“Despite its willingness to experiment with new ideas, the Russian people inherently understand, down to a person, that there are some cultural lines you simply do not cross without irreparable breaks to the social fabric”
Robert Bridge
Just a few years ago, it would have been exceedingly difficult to imagine Russia serving as a model for not only civil society and common sense, but the very bedrock of conservative beliefs. And therein lays the reason, I suspect, for the West’s extreme dislike for this sprawling landmass of 11 times zones: It holds up a large mirror to the ugly face of Liberalism itself.
As Liberals in the West continue to push their radical ideas to the breaking point, dabbling in social engineering projects that border on the insane, Russia has brushed off the ashes of its Soviet past and is restructuring its society along the line of conservative thinking. This chameleon act attests to the Russian peoples’ deep-seeded need for normalcy, predictability and a smooth-functioning social and political system above all else. In fact, that largely explains why communism failed here in the first place. The Russian people were able to swallow their pride and admit that the Soviet system was broke and needed replaced.
This leads to the main difference between Russia and the West, which I believe is one of the main reasons for the fracturing of political relations we are now witnessing: Despite its willingness to experiment with new ideas, the Russian people inherently understand, down to a person, that there are some cultural lines you simply do not cross without irreparable breaks to the social fabric. By contrast, the West, and despite its general appreciation for conservative values, appears helpless in the face of a Liberal assault that has been set in motion from above as opposed to the grassroots level. This undertaking has been pulled off with the deep collusion of the mainstream media, which, aside from some minor exceptions, is anything but conservative today.
This has led to the disfigurement and misalignment of Western society from which it will be hard-pressed to recover from. Indeed, many of the things that get passed off today as ‘progress’ in the West would never fly in Russia, and not because Russia is a backward country. Precisely the opposite, I would argue.
For example, with regards to sexual proclivities among the people – and despite what self-promoting, Russia-trashing writers would have us believe – there is no Gulag Archipelago somewhere out in Siberia where homosexuals and bisexuals are condemned as punishment for their sexual transgressions. Much of the confusion on that score came in the wake of Russia passing in 2013 what has come to be known in the West as the ‘Anti-Gay’ law (officially called, ‘Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values’). The law, which is designed to protect children from being exposed to ideas of a sexual nature that conflict with what the majority identifies as normal ‘family values’, has been widely accepted by the majority of Russians as reasonable. Yet it has been the source of every sort of libelous accusation against the country since it came into force.
One writer from the New York Times warned that the “draconian” legislation would authorize Russian police officers “to arrest tourists and foreign nationals they suspect of being homosexual, lesbian or ‘pro-gay’ and detain them for up to 14 days.” This information was borrowed from Huffington Post, which in turn was borrowed from some little-known travel website (hyperlink unavailable), is utter nonsense. There is nothing in the legislation to suggest that Russia will persecute homosexuals, as any visitor to the World Cup in Russia could easily confirm.
Yet the virtue-signaling against Russia continues as Western Liberals hold firm to the belief that its questionable value system must be universally accepted before their messianic mission is complete. And given their refusal to hear another side of the story – as has been already witnessed on a number of US college campuses, some of which were actually torched lest a new thought be articulated – speaks volumes about not only the maturity level of these intellectually stunted delinquents, but about their real political ‘self-identity,’ which has much more in common with fascist dogma than freedom.
Of course, simply documenting the crazy things that happen in the West that could never fly in Russia is a bit like attempting to grow lemon trees in Moscow just because they happen to grow in Miami. To understand what has allowed Russia to avoid such deranged Liberal experiments has much to do with the ‘national soil’ of the host country and would require volumes of commentary. However, one notable aspect of post-Soviet Russia’s immunity from extreme Liberal ideology is that modern democratic Russia came into being concomitantly with the rebirth of the Russian Orthodox Church, which never really died so much as it went into a 70-year hibernation. Today, Russia is experiencing a surge in congregation membership at the same time the Orthodox Church has acquired an influential voice on the cultural and political scene. This is a phenomenon that is at variance to what is happening in the ‘godless’ West, where abandoned churches are being converted into concert halls, restaurants and clubs when they aren’t being torn down altogether.
This is in marked contrast to the situation in Russia.
“Vladimir Putin… and the patriarch of Moscow are increasingly contrasting the language of ‘traditional values’ with the secular ideologies prevalent in Western Europe and the United States,” George Demacopolous, professor of theology, Fordham University, told Pew Research in an interview. “Thus, many Orthodox Christians living outside of Russia see a powerful Russia with a resurgent Orthodox Church as a positive for global Orthodoxy.”
The voice of religion in Europe has largely been vanquished when it comes to national issues, yet it doesn’t have to be that way. It has largely gone unnoticed in our days of unchecked materialism and godless Liberalism that five European countries – Ireland, Greece, Poland, Germany and Slovakia – point to Christianity in their constitutions as the foundation on which national ideas and values are built. Another six countries – Denmark, Finland, Spain, Austria, Portugal and Great Britain – have constitutions establishing a formal arrangement between state and church.
More importantly, nowhere in the separate constitutions of EU countries does it say they are required to open their doors to an invasion of undocumented migrants, who are being enticed to Western shores, by the way, with the promise of cash and social benefits. At the same time, Russia’s neighbors in Eastern Europe, like Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, are being heavily criticized by Brussels over their simple desire to avoid the zeitgeist of multiculturalism and preserve their national and religious identities from a wave of illegal migrants. Without the cohesiveness of a strong church to support their interests, however, European politicians feel they can treat their constituents as non-citizens when it comes to the question of hosting millions of new illegal arrivals.
Interestingly, one of the definitive moments in European history came on Sept, 12, 1683, when the combined armies of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire repulsed an attack by the Ottoman Empire. The victory marked the first phase in Christian Hungary eventually going on to free itself, in 1699, from the Ottoman yoke. It was proclaimed a landmark victory for the ‘Christian coalition.’
However, the way things are developing in the West, where Russia’s Eastern European neighbors are being chastised for not allowing what amounts to unchecked hordes – some of whom are certainly terrorists – into their territories, I anticipate the day when ‘progressives’ will rewrite the history books, lamenting the moment in the past when Europe defended itself from a foreign army with the argument that ‘invaders have rights too.’
That pretty much sums up the situation in the West where the native population is being treated by their leaders as the real oppressors, who must acquiesce to the demands of not only the New World Order dictates of hyper-Liberalism and multiculturalism, but to invading foreign armies as well.
Look east, young man. Russia has some hard lessons for you to learn, which are in reality nothing more than plain old common sense.
Source: Strategic Culture