Manifesto on the Proper Relationship Between Ukraine and Russia

Mar 20, 2024 | World

On the eve of the anniversary of the full-scale and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, I have summarized the political platform of mine and, hopefully, of many other decent people. 15 theses of a Russian citizen who desires the best for their country.What was all this about and what are we dealing with now?1. President Putin has unleashed an unjust war of aggression against Ukraine under ridiculous pretexts. He is desperately trying to make this a “people’s war,” seeking to turn all Russian citizens into his accomplices, but his attempts are failing. There are almost no volunteers for this war, so Putin’s army has to rely on convicts and forcibly mobilized people.2. The real reasons for this war are the political and economic problems within Russia, Putin’s desire to hold on to power at any cost, and his obsession with his own historical legacy. He wants to go down in history as “the conqueror tsar” and “the collector of lands.”3. Tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians have been murdered, and pain and suffering has befallen millions more. War crimes have been committed. Ukrainian cities and infrastructure have been destroyed.4. Russia is suffering a military defeat. It was the realization of this fact that changed the rhetoric of the authorities from claims that “Kyiv will fall in three days” to hysterical threats of using nuclear weapons should Russia lose. The lives of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were needlessly ruined. The ultimate military defeat may be delayed at the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands more mobilized soldiers, but it is generally inevitable. The combination of aggressive warfare, corruption, inept generals, weak economy, and heroism and high motivation of the defending forces can only result in defeat. The Kremlin’s deceitful and hypocritical calls for negotiations and ceasefire are nothing more than a realistic assessment of the prospects of further military action.What is to be done?5. What are Ukraine’s borders? They are similar to Russia’s – they’re internationally recognized and defined in 1991. Russia also recognized these borders back then, and it must recognize them today as well. There is nothing to discuss here. Almost all borders in the world are more or less accidental and cause someone’s discontent. But in the twenty-first century, we cannot start wars just to redraw them. Otherwise, the world will sink into chaos.6. Russia must leave Ukraine alone and allow it to develop the way its people want. Stop the aggression, end the war and withdraw all of its troops from Ukraine. Continuation of this war is just a tantrum caused by powerlessness, and putting an end to it would be a strong move.7. Together with Ukraine, the U.S., the EU and the UK, we must look for acceptable ways to compensate for the damage done to Ukraine. One way to achieve this would be lifting the restrictions imposed on our oil and gas, but directing part of the income Russia receives from hydrocarbon exports towards reparations. Of course, this should only be done after the change of power in Russia and the end of the war.8. War crimes committed during this war must be investigated in cooperation with international institutions. Why would stopping Putin’s aggression benefit Russia?9. Are all Russians inherently imperialistic? This is nonsense. For example, Belarus is also involved in the war against Ukraine. Does this mean that the Belarusians also have an imperial mindset? No, they merely also have a dictator in power. There will always be people with imperial views in Russia, just like in any other country with historical preconditions for this, but they are far from being the majority. There is no reason to weep and wail about it. Such people should be defeated in elections, just as both right-wing and left-wing radicals get defeated in developed countries.10. Does Russia need new territories? Russia is a vast country with a shrinking population and dying out rural areas. Imperialism and the urge to seize territory is the most harmful and destructive path. Once again, the Russian government is destroying our future with its own hands just in order to make our country look bigger on the map. But Russia is big enough as it is. Our objective should be preserving our people and developing what we have in abundance.11. For Russia, the legacy of this war will be a whole tangle of complex and, at first glance, almost unsolvable problems. It is important to establish for ourselves that we really want to solve them, and then begin to do so honestly and openly. The key to success lies in understanding that ending the war as soon as possible will not only be good for Russia and its people, but also very profitable. This is the only way to start progressing toward removal of sanctions, return of those who left, restoration of business confidence, and economic growth.12. Let me re-emphasize that after the war, we will have to reimburse Ukraine for all the damage caused by Putin’s aggression. However, the restoration of normal economic relations with the civilized world and the return of economic growth will allow us to do so without interfering with the development of our country. We have hit rock bottom, and in order to resurface, we need to bounce back from it. This would be both ethically correct, rational, and profitable.13. We need to dismantle the Putin regime and its dictatorship. Ideally, through conducting general free elections and convocating the Constitutional Assembly.14. We need to establish a parliamentary republic based on the alternation of power through fair elections, independent courts, federalism, local self-governance, complete economic freedom and social justice.15. Recognizing our history and traditions, we must be part of Europe and follow the European path of development. We have no other choice, nor do we need any.

Agustina Vergara Cid’s Message To Javier Milei: Freedom Isn’t Compatible with Anarchy

Jan 8, 2024 | World

Milei seems to understand that eliminating government’s control over the economy is a must for human flourishing and prosperity – that government must get out of the way of individuals who want to produce and live freely (for instance, he’s eliminated the price controls that plagued the Argentinian economy for years). But as a self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” he holds a mistaken view of government: as recently as September, he’s stated that government is inherently evil and that true freedom can be only achieved through anarchism.

A civilized society should ban force from social relations, and to enforce this ban there needs to be an institution that holds a monopoly on force. Government is needed to guarantee freedom from physical force by protecting individual rights. To do this it must use force in retaliation against those who initiate it.[…]Building strong government institutions is necessary to protect the rights of Argentinians. Argentina desperately needs a better police force and court system to implement better rule of law. Criminals run rampant, making safety a top concern leading up to the presidential election. Those criminals who are apprehended are routinely freed by judges. Judicial procedures take a long time, often rendering obsolete verdicts. Judges and other justice system workers often see their independence compromised, especially in cases involving challenges to the political power of corrupt officials.While most of Milei’s proposed reforms have been about tearing down improper government controls, the new president is also making moves to actively protect the rights of Argentinians by specifying proper governmental actions. For instance, Milei’s government has empowered the police force to prevent and break up the massive pickets and public street blockades that for decades have been restricting Argentinians right to move and causing untold damage.While the new reforms are overall good signs, the question of Milei’s anarcho-capitalism remains. Freedom isn’t compatible with anarchy. Freedom requires a good government limited to protecting the rights of individuals. Government should leave people free –  by guaranteeing their rights. Milei, who’s shown signs of intellectual growth, will hopefully continue to help build the necessary governmental institutions to do just that and to be persuaded of the need to rebuild the good, not just tear down the bad

Prospects for Argentina Under Javier Milei? Interview with Economist Richard Salsman

Dec 20, 2023 | World

Victor David Hanson on the Double Standards in Judging Israel and Hamas

Oct 26, 2023 | World

It is hard to think of any precivilizational act that Hamas did not relish. Their death work included but was not limited to executions, torture, beheadings, desecration of corpses, rape, necrophilia, incinerating people alive, dismemberment, and hostage-taking. The captured killers mentioned that their Hamas leaders expressly ordered them to behead and mutilate. All that and more are what Ivy League and Stanford students apparently believe to be legitimate forms of “resistance”—and by their support have now become party to. The Democratic Left is screaming “proportionality” and “stop the cycle of violence” at Israel to cease their retaliatory attempts to destroy Hamas. Their apparent theory is that Hamas has an inherent right to invade and commit barbarities while continuously shooting thousands of rockets hourly and with impunity at Israeli civilians—and yet any response that inadvertently kills Gazan civilians, perhaps most likely impressed Gazans used as shields by Hamas, constitutes a war crime. So in the unhinged West, it is now a more moral act to launch rockets designed only to kill civilians than it is to take out those killing pads. From the Hamas prisoners’ own admissions, and from their videos of the attack, it is additionally clear that many Gazancitizens were eager to tag along in the killing, torture, and looting—albeit only once it became clear to them that the targets were mostly unarmed women, children, infants, and the elderly, and the IDF was not there in force.

Israel vs. a Death Cult

Oct 26, 2023 | World

Israel vs. a Death Cult

Here are three critical considerations that must be understood about the current Israel-Hamas conflict. It is a sort of half-war. It consists of a military trying to defeat an organized clique of passive-aggressive, media-obsessed tribal murderers.

It is…

— Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) October 24, 2023

It is not really a war. …During peace and on a holiday, they entered Israel in a long-planned hit operation to murder civilians and take captives, focusing specifically on butchering the most vulnerable—the elderly, women, children, and infants—and in the most grotesque fashion imaginable. …By preplanned design, women were raped, and children and infants were burned alive, bound and executed, and (yes) beheaded. The dead were often mutilated. Some 1,400 Israelis were butchered, the vast majority civilians. Some 3,500-4,500 were wounded. Hamas never planned to stage a preemptive war against the Israeli military. Its only agenda was to send killers to unprotected villages to murder the unarmed as they slept—in the manner of Nazi Einsatzgruppen and other mobile death squads on the Eastern Front. Almost immediately they counted on using hostages, human shields, and the media to avoid any accounting from the IDF.To distract from the murder mission, Hamas launched some 5,000 rockets—all intended as terror weapons to strike civilians, in the fashion of the V-1 and V-2 attacks on London. What followed is the most asymmetrical “war” in memory. The IDF is the only military in the world told to be “proportionate” in its use of retaliatory force—not the U.S. after 9/11, and not Ukraine after February 24, 2022. No Arab army or terrorist cadre has ever waged a war under the rules of “proportionality”.[…]Gaza is not anyone’s“colony”. It has been autonomous since 2006-7. No free Israeli Arab Muslim citizen would willingly emigrate there to live under the dictatorship of Hamas. And for good reason. Gaza has been the recipient of aggregate billions in cash from the Gulf monarchies, Europe, the US, the UN. and expatriate remittances. The more money came in, the less Hamas had any intention of using it to serve its people. Most of the gifted funds were used to build the world’s largest subterranean city of death, to buy drones and rockets, and to pay gunmen to kill Jews.[…]Only Hamas is deliberately targeting civilians. Hamas fires its rockets at Israeli civilians from hospitals, schools, UN facilities, and mosques. Again, note the logic: Hamas assumes that Israel fights wars more humanely than Hamas itself does, and so will both try to avoid Hamas’s Palestinian human shields, and of course never itself employ such a barbaric tactic—since, among other humane reasons, Israeli civilians would attract, rather than deflect a Hamas rocket.