Russia, what the actual fuck?

[Brother D]

Russia wants to expand anti-gay law to ban all 'public' displays of affection, with fines and short term imprisonment. I am all for free love etc, but how backwards is this in modern society? Thoughts?

[Reverend Al]

I can't explain it to you Brother D.  The way I see it, it's difficult enough to fall in love with someone and be fortunate enough to have them love you back equally.  As long as both people involved are consenting adults, it doesn't matter (or shouldn't matter) if they're male or female, what their sexual orientation is, what color their skin is, or anything else that most people think is a "big deal", and it sure as shit isn't anyone's business but theirs.

[Brother D]

I know, man, I just think this kind of thinking is outdated and unnecessary. So what if a dude digs other dudes or what have you, but to still see that as a punishable thing is plain wrong. What are they afraid of? Why the need to dehumanise anyone? I don't get it. We're supposed to be an evolved species, but some prefer to be stuck in the dark ages. Maybe it's a sith agenda! This oppression will not stand, man!

[Reverend Al]

We're a somewhat evolved species, but we clearly still have a long way to go before we make it to the finals.

[jgiffin]

Too many of us still think we have to ban something simply because we, ourselves, don't like it.

[Brother D]

Something I read/heard years ago, was "what we don't understand, we dislike. What we dislike, we destroy". I try to educate myself in things I don't understand, to make me a better person. After all an informed opinion is better than an unintellectual one.

I learned from understanding animal behaviour, (not that I am equating  human sexual orientation or gender diversity to animals, though it is known in the animal/natural world) and learning  about the world we live in, that it is just a strand in the rug of life, part of the whole durn comedy and to pull on it or pick at it, the rug will unravel. There are lots of in and outs to it and to understand it all, every strand, would take a lifetime. It's easier for me, at least, to accept it, not worry about that shit and let life go on, man.

It's so undude, that bigotry, intolerance, racism, homophobia etc are still tolerated. Maybe I'm thinking too utopian, maybe I'm being too uptight about issues like these and others, but I feel humanity is holding itself back for no good reason. No wonder there is a sense of global disparity! But it's just my opinion, man.

[BikerDude]

It's Russia.
Tip of the shit iceberg really.
Having read Alexander Solzhenitsyn this is unsurprising really.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

And in regard to Solzhenitsyn, when you look at how the KGB tried to discredit him it's interesting how similar the FBI has acted against US citizens who it considered a threat.

On 19 September 1974, Yuri Andropov approved a large-scale operation to discredit Solzhenitsyn and his family and cut his communications with Soviet dissidents. The plan was jointly approved by Vladimir Kryuchkov, Philipp Bobkov, and Grigorenko (heads of First, Second and Fifth KGB Directorates).[63] The residencies in Geneva, London, Paris, Rome and other European cities participated in the operation. Among other active measures, at least three StB agents became translators and secretaries of Solzhenitsyn (one of them translated the poem Prussian Nights), keeping KGB informed regarding all contacts by Solzhenitsyn.[63]

The KGB sponsored a series of hostile books about Solzhenitsyn, most notably a "memoir published under the name of his first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya, but probably mostly composed by Service", according to historian Christopher Andrew.[63] Andropov also gave an order to create "an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Pauk and the people around him" by feeding him rumors that everyone in his surrounding was a KGB agent and deceiving him in all possible ways. Among other things, the writer constantly received envelopes with photographs of car accidents, brain surgery and other frightening illustrations. After the KGB harassment in Z?rich, Solzhenitsyn settled in Cavendish, Vermont, reduced communications with others and surrounded his property with a barbed wire fence. His influence and moral authority for the West diminished as he became increasingly isolated and critical of Western individualism. KGB and CPSU experts finally concluded that he alienated American listeners by his "reactionary views and intransigent criticism of the US way of life", so no further active measures would be required.[63]

Now look at how the FBI treated US Citizens like Martin Luther King
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

After the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Hoover singled out King as a major target for COINTELPRO. Under pressure from Hoover to focus on King, Sullivan wrote:

In the light of King's powerful demagogic speech. ... We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.[14]

Soon after, the FBI was systematically bugging King's home and his hotel rooms.[15]

In the mid-1960s, King began publicly criticizing the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of terrorism by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King the most "notorious liar" in the United States.[16] In his 1991 memoir, Washington Post journalist Carl Rowan asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide.[17] Historian Taylor Branch documents an anonymous November 21, 1964 "suicide package" sent by the FBI that contained audio recordings of King's sexual indiscretions combined with a letter telling him "There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation."[18]

[Brother D]

Christ on a bike! I'm not venturing to either side of the pond! I'm staying right here, gonna enjoy my coffee, smoke a bowl and let the world conquer itself!

[BikerDude]

Christ on a bike! I'm not venturing to either side of the pond! I'm staying right here, gonna enjoy my coffee, smoke a bowl and let the world conquer itself!

This is a barometer of the times.
News of the world has conspired to make the British seem the most sane.
Certainly it will begin raining locust very soon.
Carry on.