gets paid less than $200,000 a year yet has somehow amassed an estimated fortune of some $200 billion. He has some nice friends.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/ar...th-report-says
The Richest Man in the World Could Be Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has amassed a massive fortune, potentially the largest in the world.
International Business Times pointed out on Wednesday that Putin's fortune could be as much as $200 billion.
But Putin has been snubbed from official world's richest lists in the past, such as Forbes.
"We value individuals' assets–including stakes in public and private companies, real estate, yachts, art and cash–and take into account estimates of debt. We also consult an array of outside experts in various fields," Forbes wrote in 2015, but noted that some individuals "cooperate" while "others don't," and added that the magazine excludes "dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power."
Forbes did not stipulate that was the reason for his omission, however.
Time Magazine reported similarly in January, citing estimates from $40 billion to $70 billion.
"I believe that it's $200 billion," Bill Browder, author and a former fund manager in Russia, told CNN.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference announcing Alexander Acosta as the new Labor Secretary nominee in the East Room at the White House on Feb. 16, 2017, in Washington, D.C. The announcement comes a day after Andrew Puzder withdrew his nomination.
"After 14 years in power of Russia, and the amount of money that the country has made, and the amount of money that hasn't been spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on, all that money is in property, bank--Swiss bank accounts--shares, hedge funds, managed for Putin and his cronies," he added
I was thinking about the 93 million in gold he took while working in the St Petersburg Mayors office that was to be used to buy food with back in '92 . That too was stashed outside the country.
Do something Danke
US foreign policy is bad, therefore anyone who opposes it must be good - that's the source of the misplaced Putin love.
The reality is that both sides are more or less equally bad.
You two with your giraffe avatars always confuse the hell outta me.
Same for the Snowden avatars.
Used to think it was one guy who'd finally just snapped and started having arguments with himself on a message board.
Then I realized it was more than one guy with a Snowden avatar.
There is also the "Putin's boot isn't the one on my neck" factor.
I don't dislike Putin nearly as much as I would if I lived in Russia ...
Where is all this money that Putin has, and how do they know he has it?
Somewhat unfavorable, but war with Russia is very unfavorable.
Well civilians in Syria who are killed by Russian forces seem to be of less interest for many libertarians than civilians who are killed by US forces. Makes no sense.
Russian forces aren't operating with our tax dollars or in the name of defending our liberty. It's not really very complicated. I don't think anyone here is under the delusion that Putin is a good guy.
"The Patriarch"
Hope not.
"The Patriarch"
Putin is the greatest leader on Earth.
If he chooses to deescalate from last nights fiasco you may be right....
Way I see it that ol' Russian bear just got poked in the eye.
But it does make sense - precisely because of the "Putin's boot isn't the one one my neck" factor that I mentioned.Well civilians in Syria who are killed by Russian forces seem to be of less interest for many libertarians than civilians who are killed by US forces. Makes no sense.
Putin is a statist goon. But we've got our own home-grown statist goons to worry about, like John McCain, etc.
There might not be much we can about the latter, but there is even less we can do about the former.
IOW: The boots of McCain & Co. are more proximate to our necks than Putin's are. So naturally, Putin's depredations are of less interest to us.
That is (one of the reasons) why our home-grown goons tend to catch a lot more flak from us than Putin does.
Like Origanalist said:
And then there's the fact that the US is pretty much the premier bully of the world. Russia, China, etc. do not engage in forcible interventions in other countries nearly as often as the US does, or on anything like the same scale. Thus, as a simple matter of quantity and scope of aggression, the statist goons in the US are a more deserving target of criticism than the statist goons in Russia, China, etc. (at least on the issue of foreign intervention).
I'd be willing to bet that if you took some kind of global survey, you'd find that there is more anti-US sentiment around the world than there is anti-Russia or anti-China sentiment - and not just among libertarians, but among everyone in general.
Last edited by Occam's Banana; 04-07-2017 at 01:05 PM.
The Bastiat Collection · FREE PDF · FREE EPUB · PAPER Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850)
- "When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law."
-- The Law (p. 54)- "Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
-- Government (p. 99)- "[W]ar is always begun in the interest of the few, and at the expense of the many."
-- Economic Sophisms - Second Series (p. 312)- "There are two principles that can never be reconciled - Liberty and Constraint."
-- Harmonies of Political Economy - Book One (p. 447)· tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito ·
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