As we mark the one year anniversary of the war between Russia and Ukraine, I am struck by a thought. I still don't support Ukraine. Which I know is not necessarily the most popular opinion, but I wanna talk about that a little bit today. This is the Lunduk Journal of Conservative Nerdiness for February 24th. in year of our Lord 2023. I've never been a fan of Ukraine. Now I know many people from Ukraine and they have all been delightful, wonderful people. The people I've known in person, personally, that are from Ukraine have all been fantastic. I used to live in a town just north of Seattle, Washington. And when I went to high school there, we had a small Ukrainian population. of people that had moved recently from Ukraine. And they were all very distinct. They had a particular look about them, a particular dress style. They stood out like sore thumbs and they kind of owned it. They were, they had their own style. And I made friends with two of them and they were cool. They were great. were nice folks. I really, I have no qualms with them whatsoever. Likewise, I see awfulness happening out in the world. I see wars going on between countries and I just feel for everyone involved. For just all of the average people on every side of all the conflicts that are so often, and more often than not, just pawns in some... horrible game and having their lives upended or destroyed even I feel for them all all of them But when I look at the war between Russia and Ukraine I don't really have a whole lot of support to give to the government of Ukraine for oh so many reasons. And I know, I know there's a million and one reasons to dislike Russia, the Russian government. I know that, I see them all. There's a million and one reasons to dislike Vladimir Putin personally. I get that, I get all that. But try as I might, I can't muster up whatever feelings of emotional support that our leaders throughout Europe and the United States just seem to demand that I feel towards Ukraine. Ukraine, up until really just a year ago, was widely regarded as one of the most corrupt, dirtiest awfulest governments on the face of the earth, laundering money, funding Nazi groups openly and proudly, by the way, not behind the scenes Nazi groups. Literally, literally they still do that today. There are huge contingencies of the Ukrainian government, both politicians and the military that proudly are Nazis. Like they say they are Nazis. Not that I say they're Nazis. This isn't one of those scenarios where I look at someone who I'm against and I say, that guy's a Nazi because I'm against him, right? I'm not into that. They say, hey everybody, I'm a Nazi. And they wear Nazi insignias and they put Nazi insignias on everything. And they talk about how proud they are of the Ukrainian past of killing the Jews. with the Nazis and that they should never have done any of the things that they did where they were against the Nazis. They should only be for the Nazis. Like they're very proud of it. They talk about, about, you know, calling heroes to some of their past military leaders and past political leaders that their claim to fame was specifically being pro-Nazi and anti-Jew. That's Ukraine. Ukraine has been used as a front for money laundering and for all sorts of things for quite some time now. is not great. Ukraine as the current Ukrainian government, which did not exactly come to power through nice means, has bombed the civilians in the East that they felt were too sympathetic to Russia. And by sympathetic, they mean some of them still spoke Russian. They outlawed the ability to read and write and speak in Russian. That's a crime there. They jailed any political party and politicians that opposed opposing Russia. They put in prison and shut down TV executives, journalists who weren't nice enough to President Zelensky. Jail, some of them aren't in jail. We don't know where some of them are. Journalists and politicians were disappeared by Zelensky and his government, again, who proudly fund Nazi groups. and have them as part of their government and military. And they disappeared, opposition journalists and political leaders. They shut down churches, churches. Why? Well, because those churches had ties in Russia. So they shut them down. Ukraine is awful. mean, Ukraine is is evil. The Ukrainian government is is not good. It's not nice. I can't I can't drum up support for them. The Russia has stated that their goals they they've they've laid it out for whatever I think of Vladimir Putin. And I don't have a whole lot of nice things to think about Vladimir Putin. Honestly don't. But for whatever we think about Vladimir Putin, He has laid out in numerous speeches and statements exactly what his goals are with Ukraine and exactly what his goals aren't. He's laid out his motivation, what they hope to achieve and how they will go about it. And in almost every step of the way, he's held true to the things he said. So like he said, he's not interested in going past Ukraine. Now, people in the West have said, oh my. Gosh, if Vladimir Putin, if he takes parts of Ukraine, there's nothing that's gonna stop him. He's gonna roll through Europe. He's gonna take over the world, which is asinine. Number one, because Vladimir Putin has said he won't, and he hasn't, and he's made no move that would suggest he would. But even more importantly, he can't. He doesn't have the capability. He doesn't have the money, the supply chain, the army, nothing. He can't do that. So I look at my political leaders, right? President Biden and so many others. And they're just making this bull malarkey up. They want me desperately to hate Vladimir Putin. Now, you can convince me really easily that Putin is not a nice guy. I've read enough about the dude. I agree. You know what? I would not want him as my president. But he's not my president. He's a president of another country. A country that I don't know if I'll ever visit. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, who knows? But if I don't even know if I'm gonna visit there, let alone live there, it's not my country. It's not my business. The same could be true with Ukraine. I don't like Zelinsky. He's a dirty dude. In the government he represents, dirty is all heck. Honestly, evil. Pure evil. They're not my presidents. They're not my governments. I don't live in Ukraine. If Ukraine really wants him as their leader now, great. Do it. I don't care. I don't care. I don't understand why I should care. And then if Russia comes in and wants to save the people in Ukraine, the small, small section of Ukraine, that has declared that they want to be part of Russia because they have been persecuted by the Ukrainian government, bombed by the Ukrainian government because the Ukrainian government bombed its own citizens for being too Russiany. And the people have tried to take votes where they're like, let's secede and be part of Russia. And Ukraine's like, no way, no how, you can't do that. Well, if Russia wants to help those people out, and that's what Russia said they're there to do, is to take out some Nazis, which... Ukraine has a lot of Nazis as part of the government. So you can't exactly say Russia is wrong about that being as Ukraine has again proudly stated about their Nazis. They love their Nazis. I mean, the Azov battalion, it's Nazis. If Russia wants to go in and take in those eastern areas and make them part of Russia again, which they used to be, who am I to object? I mean, and even if I do object, who am I to do anything beyond object, right? Whether I come out and say I am for Russia taking those areas or I am against Russia taking those areas, those areas should be Ukraine, should have almost no impact on what actually happens. because my opinion does not matter in this case. Neither Ukraine nor Russia are my allies, right? They're just not. Now, in the case of the political parties in power currently in the United States, I understand that Ukraine is their personal allies, not the allies with the United States, but the allies of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the like, because they have spent so much time there modifying their country and using them to funnel and money launder A ton of money. 10 % for the big guy. I get that. I get that. And I get that Biden wants to protect his cash cow. I understand. I totally understand. mean, President Trump wanted this to be investigated. The amount of shady dealings going on with Joe Biden when he was vice president and after and with related to the Ukraine. And the Democrats were so, so scared of an investigation happening that they literally voted to impeach Donald Trump specifically because he wanted an investigation into what Biden and his family were doing in the Ukraine and what the Ukrainian government was doing around him. And we know it was dirty. We know it was dirty as all hell. But why, why, why does, why does, I don't understand why, I don't understand why people get, worked up into a pro-Ukraine furor. I don't understand the Ukrainian flag pins. I don't understand the, I don't understand why so many Republican senators and Congress people come out and they're like, we gotta, we gotta give more bazillions of dollars to Ukraine because we gotta, otherwise we're all gonna die from Putin. There's gonna be too much Putin and then we're gonna die. Like, no, no. The only way this goes really badly for us is if we keep putting money into Ukraine. and prolong the war and ignite some sort of a, I don't know, a nuclear event. That's the way this goes badly. So the only way this goes badly for us is if we do exactly what we're currently doing by supporting Ukraine as much and as long as it takes, as Biden keeps saying. Sending more bazillions of dollars. Money we don't have, so we're just printing it out of nowhere. And money we could, if we did have it, we could be spending it on, I don't know, our own border, our own healthcare system, our infrastructure system that is crumbling, so many different things. But we're not. We could spend it on our own military, but we're not. actually emptying out our entire military, blah. We are emptying out our military stockpile. Sometimes words are. And we're sending it over to Ukraine. We've so many reports now of leaders within the Army, Air Force, and Navy saying, yeah, we are now running short of munitions because we sent it away. And we don't even know what it's getting used for. There's no audit. We're sending billions of dollars to Ukraine audit free. We're just like, here you go, Ukraine. Have fun with these bazillions of dollars. We don't we there's no paper trail. We don't know what's happening with the money But we're trying to drag this out in order to cause more Ukrainians to die, more Russians to die. So we want more people to die and probably enable some more money to get laundered and funneled into someone's pockets. And that's all it seems like to me. I see no reason at all to support any continued support of Ukraine. in any way, or form. If we continue to support them, it causes the war to be prolonged. It causes it to be farther until any sort of peace agreement is reached, which now it turns out we fought against any sort of peace agreement. Yeah, we fought against that. The United States did. How evil is that? So the only net result there is more Ukrainians die and more Russians die. And potentially if it escalates, some of us die. There's no benefit there for anyone except the people who get their pocketbooks lined, who get to stuff more untraceable buckazoids in their pockets. That's it. I don't support that. I'm not down with that. Now, if this was a cut and dried scenario of Russia being some sort of aggressor and attacking and seizing people and throwing them in camps and the people didn't want it. They're like, no, Russia, no. And we wanted to try and protect the people. And Russia was like, after this, we're going to really cream all the rest of Europe too. Okay, well, maybe we should intervene. Maybe we should try to save some people's lives. Maybe we should try and stop the forward aggression of Russia, but none of that is happening. It is literally not happening. So here we are, a year into the war between Russia and Ukraine. the war between Russia and a part of what used to be Russia, where the people that Russia is trying to save, in their words, are according to the votes that were taken in Ukraine, those people want to be part of Russia and support Russia coming in. This is not cut and dried. This is not a simple scenario. You know what mean? Again, but again, I don't live in Ukraine. I don't live in Russia. I don't have to vote for any of these leaders. I don't have to support them or not support them. And honestly, whether I support them or not should be essentially irrelevant to what actually happens over there. There are very few countries on earth that I really care about what happens. And chief among them is the one I live in. And I hope for the best for all people. I want Ukrainians to not die because like I said at the beginning, every Ukrainian I've ever personally met has been an awesome person. And just like people all around the world. I don't want to see any more get hurt. And that seems to me to be the only reason to be beating the war drums, to be yelling about regime change in Russia, to be screaming about how much we support Ukraine and we'll do whatever it takes to fight the Russian aggression. Not only is that marginally nonsensical. but it's hurting Ukrainians. At least the average ones. And that's really sad. That's a really sad thing. I don't want to see any more loss of life. I don't want to see any more of my money, my money that the United States has stolen from me and sent to Ukraine, which I am feeling pretty confident is only going there for two purposes. One, to keep killing Ukrainians and Russians because they just want people to die for some reason and to line the pocketbooks of political leaders who are filthy and corrupt in multiple countries, including my own. And I'm not okay with any of that. I'm just not. And it may be an unpopular opinion. When I go look at, you know, Facebook and and the evening news and reading, you know, statements from senators and congresspeople and whatnot. People are still like, ah, we got to support Ukraine. Where will we stand with you, Zelensky? I don't. Not at all. Not at all. In fact, I think it would probably be in the best interests of the people of Ukraine if this war was over quickly, if Zelensky was kicked out of power. And if they just had another shot, another chance at electing someone, maybe, maybe authentically this time, that wasn't quite so dirty. It feels a little unlikely, but man, it's worth a shot. It's worth a shot. Anyway, I wanted to put my thoughts out there because I know, I am sure that people on all sides of the political aisle are going to disagree with me on these thoughts. I think, I know some will agree with me, at least on some of it, but I think a lot of people will disagree with me. Even people who I typically would agree with on many political-ish ideals. but we should all be able to express our views about world events without fear of people coming down on you and trying to silence you. You should not need to feel fear. you, for example, if you are part of the conservative nerds community and you want to express your fundamental disagreement with every single word I've said here today, you should feel free to do so without someone coming down and attacking you personally. Because there's always, always the chance that I or anyone else am fundamentally wrong. And there's always the chance that we're all a little bit right and a little bit wrong. And there's nothing harmful about us having a conversation, even an impassioned one, where we fundamentally disagree. And then afterwards we all grab burgers together. That's how it should be. That's how it should be. That's how it should be among not just friends, but among co-citizens. I welcome anyone to fundamentally disagree with me, but I make one fundamental request, one core request in all of that. No personal attacks, okay? I give you my word that if you come to me and you say, you know what, here's reasons X, Y, Z, one, two, and three, delta, amma, gamma, and beta of why I know those aren't in order. of why I think we should not only be supporting Ukraine, but we should get military involved in Ukraine and why we should all wave Ukrainian flags. If you've got reasons for that, let me know. I want to hear them. And I swear to you, I'm not going to go about bullying you and silencing you simply because of those opinions. If everyone can be cool about it, We can have those discussions. And I think that's worth having. It's worth having publicly and openly because that's what it's all about, baby. That's how we all improve as people. Oh Lord in heaven. It's a tough time we live in, right? You can't say certain things, otherwise you're evil. If you come out and say us sending money to Ukraine is a bad idea, which is what I basically just said and laid out kind of some of my reasons why. There's only a small part of my reason. Immediately, so many people will say, I'm a stooge of Putin. I'm a Putin apologist. That doesn't matter that I bad-mouthed Putin several times in the last 20 some odd minutes. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter that I've never really said anything nice about Putin in these 20 some odd minutes. I'd still be a Putin apologist, a Russia supporter. But here's the thing. Even if someone were to say that about someone else, My follow-up question would be, so? While I wouldn't classify myself as a supporter of either Russia or Putin, so what if I am? Right? So what if I have feelings or support for a political leader in another country? I don't need to. They're another country. I can choose to feel or not feel whatever I want. Not even my country. But you know what? I do have feelings about some countries and their political leaders. I care deeply about the politics of Israel. I follow it closely. I have, I have distinct levels of support and I'm against various political parties and politicians in Israel. It's important to me. but I don't require it to be important to anyone else. And just because someone else may have different feelings about the political parties in Israel doesn't mean we can't be buds. Doesn't mean we can't talk, even if we're not buds, openly and friendly and kindly towards each other about those topics. A lot of stuff worth chewing on in there. But to suffice to say, one year in, I am not thrilled that so many bazillion-des of dollars, it's a scientific term, have gone to Ukraine and to line the pocketbooks of you know who. And with that, and with that, and gentlemen, I do declare, end podcast.
