#authoritarianism

Just a reminder to all those members of DebateArt advocating for Putin's invasion of Ukraine that debate is an invention and an instrument of DEMOCRACY. 

Dictators, by definition, can never permit entirely free speech and without free speech the pretense of fair debate is cruelly mocked. 

Vladimir Putin specifically is the sworn enemy of fair political debate, poisoning to death those who out argue him, and the greatest contemporary threat to free speech globally, interfering  by unlawful subterfuge with democratic processes worldwide.  Ukraine won its freedom from Russia in 1991 after suffering the calamity of Chernobyl- a disaster who's root cause was discovered to be in the absence of free speech and the fear of reprisals that prevented engineers from speaking out about known system failures.  The result of that suppression of free speech was 4,000 dead and the collapse of the Soviet Empire. 

Unlike Russia, Ukraine has fought hard to preserve her democracy through the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Euromaidan Revolution of 2014.  Ukraine has earned her freedom of speech and independence from Russia.

You can endorse the free and fair practice of debating or you can endorse Putin's unlawful invasion of the democratic Republic of Ukraine but you can't do both and remain ideologically consistent.

If you believe that debaters and debating should be free and fair throughout the world then you oppose that belief's most potent enemy Putin, plain and simple.