Is Russia turning back to USSR?

[soulcrusher]

no, the USA is. NSA, homeland security, drone strikes, assassination by presidential decree and freedom got up and left a long time ago. add to that a healthy dose of global imperialism and do what i say not what i do.

[Kivimetsan]

Yes they're turning back into the big boogyman because they ban public smoking *sarcasm*... are you kidding me???

When you see Russia annexing Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, etc, then you know they're either going back in time or even worse. Communism is dead. Governments world wide have realized 'democracy' is a better way of controlling people and maintaining there monopoly on violence. Perfect example - the EU. People hate wars over there, but there governments continuously support intervention in every little conflict that pops its head up (Libya, Syria, Kony, etc).

Wheres the democracy in that ^

[Deleted]

6. Law when you can't smoke in public places.

Brb, moving to Russia.


Seriously though, most laws you posted aren't that bad. What's wrong with the alcohol one? I assume you can still buy a beer on the pub after 23.00, but why does it have to be from a store at that hour?

Plan ahead, you don't work 08.00-23.00 every day of the week, do you? In Sweden, the only place we can buy alcohol is "Systembolaget" and they're open 10.00-18.00 or something like that and not that many have anything against it. Sure, if you feel like having a spontaneous party, it's a bummer that it's closed, but is it seriously that bad?
Buy some and store up at home, most alcoholic drinks takes tens of years to get old.


Ratings aren't that bad either. You know what to expect just because it's 15+? International rating rules state that a movie with the word "fuck" more than twice has to be 15+. If you see naked breasts for a quick second, it has to be 15+. If there's blood in even a slightly gruesome way it has to be 15+. It could be anything.
18+ also means either porn, great violence or full frontal nudity. Far from enough to tell you what it's going to be about.


Pirate law, it's against illegal actions without comprimising people's privacy. It's a very good law, IF you're on the side that thinks piracy is a crime, but that's a whole other discussion which would be off-topic.


Students to museums; well, I don't really have an opinion on that. I don't think museums are very educating compared to the internet/books and it's certainly not something mandatory in order to study something.

The anti-homosexual law is insane though, of course. I don't even know what Putin is thinking with that.

The "don't say anything bad about anyone", if it really is what you describe it as, then it's a bit silly, but if you mock someone, harass them and make them feel horrible, then yeah. You should be punished. Perhaps not with jailtime or anything, but in one way or another.

And the anti-smoking law as I mentioned, I'm 100% for it. I hate the smoke from cigarettes and they are harmful regardless of what people say. You're a douche if you smoke close to someone that doesn't like it. Period.

[The Iron Fist]

no, the USA is. NSA, homeland security, drone strikes, assassination by presidential decree and freedom got up and left a long time ago. add to that a healthy dose of global imperialism and do what i say not what i do.

If you think the USA is the only country doing that, you're living in a fantasy. There are far more freedoms in the USA than most of the world.

Also, would such a bad nation be the top country in foreign aid in the world. http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top...r-aid-map.html

How about the fact the USA contributes 57.4% of global food aid. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21279.pdf

Arguing the USA is worse than Russia is absolutely ludicrous. That's like saying the USA is worse than China or North Korea too. I mean come on, get real man.

[Revik]

"it has been deemed that anything not good for you is bad for you; hence illegal." - Lelina Huxley from Demolition Man

Seems to be truer every day.

[Reeve]

Snowden goes hide in Russia, suddenly all this media attention pops up about how evil Russia is.


Yeaaaaah, not buying it.

Huh? Like we haven't been paying attention to Russia before this?

[Bakis]

Snowden goes hide in Russia, suddenly all this media attention pops up about how evil Russia is.


Yeaaaaah, not buying it.

Pussy Riot, murder of Alexander Litvinenko, anti-gay legislation, just to name threads at the top of my head being about Russia.

[mvaliz]

I was pretty "ok" with my(Russia) government until recently they started making several absolutely absurd laws... Let's list them:
1. Every movie must have age ratings before it. There is short example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d_iX0hh1IY. Before law this show never had "18+" attachment to it. Does it effect me much? No. Does it ruin atmosphere of uncertainty? In my opinion very much, when I watch a trailer of some movie I wanna be surprised and when I see rating I already know what to expect...
2. Gay law, not even gonna talk about much, pretty sure most know it.
3. You can't buy alcohol from 23:00 to 8:00 and from 21:00 if you are not in the city. Makes very good sence, huh? Especially when most people have jobs which might end in exact that period. Or for example me, I finish my studying at 23:00 exactly, so what I need to skip the end of studies just to get a bottle of beer?
4.Pirate law... Russian SOPA. it's actually semi-working, you can't download several series from many trackers any more, they semi-closed one tracker(it works not for all).
5. The law on education... Student can't go to museums free of change anymore.
6. Law when you can't smoke in public places.
7. Small laws, liek you can't tell anything bad about person unless you have prove. Say that ... no I can't.

What next? Your thoughts? In my opinion that's too much. 3/7 of laws already made my life much worse. Well, maybe not worse, but more complicated for sure.
P.S. please make posts constructive and without hate.
P.S.2 if you could provide any info about ~same laws in your country would be very awesome!

We have those laws I boldfaced up there here in the USA. And, honestly, I don't think the Movie one is all that bad.

And I like that #7 small law you listed. Would make Political debates and news here a HELL of a lot more productive here in the USA.

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Snowden goes hide in Russia, suddenly all this media attention pops up about how evil Russia is.


Yeaaaaah, not buying it.

Apart from the gay issue... all the ones don't seem that evil at all.

Also... do you REALLY believe the OP is somehow a government agent sent to infiltrate the vast network of influence that is the "MMO-Champion off topic forums" to sew the seeds of convincing our perception!?

Really!?!

[Reeve]

And I like that #7 small law you listed. Would make Political debates and news here a HELL of a lot more productive here in the USA.

That sounds like slander/libel laws that are in place in most Western countries already.

[Sketchy]

I was pretty "ok" with my(Russia) government until recently they started making several absolutely absurd laws... Let's list them:
3. You can't buy alcohol from 23:00 to 8:00 and from 21:00 if you are not in the city. Makes very good sence, huh? Especially when most people have jobs which might end in exact that period. Or for example me, I finish my studying at 23:00 exactly, so what I need to skip the end of studies just to get a bottle of beer?
5. The law on education... Student can't go to museums free of change anymore.
6. Law when you can't smoke in public places.

#3 has been in place in Canada for years and years and years. Usually it's 21:00 and nothing opens until 11am if it's a
provincial run liquor store. Beer stores might be open as early as 9am but it wasn't until a few years ago you could buy spirits at them.
(edit: heck, i can remember as a child they weren't even open on sundays)

#5 Sad but true fact happening in alot of places. Used to be students free, adults with donation. Now it's a flat fee for all.
PNE(pacific national exhibition) used to give free admittance to all students but had to stop that due to costs.

#6 Parts of Canada have a similar law. I can only speak for the province of BC but you can't smoke near any doors or windows,
can't smoke on any hospital property or inside any type of business including bars, pubs and restaurants. I'm a smoker myself
and I'm ok with this law, it really is a nasty habit that affects others when you smoke near them.


Hope the little bits of comparison will help you. As for some of your other laws, they aren't really helpful to the
population of your country and protesting isn't really an option so I guess you'll have to just get by =(
It's ok to be frustrated with your government and your country, but don't give up hope. Plenty has changed here
in North America, you just have to hope that things will start to change for your country too.

[Deleted]

That's fucking moronic if you believe that OP.


Up and down the freedom index

Recently the French human rights organization Reporters Without Borders unveiled new press freedom ratings, which showed Russia sinking to 148th place globally. This finding is consistent with the yearly ratings of the American organization Freedom House, which deems the Russian media to be “not free.” In contrast, Western countries, as we might expect, are the world’s freest and most democratic and ahead of everyone else.

Does this correlate to reality? As a regular reader of the mass media from both sides of the Information Curtain, I have long been under the strong impression that the Western public intelligentsia – including the creators of all these ratings – often consider that the only “free” and “independent” media outlets in Russia are those which support their own ideas and prejudices. At the same time, those Russian media outlets that take a pro-Kremlin or even neutral position are inevitably painted as Kremlin stooges – disregarding that the majority of the Russian mass media audience approve of Putin.

(By the way, those approval ratings are created by polling ordinary Russians, whereas the ratings of organizations such as Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders are compiled using opaque methodologies by anonymous “experts.”)

As evidence of their position, their argue that Russia apparently has no freedom of speech, and that the “bloody regime” crushes the voices of “democratic journalists.” Yes, these things sometimes happen. For instance, after the Presidential elections, Kommersant Vlast printed a photograph of a election ballot saying, “Putin, go fuck yourself.” The paper’s editors cheekily captioned it thus: “Correctly filled out ballot, ruled spoiled.” The paper’s owner Alisher Usmanov quickly fired them.

Harsh? Maybe, but there is a wealth of similar examples in the West. For insulting Romney, accidentally caught on open mic, the journalist David Chalian was fired from Yahoo News. One can compile an entire list of journalists who were fired for criticizing the state of Israel: Sunni Khalid, Helen Thomas, Octavia Nasr, etc. Likewise there is another substantial list of journalists fired for attending Occupy Wall Street protests. The most famous journalist-whistleblower in the world, Julian Assange, today lives in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London to avoid arrest the moment he walks out onto the street.

Regardless of all this, “professors of democracy” continue to harangue us with the idea that the Russian media are controlled and toe the Kremlin line. These claims would seem absurd to any Russian who cares to leaf through the pages of Vedomosti, Novaya Gazeta, Echo of Moscow, or an array of other publications. If you wish to find a glaring example of mass media parroting a single narrative, one need look no further than Western coverage of the 2008 war in South Ossetia. In that fairytale, evil Russian orcs cravenly attacked flourishing, democratic Georgia, ushering in all kinds of savagery and destruction in their wake. At the same time, the American news channel FOX interrupted its interview with an Ossetian-American schoolgirl, at the time resident in Tskhinvali, when it became clear that her account did not square with Washington’s party line. The Polish journalist Wiktor Bater was fired after he started saying “politically incorrect” facts about the Georgian bombing of Tskhinvali and Saakashvili’s lies. Needless to say, these episodes did not in the slightest impact the press freedom ratings of either the US or Poland.

This is not to idealize the state of Russian press freedoms, which has a huge number of its own problems. For instance, writing about Putin’s private life (but not his policies!) is something of a taboo in Russia, just as is criticism of Israel in the US. And the situation as regards unsolved murders of journalists is far worse than in the West, albeit in statistical terms it is comparable to or even better than in many widely acknowledged democracies such as Brazil, Mexico, India, Colombia, and Turkey.

That said, there are some things Russia can be “proud” of. American “dissidents” such as Hearst Newspapers journalist Helen Thomas and former professor Normal Finkelstein are not only fired, but also put on blacklists which complicate their chances of finding another job and getting access to high-ranking officials. Meanwhile, in stupid and naive Russia, the American journalist Masha Gessen can publish a book about Putin titled “The Man Without a Face” and get a personal interview with the Russian President as a reward. She is then free to repay his consideration by practically calling him an idiot in an account of their meeting in the journal Bolshoi Gorod – and to then go on to head the Russian service of Radio Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, headquartered minutes away from the walls of the Kremlin.

So in some sense Russia still has many, many steps still to climb up the stairs of the press freedom ratings…



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So yeah, go fuck yourself you fucking russophobic dogs shitting and spewing lies about my homeland.

Infracted

[Deleted]

We are not without fault but we dont have show trials putting political opponents in jail for one thing.
I'm rather glad we have our way of democracy and not the puppet one in Russia.

i wouldnt say that. your government wants to extradite julian assange to the US under the disguise of sexual offences, where as ours in the UK wont let him leave the ecuadorian embassy in london as theyre under the thumb of the US government & dont want to hurt the lovey dovey "special" relationship.

[Mihalik]

1. Every movie must have age ratings before it. There is short example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d_iX0hh1IY. Before law this show never had "18+" attachment to it. Does it effect me much? No. Does it ruin atmosphere of uncertainty? In my opinion very much, when I watch a trailer of some movie I wanna be surprised and when I see rating I already know what to expect...
2. Gay law, not even gonna talk about much, pretty sure most know it.
3. You can't buy alcohol from 23:00 to 8:00 and from 21:00 if you are not in the city. Makes very good sence, huh? Especially when most people have jobs which might end in exact that period. Or for example me, I finish my studying at 23:00 exactly, so what I need to skip the end of studies just to get a bottle of beer?
4.Pirate law... Russian SOPA. it's actually semi-working, you can't download several series from many trackers any more, they semi-closed one tracker(it works not for all).
5. The law on education... Student can't go to museums free of change anymore.
6. Law when you can't smoke in public places.
7. Small laws, liek you can't tell anything bad about person unless you have prove. Say that ... no I can't.

1. The Rating system exists for a very good reason, and almost every civilized nation has such a system in place. Now the question is not just having it, but actually enforcing it. If they do so, props for Russia.
2. "Gay Law" that is a clear infringement on Human Rights. Curiously the USSR had extreme tolerant laws when it came to Homosexuals in the times of Lenin, but slowly moved away from them, and once Stalin (Who else?) came around homosexuality became persecuted again. Arguably Russian attitudes towards Homosexuality are based on those imposed by the "moral code" of traditional social conservatives and christian nationalists.
3. Restricting times for buying alcohol is common practice and a public safety one as well. Considering Russian problems with public safety, crime and alcoholism this piece of law should have been introduced ages before. This law further encourages people to consume alcohol in public places like bars and clubs where costs and the places public nature is more likely to encourage responsible drinking (if that is even possible with Russians). Also it channels consumers into tax paying businesses, whom profit, the government profits and Russian society profits. Good piece of law overall. (And I say this as someone who owned a bar and the industry and society fought for the enforcement of this law for years. It cleaned up the streets and saved businesses, and improved the image of the country overall.)
4. Any SOPA type law is bad.
5. Somewhat sad, and I don't agree with it, but in the greater context of things it is understandable as it is being done to reduce government spending and increase revenues for Museums. Such things in the USSR were free as being owned and run by the state, with no concern to cost/benefits. Free museums are a leftover from a more state run economy, so if anything this move set Russia further away from the USSR.
6. Thanks god. Smoking does huge damages to society, especially in a country like Russia, where smoking is still widespread and the healthcare system is state run. Smoking should be discouraged by any means possible. Such laws exist in most of the United States and Europe. Russia is joining the club, nothing USSRish about it.
7. Defamation laws are a double edged sword. They can be beneficial and necessary or they can be used to silence criticism and dissent.

Scenario 1. I spread the word in the neighborhood that you are a child molester. People shun you, you lose your job or possibly get attacked, injured or killed. A Defamation Law in this case would protect you and allow you to sue for damages and the Court could take measures to clear your name.

Scenario 2. A political opponent of Putin accuses him of being a homophobe and an oligarch, twisting the laws of the country in his favor. The state accuses him of Defamation and jails him, as the above accusations are hard to prove and are rather subjective even if they are self evident. In this case Putin got rid of legitimate criticism by abusing the law.

Defamation Laws depend on clear separation of powers and judicial independence for correct enforcement.

Today's Russia has many things in common with the USSR, like as Cybran said, oligarchical oppressive police state, but many of the things you listed have nothing to do with that.

[Lockon Stratos]

Americans can't criticize Obama, or the Federal government without being labeled racists, or nut-jobs and placed in a terrorist watch list. Our phone calls and emails are monitored. In the polls we only have the option of Democrat or Republican, which as time has proven, is nothing more than the same crap. Obama = Bush = eveyr other president since the 1900s. We only have the illusion of freedom. Russians at least know the crap they're getting straight up.

[prwraith]

Idk the fact that 15% or so of the population has said they bribe officials for things.

That no one feels safe to drive in russia without a dash cam for fear of police corruption.

Police confiscating unflattering paintings.

Gay laws.

etc.

Seems like it's definitely becoming a solid citizen in the pantheon of countries lol.