Thanks Stuart, and thanks so much for your ongoing support. Your constancy means a lot to me. 🙂

*[that quote has been ascribed to so many, I just won’t try]

Both excellent points, and I agree.

Another one is the conflation of communism with socialism. Most modern democracies have socialist aspects to their societies to a greater or lesser extent. Paying taxes to a central authority, if only to pay for the military, is socialism. So is the principle of having laws that apply to everyone equally. Democracy is partly about deciding how much socialism there will be.

I’d heard the notion that the thing that really irked right wing crazies in the US about Russia was its supposed atheism. I hadn’t realized that Putin’s weaponizing of it would also lead those same people to a change of heart, given certain preconditions.

Putin’s idiotic brand of white supremacy is also spreading through Europe, augmented by the ascendancy of Trump and the normalizing of stupidity.

Also an important mention of Lysenkoism — the lessons of subordinating science to propaganda.

One is that the skills needed to be a good citizen of a religion and the skills needed to be a good citizen of a democracy are completely polar opposite to one another. To be a good citizen of a religion, you need to be credulous, unquestioning, and blindly obedient. You also need to believe that people outside your tribe are lacking somehow, intellectually, morally, or otherwise. To be a good citizen of a democracy, you need to be questioning, skeptical, and willing to look at relevant facts even when they contradict your preconceptions. You also need to recognize that you might learn something from others’ different viewpoints, and be willing to find solutions that accommodate the most people.

The other observation that I have made before that seems relevant here is that during the whole “cold war” phase, it always seemed to me that the only difference in the views was whether “god” existed. Communism and religion spring from an identical premise, which is: I know what’s better for you than you do. They are BOTH authoritarian systems. They both want to run the show with no dissent. Ick.

L

Thanks Chris, and thanks for reading it – that’s a mission in itself given the length. I suspect I lost a lot of readers long before they got to the comments!