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Comment by cakeface | Hacker News Reader

I think holding the citizens of a country responsible for the actions of the government of their country is not completely unreasonable.

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Yes, I agree. Depending on scale of democracy. In countries like USA where they continue voting and even fund the war criminals they fully deserve same penalty than those politicians and political parties they support. Explicit support for anyone participating in murder should result in death penalty after all.

On other hand where they have less effects like in Russia, maybe less so.

Even when the government throws the opposition in jail? When foreign media is banned, so most citizens don’t even know that there is something to protest? Tough break to be from that country: your government oppresses you and the rest of the world does too.

Russian history should teach us as well as anything that even totalitarian dictatorships have to operate with a modicum of consent from those they govern. Pitchforks and torches (especially when wielded by soldiers' mothers) are underrated as a tool for political changes.

Dostoevsky is not a citizen of Russia. Dostoevsky is dead.

While I get what you're saying in regards to the fact that no Russian citizen is being punished in this specific event, I can't help but feel like banning the works of someone who is around 140 years removed from what is Russia today is nothing more than a blatant attack on "Russian-ness", so to speak.

You absolutely do not get what I'm saying. The action of bannig dostoevsky is absurd because there is not even a tenuous thread of accoutability there. Russia was ruled by the Romanovs when he died.

I'm actually in full agreement with you. I must have read your comment "Dostoevsky is not a citizen of Russia" with a different connotation than you intended. Going back and reading it, and the parent comment, makes me realize you were getting at something else. In any event, I also believe is this fervent foolishness.

Can you tell us which country are you from so we can look in Wikipedia if your government has made something horrible in the last 10 years?

I like to agree because it's a simple razor that I can live my life by. I like simple. But the minute I endorse it all the shit countries I had lived in pop into my mind. People that have had no say in the horrors their leaders inflicted on the world. Countries rarely make decisions that are great for people living outside them, hell even at best of times they don't make great decisions for people who hold a passport.

I think that the anger that we all feel is incredibly valuable but only if we aim it at the right direction. Russia is a Kleptocracy governed by oligarchs who we in the West are happy to accommodate. How come Abramovich had a week to get his affairs in order and now sails in his yacht "Eclipse" around Gibraltar[1] when he should be sitting in a cell next to Assange. The real criminals are our dear leaders who prop up dark money and their oligarchs. I don't buy for a minute that any of my hate should be spent on civilians who are just like our racist uncle cheering for Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, or any of the other chuckle-ducks that have been hijacking our attention. This is their playbook, don't play their game, play yours.

[1] https://twitter.com/alexzfinley/status/1502304897139716102

not sure how to reconcile this... i dont think we should hold citizens accountable because the citizens dont control russia. Even in democratic countries the citizens only marginally control what the country does imo. There are people and organizations within russia that have far more power then the average russian citizen.

There's a difference between the tacit recognition that the people aren't wholly removed from the decisions of their government, even in oligarchy, and this sort of full-blown performative Russophobia. Harm against ordinary Russian citizens can be justified inasmuch as it pressurizes the regime to change course or to be itself changed -- banning Dostoevsky or a random private ship does neither. It's hostility for the sake of hostility and, if anything, will likely galvanize the sort of disdain for the West that makes folks tolerant of thugs like Putin.

Yes, we should hold American citizens responsible for invading Iraq.

Maybe in a democracy

You know what happens in a democracy where people do not have enough education and just don't trust their own government to work effectively? They elect the least capable people possible to positions of power.

Take Brazil for example. There will be federal elections there this year and who is the candidates that's set to win the elections? Lula, the same president that presided over Brazil when the largest corruption scheme in the history of the world [1] was at its peak. He spent years in prison and was freed recently, just in time to become president again, because of course, people believe he was innocent, or probably will at least "steal less" than the others.

I am not convinced we should blame all Brazilians for the actions of its corrupt government even if just about a majority of Brazilians vote for patently corrupt candidates. As always , these things are complicated.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash

However, documents leaked in June 2019 to Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept suggest that Judge Sérgio Moro may have been partial in his decisions,[20] passing on 'advice, investigative leads, and inside information to the prosecutors'[21] to 'prevent Lula's Workers' Party from winning' the 2018 elections.[21] Several top jurisprudence authorities and experts in the world have reacted to the leaks by describing former President Lula as a political prisoner and calling for his release.[22][23] Lula was ultimately released on 8 November 2019,[24] and Brazil's Supreme Court ruled justice Moro was biased against Lula in March 2021.[25]

Do you believe that means Lula had no responsibility and is innocent, or even that he's capable enough to run the country despite the fact this scandal happened right under his nose, even if he didn't explicitly participate?

Every country is at least a little bit democratic. Russian citizens living in Russia have a lot more power to affect the political situation in Russia than non-Russian citizens, or those not living in Russia.

What country are you a citizen from?

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