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It's not unique at all, it was standard fare for half of my parent's lifetime doe to them being born in People's Republic of Poland, a vassal state of the dearest USSR. The standard fare for getting a passport was to become an informer for the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Security Service), spying on your family and friends. And that was during cold "wartime", not war-wartime. While I'm not much a fan of Zeleński, calling wartime conscription of males a very rate precedent show only one's narrow historical and geographical perspective.
And "Ukraine's government is corrupt, therefore their cities getting shelled and their people getting warcrimed in a manner typical to Red-- I mean Russian army is just business as usual in the region" is an embarassing non sequitur.
No for most of human history there was no effective means to enforce border controls and people could just leave if they wanted, except for totalitarian states for which literally any violence is justified to end their existence. It remains a horror to the average American that any soviet countries could have existed without the populace flaying the flesh from their tyrants in the night.
that a "democracy" equipped with the technology and surveillance tech to actually prevent its citizens from leaving, has chosen to restrict mass cross-sections of the country from exercising basic freedom of travel, and has done so that they might be imprisoned and fed into the war machine is a very unique fucking horror and one no westerner has EVER tolerated in a democracy.
At the height of the Vietnam War the US did not control americans leaving. That's how draft dodgers got to Canada, they just fucking drove. If the US had set up checkpoints on the other side of the road and started interrogating anyone trying to leave the country, there would have been armed insurrection and those guards would have been firebombed in their homes with their children inside.
The fact you treat a totalitarian country like Soviet Poland as an at all acceptable comparison as if its very existence wasn't an insult to the human race, says a whole lot about those willing to support the Zelensky regime.
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Live free or die. Any regime that gets remotely close to these restrictions demands endless armed insurrection until the populace is free of it or until no one is left alive within it.
In the post above, you write
which implies that you're a Leaf, so I don't see how stealing USA's hypothetical 60s valor, or speaking about "average American's" horror is of any use here. But more to the point: how come you're still alive, then? Why didn't you live up to your proclaimed ideals, why didn't you take up arms against Trudeau regime, or died trying?
The difference between Vietnam and Russia's 'special military operation' is that the latter is fought on Ukraine's home soil. I thought that this was obvious, but apparently it needs pointing out. No western country had a war on their turf since 1945. If they did, the just-so-stories about how their superior civil liberties flow flow their citizens' moral superiority would melt rather quickly.
Also, there's no such thing as "Soviet Poland", Poland (along with Czechoslovakia, etc.) was not a soviet republic, but a separate state. Authoritarian, not totalitarian, and you having two factual errors in one sentence makes me think that you're getting it wrong on purpose, although I fail to imagine what it might be.
But it the American soul is truly as pained by my country's predecessor's existence as you claim, I'm afraid they have mostly their former president to blame. FD Roosevelt mad a deal with Stalin, and so the iron curtain landed to the west of Poland, instead of to the east. I guess "live free" only goes so far, and sacrificing entire countries' freedom as a bargaining chip was acceptable to 40s Americans.
Also, while great men theory of history is probably wrong. Thousands of above-average men can make a dent, at least in the short term. As it happens, some 22000 of Poland's cream of the crop were murdered in the early stage of WWII, which made mounting a successful resistance to the Soviets rather difficult. And the culprit was... would you look at that, Russians! I mean, Soviets! But surely, my antipathy towards Russia must only be because of the Western propaganda.
First, LOL if you believe this as if the poles weren't 100% a conquered people and your administrative status mattered. Sure. And the East German stasi was ethically better than the pre-45 Stasi... absolutely a free republic.
Second FDR 100% deserved the gallows for destroying American freedom and bringing about the administrative state. Fascism in all but name. I reccommend reading Herbert Hoover's Hsitory of the second world war Freedom Betrayed
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Third, something big happened in Canada in response to the lockdowns, rebellions, blockades of the worlds busiest bridge, violent confrontations with the police, and occupation and encampment in -20 to -40... I neither confirm nor deny my involvement in any illegal activity. And BTW the truckers won. The government blinked, almost all restrictions were dropped across the board, and half the political spectrum of Canada is being purged of those who supported lockdowns.
Forth, English Canadians are a made up people. There is no cultural difference between us and the US. Its like Germany and Austria, but without even a significant history of cultural difference or conflict. Hell I've lived in apartments that looked into the US.
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Finally, I'm not some pro-Russia shill. You hate Russia? Good you probably should, as far as I can tell almost everyone in europe is 100% right to want almost everyone else in Europe dead. What I loath is the North American elite sending our money to support centuries old ethnic conflicts, treating violent authoritarian states as if they're some moral exemplars everyone over hear should admire, and risking an escalation to world war over a third world country and its conflict with its second world neighbor.
I want the US and Canada disentangled from Europe.
How would you feel if your government was sending billions of your dollars to prop up regimes in the South Pacific? How would you feel if you were edging closer to nuclear war over some bullshit conflict in West Africa? It does not concern us, we have no meaningful economic or geopolitical interest tied up in it, and there's no way the Ukrainian moral claims hold up to the slightest scrutiny compared to any other global conflict, especially on costs.
I don't really care whether Russia or Ukraine wins in the abstract, I care that my government is trying to get us further entangled in geopolitical conflicts that don't concern us and could end with nukes landing in our cities.
Canad-Anschluss when?
I feel more at home in Toronto, or even in Quebec, than I do in many parts of the United States. Canadian independence is mostly hypothetical anyway in the field of foreign policy, and our conflicts on trade et al are less aggressive than internal conflicts in Canada or the USA.
Well there's been an observed trend that the most fanatical adherrents of any national ideology come from the perrifery of the Empire... Napoleon was a Corsican, Hitler a Austrian, Stalin a Georgian, Trotsky and Lenin both German-Jewish-Russian mixes, hell even the Duke of wellington was raised in Ireland
So its been widely theorized American Hitler will be a Canadian... and Australian Hitler a Kiwi
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