The thing about Europe: it's the actual land of the free now

Emmm no it's not. Believe it or not, the BRICS are

The Russia and China that don't have free elections?

Lmao, BRICS.

So. You believe freely expressing yourself in China will be less dangerous than in Europe ?

I don't think anyone will take that seriously.

Europe and the US have no moral high ground when it comes to the justice system being used against political opponents.

EU, where Brussels sends to jail candidates in other countries that it doesn't like?

Do you believe that's the only thing that defines 'freedom'?

The theocratic republic of Iran.

You mean corrupted politicians, or those abusing laws to get to the government?

How do you define it?

Do you think Trump is not trying to copy the UAE model? I don't believe he'd want any elections to take place anymore in the US

Name one who is jailed because the other countries don't like them?

How many political opponents in the EU and US died by falling out of windows or getting poisened?

Anna Politkovskaya – Investigative journalist and critic of the Chechen war, shot in Moscow (2006).

Alexander Litvinenko – Ex-FSB officer poisoned with polonium in London (2006).

Stanislav Markelov & Anastasia Baburova – Human rights lawyer and journalist, shot in Moscow (2009).

Boris Nemtsov – Opposition leader, shot near the Kremlin (2015).

Denis Voronenkov – Former Russian MP, shot in Kyiv (2017).

Nikolai Andrushchenko – Journalist, beaten to death in St. Petersburg (2017).

Alexei Navalny – Opposition leader, died in prison after previous poisoning (2024).

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Maybe Europe isn't perfect, but the Russian morals are so low that no effort is requried to be better than them.

Quote after a question in a meeting with the EU I asked and I was taken aside + my mic was muted:

"You can't ask these questions, or we'll all go to jail."

Bah, that’s the real freedom, comrade. Freedom to kill opposition. How can you call yourself “free” if you can’t freely put polonium in your opponents chai?

The end result is not much better. Only the candidates with the right positions get to hold power.

If brutally murdering political opponents and terrorizing own population to uphold the regime doesn't matter to you then we have different values.

You can't say things like that and not tell us what the question was.

google "positive liberty"

You can always find a way to eliminate an undesirable candidate. E.g. declare that they're "paid by Putin". That's all you need to eliminate the undesirable politician, there are usually exactly zero proofs. Declaring that someone is "pro Putin" is enough.

Actually, the range of methods is slightly wider. E.g. there was a French politician investigating the сase of corruption of Ursula von der Leyen. That politician died from "heart attack" just a few days before the hearing. Ah, that's a "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theories" are explicitly forbidden now in several EU countries. Also, very convenient.

Same for comments in the Internet. E.g. if you writing something western people doesn't like on Reddit/Facebook/whatever, the only reaction you'll get will be "you're a Kremlin troll"

No need to think and analyze yourself. There's only one truth in the world and it comes from Bloomberg/CNN/BBC.

How does China have that but not EU?

Nobody, because they keep each other out of jail.

It had to do with conflict of interest.

I’m from post Soviet space, bot. I first hand witnessed Putin’s regime and impact it had, do you seriously think I’ll buy what you’re selling?