Ukrainian society has of course grown increasingly tired of the ongoing conflict, and many would like the war to end. However, they’re not willing to make major concessions to Russia. And when we look at the domestic political leadership, they are heavily constrained by public attitudes and in my view, haven’t done much to shape them.
Plus, many are increasingly looking to future elections, which are likely to follow any ceasefire agreement.
The United States can’t easily force Ukraine or Ukrainian leadership into a deal. And that the amount of leverage that the United States has over Ukraine and over Russia, while probably more significant in the case of Ukraine, nonetheless is grossly insufficient if the question is “Can the United States force Russia and Ukraine into a ceasefire that they themselves do not want or do not want right now?”
Lifting Russian sanctions would depend on European agreement a lot more than it depends on the USA. They’re not likely to go along with a substantial lifting of sanctions. They’re also not likely to go along with any effort to revise Russia’s role in European security. And they will probably make a best effort in order to enable Ukraine, such that Ukraine doesn’t necessarily have to accept a bad deal. Because the reality on the ground is that the overall dynamic in the war hasn’t changed, and I wouldn’t spin it overly positively, the frontline is not about the collapse, and Ukraine is not in some dire position such that it desperately needs a ceasefire right now.
Please tell us, in detail, what makes you think Hall has the possibility of making a NBA club in the future. I have seen nothing that leads me to believe he is even close to it. Can you compare him to a current player in some way? That might help.
I don’t believe there is ANYTHING about his game that translates to NBA club potential.
Putina’s immediate pre-invasion statement. Full of his mistaken views of history, of the then current situation in Ukraine, and of course in the west.
With Ukraine-US treaty, the paranoia implicit in the former KGB officer is nothing but re-emphasized.
I have spoken to many Russians who implicitly agree with this even though they wouldn’t or couldn’t verbalize this.
Even the most anti-Zalinsky persons I have met, including refugees from the Donbas, would not remotely agree with this view of Ukrainian-Russian relations.
Ukraine like Belarussia knows the difference between Russian imperialism and a true democracy.
the latest polls in Ukraine show Zelinsky now running a close second for the next election…not good evidence of his will to dictatorship.
I believe what Churchill said about democracy also applies to capitalism:
‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’
Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
Xi is finally on his way out of power in China, capitalism is about to be unleashed again…thank you DJT, the tricky thing for China will be how they get a massive population from the complete social and economic control of Xi’s nearly Maoist regime, back to the capitalism that Deng/Nixon/Reagan unleashed…that ended so much poverty and brought so much of the wealth that created everyday freedoms that xi has taken.
Then the really big question: can, or will the CCP even want to, follow the rocky path from authoritarian control of the political processes to the freedoms of a true democracy like their erstwhile foes, RoK and RoC.
It took several backsteps, both in Seoul and Taipei, before the last vestiges of the quasi-socialist, (definitely authoritarian), governments gave up their grasps on political control. China with its much larger population and much stronger authoritarian history will have a difficult path forward.
One great advantage that the PRC has is of course that though they have the Russian bear immediately across the border, Russia is not huberous enough to claim the ability to control the government in Beijing the way it openly proclaims the right to control Minsk and Kyiv.
Oh, oh… Jim’s head is going to explode. Capitalism ends poverty and makes wealth and freedom? I agree completely! Not perfect but the best this world has seen to help end extreme poverty and give more freedom. Capitalism and freedom go hand in hand. And Socialism and tyranny go hand in hand.
closely associated certainly…but China, for that matter, RoK and RoC, show that it is possible to have a socialist/communist government and capitalism, while sadly much of the current Eastern Europe show the inverse, which is to say that it is possible to have political freedom and not have much of an economic growth…yes for Eastern Europe they have more political freedom now and more economic growth than under their Soviet overlords. But choice of government leaders and the policy choices they make have massive influences of the connections you just assume exist.
And of course, I don’t know much about South America nor Africa; their ongoing attempts at democracy, or not, and capitalism, or not, undoubtedly reveal yet more tenuous connections than you automatically assume are implicitly and obviously connected.
Notice that I said capitalism and freedom, not democracy. We aren’t a democracy. We are a Republic that votes freely for our leaders. It’s our Constitution that allows for a capitalist economy. We see when the current Democrat Party is in power the size of government power through increased regulations that hurt business startups and growth goes down. We also see attacks on the 1st and 2nd amendments go up substantially. We see more anarchy and immoral behavior in society too.
Now, there are countries that are said to be more capitalist that America like some Scandinavian countries. They also have high taxation for the purpose of having a large welfare net. But, they have mostly freedom of thought and movement. That isn’t socialism. That’s capitalism with a safety net for the less fortunate. That is possible. Could it happen here? Actually, it has. Remember the days when the highest tax bracket was 90%. The difference was there were so many loophole deductions that the rich probably paid less than they do today. I’m not up to date on whether Scandinavian countries have a lot of deductions.
I used the word democracy once, when I said I don’t know much about two particular areas of the world…hardly worth your screed.
Eastern Europe and the countries of East Asia simply don’t factually match the hand in hand situation you posit…
and yes we are a Republic…however if might be worth your noticing that the term republic is the Latin word for the Greek term democracy…so it is equally true to say we are a Democracy…
Personally, I favor the term Republic but that is merely because the term democracy brings to my mind the horrible cycle of violence of the Greek democracies and the excesses of the French, Russian and Chinese Revolutions, who all claimed to set up democracies, which they, every single one, labeled Republics.
The term Republic brings to my mind, the Roman Republic which lasted hundreds of years and of course created the foundational laws of what became the common law of England and the USA. As Machiavelli explained in his Discourses, the Roman Republic had the three basic branches of government that you may be acquainted with…though of course the Founding Fathers did read Montesquieu’s work more than Machiavelli’s. They both wrote of the Executive, the Legislative, and Judicial branches…not that the various demonic versions that are and or were the People’s Republic of China, the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics, and take your choice of whichever version of the early French Republics with their bloodthirsty ways. The First and Second Republics certainly come as least close to the bloodbaths of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.
On this the Fourth of July, Independence Day, for these United States of America, we would do well to thank God for wisdom he gave our forefathers that they created the government that still brings us, if not the rest of the world yet, a more perfect Union, ever more Justice, more or less domestic Tranquility, a strong common defence, a growing positive general Welfare, and most important that they did secure the Blessings of Liberty themselves and may we hand it on in good repair to our Posterity.
I found this on the internet and found it to be more understandable for today’s usage of the words. The meaning and usage of terms change over time. To define a word’s meaning today for the use 1,000 years ago can lead to misunderstandings. In this case, the opposite happens to be true as well. You comments seem based on ancient definitions. Mine are today’s and match up with this chart.
The last two are the main difference. Democracy today is more of the majority rules and the laws can be set aside. Think Title IX with what happened with men competing in women’s sports. It’s swinging back to what is right since Trump’s re-election. We still see a great attempt of democracy majority rule ignoring federal law with respect to Sanctuary Cities with ICE arrests. Democrats seem emboldened and use the word democracy as a reason to fight against the immigration laws and attempt insurrection against the election that Trump won upending our Constitutional Republic.
Your breakdown of the key differences is not remotely new. I learned it in the 1960s. It is also a more or less a direct quote from the John Birch Society…The points you make have retained some rhetorical power on the right, not much in the center and are virtually completely rejected on the left.
I know, as it has been evident for years, that you don’t like to actually learn what other people think.
But this does not remotely show that my statement was inaccurate:
What a lovely back and forth between two brilliant intellectuals.
Neither one of you has ever really understood where I am coming from. I can understand Harold because he doesn’t even know me but SG… don’t understand his perspective on how I think or who I am. He knows me personally, yet for whatever reason has made the decision to use cougarfan as a way to deride my comments and perspective without really taking the time to understand them.
You guys are so smart, just a FYI SG, my head didn’t explode. I don’t pretend to know everything like some do. My spiritual and religious beliefs are the things that run my engine. I really don’t have a lot of interest in politics, capitalism, democracy, etc. I do believe that our current government people are not men of God, (executive, legislative and judicial) so none of them really have the ability to make correct decisions about what the best path moving forward is. I’ve said it before that this country and its issues are not outside the country. We are rotting from the inside and in spite of what people think about the outside and how it looks, our issues are here and the battle is good vs. evil, not democrat vs. republican or Trump vs. the liberals. It’s the destruction of the family unit, the lack of accountability and immorality/dishonesty. Those are the real issues.
We are a Republic with democratically elected representatives. The republics of the USSR and China, and even the French Republic had very little in common with our republic. Our so-called democracy isn’t the same as the Greek democracy. I think the definitions of the words often mean different things to different people.
If we were a pure democracy then there would be no electoral college, there would be a direct vote by the citizenry on laws etc. Our founders avoided establishing a democracy to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
Yeah, we are a democracy in a narrow sense. Unfortunately a number of politicians who have no interest in protecting principles like freedom of speech, religion, the right to bear arms, the rights of states to make their own laws as long they don’t conflict with constitutional law, and a number of other things, would love to a have “real democracy”. I want nothing to do with “real democracy”. Pure democracy would be great if the majority of people were righteous and wise. The majority are neither and far less so than they were decades ago.
I want to vomit every time I hear people say Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy. This comes from people who want to control online speech, actually speech of any kind, and are only interested in democracy when they win a majority in an election. That’s democracy working according to them. That’s the end of their interest in democracy. I could elaborate but just the thought of the word democracy is making me tired and cranky because too many fools use the word like they are invoking the name of deity. If we had a “real democracy” you could kiss a lot of your God given rights goodbye. Our constitution allows for just enough democracy. Any more and the majority mob could take all your individual rights in the name of democracy.
Since Everyone is all tied up in what system of government we are, we should use the correct term.
We are NOT A democracy
We are NOT a Republic
What we ARE is a Constitutional Federal Republic with a strong tradition of democratic principles. Here’s what that actually means, broken down:
Republic
Leaders are elected by citizens to represent them and make decisions on their behalf.
There’s no monarchy; power rests with the people through their elected officials.
Constitutional
The U.S. government is guided by a written Constitution, adopted in 1787.
This foundational document limits government powers and guarantees citizens’ rights.
Federal
Power is shared between a national (federal) government and individual state governments.
States have their own constitutions, legislatures, and courts, giving them autonomy on many issues.
Republic
Constitutional
Federal