Discussion
Putin and the Russian •regime• are evil.
•Russians• are millions of individual people who span the whole range from evil to heroic to apathetic. Many Russians are also suffering and dying because of the evils of the Russian regime.
It is important to be clear about this distinction.
Even putting aside any ethical or moral concerns, there is a drawback to holding the individual citizens responsible for the actions of the regime: If the regime falls, they'll be at risk, so it makes it in their selfish best interest to maintain the regime even if they don't want it to stand. On the other hand, if we only hold those who support the regime responsible, only those who would already consider it in their best interest to support the regime would be motivated by that fear.
In other words it's not only *right* to only hold those responsible who actually are, it's also *practical*.
@hosford42 @marick @inthehands @TTFKA_Tay0
In addition to questions of individual vs collective accountability there's also a huge difference between "something wrong with X" and "X is evil"
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@inthehands @TTFKA_Tay0 People are partly determined by the systems in which they live. Such systems can have long lives.
There’s something wrong with Russian culture, just as there is with American culture. Absolving the citizens from that is tactically useful, I guess, though its track record is iffy.
As one of that generation, I prefer the post-war German youth’s steadfast rejection of the Bad People. They needed to be held to account. As do Russians. As do people like me.