Posting this here so t'other thread isn't taken "off topic"...
Robin B;323819 wrote:
Obviously, there are many downsides to living in Russia...
But then again, in this country you can be subjected to turbo charged court proceedings and sent to prison for several years for merely standing in the street with a sign, mimicking prayer (in relation to a specific religion), shouting at the police, and posting a foolish tweet online...
Just going to quote myself because, interestingly, after writing that yesterday evening I find the article below in today's Spectator...
I don't think it boils down to much in terms of numbers and probably more people have gone in the other direction since the war started, but those of us who care to think about things might find some food for thought here and reflect on our own country, and the West generally.
The UK: high taxes, highest energy prices in the developed world, 100% debt to GDP ratio, falling living standards; crap public services, congested infrastructure; poor law and order; increasingly corrupt state and media that tell endless lies; curtailments on freedoms, a two tier and discriminatory justice system; moral degeneracy everywhere; patriotism and traditional values diminished, ridiculed and classified as "far right"; left wing extremism is the norm in politics and culture, importing problems and terrorism from elsewhere... If you are even moderately conservative, who is there to vote for in this so called democracy?
Russia has income taxes of 13-15%, debt to GDP ratio of only 17%, inflation rate of 8.5% balanced by economic growth of 4.5% (and this is all despite it fighting a war for the past 2.5 years).
The Western Conservatives Moving to Russiahttps://www.spectator.co.uk/arti...atives-moving-to-russia/ Some snippets...
"Standley is a 45-year-old financial services consultant from Solihull in the West Midlands. In Moscow, where he has lived since 2012, Standley says he has found ‘economic opportunity… the most beautiful girls in the world’ and – perhaps most importantly – ‘freedom’. Russia is ‘a million times more free [than the UK] in terms of freedom in every aspect and context, even freedom of speech’."
...
‘A lot of people in America are tired of the LGBT agenda being pushed on them by Hollywood and media organisations and the government,’ says Crane, a former medical technician who quit after refusing to administer Covid vaccines. ‘Look at [western] economies right now, look at their people. Look at the amount of homeless people on the streets, the amount of drug addicts. They’re rejecting moral values. We see a massive decline in western societies.’
...
"...he says he’d never move back to the UK. Russia is ‘such a diverse country. It’s a very free country in terms of what you want to say. Taxation is very low here’."
...
‘People are traditional and normal here,’ he says. ‘Men act like men, women act like women.’ In his home in rural Kansas, by Schutzman’s account, he couldn’t take his kids to the store without them seeing trans people. In Russia, ‘people don’t walk up to my wife and mock her for having so many children’.
Discuss.