Russia's not a democracy?

[Marita]

Lembitu
Unfortunately or not but they are. All those things came to my country with democracy and they are its genuine features. In the USSR we could safely walk along the streets day and night in any city without fear of being killed and robbed. Can you walk safely now in Moscow? Or maybe in Chechnia? Or maybe you like whores and drug-users in the streets? That's what democracy has brought to us. I'm very "thankful".

[Lembitu]

Sad but true. But there were lot of criminals in USSR too. Certainly not so much as nowdays, but criminals still existed.
While in USSR all newspapers were under strict goverment control and censorship people just didnt heard about criminal acticvities.
Dont make USSR times ideal - this time was far from being ideal.
And as Curchill said: Democracy is the worst form of goverment, but its best we got right now.

[Marita]

I don't say criminals didn't exist at all. But their amount was incomparable with modern. It doesn't depend on newspapers - people may see the criminal situation in their own district by their own experience.
What are in fact the advantages of democracy? There aren't any.

[Zbyszek]

Originally posted by Marita
I don't say criminals didn't exist at all. But their amount was incomparable with modern. It doesn't depend on newspapers - people may see the criminal situation in their own district by their own experience.
What are in fact the advantages of democracy? There aren't any.

Marita, you should have more prospective look on both systems. Historically, newborn communism was received with genuine hope and it seemed to be effective in the very beginning. Then, every new decade meant deterioration, more corruption and other pathologies. It is just the opposite with capitalism. Its beginnings in Russia are not very impressive. It works similar way even in Eastern Germany.
Now, every new year means progress, stabilization and brings hope. It should be faster, I agree but I am sure that patience pays well.

[Marita]

Well, I am ready to discuss any aspect of both systems. But not the appeals to patience. Russian people are VERY patient, you know it, but even their patience is not endless! There is no purpose for which we must be patient and overcome difficulties, and all those appeals, including those coming from Putin's government, are a simple lie. Nobody is going to make our life better within capitalism, moreover, the life is going worse and worse, if you look through new laws accepted or going to be accepted you see that we lose the last gains of socialism and receive nothing. Why to be patient?

[Verbatim]

"In the USSR we could safely walk along the streets day and night in any city without fear of being killed and robbed."

Not true. You arbitrarily assume that you were informed of the crime rates -- and that assumption is wrong. My grandfather spent over 30 years as a homicide detective on the Black Sea coast and then more than 10 years as a consultant on various homicide cases in different parts of the country -- all before the fall of the Soviet Union. The world he saw in the 1960's and 1970's was very different from the impression that the average Soviet citizen had. There were plenty of serial killers, ritualistic murders, and gang-related whackjobs. Spousal murders took place on a daily basis, particularly since Soviet law afforded leniency to husbands who killed their wives. Rape of the most brutal kind was rampant as well, also in good part due to the fact that the Soviet law tended to place the blame on the victim. And as for homicide committed in the course of drunken violence -- now that was just a part of everyday life.

You did not walk the streets safely, Marita. You had a false sense of security because the government virtually never reported any crime to the public. This kind of stuff was never on the news, and all crime-related statistics were secret. You'd never know if some psycho two blocks away lured a teenage girl into his apartment and cut her to pieces, becaue the state television would feed you endless grain reports instead -- and you thought everything was peachy, which was the very intention of the Soviet regime. Now these things are out in the open, and you have the wrong impression that the level of crime changed, not the extent of your knowledge.

[Alex_Ivanov]

Originally posted by Verbatim

Not true. You arbitrarily assume that you were informed of the crime rates -- and that assumption is wrong.

To feel crime rate citizen shouldn't be necessarily informed about it. You draw the following picture: we were fed by fairy tales about secure life, but on streets in the evening we were robbed, killed, and cut to pieces. But we were not! So criminals you're talking us about existed, but surprisingly did not do any harm to defenceless people, who were not aware of any danger and walked without any caution.

I think you should use more sources than just your father's tales, because most memorable cases one detective had, taken toghether and told to a son do not draw any real picture, nor real statistic.

P.S. Orange revolution showed how "free" media can feed people with fairy tales that have little to do with reality. I think soviet censorship was child's play compared to current western one.