Gallup: Majority of Americans Now Consider Russia a Critical Threat
It has also, for the second time since February 2015, become America’s “greatest enemy.” But if the percentage of Americans saying that was 18% back then, now it is at 32%.
Relative to average Russia disapproval of 73%, this reaches 80% amongst Democrats, 84% amongst liberals, and 84 amongst college graduates.
So basically there was a major shift around the 2016, when Democrats started becoming much worse disposed towards Russia, while Republican attitudes – especially young Republican attitudes – improved.
Since then, that pattern has remained.
However, the overall view of Russia has continued sliding down inexorably.
This limits the scope for any “reset” in relations, as the climate of public opinion makes any such attempts unfeasible. For instance, when the US Treasury removed sanctions on Rusal – after Deripaska had fulfilled the terms for doing so, but also in large part to halt the turmoil in the global aluminium production chain – the Dems tried to derail the decision. And a couple of weeks ago Graham and Menendez reintroduced a wide-ranging sanctions bill that failed to pass last year that would label Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Cold War II is here for the long haul.
This public opinion shift is the work of the Jewish extremists embedded in our society who now have painted a large target on Russia.
They move public opinion at will and will do anything to do so. Though, it is taking more and more. In the recent period, they needed to set a new precedent by outright inventing a an obvious narrative to attack a sitting president with a bogus investigation. They were required to essentially burn the credibility of the press to the ground to do so.
After this period, it will get harder for them still.
Thinking Americans would tie this current effort of theirs into the pre-WWII propaganda. It has the same ridiculous Jewish stench.
Only when a tipping point of Americans gets tired of the non-Jewish White man being the bitch of the Jews, will the group and their behavior that led to the current anti-Russia hysteria be permanently purged from any influence in public life.
Remember that the Jewish religion is more zealous and extreme than Islam. Americans would not tolerate being dictated to by Muslims. Its ridiculous that they tolerate it from Jews.
I suspect that it has gone this way in he UK too. Certainly in the business community, people previously uninvolved were once prepared to listen to the case for Russia; no longer. Baring Vostok is not even driving nails into the coffin. It is erecting a tombstone. No end of Indians seem to think they can fill the US-EU vacuum. Doesn’t seem likely. Import substitution (give us Subsidy) is going berserk. Latest wheeze – switch all vehicles to run on natural gas erecting barriers to foreign engines.
BV funded;
Yahoo
Beeline
BlaBla Car
Volga Gas
Profi
Avito
and many others.
Russian law on business dealings is screwed. It is far too easy to allege embezelment as a criminal offence. This is a dispute about valuation based on an anonymous valuation by a firm from Cyprus with untraceable owners and a trivial track record. This was supposed to be cleaned up 6 years ago.
Putin’s Russia does keep generating objective reasons for increasing Russophobia.
Nothing will change until this is dealt with. I fine myself wishing that Trump had bought Fox News rather than being so foolish as to think that he could get anything done as POTUS.
These business problems arent recent, Hardcore Russophobia only appeared from 2014 onwards
Anatoly, how much better do you think that US-Russia relations would have been right now had Russia not intervened in Ukraine after the Maidan Revolution and had there been no allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections?
(1) No allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 Prez elections would imply that Hillary Clinton would have won, who is a Russia hardliner. Russia was planning to intervene in Syria regardless – the Ukraine involvement merely delayed its deployment there – so that would have been an additional area of contention with the US, and probably to a much greater extent than under Trump. It is even possible that the US would have went ahead and militarily forced Russia out of Syria after one White Helmet performance or another.
(2) No Russian intervention would imply (as I have argued before) that Putin’s rating would have plummeted to <40% at the time of the 2018 Russian Prez elections (fully blamed for the recession, humiliated in Ukraine, probably kicked out of Crimea entirely while he wages an irrelevant war in the Middle East, possibly further humiliated in Syria). That means serious protests and the defection of large parts of the elites. Moreover, nationalists/patriots of absolutely all stripes would despise Putin by this point, giving the protesters a hard core of fighters. Coupled with heavy American support for regime change in Russia, it is almost inevitable that this combination would lead – if not to a liberal/nationalist-drive color revolution in Russia – then to a heavy and violent clampdown. This would invite hardcore American and EU sanctions.
So, relations would be almost as bad if not worse, while Russia would almost certainly be in a vastly worse position.
Propaganda works. If you don’t believe me, ask Dr. Goebbels.
This is my major takeaway as well.
The lesson to draw from this is that we should seize state power and establish a dictatorship of the shitposters.
Everything that you wrote here appears to make sense. Just one thing, though–are you suggesting that even if Russia would have completely refrained from ever doing anything which might have affected the 2016 US presidential election, there would have still been allegations of Russian meddling if Hillary Clinton would have lost? If so, that would suggest that she would be unwilling to accept blame for her own defeat.
Also, as a side question–what do you think that the U.S.’s Russia policy would have looked like over the past ten years if Hillary Clinton would have defeated Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and then proceeded to defeat John McCain in the general election that same year?
In my personal relations with the vatniks – we call them “good ol boys” – of rural Pennsylvania, I do my best when the opportunity arises to teach people that Russia is not a crucial threat to American existence.
Those who listen are generally willing to keep an open mind. And some of them even joke that they’d love to see Putin “liberate us” from the liberals and the feds.
It probably won’t make a big dent, but it’s the best we all can do as individuals.
Slightly OT, but most Trump-voting people I know are willing to believe that the official “deep state” story against Russia is a bunch of nonsense.
Most people in rural America distrust the feds. This goes back several generations. It began when the feds, to put it mildly, handled things poorly at Waco, Texas in 1993. It also is exacerbated by how roughly the feds treat some of our local farmers and business people.
It’s different among the Republican officials. Even local Republican officials are unwilling to speak out. And the congress people are all a joke. Heck, most of them voted in favor of our continued presence in NATO.
All of which is really quite pitiful. A lot of the good people at VIPS – Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity – have proven to my satisfaction that the “hack” was not a hack, but a leak from the inside. The download speeds were too fast for an outside hack. Someone inside the DNC leaked the emails to Assange.
I don’t know what Anatoly thinks of the accusations against Russia. I think the DNC/Hillary cooked up the accusations as damage control once Assange leaked he had some info from the DNC.
Overly hypothetical in a way that’s unrealistic. Would Hitler had succeeded in the long run, if he adopted an exclusive ideology in clear contrast to Nazism, while not being so expansionist?
The highlighted characterization of a Russian intervention in Ukraine typically downplays the non-Russian intervention in that former Soviet republic, which slanted towards anti-Russian elements. In turn, pro-Russian elements in Ukraine sought help from Russia. Is it so realistic to expect a relatively strong and independently minded Russia to simply do nothing on this matter?
Propaganda aside, at this point, it’s pretty clear that the hyped image of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election is exaggerated BS.
On the subject of Russia, there’s not much of a difference between H. Clinton and Obama. If put to an either-or choice between the two, perhaps Obama was the better chance for improved US-Russian relations – which serves to highlight how one-sidedly negative is the situation in the US political establishment regarding Russia.
Just look at Trump as a reference. His at times reasoned comments on Russia are contradicted by his appointments.
In US political discourse, there is need of a foreign enemy. China would be a more logical adversary, but this conflicts with the interest of American big business. Attacks on China are also viewed as racial in nature, the so-called Yellow Peril.
The only remaining anti-American strongman in the Arab world is Bashar Assad, he doesn’t satisfy the need for a threat, neocon wishes aside. ISIS was a flash in the pan.
It is convenient for the mainstream right to fear-monger about Iran, but the left cannot do that lest they damage the signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama Admin.
So Russia is white, large, and not important to American big business. It can be portrayed as internally weak, but externally expansive. And they target the most beloved minority in the West, one that even “conservatives” are now loudly defending.
And it helps that most conservatives of a certain age think that they have reverted to communism.
This graph if nothing else shows the ability of the establishment media to totally dominate and shape public opinion, at least on an issue relating to foreign policy. It also reinforces in my view the fact that the American elites seem to be becoming ever more incompetent. In the 21st century, China is likely to be the strongest state, America will be 2nd strongest and Russia will be 3rd, it makes sense for America to court Russia to contain China. The fact that the American elite have decided to do everything possible to alienate Russia will probably be seen as a geopolitical blunder of the highest order by historians in the future.
The only rational explanation for this behaviour by America is that its policymakers really do believe Russia is a kleptocratic state that is Nigeria with snow and will collapse in the near future. If so, that would be a worrying reality as it will likely lead America to escalate ever further believing Russia will disintegrate at any moment. I am not sure to what extent the Russian elites are aware of this fact and what their long term strategy is to deal with a west that is likely to escalate as far as is possible below the threshold of conventional war.
I wanted to write something like that, but couldn’t have put it so well to words.
‘Russia’ is a euphemism for whites, the alt right etc. This is really an internal US dispute for which Russia is collateral damage. As for the US a house a divided against itself cannot stand.
Thanks. Keeping in mind that English is my primary language.
Just checkout approval ratings for Israel in the US compared to Europe to demonstrate how effective propaganda works.
That’s more result of anti-Israel, melodramatic propaganda, in European media (BBC, Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais, Euronews, etc).
The propaganda somehow completely reversed political spectrum.
Objectively, Israel should be most popular with liberal European countries, and least popular with conservative Europeans.
But the propaganda has reversed political spectrum (even conservative politicians in Israel themselves, are quite liberal people by our standards).
People who will actually enjoy Israel are European liberals, hippies, hipsters and gays. And people who dislike it would be more often conservatives.
Religious/ethnic and military conflict in Israel itself is between ultra liberal Israelis (which are country of extremely mixed race looking people) vs ultra conservative and traditional Arabs.
–
I also remember how reversed media reporting of illegal immigration story in Israel is.
What you notice with your eyes if you go in Israel are the large amounts of illegal immigrants (from Eritrea and Sudan – as well as perhaps Somalia), who are living freely, receive work permits, have free medical treatment, and their children in state schools.
After 7 years, Israel does not deport them and there are obvious negative effects in many areas of cities, and internal anger about the topic.
But story in European media, and including Karlin’s blogging, is about how conservative Israel is deporting illegal immigrants and is the correct example to follow for conservatives (it’s exactly the opposite what you can actually see there).
Israel also has a lot of illegal immigrants from other countries like Latin America, and they don’t have internal anger, but just generally the Latin American illegal immigrants who don’t misbehave. (Ukrainian and Georgians they all deport though).
For example, when I visited Haifa, the Airbnb was run by South American Christian illegal immigrants, who have been living in Israel for years, and their children will receive Israeli citizenship when they are 21.
Never forget, polling is propaganda. Gallup’s instrument, which they hide from you, is based on standard CIA neuro-linguistic programming: in this case, Who’s the threat, are they the threat? Or are they the threat? Are they a bigger threat than them? Threat threat threat.
Maybe nobody’s a threat. Maybe I’m not wetting my pants like you timid statist sissies. Maybe I’m not scared of the whole outside world.
You know Gallup won’t give you a chance to answer that way.
As it happens, Russia is a threat, but not to the American peoples. Russia is an existential threat to the CIA kleptocracy. Because in the most comprehensive terms of the world-standard duties of the state, the government of Russia leaves the USG in the dust.
In every category, Russian human rights performance is superior to that of the USA. Across the board. Russians get a better deal from their state than downtrodden American flag-wavers.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Indicators/Pages/HRIndicatorsIndex.aspx
Dig down as deep into the supporting data as you want. It’s documented down to the gnat’s ass by independent international experts, as compiled from NGO reports.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/ENACARegion/Pages/RUIndex.aspx
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/LACRegion/Pages/USIndex.aspx
This is the threat to the kleptocracy that’s got its hooks in us. If Russia decapitated the US government with nonballistic hypersonic missiles and kinetic warheads and took over, Americans’ human rights would immediately improve by leaps and bounds. Because Russia interprets its human rights commitments in good faith. The US government does not.
That’s what I think too, but this is a miscalculation. US-run business won’t be able to slide in to virgin territory like they did after the Soviet Union fell. Russian businesses today have lots of partnerships with Chinese and European businesses, and Russia is more determined to keep it that way. They are not going to embrace the USA after its behavior since 2012.
The US is also shooting its reputation elsewhere. I’m not sure whether its uncompromising hard line against Russia is part of this, although in Germany it seems to be. Let’s see if it changes if the US elects another black person or a woman.
In Russia, gays are not targeted, although attitudes to gays are now perhaps part of a propaganda discourse on both sides of this stupid “new Cold War”.
The social situation of LGBT people today, is not different to how it was in the West during the 1980s (before the politicization of sexual minorities occurred in the West).
“Politics of sexual minorities” has just become an instrument of geopolitical propaganda, on both sides.
I have not heard that this was a topic during the Cold War, even though gays live more openly today than in the USSR. I assume the reason was, that the Americans had more or less the same attitude (tolerate lifestyle of sexual minorities, but do not actively normalize) then, so there was no difference that could be instrumentalized for geopolitical propaganda.
In reality, today, I believe the only countries where LGBT people are targeted, are in black and brown countries (Middle East, Africa, etc) – but there does not appear to be much Western interest in actual persecution of sexual minorities, as they write more articles about Russia (where there is toleration of gays, and private life of people in general), than about Africa and Middle East (where there is persecution of gays).
LOL, that sounds like some sort of sarcastic joke 🙂
We had a black person and possibly a “woman” (i.e., passive homo) as POTUS for 8 years. The course followed by Clinton, Bush Jr, and now Trump did not change a bit. If anything , cackling hyena (I used to call her corrupt mad bitch, but I find this expression used by one of the Unz commenters better) was even worse than Trump, worse than Bush Jr.
School years teach me that the only thing that makes a bully stop is a seriously bloodied nose. Particularly a desperate bully scared of his own weakness.
You’re overstating your case, Dmitry.
Yes, in certain ways Israel is a liberal and hippy paradise but in certain other hugely important ways it’s an ethnic nationalist paradise.
European nationalists who idealize Israel don’t see the full picture, you are correct in that. But the picture you present is distorted in the opposite direction.
If Europe does become nationalist again, it will probably stay culturally liberal in lots of unexpected ways instead of just recreating the monolithic dreariness of Nazi Germany.
And those are the best kinds of countries, those that combine different elements instead of just being monolithic.
Nazi Germany was intentionally monolithic, but dreary?
http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/attachments/ss-uniforms-insignia/23228d1230702340-black-uniforms-period-photos-color-1939-.jpg
http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/attachments/ss-uniforms-insignia/23229d1230702412-black-uniforms-period-photos-color-june-04-1939.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PTIzcnaCqC0/UQpEb8Iq_ZI/AAAAAAACVrQ/h6KwU_n4ucc/s1600/05+Nuremberg,+Germany,+1938.jpg
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CVVGMvUOyhw/UQpEkqRcQgI/AAAAAAACVsQ/4nUEyUrtii4/s1600/14+Berlin+illuminated+at+midnight+in+honor+of+Hitler's+50th+birthday,+April+1939.jpg
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K9ZKXG6WOkc/UQpEmlfG0pI/AAAAAAACVso/6IcqkB9_9CI/s1600/16+Annual+midnight+swearing-in+of+SS+troops+at+Feldherrnhalle,+Munich,+1938.jpg
https://www.nationalists.org/library/hitler-jaeger/3066571745934e8c.jpg
https://www.nationalists.org/library/hitler-jaeger/4f5d69d2698fcb49.jpg
Lol, ok fair point.
You are right, but I wouldn’t call it ‘rational‘. Any strategy based on waiting for the enemy to collapse is simply stupid. If nothing else it turns over the initiative to one’s presumed enemy.
I have an additional explanation: American elite is not what it used to be, and by historical standards it is among the most petulant, infantile and narcissistic we have seen since Nero played with fire (as they say, I am not sure I believe the story). The elites are too lazy to think critically, to learn substance rather than presentation skills. For difficult subjects to study they have basically outsourced the hard work to opportunistic ethnic outsiders from around the world. In foreign policy and Russia that has meant that interested ethnic lobbies have taken over and push their agendas without any regard for what would benefit US in the long run. They hate, they want others to also hate, and they have the energy and the platform to push this hatred.
A country that allows small self-serving ethnic groups to take over crucial areas of its foreign policy is not a ‘super-power’. As ancients warned ‘stay out of other peoples’ quarrels’. That is not possible when the ‘other people’ are running the show. It will be ironic if we blow it all to bits because someone’s grandpa had a grudge that noone could possibly understand, but the resulting multi-generational hatred triggered a war.
How disappointing. Perhaps I’ll stop holding up Israel as a model for our immigration policy.
Russia must go its own way. If Russians get their act together, sky is the limit.
Let stupid Americans call for Jewish propaganda. While Jewish Power is using all its muscle to turn US into Brazil, dumb Americans, esp whites, are soooooooooo afraid of big bad Russia.
Are Russians crashing through the southern border? Are Russians making US fight all these Wars for Israel that drains the US economy? Are Russians preventing Trump from doing something about border security? Are Russians taking away free speech? No, Jewish power is doing all that.
But if you ask Americans what they think of Jews, it’ll be 98% positive.
What a bunch of dummies.
Nazi Germany was intentionally monolithic, but dreary?
Even grand spectacles get boring after awhile.
I look at it this way. Would Israel let a Christian community making up 1-2% of the population be in control of the national government, mass media, and entertainment industry? And let a foreign intelligence agency do anything it wants with no fear of being investigated, much less prosecuted?
This question should be asked to Zionists of all stripes. But it wont be asked by the Zionist MSM!
If you were never made to to participate in events like these you’d be singing a different tune about dreary.
It could be worse, the 12 core socialist values are stuck in my head, probably forever.
Well, I am one American that is extremely disappointed that my peace dividend check bounced.The “new” Russophobia took me by complete surprise.
Let’s take a flight of fancy and assume that “dem Jews” as Jews are not behind the push to keep Russia as the Evil Empire. What are other possible explanations such as comment #15? I can’t see the motivation and reasoning for these bad decisions. (Remember now, no dem Jews have their reasons.)
Russia is the Evil Empire because it represents everything America (and the Wet in general) has lost – things like decency, family values, religion. Russia’s existence is a standing reminder of how far we’ve sunk into the cesspit. They’re a constant reminder of what a functional society looks like.
Russians are hated because they refuse to join the West in the sewer.
Few argue that propaganda does not work. That still does explain why the elites want to take down Russia.
Reverse psychology.
The US needs Russia as an ally against China.
We know that there are some Russians smart enough to understand this (they could ask AK for help if they didn’t have a quorum) and they would reject such an alliance. But there are probably even more Russians who are even smarter and realize that if the US is treating Russia like yesterdays R. Kelly victim, that means that the US is trying outsmart them and drive Russia into China’s arms. Those really smart Russians will reject this obvious dodge and bring Russia to Uncle Sam where life is good.
I also thought about this, and I stumbled upon a question: what if USA alienated Russia so much to better portray it as an enemy, so they can keep NATO and, therefore, Europe in its sphere of influence? Russia would be more than useful against China, but we are talking about late 1990s here…no politician is that farsighted to make an ally out of a defeated former enemy to counter a possible future enemy. What do you think?
I think that was true in the late 90’s, early 2000’s – NATO needed a mission and without Russia as an enemy it was becoming ridiculous. So they pushed a bit to get EU in line, and to give NATO some purpose. At that time they also took Russia for granted and truly believed that Russia had no agency and it could be manipulated and ignored.
But it got way out of hand in the last 10 years. Russia has recovered – as was almost inevitable – and suddenly the NATO business promotion went from fake to very real. We might end up in something approaching a war. Then I guess NATO would have relevance. As I always say, be careful what you wish for, you might actually get it.
China was seen at that time (and is still seen to some extent) as a large, but harmless super-power with no external ambition. Chinese work very slowly, and under the surface. The stupidity of creating a de facto alliance of China-Russia (plus a few more) is beyond belief. Russia desperately wanted to be allied with the West (at least with Europe), they had no real conflicts and there was an excellent economic synergy, resources for markets. That was thrown away with repeated stupidity.
It is too late now, alea acta est – the dice has been thrown. The losers will be mostly the Europeans. And maybe that’s why the top boss doesn’t care much, Europeans are patsies, why take them seriously? When one has no balls, there are consequences.
No, it must be for other reasons.
HIV rate , Russia (2011): 1.1%
HIV rate, USA (2011): .6%
HIV rate, Germany (2011): .1%
HIV rate, Poland (2011): .1%
Abortion rate, Russia (2013): 534
Abortion rate, USA (2013): 252.7
Abortion rate, Germany (2013): 150.7
Abortion rate, Poland (2013): 2.61 (this is not a typo)
% who never attend religious services (2008)
Russia 30%-40%
Germany 30% – 40%
Poland under 10%
Percentage marriages ending in divorce (2011):
USA: 53%
Russia: 51%
Germany: 49%
Poland: 27%
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Russia is certainly moving in the right direction, but it is still worse than the West on most moral measures. Its rival Poland is the best.
Some of this data is wildly wrong.
We know that around 97% of the population of Russia never attend a single services of at least the Russian Orthodox Church, because the data is officially counted by them.
And the size of other nationalities and religions is not nearly large enough to raise this to 30-40%, and neither all Muslims, Jews, Catholics, very religious.
I don’t think this data has any relation to “moral measures”.
Saudi Arabia has a very high “attendance of religious services”. While Denmark, probably a very low one.
Which society do you prefer to live in? Which is civilization for you – Copenhagen or Riyadh?
This is not a “moral measure”. It is a virus.
Here the problem in Russia, is needle sharing among drug addicts. You want to infer from this about “morality”? But spread of virus is much more from inadequate needle supply with the drug addicts, not their total number.
Do you know people who live in Poland?
Even a post-Christian society is more pleasant to be in than is a non-Christian one.
By “morality”, Christian morality and not harems was inferred.
Abusing one’s body in this way is immoral.
Here is a list of prostitutes per 100,000 population:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_statistics_by_country
Russia: 70
Germany: 37
United States: 31
Poland: 5
You didn’t dispute abortion and divorce rates?
Yes, my cousin was born there. Married 25 years to a girl he met in high school, three kids. He is well-educated and wealthy. My best friend here in the USA is from Poland, I met a lot of people at his wedding in Poland. Poland is a wholesome place, like Utah but with plenty of alcohol.
While church attendance is low in Russia, this is clearly wrong. Your friends are not a representative sample.
List seems suspect. I don’t believe that Russia has 3.5x as many prostitutes per capita as the Ukraine (maybe it is true for just Galicia vs. Russia). That is just ridiculous.
What I think is driving it is the realization by the Anglosphere Foreign Policy Elite & Punditocracy that Russia has recovered effective military power and has the capacity to deter the US undertaking the regime change wars everywhere they wish to.
The 2008 Georgia war was a surprise. Before that the AFPE&P considered the Russian military a pile of rusting junk. Then came the ‘Polite People’ in Crimea and the cauldron battles of Eastern Ukraine, a bigger surprise, especially when Russian artillery strikes destroyed Ukrainian mech battalions in minutes. Sobering. And then there was the successful power projection to Syria, just when the Syrian Army was effectively pushed to coastal enclaves.
Recall 1992, when Paul Wolfowitz exulted that the USSR no longer contained the US, giving the US freedom of action in Asia, though probably maintaining it in Central America. That US freedom of action has sharply diminished, now that Russia can conventionally deter US action in Asia, and the AFPE&P are furious about that.
Usually 2,7% across the Russian Federation attend any service for Easter (of course this is the most important service of all).
There is a lot of regional variation. In Chelyabinsk region it is 0,8% people attend anything during Easter. But in Sverdlovsk region, it’s 2.7%. And in North Ossetia (I can’t remember the number exactly) it was many times higher.
Attendance for Christmas services is always around 1.7% in recent years.
The highest numbers were in the 1990s, and there is a fall since then. As the population now becomes older, it will be steady at a certain low number.
If you read what some priests in the church complain about in Facebook, there is now a problem of dilution though. Construction industry builds more churches alll the time, but during the rest of the year (outside Easter) more churches results in dilution of their congregation.
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In surveys 1,2% of self-identifying Orthodox believers,say they take part in monthly communion.
https://takiedela.ru/2017/04/takaya-rossiya-cerkov/
I am friends with some old people who are going regularly to church, sometimes a result of misfortune (e.g. a woman my family knows whose son had died, becomes religious subsequently).
This is not successfully evading the point.
Attendance in religious institutions is not an indication of morality level in a society.
I’m sure Japan or Denmark, has a far higher morality level (as we normally understand it) than very religious societies like Brazil or Mexico.
The most Christian countries in the world today, are in the developing world, and particularly in Africa.
So the “morality indicators” (with no relation to morality) you selected like HIV and religious institution attendance are also in contradiction to each other in the real world.
High HIV in Russia is more a result of the needle use of drug users, not the total number of drug users.
The main factors influencing this are state capacity and healthcare.
For example, the HIV epidemic is out of control now in Ekaterinburg – with 2% of the city population of Ekaterinburg having HIV (and in Perm it’s even higher).
But I think Roizman is probably successful in improving the treatment of drug users in the city. In the West, there is much more state capacity in this area, and this is why the HIV rate is much lower in the West compared to Russia. A lot of Roizman’s ideas were just copying what they did already in the West.
Because family planning is a bit more primitive – and still today – where contraception and abortion are substituting for each other. While in Western Europe, there is more strict contraception use habits.
Now there is more and more contraception in Russia, the abortion rates will fall.
I’m not sure the correct way to relate this topic to morality.
Abortion is immoral, if the fetus is conscious at time of abortion (and this is a scientific question).
But people who have abortion are not necessarily more or less immoral than someone who uses other contraception (they are often just more disorganized and with less efficient healthcare provision, as has been the situation compared to Western Europe).
I don’t find Poland has any relation to Utah. (In Poland, things like prostitution are very mainstream, while in Utah is a Mormon colony, and very morally self-policed).
I’ve only visited in Poland very briefly. I live with all Polish housemates though. I was actually going to say the Polish personality has a lot of Catholic influence – as with Spanish and Irish people. Even Polish way of story reciting reminds me of Irish way of reciting stories.
But that Catholic people from Poland (or Ireland and Spain), seem socially to me always much more liberal than secular people from Russia/Ukraine/Belarus. People from Catholic countries are surprising you with their liberalism. E.g. my housemate attends church every week, but social attitudes are very liberal.
I checked wiki’s numbers before posting.
In Russia, 1 million according to official statistics:
https://www.ntv.ru/novosti/452258
https://www.newsweek.com/prostitution-russia-surges-after-financial-crisis-report-437869
Number of prostitutes in Ukraine:
67,500
https://prostitution.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000095
Wikipedia gave 80,000:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_statistics_by_country
::::::::::::::::::::::
This is the number prostitutes in the country; many of Russia’s prostitutes are from eastern Ukraine, Vietnam, etc. (but then, there are also Russian prostitutes abroad, in Poland, Israel, UAE, etc. -and many Ukrainian prostitutes abroad). I don’t have time to research detailed figures of exported ones. But per capita there are clearly many more prostitutes within Russia than within Ukraine, particularly now that Donbas is gone (I’d guess per capita Donbas is the leader among European places).
I think that if you add prostitutes abroad to the totals, the figures for Russia vs. Ukraine would be more equal. So this measure may reflect men’s morality more than women’s.
In Christian context religion is a measure of morality but of course an atheist would disagree.
In Ukraine HIV prevalence shifted from drug users to people who got it through sex (it began with drug users but then spread to their partners, who spread it to their partners etc). The shift occurred in about 2010. I see no reason why Russia is any different at this stage. Warning to sex tourists in Ukraine: about 38% of Donbas prostitutes and 23% of Kiev prostitutes have HIV.
Yes, Russia is improving greatly as it cleanses itself of Soviet evil. In this aspect it will probably eventually surpass Western morality in a few years.
But meanwhile, casual attitude towards killing unborn children reflected in a very high rate of abortion is itself a measure of morality. I know a Russian whose mother was not ashamed to admit that she had 23 abortions.
Prostitution rate in Poland is very low, 5 per 100,000 (compared to 70/100,000 in Russia or 31/100,000 for the USA).
Poles tend to marry, don’t divorce often, they go to church, and to be generally physically healthy and religious. The society seems “wholesome” in its atmosphere, perhaps like the West was in the 1950s. So in these ways they are reminiscent of people in Utah who also marry, don’t divorce often, go to their temple, and appear to be physically healthy. But it is not totally the same – Poles drink, they are more casual about nudity. Still there is something in common.
Russia is also pleasantly retrograde but was unfortunately spoiled by Sovietization. If Poland (or Utah) is a Church-going family man of the 1950s then Russia is a 1950s guy who leaves his wife, visits a brothel, convinces his girlfriend to get an abortion, etc. This seems to be the result of Soviet morality which fortunately Russia is jettisoning.
Then it is just a tautology. You would not measure morality, but Christianity rates. And by which, Mexican, Brazil and Africa are the most moral places.
But question of morality in the society is actually quite different, from the topic of level of religion.
For example, if we look at real countries, we can see those with separation between church and state (like America), and today the secular countries (like Europe and East Asia), are more advanced and civilized countries. But it is not a causal relationship (I would not blame the disorder of Brazil, anymore than the order of America, on the fact both countries have unusually high church attendance). It appears much more unrelated.
America seems is actually a bit unusual, as a highly religious country, which is also a developed country. But is religious America, more “moral” than secular Europe and East Asia?
Even with America, the morality issue seems quite separate from the religious one, and we can see how most countries – Christian, Buddhist or Secular – behave quite similar when they reach certain economic development levels.
People with unprotected sex, who have HIV without knowing, are often in relationships, so it’s not an indication of morality.
Here again, factors are related to lack of detection of HIV positive status, and lack of detection is a result of lack of healthcare investment.
I don’t need to explain viruses (as well as bacteria and fungi) don’t care about human concepts of morality.
HIV rates are low in the West compared to Russia/Ukraine, not because Westerners are more moral than in Russia/Ukraine, but because there is more state capacity and healthcare investment in the West.
Likewise there is no plague and syphilis today, not because we “don’t anger gods anymore with our morality”, but because of developments of medicine and hygiene.
High abortion rates of Russia are not result of lack of morality of Russians relative to the West people, but of less strict contraception use habits compared to Western Europe and America.
Stricter habits for use of contraception (condoms and oral contraceptives), which is now lowering abortion rates, is not an indication of suddenly change of moral behaviour.
I would agree that abortion of a fetus which has consciousness is immoral, or issue of immorality.
But the late abortion in Russia is not common. The vast majority in your statistics is relating to very early abortions – and this is the kind which substitutes the most with contraceptive use.
Where is your data from? I doubt there is a statistics agency for this, except perhaps in Germany or Switzerland.
In Europe, a large proportion of prostitutes are from Poland. And the Polish emigrants themselves are joking about it – and that women they meet abroad they suspect look like prostitutes.
Neither I would say this is a sign of “lack of Poland’s morality” – it is more a result of the economic level, where women in the richest European countries become prostitutes at a much lower rate than women in low and middle income European countries.
For example, if in Russia was as rich as Utah, then the rate of native women becoming prostitutes would be probably the same as in Utah.
Well it’s possible – I never meet with a Mormon.
But Poles definitely seem a socially quite liberal behaving people. And the drinking and socialising, is a bit more similar to other Catholic societies like Irelanders, Spanish, etc.
If everyone was a virgin until they married, and were then faithful their entire lives, there would basically be zero HIV and it wouldn’t spread. The fewer the sexual partners among people in a society, the less HIV prevalence. Spread of HIV is due to promiscuous behavior. So s junkie has sex with someone, who has sex with someone else, etc. And now over 1% of the Russian population has HIV.
So yes, HIV is a good indicator of morality.
A moral person who accidentally got pregnant wouldn’t kill the unborn child.
I don’t know numbers there, but in Poland itself there are very few, and a large % of them are from Ukraine and Russia.
Number of prostitutes in a country provide an indicator of the morality of the men in that country. Do they support a large market for prostitutes?
So Netherlands, Sweden, Australia and Ireland, have the most “morality” (in your sense of being virgins, etc)?
Because countries like Netherlands, Sweden, Australia and Ireland, have the lowest HIV rates in the world.
If HIV was a “good indicator” of people being virgins, then Amsterdam would be one of the most virgin city in the world.
No – HIV rates are inverse proxy of healthcare in this area.
But completely contradicted by actual HIV rates of actual countries. The rates are lowest in the most sexually liberal countries like the Netherlands and Sweden.
However, I understand you are to imagine a theoretical model. Even in this case, if you want to talk about HIV transmission for vaginal sex – it is usually from long term relationships and marriages. The reason is because it requires regular unprotected sex with the partner, to have any chance of transmission.
https://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Het%20risk%20of%20HIV%20trans-Boilyetc%202009-2.pdf
If there is no physical precondition for consciousness, it does not have moral implication “kill the unborn child”.
Zygote does not have any moral difference to two gametes.
The moral implication emerges with the development of physical preconditions that could imply consciousness. This is not in the early term of abortion, which is when majority of abortion in Russia.
According to what? There is no statistics agency measuring prostitutes.
But note, if there wasn’t a developed prostitution inside Poland, then they would not have dominated the prostitution industry of Western Europe, after they accessed free movement.
Countries like Ireland and the UK, did not have developed local prostitution. And Polish were famous for dominating the prostitution in these countries.
This kind of story is for Ireland:
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/homeward-bound-trio-of-polish-prostitutes-who-ran-belfast-brothel-28755344.html
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/hookers-rates-soar-as-they-get-lunchtime-rush-26417230.html
Then what is the relevance of Poland to this discussion? I don’t think it is Utah there.
https://yomadic.com/polish-prostitutes/
Or in Polish YouTube people about salaries of prostitutes in Poland
It can be more than one thing. But morality in the absence of a good healthcare system also has low HIV rates. Western Ukraine probably has poorer healthcare system than Russia but has a much lower HIV rate.
Ireland until very recently was very Catholic.
An excuse for the immoral action of killing unborn children. One can also save money by killing elderly people with advanced dementia, using a similar excuse.
Somehow people make surveys and come up with estimates. And estimates place number in Poland as much, much lower than in Russia.
You respond to data with some anecdotes. But the fact is that within Poland there is a much smaller number of prostitutes per capita than within Russia. However Russia is not the worst – Latvia has the most most IIRC. Though any of them are Russians.
Number of prostitutes in Poland is 5/100,000 population. One can make articles about those 5 per 100,000.
Wikipedia has sourced figures:
US 2009 Human Rights Report states that: “according to police there were an estimated 3,300 prostitutes in the country; however, NGOs estimated that there were 18,000 to 20,000 women involved in all aspects of the sex industry.”[16] The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality writes that “the police estimate that there are about 12,000 prostitutes working in Poland.”[17]
Compare to 1 million in Russia.
It’s inverse to healthcare provision and strategy in this area. And Western Ukraine may have a better healthcare in relation to HIV, than there was in Ekaterinburg, Perm, Omsk, etc. Ukrainian policy might be slightly better in this area (it can’t be more stupid).
Ireland has low HIV not because they are sexually “moral” (actually they are sexually very liberal), but because this criteria (sexual liberalism) isn’t related to difference between HIV rates between real countries (the lowest HIV rates are in some of the most sexually liberal countries).
A lot of the reason HIV so high in Russia, is because of incompetent and primitive policy in this area, rather than academic investigation and modeling of the disease spread. There’s more than enough academic knowledge in Russia to have controlled the epidemic, as has successfully in the Western countries.
It’s like the plague of Athens, where the unintelligent Athenians thought it was related to “angering the gods”, while only some few cleverer Athenians analysed the problem in a intelligent way. It’s just an intelligence test, and which government has failed.
A zygote and then embryo, without physical correlates for mind is not “unborn children”, anymore than two gametes are “unborn children”.
Otherwise, each sperm and egg cell is “half of a child” (because there is no unique quality emerging from conjunction of the two, beyond their original physical properties). The moral issue here is to do with existence of a mind before birth. It’s at this point when – not before there are certain physical structures – there is an additional and as yet mysterious property of consciousness/soul, that was not in the sperm and the egg.
In Russia, late abortion is not common, so the statistics about early abortion are not relevant to discussion about “killing children”. At this stage when most abortion in Russia is, it is a group of cells without physical correlates for a mind/consciousness/soul.
Late abortion in Russia, where there is potential, theoretical possibility of mind/consciousness/soul in the fetus, is very uncommon and will be very small part of your statistics.
No because it is killing a person.
From the basis of Wikipedia, citing a police statement, which is contradicted by around 6 times another estimate of NGO. Prostitution is legal in Poland, so the police are not monitoring and no-one is actually counting anything.
About Russia, it could be an underestimate or an overestimate (there is no-one measuring any of this). Everyone knows how ubiquitous it is, either way.
And equally, there is a problem in suggesting that the number of prostitutes in Poland is known or that anyone is monitoring it. But it is a known aspect of the country, which shocks tourists there.
There is a lot of prostitution in and from Poland. Numbers for comparison to Russia – no-one in measuring.
Obviously number of women becoming prostitutes is far more common in Russia compared to in English speaking, Western countries. I wouldn’t relate this to morality, so much as income levels.
So if you made a comparison to women in Ireland, it would have been valid.
What I find unusual is the using Poland to try to negatively compare to Russia. It’s a unusual choice in this area, considering that in Western Europe most people associate Poland with prostitutes, and Polish living in the West joke about not being prostitutes.