From: oleg@watson.ibm.com (Oleg Vishnepolsky)
Subject: Re: "democratic" Estonia
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 13:53:16 GMT
News-Software: IBM OS/2 PM RN (NR/2) v0.1 by O. Vishnepolsky and R. Rogers
Reply-To: oleg@watson.ibm.com (Oleg Vishnepolsky)
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In  <1992Aug26.211033.23005@linus.mitre.org>  ptrei@bistromath.mitre.org (Peter Trei) writes:
> In article <1992Aug26.190849.2883@watson.ibm.com> oleg@watson.ibm.com (Oleg Vishnepolsky) writes:
> >Another thought on the subject - while the current citizenship policies
> >of the Baltic states are clearly discriminative, we have yet to see a
> >single native of Estonian (or Latvian or Lithuanian) ethnicity to
> >admit so. Peoples of truly democratic countries tend to have different
> >opinions on most of the sensitive subjects. We know what it means for everyone
> >to have the same opionion, we have seen it in Nazi Germany and in the
> >Communist regimes. Come on, come ou straight and say you disagree
> >and ashamed of your government policies - prove that your countries
> >are democratic.
>
> >Oleg Vishnepolsky
>
>     Hmmm... "my government's policies"? I'm a born US citizen, and "my
> government" is the US government. Doesn't mean I can't discuss
> Estonia's or Russia's.



It's usually the first sign of a serious mental disorder to think of oneself
as many people.




>
>      OF COURSE the Estonian governments policies are discriminatory.
> They discriminate against giving citizenship to people whose only
> reason to be in Estonia is that living there is better than in Russia
> - the Soviets did not have as much time to f*ck up the country and the
> people as they did at home in Russia.
>
>      Placing barriers against "economic migrants" (such as citizen's of
> Russia who want to move to Estonia for the higher standard of living)
> is practised wherever relatively rich and poor countries meet - look
> at the US's effort to keep out Mexicans, the Italian's to keep out
> Albanians, and the Hong Kong government's to keep out Vietnamese.



Is not under discussion plight of Russian-speaking population of
the Baltic states most of whom were born there ? I am glad to see
that you have no valid arguments in favor of discrimination of
Russian natives of the Baltic states.



>
>      Nations have a right to maintain their national character if they
> so wish, and forbidding huge numbers of foreigners from immigrating is
> often a neccesary step in doing so. This is hardly something to be
> ashamed of.
>
>      If 200 million Chinese showed up at the Russian border and
> requested Russian citizenship, would it be granted? Proportionatly,
> this is the situation Estonia and other former Soviet colonies are
> facing with respect to Russians.
>
>       The Russians in Estonia did not come with the permission of the
> Estonian people, but in the wake of the bullet and the tank.  They set
> up an exploitive colonial administration, maintained by violence and
> intimidation, and proceeded to run down the country just as they did
> at home.
>
>       Now they expect to be treated like invited guests.
>
>                                                                 Peter Trei


Bunch of rhetorical bull which has nothing to do with the issue.

Oleg
Xref: sparky talk.politics.soviet:7623 soc.culture.europe:8076