Europeans should learn from Russians.

A little bit of history here. For Russians, for most, mostly for almost all of their life, lived under this paradigm that they should never trust their govt.

Well, at least the smart ones – ones who can think clearly and critically – but even recently, even the most propaganda-ridden – not Jobs – became aware of the true nature of the government.

First with Soviet Union shit, later with Yeltsin shit, later with Putin shit.

They always knew at the very core that the government is never your friend. They always care for themselves first. They only want to fuck you up, to restrict you. Every time they make something, it’s just a crazy law printer. And not only completely bonkers, but acting every time against their interest.

They are quite skeptical of every move, every new attempt to get into their personal lives, with every new attempt to establish some service or something, and so on. They know that government is their enemy.

So they learned to never trust them in the first place. They know whatever new stuff they think about, it is something shady. Something to restrict them to get into their own lives, to get some new tax or something else. They’ve seen it all their life the endless governmental creep, the endless oppression growing each time and every day. They are well aware of what they do.

So, they are naturally 100% skeptical about every governmental initiative or anything about them. Even if it is something truly good, something truly not freedom encroaching, some good service, something really beneficial and respects everyone’s rights, and so on, or in general something really good, they are still very much skeptical.

The Europeans, on the other hand, were growing up thinking that their government was democratic, they are elected and therefore they are acting in their own interest.

Like, they think that elected means trusted, you can trust them, they are the good people coming there, and blah blah blah.

They’ve been taught all their life to equate democratic means good, means there are smart people, there are people who are thinking for you, thinking how to organize the world a better place, and so on.

So they were raised up in the wrong assumption that because their government is democratic and elected, meaning they should be trusted, you should not be skeptical, you should not treat them as a potential enemy, and so on.

So they were thinking that their so called elected government is not the same as, for example, a Russian government.

Whose job, and always has been in both cases, is self-preservation.

But Europeans are getting caught when suddenly their government decided to take another turn and instead of being a provider and keeper of freedom becomes an oppressive force with almost none of the differences between the same Russian or Chinese government.

And because they are not used to, they are not used to as the Russians, seeing their entire life, how the system works against them. The Europeans think that it may be not a mistake, it may not be a change, it’s just they are smart people, they are doing good, they are caring for us and so on.

Which is a wrong assumption because it leaves them defenseless and unprepared to fight back.

So, how does western europe become a 2nd China minus the actual life improvement while Eastern europe still holds (somewhat)?

I may hint that living through Eastern Block gave them some kind of immunity against it, but it is a weak argument because it is generational, and the second generation after is already adapted to a different way of life, anyway.

While there are enough nationalistic movements in Eastern Europe that are basically the same, have the same authoritarian tendency as the lefties, but they are acting from a different perspective, but the outcome is still kind of the same. They are just swapping it from Central European tyranny to their own localized tyranny.

The USSR immunity is only maybe one part, one third of it. The weak point is that it is a very generational limit. There is also a notion that older generations are more susceptible to the current nationalistic takeover, which is fueled by some nostalgia and so on. So I would not be basing the previous generation’s claim that they have some kind of immunity. I think the only people who have immunity who are actually living through the growing tyranny in the first place.
How I grew up in the golden age of Russia, and then started to see the slow grip of oppression each and every day, which gave me a clear understanding how it works.

Unlike us who are living in a slower version of it, but they still arrive at it anyway.

Second is the general underdeveloped bureaucracy. The Eastern European governments haven’t grown yet into a big, self-replicating, self-justifying bureaucratic organism that now has a goal of self-preservation above the freedom of the people.

Third, the actual economic and survival incentive. What they possibly could have wished to grow in their capability and grow into a government, but they cannot do it as fast. Once they start doing shit, the people have even more incentive to leave the country at all. Not just for economic reasons, but also for sensing growing oppression or lack of freedom.
It was before, but now it’s no longer the case, because now the European bureaucracy comes up at a central level, and there is no escape for them anyway.
But for a time the Baltics and Eastern Europe, Central Europe had an incentive to stop the tyranny, do not creep into your personal life as much, because you always had an option to live to a better place.
Well, now there’s no better place, it’s all the same, and they’re gonna catch up real quick.

Compare it to the former Yugoslavian states. Both were living in a less extreme version of the Eastern Bloc, meaning they did not have communism, there was not such an oppressive, such a prevailing, markets were more free, and the result, well, yes, despite the horrible wars, they are still considered one of the rather free nations.
Which is a point two of underdeveloped government, which means just the small government, which the EU is going to corrupt them and eat it very soon once they join.

One curious case where this potential immunity does not generalize because currently Baltics experience a very high level of targeted ethnically motivated oppression towards Russians and Belarusians to the point they are being systematically evicted from the country despite sharing the same liberal values but they are just being different ethnicity.
Ironically, it is the same as what the Russians were doing to them, they are doing exactly the same, which means they haven’t learned the lessons at all.

On the contrary, the small Estonia does have a very nice and efficient government, at least from my initial assumptions, but they had the first set up of being everything digital, convenient and basically very modern compared to their neighbors. I wonder, is it because they’re being very close and suffering the previous oppression firsthand and being also a very small country where people are actively living? Is it because the government were not creeping too much, not getting into the oppressive bureaucratic state yet?
I suspect it is because they cannot afford to lose more people who can clearly and easily move with their own feet.

Well, despite all that, and despite living through the oppression, some of the Eastern European states currently resort to the same nationalism and just substituting one centralized European tyranny for their own localized one.

So, Europeans should learn from Russians and have universal and endless distrust for those who rule over you – elected or not.
Democratic or authoritarian regime, no matter. Assume they will start working against your rights the moment they take office and try to be there forever.
The moment you stop watching, they are gonna take that as a license to oppress.

Russians are already living it every day. Every day that Russian government exists, they just try to find a new way to oppress us or invent some new stupid law against them.
And now Europeans, because they stopped being skeptical of their governments, are gonna suffer the same fate.
Yep, under the pretense of having a true democracy.

When you ask how, when does a functional society work? Like what is the cure for this?

The cure is to treat them as managers of convenient services, not as society architects.
Meaning, you hire them to do managerial work like keep the roads, keep the borders, keep basic infrastructure, basic human rights protection, basic negotiation and diplomacy, and basic courts. And that’s it. The moment they start to engineer society for their own needs, by their own pretenses, regardless, asked for it or not, everyone should be mobilized against them. The moment they start having opinions about how you should live, full red alert.

Russians learned permanent skepticism through suffering and living this hell every day – without knowing what the hell liberalism is.
Europeans were lulled by the "democratic = trustworthy" myth, now the bureaucracy the new USSR.
Eastern Europe has partial immunity but it’s fragile and generational, already torn apart by localized nationalism.
Balkans were living relatively free for some time, and kept it mostly stable, but soon to be consumed by the EU.
The cure is classical liberalism – contractor, not architect.