We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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I like Vivek Ramaswamy. He says a lot of things that need to be said. But on Ukraine he is absolutely clueless. Actually, it’s a bit worse than that; he has negative knowledge. Denys Davydov explains:
Update Well, I did try to get it to start at the good bit but without success. The fun starts at ≈ 14:27.
Many opposition parties have been banned, independent media has been closed down, and a religious denomination is being banned, and the election seem to have been cancelled. The dispute is on the interpretation of these facts – Vivek seems to be believe that all this was done out of wickedness, whereas I believe it was done because of the war and that President Z. would NOT have done these things without Mr Putin’s attack.
This does NOT mean that I support all the decisions President Z. has made (still less his praise for despicable people such as Justin Trudeau), but President Z. and Ukraine in general, is under terrible pressure from Mr Putin’s invasion – Vivek is not showing basic empathy. He does not seem to understand that tens of thousands of people have been killed by Mr Putin’s invasion.
I repeat – none of the above should be taken to mean that I support cancelling the election or any of these other deeds, but one must have some understanding of the terrible position that Ukraine finds itself in, due to the invasion ordered by Mr Putin. If Mr Putin had invaded, these things would not have been done by the Ukrainian government.
At the very least the election must be restored – otherwise it will be very difficult indeed to get further aid passed by Congress.
One can have empathy for the government of Ukraine, one can understand the terrible pressure Mr Putin’s blood soaked invasion has put them under, and still hope (desperately hope) that they change course.
I do NOT think that Vivek is helping in getting the Ukrainian government to change course – as I say above, he speaks as if they are just acting out of wickedness, rather than acting in response to a brutal invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians.
Kirk, I’ve been saying we should select representatives the same way we do jury duty. 1 year terms, once you’ve done your bit. you’re done for life, State reps send Senator nominees to the governor for approval, also one and done, 50 govs select a president and governors are elected but can be reelected.
The UK didn’t hold a general election in either World War. But why would it? The purpose of elections are to resolve disputes. But there is no dispute among Ukrainians. They solidly believe they are doing the right thing and have the right guy to do it.
I think that the moment a nation develops a professional political class, that’s the starting point for its decline.
Politicians are parasites, ones that inevitably kill their hosts. They’re the human version of Cordyceps, taking over a healthy host and then doing whatever it takes to make that host do things against its own interest that will enrich and benefit the politicians alone.
There ain’t no “selfless service” in politics. No matter who, no matter where, no matter what ideology. I think we ought to be identifying the kids prone to these things in school, and then quietly euthanize or pith them. We’d all be better off…
There used to be, and probably still is, a high-school age organization called “Future Business Leaders of America”. Three of the ten or so members of that organization when I was in high school that were in my class year have been indicted for significant business fraud. They were all of a type, on the “make” for themselves…
I think you can identify the personality types attracted to those positions quite easily, and none of them are trustworthy enough to put into them. You’ll run into them everywhere, the coldly calculating types who look at every situation and say “What’s in it for me…?”, and “How does this benefit me/my career…”
You hear that phrase “It will be good for your career…”, you know two things: One, the person telling you that isn’t someone you should take advice from, and two, they’re probably lying to you, wanting you to do a particularly dirty job they themselves don’t want a part of. You hear someone talking about their almighty and sacred “career”? Get the hell away from them, and cut them out of your life, because the moment it would be “good for their career” to screw you over…? They’ll do it. Without hesitation.
The primary issue in the West right now is that our system for identifying and developing leadership elites is profoundly flawed and totally dysfunctional. The people we have elevated to high positions of authority and influence are all like Joe Biden and his nefarious Krime Krewe: Out for themselves, and screw the rest of us. You can bet money that the sole reason the Iranian deal has gone on for as long as it has is due to money exchanging hands, making the politicians wealthy while the rest of us suffer the side-effects. October 7th was just part of the cost for Joe Biden’s latest real estate acquisition…
I can’t think of a single instance in history where this crap has been so prevalent and so transparent. Saddam’s “Oil-for-Food” deal, with the UN and European governments? How much more “in-your-face” does that crap need to be? And, the spectacle of Chirac, the former number-one arms salesman for France, denying that there was basis for invading Iraq? Dude had to have known, judging from the number of papers we found with post-sanction dates whose origins were France… Much of the opposition to the invasion of Iraq stemmed from one thing, and one thing only: It disrupted all the sweet, sweet bribe money coming in, and cost them sales. Plus, the Americans might be so crass as to broadcast that crap to their electorates, causing untold mayhem.
Professional politicians are a plague upon all of us, and we’d do well to simply euthanize the lot of them. Honestly can’t see how we could do worse; I suspect you could hand most functions they fill over to your average special education student and they’d do a better job of it, just by random chance alone.
At the very least the election must be restored – otherwise it will be very difficult indeed to get further aid passed by Congress.
I suppose it depends what the aid is for, and how much of it is boomerang money.
The United States held Federal elections in November 1942, whereas the UK did not even ‘honour the breach’ by having uncontested nominal elections in 1940 or even in 1944 when the danger of invasion had passed.
If I remember what I read about it, the Ukrainian constitution does not have provision for elections during wartime.
Given the amount of Russian interference that would likely take place were Zelensky to call for an election, I don’t think it would work out very well. It’d be about like changing horses, mid-stream.
Vivek is further evidence, if any were needed, of the damage that the American upper-middle class diet can do to the brain.
Ukraine is not a paragon of democracy: says somebody from a country which disgraces itself every 2 years by holding farcical elections.
(WRT banning parties: unfortunately Denys makes statements that i have to take on trust. But i sure trust him more than Vivek, just because of how clueless Vivek looks.)
Vivek shows himself particularly clueless wrt the Orthodox Church, but Denys would know much better than me about that.
Speaking as though he knows what he is talking about, does not help Vivek.
Brendan Westbridge – there were two reasons why, in spite of their shared history over the centuries, Ukraine was superior to Russia under Mr Putin.
“Your elections [Mr Putin’s elections] are rigged – our elections are REAL”.
If the elections really are cancelled then this collapses – as Russian media will be able to reply “what elections?”
And the other boast was “Putin has destroyed all the opposition radio and television stations in Russia – he has taken them over, in Ukraine there are radio and television stations which are opposed to the government”.
That was TRUE – but the word is “was” – one of many unintentionally funny parts of the YouTube film was the clam that there was still Freedom of Speech – there is not one opposition radio or television station left. You do not defeat Mr Putin by COPYING him.
For the elections to be real there must be pro and ANTI President Z. radio and television stations.
Otherwise it is a copy of Putin’s policy – there were opposition radio and television stations in Russia, Mr Putin took them over. Stop COPYING him.
As for the desperate fight for Ukrainian independence – for which so many have died.
Do not betray the dead by selling out Ukrainian independence. Either Ukraine is an independent nation or it is not.
The facts are not in dispute – either about the banned political parties or the banned Church, or anything else.
And pretending that Vivek is “brain damaged” because of his “diet” (presumably an attack on him being a Hindu – although the actual words are “upper class American diet” which makes no sense as only a tiny proportion of the American “upper class” are Hindu) does not change the facts.
The government of Ukraine must stop copying Mr Putin – who did all these things (including religious persecution) before Ukraine did.
And, of course, the Ukrainian government must clearly stand for Ukrainian independence.
To take the position of “we do not want to be ruled from Moscow – we want to be ruled from some other foreign city” is no good.
Decisions in Ukraine, for example over whether to have a “lockdown” or not (Russia had one – Belarus did not), must be made in the capital of Ukraine by the democratic decision of the Ukrainian people – with radio and television stations on both sides of the key matters of policy. There must be no more of this idea of becoming a province of the European Union, or slaves of the World Health Organisation (which is led by an Ethiopian Marxist – put in place by the People’s Republic of China), Ukraine must be an independent nation – or the war is pointless, and all those men died for nothing.
What has happened in Ukraine is a reaction to the brutal invasion of Mr Putin which has killed tens of thousands of people – THIS is where Vivek makes his error, not in his description of what has happened in Ukraine, but in his failure to clearly say WHY it has happened.
Obviously the Ukrainian government must change course – opposition political parties, radio and television stations, and churches, must be restored, and free and fair elections must be held, but the person who led Ukraine down this dark path was Mr PUTIN – by his invasion that killed tens of thousands of people.
Yes the Ukrainian government has done some very bad things, I do not deny it, and, yes, it must change course (and change course NOW), but all of this must be seen in the context of the brutal invasion by Mr Putin which killed tens of thousands of people.
First Mr Putin undermined liberty in Russia – his taking over of opposition media, his religious persecution, and-so-on, now his invasion (his brutal invasion) has led to the same things in Ukraine – this is his dark victory, and it must be reversed.
Mr. Ed,
By all means correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that the US continued it’s two party system during WW II but the UK did not, it formed a coalition government of both paries. Elections were therefore irrelevant.
Yes, you have it right, that is what had happened. The US had a constitutional requirement to hold elections and it continued to do so in wartime. Even in 1864 Lincoln went through a Presidential election, the finer details of what happened in the Union States for Congressional elections in 1862 and 1864 is beyond my ken.
In the UK, there was a coalition or unity government in WW2 and to be fair the circumstances for 1940 were extreme. However, it would have been possible to have held an election on the basis that the incumbent was not opposed by the pre-war opposition if only to show that they were honouring the breach and acknowledging it by holding an election, and even allowing independents to stand. I think the practical effect of WW2 was a Labour take-over of the country in all-but-name as the bureaucracy ran the country in minute detail, not unlike the UK in 2020 to the present day.
Mr Ed,
Thank you for your reply. Both of my parents were teenagers in London during the blitz. As a youngster they showed me where the anti-aircraft guns were placed, what happened when the house opposite was hit and what doodle bugs sounded like. I don’t think I would have been much interested in listening to political bickering while the bombs were dropping, so I tend to think the government did the right thing.
Your last sentence resonated with me. I’ve often thought that Britain had a socialist revolution but no one noticed because there was a war on at the time. Had the socialist takeover happened between the wars I think history would remember it differently.
What would the election be like? If you live in Donetsk or Lugansk or Crimea you don’t get a vote. If you are one of the evacuated families living in Poland or Germany or the UK, you won’t get a vote. And of course the campaigning conditions in wartime make a fair election difficult.
A historical precedent of the US holding elections in 1942 while US citizens of Japanese heritage were locked up but the US was uninvaded and unoccupied is not really comparable. The Ukraine election is a fake issue made up by appeasers seeking a pretext.
RLJ: It was Parliament that postponed elections “for the duration”, not the government. None of the electoral legislation allows the Government that power. I remember that in the middle of Foot&Mouth and Covid that special legislation had to be passed to postpone various elections.
The UK did not have a General election between 1935 and 1945. One was due in 1940 but was cancelled due to WW2 so the UK is on a very sticky wicket calling for Ukraine to hold one in a time of war.
As for Vivek, he’s a Putin appeaser and appears to have made his money in a very dodgy manner.
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Of course he’s an idiot. He’s an American politician.
The entire class he belongs to should be banned from public office. We’d do better selecting our leadership by lottery…
There is no dispute on the basic facts.
Many opposition parties have been banned, independent media has been closed down, and a religious denomination is being banned, and the election seem to have been cancelled. The dispute is on the interpretation of these facts – Vivek seems to be believe that all this was done out of wickedness, whereas I believe it was done because of the war and that President Z. would NOT have done these things without Mr Putin’s attack.
This does NOT mean that I support all the decisions President Z. has made (still less his praise for despicable people such as Justin Trudeau), but President Z. and Ukraine in general, is under terrible pressure from Mr Putin’s invasion – Vivek is not showing basic empathy. He does not seem to understand that tens of thousands of people have been killed by Mr Putin’s invasion.
I repeat – none of the above should be taken to mean that I support cancelling the election or any of these other deeds, but one must have some understanding of the terrible position that Ukraine finds itself in, due to the invasion ordered by Mr Putin. If Mr Putin had invaded, these things would not have been done by the Ukrainian government.
At the very least the election must be restored – otherwise it will be very difficult indeed to get further aid passed by Congress.
One can have empathy for the government of Ukraine, one can understand the terrible pressure Mr Putin’s blood soaked invasion has put them under, and still hope (desperately hope) that they change course.
I do NOT think that Vivek is helping in getting the Ukrainian government to change course – as I say above, he speaks as if they are just acting out of wickedness, rather than acting in response to a brutal invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians.
Kirk, I’ve been saying we should select representatives the same way we do jury duty. 1 year terms, once you’ve done your bit. you’re done for life, State reps send Senator nominees to the governor for approval, also one and done, 50 govs select a president and governors are elected but can be reelected.
It’s not like it’ll get any worse than it is now.
The UK didn’t hold a general election in either World War. But why would it? The purpose of elections are to resolve disputes. But there is no dispute among Ukrainians. They solidly believe they are doing the right thing and have the right guy to do it.
@Steven R,
I think that the moment a nation develops a professional political class, that’s the starting point for its decline.
Politicians are parasites, ones that inevitably kill their hosts. They’re the human version of Cordyceps, taking over a healthy host and then doing whatever it takes to make that host do things against its own interest that will enrich and benefit the politicians alone.
There ain’t no “selfless service” in politics. No matter who, no matter where, no matter what ideology. I think we ought to be identifying the kids prone to these things in school, and then quietly euthanize or pith them. We’d all be better off…
There used to be, and probably still is, a high-school age organization called “Future Business Leaders of America”. Three of the ten or so members of that organization when I was in high school that were in my class year have been indicted for significant business fraud. They were all of a type, on the “make” for themselves…
I think you can identify the personality types attracted to those positions quite easily, and none of them are trustworthy enough to put into them. You’ll run into them everywhere, the coldly calculating types who look at every situation and say “What’s in it for me…?”, and “How does this benefit me/my career…”
You hear that phrase “It will be good for your career…”, you know two things: One, the person telling you that isn’t someone you should take advice from, and two, they’re probably lying to you, wanting you to do a particularly dirty job they themselves don’t want a part of. You hear someone talking about their almighty and sacred “career”? Get the hell away from them, and cut them out of your life, because the moment it would be “good for their career” to screw you over…? They’ll do it. Without hesitation.
The primary issue in the West right now is that our system for identifying and developing leadership elites is profoundly flawed and totally dysfunctional. The people we have elevated to high positions of authority and influence are all like Joe Biden and his nefarious Krime Krewe: Out for themselves, and screw the rest of us. You can bet money that the sole reason the Iranian deal has gone on for as long as it has is due to money exchanging hands, making the politicians wealthy while the rest of us suffer the side-effects. October 7th was just part of the cost for Joe Biden’s latest real estate acquisition…
I can’t think of a single instance in history where this crap has been so prevalent and so transparent. Saddam’s “Oil-for-Food” deal, with the UN and European governments? How much more “in-your-face” does that crap need to be? And, the spectacle of Chirac, the former number-one arms salesman for France, denying that there was basis for invading Iraq? Dude had to have known, judging from the number of papers we found with post-sanction dates whose origins were France… Much of the opposition to the invasion of Iraq stemmed from one thing, and one thing only: It disrupted all the sweet, sweet bribe money coming in, and cost them sales. Plus, the Americans might be so crass as to broadcast that crap to their electorates, causing untold mayhem.
Professional politicians are a plague upon all of us, and we’d do well to simply euthanize the lot of them. Honestly can’t see how we could do worse; I suspect you could hand most functions they fill over to your average special education student and they’d do a better job of it, just by random chance alone.
I suppose it depends what the aid is for, and how much of it is boomerang money.
The United States held Federal elections in November 1942, whereas the UK did not even ‘honour the breach’ by having uncontested nominal elections in 1940 or even in 1944 when the danger of invasion had passed.
If I remember what I read about it, the Ukrainian constitution does not have provision for elections during wartime.
Given the amount of Russian interference that would likely take place were Zelensky to call for an election, I don’t think it would work out very well. It’d be about like changing horses, mid-stream.
Vivek is further evidence, if any were needed, of the damage that the American upper-middle class diet can do to the brain.
Ukraine is not a paragon of democracy: says somebody from a country which disgraces itself every 2 years by holding farcical elections.
(WRT banning parties: unfortunately Denys makes statements that i have to take on trust. But i sure trust him more than Vivek, just because of how clueless Vivek looks.)
Vivek shows himself particularly clueless wrt the Orthodox Church, but Denys would know much better than me about that.
Speaking as though he knows what he is talking about, does not help Vivek.
Brendan Westbridge – there were two reasons why, in spite of their shared history over the centuries, Ukraine was superior to Russia under Mr Putin.
“Your elections [Mr Putin’s elections] are rigged – our elections are REAL”.
If the elections really are cancelled then this collapses – as Russian media will be able to reply “what elections?”
And the other boast was “Putin has destroyed all the opposition radio and television stations in Russia – he has taken them over, in Ukraine there are radio and television stations which are opposed to the government”.
That was TRUE – but the word is “was” – one of many unintentionally funny parts of the YouTube film was the clam that there was still Freedom of Speech – there is not one opposition radio or television station left. You do not defeat Mr Putin by COPYING him.
For the elections to be real there must be pro and ANTI President Z. radio and television stations.
Otherwise it is a copy of Putin’s policy – there were opposition radio and television stations in Russia, Mr Putin took them over. Stop COPYING him.
As for the desperate fight for Ukrainian independence – for which so many have died.
Do not betray the dead by selling out Ukrainian independence. Either Ukraine is an independent nation or it is not.
The facts are not in dispute – either about the banned political parties or the banned Church, or anything else.
And pretending that Vivek is “brain damaged” because of his “diet” (presumably an attack on him being a Hindu – although the actual words are “upper class American diet” which makes no sense as only a tiny proportion of the American “upper class” are Hindu) does not change the facts.
The government of Ukraine must stop copying Mr Putin – who did all these things (including religious persecution) before Ukraine did.
And, of course, the Ukrainian government must clearly stand for Ukrainian independence.
To take the position of “we do not want to be ruled from Moscow – we want to be ruled from some other foreign city” is no good.
Decisions in Ukraine, for example over whether to have a “lockdown” or not (Russia had one – Belarus did not), must be made in the capital of Ukraine by the democratic decision of the Ukrainian people – with radio and television stations on both sides of the key matters of policy. There must be no more of this idea of becoming a province of the European Union, or slaves of the World Health Organisation (which is led by an Ethiopian Marxist – put in place by the People’s Republic of China), Ukraine must be an independent nation – or the war is pointless, and all those men died for nothing.
What has happened in Ukraine is a reaction to the brutal invasion of Mr Putin which has killed tens of thousands of people – THIS is where Vivek makes his error, not in his description of what has happened in Ukraine, but in his failure to clearly say WHY it has happened.
Obviously the Ukrainian government must change course – opposition political parties, radio and television stations, and churches, must be restored, and free and fair elections must be held, but the person who led Ukraine down this dark path was Mr PUTIN – by his invasion that killed tens of thousands of people.
Yes the Ukrainian government has done some very bad things, I do not deny it, and, yes, it must change course (and change course NOW), but all of this must be seen in the context of the brutal invasion by Mr Putin which killed tens of thousands of people.
First Mr Putin undermined liberty in Russia – his taking over of opposition media, his religious persecution, and-so-on, now his invasion (his brutal invasion) has led to the same things in Ukraine – this is his dark victory, and it must be reversed.
Mr. Ed,
By all means correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that the US continued it’s two party system during WW II but the UK did not, it formed a coalition government of both paries. Elections were therefore irrelevant.
The US is English speaking.
Does that make them loyal Englishmen?
Vivek is an appeaser. Nuff said.
I don’t think it matters.
That Zelensky did this is what matters – not why.
If it’s possible to do these things because ‘its a time of war’ then it’s possible to do them in a lesser emergency. Or no emergency at all.
The US has fought against the tendency to excuse rights violations ‘because its an emergency’ because we understand that.
The people of Ukraine are fighting this war, not Zelensky, and they deserve to have a voice – both *about it* and in who is running the defense.
Then there’s no reason to *not* have the election.
Indeed, such widespread support would bolster Zelensky on the world stage.
Elections are only irrelevant if you believe it’s the politicians that have the say, not the electorate.
Roué,
Yes, you have it right, that is what had happened. The US had a constitutional requirement to hold elections and it continued to do so in wartime. Even in 1864 Lincoln went through a Presidential election, the finer details of what happened in the Union States for Congressional elections in 1862 and 1864 is beyond my ken.
In the UK, there was a coalition or unity government in WW2 and to be fair the circumstances for 1940 were extreme. However, it would have been possible to have held an election on the basis that the incumbent was not opposed by the pre-war opposition if only to show that they were honouring the breach and acknowledging it by holding an election, and even allowing independents to stand. I think the practical effect of WW2 was a Labour take-over of the country in all-but-name as the bureaucracy ran the country in minute detail, not unlike the UK in 2020 to the present day.
Mr Ed,
Thank you for your reply. Both of my parents were teenagers in London during the blitz. As a youngster they showed me where the anti-aircraft guns were placed, what happened when the house opposite was hit and what doodle bugs sounded like. I don’t think I would have been much interested in listening to political bickering while the bombs were dropping, so I tend to think the government did the right thing.
Your last sentence resonated with me. I’ve often thought that Britain had a socialist revolution but no one noticed because there was a war on at the time. Had the socialist takeover happened between the wars I think history would remember it differently.
What would the election be like? If you live in Donetsk or Lugansk or Crimea you don’t get a vote. If you are one of the evacuated families living in Poland or Germany or the UK, you won’t get a vote. And of course the campaigning conditions in wartime make a fair election difficult.
A historical precedent of the US holding elections in 1942 while US citizens of Japanese heritage were locked up but the US was uninvaded and unoccupied is not really comparable. The Ukraine election is a fake issue made up by appeasers seeking a pretext.
RLJ: It was Parliament that postponed elections “for the duration”, not the government. None of the electoral legislation allows the Government that power. I remember that in the middle of Foot&Mouth and Covid that special legislation had to be passed to postpone various elections.
The UK did not have a General election between 1935 and 1945. One was due in 1940 but was cancelled due to WW2 so the UK is on a very sticky wicket calling for Ukraine to hold one in a time of war.
As for Vivek, he’s a Putin appeaser and appears to have made his money in a very dodgy manner.