Of course I am. It would be pretty silly to make the same (bad) argument

No, I mean you are no longer discussing Wildmimic’s comment or the point of the comic (which were both comparisons between how Russians and Americans ARE treated, in reality). You’re making a separate argument that is beside the point.

Do you think they are prepared to admit that the US has more freedom, because I sincerely doubt it.

If “they” is Wildmimic, they clearly did so in their original comment. That was the whole point of the comment, actually, that Americans were more free to protest.

Absolutely false. These foreign interventions are always extremely unpopular, including the topic at hand.

American support for the Iraq war was about 75% before it started and reached above 90% during the early days of the war. Arguing that foreign intervention is always unpopular in America is simply a denial of reality. As a general rule, Americans have been easily convinced to support these interventions unless they felt they were substantially personally affected in a negative way, as was the case (for example) during the later days of the Vietnam War or of the Iraq War.

You don’t think that MAGA is motivated by terror? Rural America is collapsing, and they have been taught to fear the cities their entire lives, not to mention the fact that they have no skills to get a job there, and no money to find a place to live. Russia has no monopoly on fear.

We can revisit this when MAGA has had to deal in living memory with rampant child prostitution and death due to poverty, as well as roving squads of nazis committing murder with impunity in the streets. To even compare the very real experiences of Russians in the 90s to the possible fears of Americans today is ridiculous. The 1990s caused 3 million excess deaths in Russia based on 1991 mortality. I’ve become convinced reading your reply that you don’t actually understand Russian history as well as you think you do.

There is no more Nazism in the US than anywhere else - at least until fairly recently.

First of all, the nazis were inspired in part by manifest destiny and American racism. Second, that line referred to Russia, not the US. It was Russia where nazi gangs acted with impunity in the 1990s under Yeltsin - who was installed with the help of the Americans, which they bragged about at the time.

(And it would be great if the Nazis weren’t all getting Russian funding).

This is just Russiagate nonsense. Your genocidal settler colony doesn’t need Russian influence in order to be racist (founded on slavery, which is still legal if you bother to charge the enslaved with a crime first), and whatever minor meddling Russians might or might not have done in recent developments (again, America has always been a white supremacist nation) did not have a significant impact, especially compared to domestic factors and even other lobbies such as the “Israelis” (another genocidal gem in the empire’s crown, which wouldn’t exist today if not for America). I think you and I are unlikely to find common ground because we see a fundamentally different version of your country.

So people who live in a country aren’t responsible for the actions of their government? Then why hold the American people responsible for Venezuela? Why should they be expected to protest? The government just does what it does.

That user is saying that the fact that Russians face more danger for protesting means that any lack of protest reflects less poorly on Russian people than on Americans who face less danger, not that this is a win for the Russian government.

You are making a separate argument. @Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus was saying that Americans can dissent more easily, so the lack of dissent reflects more poorly on them than on Russians. Regardless of the fact that genuine radicals are violently suppressed in America (true), it’s clear that the average American is fairly content (and often even thrilled) to live with the violence their government has perpetrated abroad for its entire existence.

To address your completely separate argument, the fact is that Russians are held responsible MATERIALLY (not just in the moral judgements of others or in social media posts, but by sanctions and travel bans) for the actions of their government and Americans are not.

Edit: tagged the wrong user.

Edit 2: I missed this when replying.

Russia brutality suppresses dissent because, at some level, the Russian people and culture accepts it.

How familiar are you with recent Russian history? Do you have any idea what the 90s where like, how the country stabilized, and which politicians had prominent public roles in that? There’s a reason Putin has some support, people are obviously terrified that life will go back to how it was in the 90s before he took power. This judgement of blaming Russian “culture” for this rather than the neoliberal shock therapy and rampant nazism and social murder of the 1990s strikes me as borderline racism or at least ignorance of the subject that should prevent you from making such judgements.

I mean, one big difference is that Venezuela, unlike Ukraine, wasn’t violating ceasefire agreements to continue ethnic cleansing.

LOL, Russia brutality crushes protest and America doesn’t. Point Russia? You guys are hilarious.

That user is saying that the fact that Russians face more danger for protesting means that any lack of protest reflects less poorly on Russian people than on Americans who face less danger, not that this is a win for the Russian government.

Agreed, AmeriKKKans I think are mostly content to live with things like this because they aren’t affected personally.

TBH the damage the US does to the world is so much massively larger than Russia that it’s not possible for the “international rules-based order” to even approximate proportional fairness to the sanctions and measures currently deployed against Russia no matter what is done to the US. The whole international community is such a naked exercise in hypocrisy it’s incredible.

Edit: sorry, in case it wasn’t clear I’m speaking to sanctions and other such measures because the cudgel in the meme says “visa ban”.

Edit 2: well, perhaps there is one way for the “rules-based international order” to approximate proportional fairness in this situation…

I’m not active in much mainstream social media, but I’m not aware of many people who attack normal Russian citizens

You’ve never seen racism against Russians expressed online? People call Russians “orcs” all the time, and that’s only the most obvious example. Half of Americans seem to fully believe nefarious Russian plots decide their elections with absolutely zero actual evidence (edit: and Europeans are as bad or worse with the conspiracy theories). The comic is also talking about visa bans, which are a real-world consequence for all Russians and not just some social media thing.

especially when they’re complaining about their government?

This (I think) is just emphasis for the joke, but I assure you that I have seen this too. Also, as I said, the comic specifically refers to visa bans, which do actually affect Russians who oppose their government as well.

I’ve never been a fan of the whole «А у вас негров линчуют» rhetoric. Is it not possible to fuck America, fuck Russia, and fuck the so-called state of Israel?

That’s great, you can have that opinion. The comic is about how actual consequences exist for enemies of America but not for Americans. Also, at the time the USSR said that, it was, in fact, extremely true and a very apt way to point out the hypocrisy of the Americans presenting themselves as the champions of human rights - which is once again happening today.

Who is it strawmanning? It’s a joke about how the entire “international community” turned on Russia in an instant but America and their dogs (“Israel”) can do whatever they want. That’s true and obvious to anyone who has even lightly kept up with the news for the last few years.

For example, among America, “Israel”, and Russia, which ones can still participate in international sporting competitions and which has one of the most sanctioned economies on Earth? These sanctions obviously harm even Russians who do not agree with their government, whereas Americans have zero consequences, even those in the government. That’s the joke in the comic.

Just submitted my application.

LMAO, lemmitors from liberal instances will downvote this but don’t have the courage of their convictions to make a comment.

https://lemvotes.org/post/lemmy.zip/post/56356205

Not that I’d be able to reply to those comments since the instances these cowards come from are defederated from us.