Phil,

As usual I find myself in the unenviable situation where to not respond to you would suggst I agree, but to respond, would yet again elevate your blood pressure.

Your minimalist approach to 'Russia', never mind Sociology, is quite astounding.

So let me reframe the domain a little.

You live in the United States of Capitalist America.
It is rulled by a corporate-elected representatives of a two-party system, where both parties broadly represent the Capitalist Party.

What exactly changes is the face in the White House, but the 'business' of the houses doesn't really change.
Regardless of which of the two parties secures the presidency in a very unrepresentative elections, the actual broad policy base doesn't change very much, which is broadly to enrich the corporate sector in the USCA.
One can always tell something about a society by how many internal security forces it requires to enforce the law.
Here is data from Wikipedia, so it may be inaccurate

China China 1,600,000[22] 2007 120 India India 1,585,353[42] 2013 123 United States United States 1,220,545[101][102] 2008 379 Russia Russia 782,001 2013 546 Indonesia Indonesia 579,000[43] 2012 243 Brazil Brazil 424,162 2014 211[17] Turkey Turkey 412,624[8] 2012 538 Mexico Mexico 393,084 2009 366[59] Pakistan Pakistan 354,221[74] 2011 207 Nigeria Nigeria 350,000[68] 2012 205
That last number is officer per 100,000 of the population. To be sure, RF is a less secure society, but it is also a changing society, where a generation ago the population took a conscious decision to follow leadership which sought a strategic social and economic change. And, yes, the Russian ethnicity led the way, as they did before. In fact Russians had taken the decision to change their society, and Americans did not, which is what ended the Cold War.

So in a confrontation, who is the stronger? The one that huffs and puffs and swars and spitts, or the one that turns around and walks away fully knowing that he could wipe the floor with his opponent, but chooses not to use the strength?



On 4 June 2016 at 01:41, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
This email was sent from yahoo.com which does not allow forwarding of emails via email lists. Therefore the sender's email address (xxxxxx@yahoo.com) has been replaced with a dummy one. The original message follows:

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Well, if you're talking about the old USSR, which was thoroughly dominated by ethnic russians, it's the 'Communist Empire' as the 'Party' was paramount over all else.

Is it's the current RF then it's 'Putin's Empire' as his will is as supreme as Stalin's ever was.

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On Fri, 6/3/16, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] semi-OT: uniform
 To: "xxxxxx@simplelists.com" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Date: Friday, June 3, 2016, 2:51 AM

 The etymology of empire (n.) is early 14c.,
 from Old French empire "rule, authority,
 kingdom, imperial rule" (11c.), from Latin
 imperium "a rule, a command; authority,
 control, power; supreme power, sole dominion; military
 authority; a dominion, realm," from
 imperare "to command," from
 assimilated form of in- "in" (see in-
 (2)) + parare "to order, prepare"

 So in what way
 is the Russian Federation an 'empire'?
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