We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata retort of the day Mr Putin said people living in Donetsk and Luhansk who considered themselves Russian were entitled to Russian passports.
On Saturday, he said: “We’re considering providing a simplified procedure [of obtaining Russian citizenship] to all the residents of Ukraine.”
How did Ukraine respond? Mr Zelensky said a Russian passport provides “the right to be arrested for a peaceful protest” and “the right not to have free and competitive elections.”
I am starting to cautiously warm to Mr Zelensky.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Hm. The gentleman seems to be aware of the realities. Strange characteristic for a politician. (Couldn’t resist that dig. 😆 Actually one does come across one…occasionally.)
Interesting indeed. Thanks, Perry.
Every now and then, an innocent man may be sent to the legislature, or even the Presidency.
Whereas a British passport gives you the right to take part, along with EU citizens, in elections for a body your country voted to leave, and you don’t even need to demonstrate to be arrested in Britain, your social media posts will do, and genuinely illegal demonstrators find themselves dancing with police when obstructing the highway.
It’s a promising start for the Ukraine.
Mr Ed, italicization noted and approved. *g*
Ukraine’s great problem is its oligarchs, who have wrecked the country, driving people abroad, shutting down businesses and industries, and conducting a civil war against its ethnic Russian citizens. Zelenskiy, himself, is an oligarch puppet, so we should not expect any improvement during his Presidency, but we might be surprised.
It might be pointed out that Poland and Hungary also issue passports to Ukrainians of Polish and Hungarian descent, respectively. Of course, the western border lands of Ukraine were Polish, Hungarian, or Romanian territory until fairly recently.
Just what all these countries are signaling is not clear, but there is a map on Fort Russ that shows a partitioned Ukraine.
“They can have Russian passports [pause] if they move back to Russia” -my answer, were I asked.
Two good points from Mr Z.
Many thanks to Perry for bringing this to our attention.
The good thing about people like Zelensky, Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, Salvini, et al (and earlier on Pim Fortuyn et al) is that they are disruptive forces. They force the ruling class to think about the problems of the masses.
Trump is shaping up to be much more than that, and with luck, so will at least some of the others.
(I do not include Berlusconi in the above list, because i regard him as a conservative force, in the worst sense of the word: an obstacle to libertarian reform.)
All European countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Germany) offer passports to people born in them, who may have fled (as children) with their parents during WW2 or the Communist regimes. They offer also passports to children of former citizens – children that were born in the exterior, and were never citizens, only their parents were.
I know several Israelis, born in Israel, who got German citizenship thanks to their parents and live now in Germany and enjoy a monthly social assistance check of 650 Euro from the German Gov. while doing some work informally.
Also Spain and Portugal offer citizenship and passports to offspring of Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492.
There is nothing strange or condemnable in Putin’s offer of Russian citizenship. Of course, nobody’s forced to take it. And he may have a point: these people are ethnically Russian.
Zelensky’s response is a nice quip, but meaningless.
I, for One, have no idea which passport is preferable – the Ukrainian or the Russian one. Maybe both? Maybe neither?