Freedom in Russia and the US

Let us compare the career of journalist and writer Yulia Latynina, with the career of Dinesh D’Souza.

Yulia Latynina is a Russian megaphone for the Harvard microphone.  Supposedly Bush was a moron, Putin is a tyrant, Putin is a homophobe, Putin murders his political opponents, or jails them on vague laws, selectively enforced.  Putin is a sexist, Putin is a criminal, and friend of criminals, and so on and so forth.

Yet she has not been murdered, nor, unlike Dinesh D’Souza, charged under vague and selectively enforced laws.  Has not even had to face a SLAPP suite, unlike Mark Steyn.

Seems to me that Russia could do with a whole lot more repression.  The reason that Yulia Latynina needs a bullet in the head, while Dinesh D’Souza should not have been charged is that Putin’s repression is arguably protecting Russia, or at least is not obviously stupid, whereas Obama’s repression is destroying America

Today, Disney makes a television episode whose primary theme is support for gay marriage. The good progressive naturally supports Gay marriage, and confidently believes that gay marriage not only is right, but was always and eternally obviously right, and he always supported Gay Marriage. And yet, a few years ago, our progressive did not support Gay Mariage. Perhaps he always supported Gay Marriage, but society was not yet ready for Gay Marriage. What then will society be ready for in ten years? Our progressive does not know.

The problem is that US repression is against the internal enemies of a line that undergoes rapid and never ending change, to ensure neverendingly more extreme conformity to an ever more extreme line. Putin represses his enemies, though he should do a lot more to suppress the agents of Islam and the agents of the Cathedral. The USG represses sanity.

21 Responses to “Freedom in Russia and the US”

  1. […] he permitted Navalny to run for mayor in Moscow because there was no danger of his winning. He can tolerate the existence of journalists such as Latynina, because their audience is very narrow and […]

  2. […] You’re miserable because you are free. Related: Neoreaction and libertarianism. Related: Freedom in Russia and the US. […]

  3. not see says:

    @zarf

    in the 19th and early 20th century fraternal orders in america, like the oddfellows, freemasons, etc were a form of non-governmental welfare. you paid a weekly fee and in return if you got sick you and your family was taken care of. if you died you were buried and your family taken care of. if you didn’t pay, you starved in the gutter as it should be. those unwilling to participate in society, voluntarily, are dead weight and have no claim on others lives.

  4. Zarf says:

    An off-topic, general question — I don’t understand Moldbug’s proposal, in “Open Letter” part 6, that welfare be privatized (he imagines a “Calgood” enterprise). Can someone (perhaps you, Mr. Jim) explain to me how this is supposed to work? Also, is there some Neoreaction/DE site to which general questions like this ought to be sent?

    • Alex J. says:

      Also, Mormon charities.

    • jim says:

      Calgood is more a thought experiment than a serious proposal – in part because Moldbug does not really believe that the purpose of government is good works.

      He conceptually separates government into Robber-R-us, a stationary bandit, with corporate style governance, operated for maximum profit, and one of the major shareholders of Robbers-R-us, Calgood

      And, because the Dark Englightenment lacks any central authority, there is no one place to ask your questions. There is, however, one canon in which the answers to your questions may be looked up, but understanding the answers is not always easy.

      The Roman Catholic Church has one universal authority. Progressivism has Harvard and the New York Times. But even if the Dark Enlightenment proceeds to power, it will at most have several national churches, not one universal church.

      • natto says:

        I feel silly asking this, but what is this “canon” you mention? (You can’t mean Moldbug?…)

        My understanding of DE doesn’t admit any single canon, etc., in line with your original comment (“lacks central authority…”). So you canon reference confuses me.

  5. Glenfilthie says:

    Ya know boys, I ain’t that bright, but I am no dummy either.

    3 years ago my daughter came out of the closet and announced that she was gay. Not only that, she had dropped out of the sciences at university to take up Fine Arts. My family and inlaws bobbled their heads in approval, and scolded me when I had a kiniption. I told those assholes then that my daughter would go into massive debt for a useless degree, she would end up with substandard job and massive student loans to show for it. I was told to STFU or hit the road.

    They were shocked when I hit the road. I told my daughter she could listen to me or her idiot grandparents who would support her up to and including axe murder – but SHE would be responsible for her actions. I checked out of the family under bitter accusations of homophobia and betrayal for ‘not supporting my daughter or her dreams’.

    Today she’s a 28 year old till monkey at a sporting goods store, with massive student debts. She doesn’t have a car, nor does she drive, and she lives with a bunch of other ‘starving artists’ in Canada’s Land Of Fruits And Nuts in BC. They all live in a ‘group home’ and I shudder to think of how that works. We don’t speak anymore – and I refuse to pretend that her lifestyle and ‘career’ are not the cop-outs they are. Nor will I pretend that she lives a happy and beautiful alternative lifestyle. Sure, there are competent, rational gays out there – but they are the exception, not the rule.

    Marginal people have never had it so good in North America…yet with each increment of ‘social justice’ they seem to become incrementally unhappier. I say the loons are running the asylum, that’ my story and I’m stickin’ to it!

    It’s a sad day when Russians are the only ones able to stand up to perverts and morons that would destroy us.

    • spandrell says:

      If someone is the natural audience of neoreaction is people like you. My condolences.

    • Ex-pat in Oz says:

      Glenfilthie-

      You did your duty as a good, responsible father.

      You have my admiration because you’ve done the honourable thing when it would have been easier to leave it be.

      I’m reminded of the line in The Godfather: “Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.”

    • Anonymous says:

      Good for you, that is what it takes, that is the discipline.

  6. Al Fin says:

    Putin’s leadership is working to the extent that he can control the news that gets out. It is not working to the extent that where it counts, Russia is deteriorating rapidly. Image isn’t everything, though it will serve up until the moment that it collapses.

    The Soviets had no problem recruiting western journalists and writers to serve as flak-men for a failing system. Putin learned that lesson well in his KGB years.

    Look deeper into the abyss that is Russia, and rather than seeing the abyss looking back, you will see the end result of ubiquitous central corruption as it loses its grip on the periphery.

  7. spandrell says:

    I have a very hard time getting worked out about Dinesh D’Souza.

  8. Candide III says:

    Jim, sorry again, but when you talk about Russia you don’t know WTF you are talking about. If Putin is first on Latynina’s hate list, Harvard is a close second. She is against mass immigration, multi-culti, Marxism, cultural or not, communism, socialism and democracy. E.g. on December 28 she wrote:

    ? 1991 ????, ????? ?????? ?????????, ?? ???????, ??? ? ????? ??????? ????????? ????? ? ??????????, ? ? ?????? ??????? ???????????? ? ???????? ?????????. ??????, ?????? 20 ???, ??? ???? ????, ??? ??????????, ???????? ????????????? ????? ????? ? ??????????. ? ?? ???? ???????, ??? ? ????? ?????. ???? ?????? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ??? ? XIX ????.

    ? ?? ?????, ??? ?? ????, ??????? ???????? ??????????????? ???????? ??????? ?? ??????, ????????? ???, ??? ???? ???????? ? ?????????? ???????????????, ? ?????????? ??????????????, ???????? ???? ???????? ???? ????? ????????, ??????? ?? ????????????, ? ???? ????? ?????????? ???????????????, ??????????? ? ????????? ??????.

    In 1991, when communism collapsed, we thought that on one side there is market and democracy, and on the other side, totalitarianism and planned economy. Now, 20 years later, it is clear for me that democracy and universal suffrage leads to socialism. I do not want to say that I’m so smart. John Stuart Mill said exactly that in the XIX century.

    And we see that those people who are the dominant influence groups in the West are telling us that we should fight the accursed exploiters and polluters, admit our terrible guilt before the peoples we had colonized, and that we should have free health care, free education and decent pensions.

    See what I mean? Now about why she isn’t getting a bullet to the head from Putin. Basically it’s the same reason you or Mangan aren’t getting one from Obama: she is irrelevant. Her audience is a few ten thousand people who listen to Echo Moskvy, and even on Echo Moskvy she is a controversial character.

    • Candide III says:

      That first quote was supposed to be in Russian. It’s paragraphs 15-16 in the original text at the link.

    • jim says:

      I stand corrected. She is closer to neoreactionary than Harvard.

      • Candide III says:

        In that article she is even talking about the Cathedral as a memetic parasite, only she doesn’t use the word Cathedral. She used to be libertarian 10 years ago and I believe got mugged by reality.

  9. rightsaidfred says:

    We are finding out how long the boot can stomp on the face.

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