Whenever the topic turns to Ukraine vs Russia, I have noticed some people coming out of woodwork to assert that Russia is corrupted country. Now I will give you that Putin is a dictator as he has been a president for a long ass time and probably ordering his subordinates to kill his political dissidents but is there a lockdown and arrest of citizens? I want to know actually as the propaganda's everywhere that exaggerates a lot of things.
I want to also ask hypothetical question, if countries like Russia, China, Canada and Britain offered people temporary asylum and actually made effort to accommodate them for not understanding their own language, what country normies will choose, I wonder?
And as for me, you probably know what I will choose.
Yeah, I'm with you. There's different levels of corruption.
No one my age has ever bribed a cop, some have even tried and been rejected. That's actually abnormal around the world. Typically, the cops, and even basic level bureaucrats require bribes to do anything. It's completely normal to bribe bureaucrats, administrators, and cops for everything.
The closest the US has to that level of corruption was a long time ago. I have much older family that remembers living in a Democrat city and running a small business on waterfront property. They payed high taxes and licensing fees to operate in a commercial district with strong police protection. But they also had to pay the mob for their protection racket... but they also had to bribe the police when they were around to pay for the cops to promise to show up. Here's the grift for the cops: they were being paid their salary, taking protection money from the businesses, and they were also being bought out by the fucking mob!. Motherfuckers were triple-dipping!
If you didn't pay the government, you couldn't operate the business.
If you didn't pay the cops, they wouldn't show up.
If you did both, but didn't pay the mob, they'd ignore any damage or actions taken against you by the mob, because the mob was paying both of them!
We don't typically see that kind of just open corruption anymore. No one's going to literally stick their hand out and cough.
Absolutely correct. That is the purpose of many of these regulations. To actually funnel money though specific systems so that it can be maintained in a professional corruption system of lobbyists and 'non-profits'. It's a corruption-industrial complex.
You would have more accountability to politicians if you said: "There is only one rule: you can't accept money in any way except your salary and personal donations from direct constituents". They'd actually be held accountable. The system we have is regulated to promote anonymity of foreign donors and restrict donations from constituents. That's why private donations to politicians are capped at $2,500 and you have to give up your name, address, phone number, and employer. Meanwhile, unlimited corporate donations to super-pacs that never officially touch the candidate are just fine, and no information is recorded.