Russians probably think Americans are crazy to run these kinds... and blah-blah-blah.

LR probably thinks she is a telepath but she is a desperate fool instead.

UGLY: Please link me to a statement by Russians to the contrary, showing respect and admiration for Americans' risk-taking for freedom. Otherwise, it's you who are clearly the fool (which goes without saying).

Oh my, your foolishness knows no bounds. Your simpleton's logic constantly switching between love and hate, between 'respect and admiration' and 'thinking they are crazy'. As I said, your mental health, imho, is far from perfect.

Russians care about US citizens no more than US citizens care about Russians. Maybe less, I don't know. Why Russians should give a damn in positive or in negative sense about US citizens and their idols, their values and their prejudices?

So go and pound the sand, stupid crusader. Martian sand, if you wish.

UGLY: In other words, you have no evidence of Russia expressing such respect, so I was correct.

The fact that Americans don't know as much as they should about Russians doesn't excuse Russian ignorance. In fact, given the haughty contempt Russians express for American education and cultural awareness, if Russia is as bad as America then Russians should consider it a dire emergency. But I'm glad at least to see you admit how woefully ignorant Russian people are about Americans.

And given the fact that the American population isn't going extinct nor is it laboring under a wage of $300/month, I'd say that Russians have a lot more to learn from America than vice versa.

Your comments are the typically ignorant gibberish of a russophile dolt. Instead of looking for ways to improve Russia, all you can do is look for ways to rationalize its failure. You live in a world of neo-Soviet illusion where you are clever and everybody else is "foolish" and you have nothing to show for it but your empty, lurid neo-Soviet fantasies and your failure.

The fact that Americans don't know as much as they should about Russians doesn't excuse Russian ignorance.

LR, since when words 'care' and 'know' sound the same?

And given the fact that the American population isn't going extinct nor is it laboring under a wage of $300/month, I'd say that Russians have a lot more to learn from America than vice versa.

From which America, I am repeating, South or Central? Nevertheless, US experience (as any foreign experience) is valuable for Russia (or for any other country) when and only when there are existing comparable conditions in which this experience could be applied. Detailed verification of such conditions is the main question of usefulness of some foreign experience, ideas and such for any country and nation (in any separate case).

You don't care about that question, you do prefer howl about how doomed and gloomed is Russia because Russia don't want to be second-hand US (you call such thing 'improvement'). It is your right (and your guilty pleasure, it seems, heh).

Instead of looking for ways to improve Russia, all you can do is look for ways to rationalize its failure.

You know, blind agreement with idiotic theories of some ignorant Westerner is quite far from 'looking for ways to improve Russia'. And explanation and rationalization of past mistakes is correct way not to repeat these. And it is not all I can do. Far from it.

I don't think 'everybody else' is foolish. It takes a lot of one's work to prove his\her foolishness to me. You did it, thanks.

UGLY: The point I made was that Russians know nothing about American history and are unwilling, in contrast to the first Americans, to risk anything for freedom. You've said absolutely nothing that is even relevant too, much less an illumination of, that point. In other words, you're babbling self-absorbed gibberish.

The post is about what Russians know about America, not whether they care. I gather from your insane gibberish that you think Russia has nothing to learn from the pilgrims and can do just fine ignoring them. You feel that it's just fine for Russia to destroy itself in this way, since you think America is destroying itself by ignoring Russia. In other words, you're a russophile and hellbent on Russia's destruction as they all are.

I leave you to your ridiculous, self-destructive ignorance, you pathetic caveman.

The point I made was that Russians know nothing about American history

You may made any point you wish. Problem is to prove it. As I said, you are not telepath so you are fool and\or liar.

and are unwilling, in contrast to the first Americans, to risk anything for freedom.

You are comparing some Europeans from XVII century to modern Russians. I'd call it 'incoherent thinking' just not to call it 'dishonesty'.

The post is about what Russians know about America, not whether they care.

You made assumption what Russians are *thinking* about US. I pointed it was baseless assumption. Then you shifted theme to what Russians are *feeling*\could feel toward US ('respect and admiration'). I stated Russians don't care about US. Then you are shifting theme again. Lame creature.

I gather from your insane gibberish that you think Russia has nothing to learn from the pilgrims and can do just fine ignoring them.

Well, even you could understand something right, it seems. Yes, their experience is useless to us. We have our own rich history of useful and successful runaways from central power to learn from it.

You feel that it's just fine for Russia to destroy itself in this way

Lie. I don't think that Russia could destroy itself by ignoring history of pilgrims and some American chieftain. BTW, how well fared his tribe? Did it survive until today or had been murdered and degraded by descendants of their pilgrim 'friends'?

Since you think America is destroying itself by ignoring Russia.

Are you smoking or making injections?

In other words, you're a russophile and hellbent on Russia's destruction as they all are.

Countless time I am repeating - I am not Russophile, I am Russian. Both Russophilic and Russophobic viewpoints are external for me and I do not embrace any of these.

I leave you to your ridiculous, self-destructive ignorance, you pathetic caveman.

Слив засчитан, as we Russian bloggers saying.

The last paragraph of your post has the tedious grandiloquence of a classic Pravda editorial. Does that surprise you? Communists, too, spoke a lot about "freedom". That's how we learned just what freedom isn't. Freedom isn't a "notion". It isn't and can't be "abstract". When someone claims it to be "abstract", this just means a new flavour of lifeless ideology is in the making.

And that is what we avoided when we refused to become minions of the West: another ideology force-fed to us and claimed to be the ultimate truth leading to salvation and a golden future. As someone who was there, I can tell you the primary reasons we got rid of Communism. Boredom. Being bored stiff with those big words that mean so little; despair at the prospect of living in that hypocrisy for the rest of our lives. We took a risk and defied the Communists. And then — surprise, we took another risk and defied you.

You're trying to portray those people as freedom-loving implying (or so it seems) that they were also open-minded. Oh please. We have Cossacks and Old Believers — not to mention the "Chechen rebels". They're all people who value their freedom from other groups above everything else — but among themselves, they're as bigoted and anti-individualistic as it gets. Don't even try to syncretise individual freedoms with "freedom" as professed by a group, particularly if it's bound together by religion. Usually, they're opposites. Your Civil War made you the democracy you are, not your Declaration of Independence.

Anyway, it's to July 4 that talking of "abstract freedom", for what it's worth, more properly belongs. Thanksgiving is rather noticeably more about "free" as in lots of free arable land. Nothing wrong with that — but also nothing that would make you altogether special. Lucky, yes.

LR - thanks for the Thanksgiving tribute. As the oldest democracy in the world, 400 years and still standing, we deserve credit for that. Our success is rooted in our willingness to sacrific ourselves for freedom, admonish ourselves when we aren't living up to that standard, value a free press and free elections even when we don't personally like every outcome, embrace new ideas and new immigrants(I value an immigrant's commitment to America whether they've been a citizen for 3 years or 300 by family heritage). What makes America great isn't defined by geography or money, it's a state of mind, a movable feast. We can pull our written basic Bill of Rights out of our pockets and demand they be respected. They always are. As Jefferson said "the government that governs least, governs best". He's endured and given a better life to more people than Marx or Lenin. It would be wise for a Russian to read his works starting with the 400 year old US Constitution.


Luck hasn't kept us the world's oldest democracy, nikolay, we've worked, generation after generation, at protecting our children from evil. Russians haven't sacrificed enough, my friend. That filthy fascist rodent that infects intelligent thought on LR's site is your worst enemy. Examine it carefully, along with Putin's fascism, and ask yourself if repudiating these people isn't what will save Russia?

I wish Russsians had the life I life. Free. Not degraded. Money means nothing without that. It's not exportable. It's earned.

As the oldest democracy in the world...

...which gave the world Jesus and Pericles, I presume?

I might be missing some in-joke here, but how does 2006 minus 1787 round up even remotely to four hundred? I have a dire premonition that your constitution is 219 years old. A little over two centuries is a remarkably short time for a nation to unlearn arithmetics. Then again, children must be protected from this and other evils, such as history and geography. The world's oldest democracy is 1705 (one thousand seven hundred and five) years old and still standing. And that's just the world's oldest continuously existing democracy. Scary, huh?

You're right, our Constitution wasn't ratified until 1787, but, I'll count our prior 200 years of English settlement as a democratic society as well. We were not serfs to the English in any European sense.

My point doesn't change, democracy isn't something that happens to people by luck.

I doubt that many Russians have ever read the US Contitution or Bill of Rights, those simple enduring documents which makes an American Putin impossible. If you are ignorant of those historic documents, not an abstraction, from which Americans derive their rights, then, you really don't understand the structure of our democracy. To the superficial mind, we are a democracy because we are rich, when, the correct correlation is that we are wealthy because we are free.

After the generations lost to the slaughter and squalor of Marx's Manifesto, what sane country would repeat that? Only, the Russians. The free press is evaporating, the state is confiscating private property again, show trials, political murders, power recentralized in the Kremlin, it's disgusting. I have no sympathy for Russians that are passive or apologists for Putin.

I doubt that many Russians have ever read the US Contitution or Bill of Rights, those simple enduring documents which makes an American Putin impossible.

Huh, some of them have even read simple enduring PATRIOT Act.

How eeeeevil Russophile writes, "The American people do not know what’s in the laws or what they are doing to us. How can they? Even Congressmen do not know what is in the 79,000 pages of the Federal Register. (There were 2,620 pages in volume 1 in 1936.) The main reason why we do not know is that these are Federal laws, not to mention that they are complicated monstrosities."

Simple enduring documents, yeah, right.

After the generations lost to the slaughter and squalor of Marx's Manifesto, what sane country would repeat that? Only, the Russians.

So penny thinks Russians (hey, were are your 'Ivans', Nazi?) now follow Marx's Manifesto? She obviously need some rest from heavy mental exercise she is doing in this blog.

UGLY: One post doth not a blogger make. Don't drink and post.

NIKOLAY: You're an ignorant Russophile slob. No other country in world history is remotely close to over two centuries of uniterrupted constitutional democracy with so many changes of power betwee rival political parties. The fact that you can't manage to give America credit for this betrays you as the ridiculous little propagandist you in fact are.

Meanwhile, your phrase "tedious grandiloquence of a classic Pravda editorial" says all that can be said about your right to critize others on this basis.

You've said absolutely nothing to indicate that Russians are willing to take risks for freedom, instead spewing forth "tedious grandiloquence" attempting to rationalize Russian failure. If going down with your rusty ship turns you on, knock yourself out, baby.

LR, my dear sheep: http://17ur.livejournal.com - I am repeating it again. This blog has a little wider audience than yours, loser. And a little more authority to readers, if I say so myself.

You lost this discussion, LR. Repent and be silent, heheh.

(Damn, I envy Nikolay's English)

UGLY: Are you really mentally ill enough to think that you can pronounce the "winner" and it will matter in some way? Let's see now . . . there's an argument between a russophobe and a russophile and you, a russophile, think the russophile "won." Gee, what a surprise! Gosh Ugly, you're really starting to bore me now. Keep it up and I'll just start ignoring you.

Meanwhile, the blog you mention (a) isn't listed in your profile and (b) doesn't have any indication that "Ugly Racoons" is connected to it. So, to prove its yours, put up a post about this blog, then I'll acknowledge you to be a blogger.

OK. Next week I'll give you a link, 'cause I don't like post at weekends.

BTW, you bored me long ago. Your bag with tricks is quite small, so I started commenting to provoke you.