While I agree that many things that Russia does are fked up.

I still take offense to that..

Russia sucks. It's an awful country. Did anyone see that video of one of the Russian ministers HEADBUTTING another minister in parliament a couple years back? It's such a horrendously corrupt superpower and nobody seems to call them on their shit. It's like, as soon as the Soviets were out they were our buddies!!!! What kind of shitty low-bred barbarians have a parliament that is constantly degenerating into fistfights? Way to be political you fucking cavemen.

Like 90% of computer viruses come from Russia (this is based on no facts whatsoever but it sounds right) and it is pretty much just a haven for horrible things to happen. They also export organized criminals at a rate that just can't be beat!

We are constantly ribbing one of my best friends for being from SOVIET UNION and he is constantly telling us how horrible it was there and how poorly his mother was treated and how bad everything was in Moscow. He is a pretty zany guy but he is a fundamentally really good person (and his mom and grandma are ridiculously nice to us) so I am pretty sure it is not anything but a travesty of a culture that keeps their crime rate so high!

Honestly pretty much what I am trying to say is Russians are just as good or bad as everyone else but Russia the country is a giant field of dongs and ruins its own people with it's awful culture.

edit: OBVIOUSLY this doesn't apply to every Russian in Russia or from Russia but that isn't due to any lack of effort on the part of the Russia government!

i don't think you've got much ground to stand on defending this, marmot. your point is pretty condescending and hypocritical, you know!

russia's status as third or first world - whatever you're gonna classify it - standards for the decent treatment of human beings are universal. sexual harassment is one of those things that we can all agree stinks, regardless of where it happens. if you are going to say that we should judge cultures, countries and people on some standard we have set for them which is lower than our own, then we're saying that we're better than them and that you've got to let the barbarians do what they do. that's no use, and an attitude like that is not going to help anybody. it's cynical and prejudiced.

i don't think there is actually any of this western anti-soviet hatred towards russia in this topic. nobody here remembers the cold war. i just don't get that vibe. although, people have been saying "i hate russia", like me! i wasn't really being serious, but what i mean by that is the people who head up the power structures, who dominate the culture and encourage this kind of stuff. that's what russia is. it's easy to get that mixed up with russian people and turn it into prejudice, and there is some of that in this topic with kaempfer, but your politics are making you too eager to jump to conclusions about western pride.

i will say that with all the stuff that has been going on with russia recently, people get dramatic and extrapolate wildly about things. it's happened with islam, everyone hates is and is terrified of it now, and it could happen with russian people just as easily. some people just don't separate political entities from the people under their control, and some people lump many groups of people together so they don't have to think about things anymore.

so yeah, there are some concerns but you really just sound like you've got a chip on your shoulder.