theacharnian

The US political system is antidemocratic (Madison) and should be replaced.

Thanks Jagmeet.

Here is what the article says:

According to the indictment, Peterson and Rootsi, based on instructions received from Russia, knowingly and in an organized manner assisted Russia and people acting on behalf of Russian authorities in non-violent activities directed against the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Estonia from October 2022 to March 10, 2023.

What were those activities?

The defendants allegedly participated in a deliberate influence campaign aimed at creating a political association – the Koos party – in Estonia that supported Russian foreign and security policy narratives and propaganda messages.

Political speech. To create a political party. That would participate in Estonian democratic processes. The political positions of that party are, I think we would agree, very problematic: promoting Russian narratives, pushing the Estonian policy in pro-Russian directions etc. But political positions cannot be crimes in a democracy. And freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. And above all, this is about political speech in the context of a democratic political process, where other political parties would be able to counter it, pitch a better set of ideas to the electorate, and defeat this party at the ballot box. In democracies, you defeat political positions with politics, not with prison sentences.

The Prosecutor's Office said there was evidence of plans to form a civil defense organization immediately after the registration of the Koos political party, which was founded in May 2022. [...] It was intended to provide aid to people in crises and to fulfill local defense tasks in the event of a power vacuum. The organization would have involved individuals holding firearms licenses.

They didn't create the organization. They did not do crimes. They were planning to create an organization with goals that frankly with a bit of good faith sound benign (aid people in crises, fulfill defense tasks in case of vacuum). But sure, they were probably not that benign and pro-russian stooges don't necessarily deserve good faith. But that's beside the point. Notice this very crucial detail: "The organization would have involved individuals holding firearms licenses." In other words: the Estonian government could at any point control these people's access to weapons. The police and security services could keep a hawkish eye on them and throw the book at them with the full force of the law the moment they step outside the law. But convict them for doing something. I mean, there is a LOT of space for the Estonian government to maneuver before rushing to sentencing someone to ...14 years in prison for the thought crime of imagining a militia.

That's it. Those are the two substantive allegations made in the article. The rest are about meeting with Russian politicians in furtherance to these aims. In other words, they are aggravating conditions to these two crimes. So we have two crimes: political speech and imagining a militia. Both of those should not be worth 14 years in prison in a democracy. Sorry, but this is not what justice should look like in an EU country. For comparison: the violent neonazis in Germany of the Revolution Chemnitz group received less than half of that for actual violent crimes. Nazis. In Germany. Violent ones. This guy's 14 years is wildly disproportionate.

Democratic norms, rule of law, civil rights, freedom of expression and of association, freedom to play the democratic game, these are not jokes, they are not negotiable.

Only I didn't. Here is what I actully wrote

[...] I don’t like this. This is antidemocratic and dangerous.

[a bunch of context to frame why I think that]

The guy’s crimes are all in the political sphere. Non violent. Subject to the democratic process. This smells very bad and will very likely backfire politically. The guy is now going to be treated as a politician prisoner by the Russian propaganda machine. Used as proof that European democracy is not all that it claims to be. This is bad. I hope he appeals to the European Court of Justice, gets released and then fades to the obscurity he deserves.

That's it. It's not a complicated comment either.

From my point of view, your response is passive aggressive innuendo that I am being suspicious. Maybe I'm a troll or a tankie or a putin stooge right? Because that's exactly what the people who started riffing off what you wrote about pretexts and axes to grind started doing. They started talking about my post history, modlog, spin, and saying I'm engaging in bad faith and whataboutism. Fucking dogpiling. Am I wrong to demand clarifications?

EDIT: If your claim is simply that my historical comparisons don’t apply to Estonia’s security context, say that. That’s an argument I can engage with. But implying ulterior motives and then refusing to specify them isn’t critique, it’s suspicion-by-proxy. I’m here to discuss the post, not litigate my character.

a pretext to grind an axe about different political issues.

Clarify this then, please? The way I read it is that you are saying I have some self-centred ulterior motive, some kind of hidden agenda. That I don't give a shit about the actual topic at hand (pretext) and I just weaponize it (axe to grind) for my nefarious goals (different political issues). That's what I called passive aggressive innuendo.

This is a very interesting perspective and point of view.

That's not what I said though?

Whataboutism is responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation. I have literally not done that anywhere in this thread.

I am also very curious to know what you think are "bad faith" comments I have made in this thread. The only bad faith has been directed at me, where instead of people engaging in argument, they have been scrutinizing my character and using passive aggressive inuendo as if I am only saying what I'm saying because I have some ulterior motive.

I brought up cessessionist movements as examples of cases where there is a legitimate case for protecting national sovereignty against a minority that doesn't see itself in the bigger national polity. For nationalists cessession is cessation.

But my argument is not limited to cessassionist movements. I also mention the 51st state idiots that are actually very close parallels to the Estonian case.

I love the smell of condescension in the morning.

That's what the mod said I was doing. That's not what I was doing. I was referring to apartheid institutions and I was talking about the legitimate right of conquered people to use violence within the limits of international treaties to defend themselves and on the same breath I was saying long live all the people of all faiths free and happy.

But this is a profoundly ridiculous turn for this thread. You're scrutinizing my sparse modlog instead of engaging with my actual arguments. That's bad faith and ad hominem. If you need to go look at the one time my comments were too edgy for a mod's liking to discount what I have to say here in this thread, that says more about your lack of a real counter-argument.

If we're talking about an actual plot, an actionable conspiracy, a plan that says this guy, that guy and that guy, on that day, with those guns, etc, then there is nothing wrong with it. If we're talking in other words about a conspiracy for a coup d'état, then nothing wrong with foiling and punishing. But between that and forming a political party that advocates for this and that policy, and then puts it to the electorate through a democratic process, there is a LOT of space. Lumping all of that space in a single pot of traitors is extremely dangerous for democracy. That's how you get McCarthyism, that's frankly exactly how you get Putinism. Reading the descriptions of this case, this looks more like some shade of light grey.

And when it comes to "cessession of national sovereignty", that's even more vague. In Quebec, there is an active independence movement. That would be an infringement in Canadian national sovereignty. In Alberta there are idiots who argue for the 51st state bullshit. In Catalonia they talk about ending Spanish sovereignty. In Corsica, in Basque, in Scotland, I could go on. A democracy has ways of handling these that are not "call them traitors and put them in jail". For the far right, participation in international organisations like the EU or in the United States even participation in the UN is often brought up as cessation of national sovereignty.

Basically, what I'm saying is the question that you're asking sounds simple but it is nowhere near simple.