Is anyone else worried about how western governments are trying to seize Russian peoples property without due process?
I’ve seen a lot of stories recently on European leaders who are calling to seize “Russian oligarchs” assets (houses, yachts etc) without due process. Why has nobody gotten concerned about this? I can understand Putin since he’s the one directly making the choice of war, but why do “Russian oligarchs” have to be included in the asset seizure? They are basically forced to side with Putin or else they will be executed. But on the other hand, why are the small amount of “everyday” Russians who support Putin that might have property or assets in Europe not getting their assets seized? This really concerns me that western governments can just seize your assets because you’re 1) rich 2) you did something that offended them.
By the way, I don’t support Putin and I feel bad for Ukraine. But I’m an honest person and I think the whole asset seizure thing worries me that this might trickle down to governments abusing their power over less severe things without due process. Once again, I know that if you commit a war crime and end up on the governments hit list they can seize property, but not every single “rich” Russian is committing a war crime.
lastly, I don’t want to hear responses from the overly liberal/left leaning crowd on here such as Drumpfy, UCSD throwaway, IBDReject, Malta, financeabc, etc because these left leaning individuals will just support the seizure of assets because you dislike billionaires and super rich people. Moderates and conservatives please answer only.
Looking forward to responses!
I lean somewhat left on a lot of social issues and have referained from commenting on a lot of political issues on this site because I just don't want to argue. I've read the Communist Manifesto and other super left stuff. I hate Putin a lot, and I hate this war. I hope it ends and Putin is brought to justice.
All that being said, yeah it does concern me. Look, I get sanctioning Russia, and I get the idea of seizing the assets is to encourage the oligarchs to turn on Putin and oust him or something, but I can't help but feel like this is a slippery slope. I hate Communism. I hate the theory of it. I do follow some super left subs on Reddit and look often though, because how can I hate something without understanding it.
A lot of those people are already saying how we should start seizing the assets of wealthy westerners next. While that won't directly affect 99% of people on this site, it could have serious indirect affects. This has the potential set a precedent of actions that could demolish capitalism as we know it and threaten our way of life and standard of living. These super left people don't care that 99% of us here are not oligarchs and the like. They hate us, and they think we're all deserving of the "brick wall." I think I would answer this differently if Western governments proclaimed that they would return the assets if these oligarchs actually made Putin end the war, but I have no idea how this will end, and I don't think the governments would ever do something like that.
Again, I hate Putin, Russia, and this war, but I can't help but feel uncomfortable like you suggested.
I could say more, but I just don't want to argue.
Edit: Not taking a political stance, but this thread is interesting. Don't with what everybody is saying, but like I said earlier, I don't care enough about politics to argue about it on an internet forum.
Edit 2: The hypocrisy on this thread is funny. Do you guys really think you'd live the lives we do and get paid the amount we do if the US didn't do the morally ambiguous things things it does? We benefit from the status quo, yet so many of you seem to shit on it. In the "Golden Age" of the 1980s, we had a President (and populous; Wall Street included) who hated all things Russian & Eastern Block despite having some shitty actions himself. I'm not going to pretend I'm taking the moral high ground and rebuke it. It's one thing to benefit the way we do, but it's totally different to rebuke the very things that gave enriched us to this point while still wanting to benefit from it. Until we live in some 25th century style Star Trek world where everybody can have literally anything they could ever dream of, this is just the way the world is. And I can't believe how many people act like they're morally above it, even from a contrarian POV like the comments below. Just accept it and move on. The world doesn't care if you're a cold capitalist, so be one.
I know you've all seen Margin Call. Think about Will Emerson's speech about the 99% wanting to benefit from what what Wall Street provides them while acting like they don't want to know where it comes from. That's what so many people on this site sound like today. We all want to live like we do and profit like we do, but so many of you refuse to acknowledge where it all comes from and what makes our lifestyles possible. Don't act for a second like if the Western World decided to act in the best interest of all that we'd still be paid like and live like we do.
So many hypocrites on this site. I'm not against living large, I just hate that everyone here pretends it's bloodless. I like my life and the status quo.
I agree with a lot of your points. I think a lot of people in todays age forget what put us in such a good position relative to the rest of the world. Many are interested in new ideas and “change”. I think everyone should respect aspects of the status quo that got us to where we are today.
The only reason the United States became such a hegemonic superpower other than the atomic bomb was the fact that the rest of the Western World was in ruins after WW2.
Prefacing this with what I would think is obvious - Russia is in the wrong for invading Ukraine. But I still believe that escalation from the US is not the right answer here, especially given our current leadership situation and problems at home. This is a European fight and escalating things with the only other major nuclear power seems like a recipe for disaster.
Russian's are just the new evil other the government wants to distract us with. The sheet amount of propaganda is unseemly and obvious - fake stories, photos, and videos from events years ago being re-screened and captioned to craft a very specific narrative. The war is real but nobody truly knows what the situation on the ground is right now. Half the major stories that have been reported thus far have already been debunked. Fog of war is a thing. This entire debacle is realistically the fault of the US for what it did there in 2014 (How and why the U.S. Government Perpetrated the 2014 Coup in Ukraine) and has done with the Ukrainian government ever since. If you just swap the flags this is effectively the Cuban Missile Crisis if we had actually invaded Cuba pre-emptively (which the US government wanted to do, see: Operation Northwoods) rather than let the nukes get there in the first place. The establishment political powers always need a boogeyman to vilify and rally all the NPCs around so they don't notice all the crazy shit that's really going on with the economy, inflation, naked grabs at removing various civil rights, etc. 50s-70s we had Russia, 80s-90s we branched out with the general threat of Communism, then in the 2000s it was radical Islam, up through the late 20-teens/early 20s it's the alt-right/white supremacists with a short stint of ThE uNvaCcInAtEd, and now we've circled back around to Russia given the present situation. The establishment wants a war, wars make money and distract the populace from recent events.
But this time they have gone TOO FAR I tell you!
International Cat Federation bans Russian felines from competitions - NBC news
The sheer number of lies from the media should be enough to tell you that this isn't passing the sniff test. We're not being told something. The Russians were supposedly masters of media manipulation from 2016-2020 but suddenly every major network of theirs is banned and censored from social and mainstream corporate media. Russian citizens are not the ones leading this attack, Putin is, and yet every talking head is calling for us to exorcise Russian's from society and other extremes. Something is very wrong here.
And with respect to Russia invading another country being the reason the US should go to war, what did the US do exactly in:
Were those all just the US being the angels of truth and morality defending the weak from oppressive Muslim jihadists? Certainly not in Yemen, the death toll of children alone there is in the hundreds of thousands. But no one makes a fucking peep when the US puts boots on the ground in some country that has nothing to do with us do they? They're all smiles and excuses. God forbid another country, albeit one we have a bad history with that is objectively led by bad people, decided to defend their own borders from an enemy alliance (NATO was specifically formed to beat Russia) that has been expanding closer and closer for decades after multiple treaties and agreements explicitly stating they wouldn't expand eastward.
Do you really care? If it weren't plastered across the news with every talking head saying we need to send in our military now, would you really feel this way?
Ukraine is not in NATO. They are not in the EU. Up until a US-supported coup in 2014 they were barely considered allies.
Why in the world does the US need to do anything here?
Why is the US the entire world's police?
I'm not saying the US should do nothing. I'm saying we shouldn't send any of our military there because it's not our fucking fight. Send them weapons and aid, let volunteers step up to raise charity, we can happily take in some refugees. But why do young American men need to die defending the borders of Ukraine? Our President doesn't even respect our own borders and has allowed a humanitarian crisis to spiral into the worst it's ever been on our southern border but we're supposed to drop everything to send our boys in blue to Eastern fucking Europe? I will never agree with or support that logic.
Edit: Honestly, how can anyone take our government seriously when one of the biggest Neocons is falling for THIS?
Name one politician calling to deploy troops in Ukraine right now. Bill Ackman? 😂😂 Apparently "every talking head" is saying so please post some sources.
How am I mentioned in OP lol. I work in PE and support Glenn youngkin you retard
Because you and [IncomingIBReject] are conservatives that can have rational discussions about policies as opposed to emotional culture war grievances.
Honestly you say "I support Youngkin" and then in a bunch of other threads provide some far left takes. Not trying to poop on you here, I'm just saying either a) it's puzzling and you seem to not be aware of it or b) you're hiding behind the "I support Youngkin" veneer to shill for AOC.
Not saying OP should have mention you btw -- just stating what a lot of people who view your posts are thinking
Anything short of sucking trump off on this website means “far left”
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Honestly they are trolls.
Speaking about assets...I think it will lead to outflow of money from the West. Switzerland will lose its status of safe heaven and all the world questionable billionaires will find it somewhere else. Saudi already redirecting their money because they don't want their wealth seized because of some colorful revolution.
Where on Earth are you getting all this from. Money will stay in the West. Where tf else is it gonna go? China? Pff ok.
Don't put oligarch in scare quotes. Most of their wealth was straight up stolen from the Russian people in the 90s. They aren't really comparable to Western billionaires at all (well, not comparable to most of them). Is it a violation of due process? Maybe, but hard to be sympathetic to people having their stolen wealth stolen from them.
I wasn’t really trying to be sympathetic but rather acknowledge that the law shouldn’t be about sympathy or who’s who. I just don’t think it’s right to target a certain group of people by the law because you don’t like them, but then allow another group get off the hook because you like them more. I’m just saying to treat the law as law and not play favorites if that makes sense.
For quite some time now cops have been able to simply seize assets and use them to fund the police department with very little oversight or due process. Generally the people who supported more oversight or regulation for this process were liberals, leftists, and libertarians. Now it happens to one of the glorious 'job creators' instead of poor people and then suddenly right wingers are upset? 😂
I normally don't agree with you, but I do on this point. Fuck anyone who downvotes you because you're you. Nobody was up in arms about that existing for years.
It's called civil asset forfeiture and plenty of people talk about it. Nothing ever gets done because the policing system for large populations in this country often rotten to the core. The ATF for example shouldn't even exist.
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