Democracy is worse than totalitarianism. You can even say a little differently — democracy is the worst kind of totalitarianism. Many people who are far from politics, or simply look only at the “book cover” and not at the “contents”, believe that democracy is the only free regime. This is an erroneous opinion, which has long been sought by the propaganda of democracy. Unfortunately, it is indeed very well imposed. This is a good example of the fact that the most blatant lies can be imposed on people, and for them it will become true. I previously published a critique of democracy in my article «Демократия — худший из возможных режимов«. In the same article, I wanted to focus on the issue of freedom, which Democrats so constantly like to shout about.
If you think that democracy is really a free regime that gives everyone the right to choose power, then I sincerely condole with you. Democracy is the dictatorship of democrats, not freedom. Democracy is worse than totalitarianism because it is a very hypocritical and therefore very nasty regime. In reality, in a democratic regime, the one who «should» win usually wins. No ordinary person «of the people» will be able to go far if his candidacy is not approved «from above». It is not for nothing that most of the leaders in the CIS countries after the collapse of the USSR were precisely former members of the CPSU.
Opposition
The appearance of confrontation between parties and political associations is one of the attributes of democracy. There are enough parties in the Russian Federation, but this does not change the true essence of the matter, when in any case all power is in only one party, and this has been going on for many years. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party and others are only an image whose representatives bow to the true rulers. Here and below, the examples will be mainly in the Russian Federation, since I live here, and I am not so interested in other countries, but the democratic regimes themselves differ only in some specifics, in general they are the same.
I want to note one feature of Russian jurisprudence, a slight political schizophrenia. In the Russian Federation, as you know, there are communist parties. Communism means revolution. At the same time, a person who is an extremist cannot become president in the Russian Federation. And communism, of course, is extremism. The third article of the constitution in the fourth paragraph states: «The seizure of power or the appropriation of power is punishable by federal law.» The thirteenth article of the constitution in paragraph five reads: «The creation and activities of public associations, the goals or actions of which are aimed at … inciting social, racial, national and religious hatred, are prohibited.» Well, wow, you can’t incite religious hatred, it turns out. And the fact that the Communists are against religion, apparently, is nothing to worry about.
Now about the very right to be an opposition. To nominate a candidate for participation in the presidential elections in the Russian Federation, you need to gather a group of 500 or more people near the representative of the CEC. I doubt it’s that easy to do. Therefore, we will have to play pre-election propaganda, which we will return to a little later. But then it is already necessary to collect at least 300 thousand signatures in support, no more than 7,500 for one subject. To create a party, it is necessary to have regional branches in at least half of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. How they will be funded is another question. In other words, there is such an opportunity, but in order to use it, you need to try very hard.
It turns out that an ordinary person cannot become an opposition. Not even every popular person can exercise this right. But an already rich and influential person can simply get the desired «Wishlist». After all, democracy works in such a way that no matter how good a candidate you are, the one who has better election propaganda will win. Even if an ordinary person could participate in the elections, he would lose, because the oligarch will have the opportunity to play for the public on television and not only.
How to easily get rid of unnecessary competitors? Article 13, paragraph 5 will do everything for you (“It is forbidden to create and operate public associations whose goals or actions are aimed at forcibly changing the foundations of the constitutional order and violating the integrity of the Russian Federation, undermining the security of the state, creating armed formations, inciting social, racial, national and religious strife»). Refuse to create or ban activities on a far-fetched pretext and that’s it, there is no opposition.
If, however, the opposition itself supports democracy, saying that “now the democracy is wrong, but we will make the right one”, then this is very ridiculous. There is no talk of any change for the better. These are the same democrats, only on the other side of the barricades, that is, without power. Such an opposition does not want to get rid of slavery, it just wants to have its own slaves.
Democracy is worse than totalitarianism: Total Surveillance
Talking about the absence of surveillance in a democratic state is simply ridiculous, because democracy is built on total surveillance and the destruction of anonymity. Even all sorts of anonymous sites where registration is simply impossible, and publications are made anonymously, they still collect data about the authors, which will be issued immediately after pressure from the police. Democracy is worse than totalitarianism in terms of surveillance because the totalitarian regimes of the past did not have such convenient opportunities. Today, every person buys services from a provider who stores his search queries and other information, information about his traffic; uses a SIM card that can be easily tracked even when the phone is turned off; has information like IP address and MAC address that allows them to be identified. And much more. Agree, being a dictator in the years when every person carries a small tracking device called a phone is much easier.
As for the tracking device in your pocket, then there is a separate moment. Some people are so stupid that they were able to impose on them the significance of a device that has almost complete control of its owner, but at the same time has less capabilities. We are talking, of course, about the owners of the iPhone and other useless equipment from their manufacturer. These devices are so controlled that the Telegram app waited 2 weeks to check for updates from Apple. A person who boasts of such a device looks like this: “Look, I bought a device from a corporation that will allow its creators and other corporations to make even more money from me and influence my life, I am the coolest of all.”
Social networks collect as much information about their users as possible. Registration begins with assigning a phone number to the account, which will help, if necessary, disclose even more information, including passport data. With applications for messaging (Telegram, Viber, and so on), everything is exactly the same. If an email is indicated instead of a phone number, then everything is almost the same. This not only kills anonymity, but is also unsafe. If the attacker knows the email address or phone number of the victim, then he has a good chance of hacking into the account. And in general, you may not know them, just get a database of numbers or mail and work on them. And if there is a leak at the email service, then you will definitely feel bad. The safest option is to use only a username and password. At the same time, the login should not be public, the user should have a separate alias. Thus, the security of the account will depend practically only on the user himself, and on the site that he uses. The intermediate link in the form of a telecom operator and an e-mail service disappears.
It is almost impossible to register an email from an anonymous address, especially on popular services. If you hide your IP address, they will ask you to provide a phone number, without which it will not be possible to register. Even the app for stupid people called TikTok can’t be used freely enough. If you hide the address, then you simply won’t be able to log into your account through the browser.
Have you ever tried using the Tor browser to register on major sites? Some of them forbid visiting them anonymously, some only forbid publishing (Wikipedia, in which IP addresses are recorded in the public history of changes), someone makes you suffer with the introduction of codes. Oh yeah, now Tor is already banned, so it won’t work. Harmless anonymizing sites are also banned if they do not leak police data. With a VPN, the same trouble, many popular tools are already blocked: 1111, Windscribe, Proton VPN and others. In principle, so with any means for anonymity. That’s democracy for you.
The RuBanList (now RuZapret) website tells us that there are now more than 350,000 sites on the block list. Roskomnadzor — 5735 sites; Rospotrebnadzor — 1134 websites; Court — 138728 sites; Prosecutor General’s Office — 14667 sites; Moscow City Court — 309 sites; Ministry of Internal Affairs — 27190 sites; Rosalkogol — 6545 sites; Ministry of Communications — 27543 sites; FTS — 125220 sites; Rosmolodezh — 306 sites; Roszdravnadzor — 10682 sites; Bailiffs — 1604 sites. I doubt that more than 30% of them deserve it. In the world, the following types of sites are most often blocked: 20% — blogs; 19% — political parties; 9% are individuals; 9% — local non-governmental organizations; 6% — private business; 6% — independent media; 5% — groups of workers; 5% — forums. This is an incomplete list.
As of 2020, more than 13 million cameras have been installed in the Russian Federation; in the USA — more than 50 million; in Germany — more than 5 million; in Japan — more than 5 million; in Britain — more than 5 million. Some of the cameras, of course, are also installed by individuals, and in general the problem of cameras is not so noticeable, but it still exists. Naturally, cameras for fixing violations in stores are not only quite acceptable, but they are not used for these purposes either.
This was the picture as a whole, now let’s look at more specific examples. In 2021, the Ministry of Internal Affairs planned to monitor references and criticism of its department. In the same year, Putin instructed the Ministry of Internal Affairs to strengthen control over the Internet space. And again, this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs was developing a system for recognizing people by tattoos and body movement. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is creating a centralized biometric data bank, which is likely to include data from banks like Sberbank. The teacher was forced to follow the students on social networks. Switching to credit and debit cards instead of cash is convenient only for tracking purchases and spending by citizens. In 2020, Putin approved the law on total control, which gives the tax authority full access to any citizen. With it, they will track any actions with money. In 2016, the law “On the Powers of Investigation” appeared in Britain, which allows the interception of messages, the storage of the history of site visits for a year and more. In 2013, the media uncovered massive data collection and surveillance using the Tempora computer system.
If you want to know more about how you are being monitored and restricted, then read about «MOSM» (Means of operational-search measures), «IMEI», cryptography restrictions in the Russian Federation, «DRTBox», how Yandex gives out user data. We could go on for a long time, but this is enough.
Democracy is worse than totalitarianism: It is enough to find a reason
“Democracy is a free regime that guarantees the observance of the rights specified in the constitution,” something like a supporter of democracy could write. But everything is not so infantile. In fact, if you find a reason, then the government can justify any violation of the rights of citizens, neglecting them, withdrawing them. If you try very hard, you can even convince many people that this is really for their own good. An example would be the restrictions in many countries during the coronavirus, when under the pretext of protecting against the disease, people were controlled like cattle. And at the same time, the Democrats themselves did not comply with such restrictions, showing their superiority.
The most popular pretexts are safety and convenience. Let’s start with the second. We are told that it is much more convenient and modern to use cards, you don’t need to carry all sorts of papers with you, and so on. The fact that all this data is controlled and your account can be blocked at any time, including by mistake, is omitted. And so it is with everything. Many people, unfortunately, neglect their security and anonymity for the sake of convenience. But most of all it is convenient not for citizens, but for the authorities. Think for yourself: you only get the opportunity to carry a card with you, equal in weight to paper money or a little less, and the tax and others know what you ate yesterday, to whom and how often you sent money. Based on this data, they can come to you and accuse you of illegal business or something else.
Now about «security». Surveillance on the Internet was introduced under the pretext of combating terrorism and pedophilia. Under these pretexts, articles of the constitution numbered 23 and 24 were crossed out. Was surveillance of citizens used for the stated purposes? I have not heard of this, but I constantly hear about the neglect of these laws. Naturally, not everyone is equal before the law, as Article 19 tells us. For some reason, when people are against spying on them, the authorities say: «Do you have something to hide?» That’s democracy for you.
In fact, jurisprudence in the Russian Federation does not work at all. The police regulate their actions not by laws or other documents, but by their inner convictions and mood. If he wants to — put anyone in jail, if he wants — he will let him go, if he wants — a fine. Jurisprudence in the Russian Federation is only a secondary phenomenon, sometimes corrected, and it applies only to citizens. Laws in a democracy are made for the population, not for the members of the government.
Democracy is worse than totalitarianism: Articles are not for everyone
On this note, we smoothly move on to another topic of the article, namely, the double standards of «justice» in the Russian Federation. If you think that in the Russian Federation everything is decided by the law, then you are mistaken. The law decides everything only when it judges citizens, and even then it is not always correct. If he judges someone influential, then all influence and public opinion decide. If a person is powerful, he can get away with any crime. If there is no public unrest because of this, then he will get away with everything.
Article 23 paragraph 1: «Everyone has the right to privacy, personal and family secrets, protection of his honor and good name.» In 2021, Kadyrov forced the father and other relatives of the boy to apologize, who wrote his opinion about him. In 2019, his henchman forced the Dagestani Gadzhimurad Isabekov to apologize, who challenged Kadyrov to a duel.
Article 19 paragraph 1: «All are equal before the law and the court.» Kadyrov in 2019 promised to break fingers and pull out tongues for insults on the Internet, he did not suffer punishment for 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Kadyrov in 2021 promised to find and destroy the one who called him a shaitan. “If we don’t stop them by killing, imprisoning, scaring, nothing will work,” he said, finally proving that the laws in the Russian Federation are not for everyone. Zhirinovsky, on the air of Channel One, called on New Year’s Eve to carry out bombing strikes on the territory of Ukraine and Western countries, he did not suffer punishment for the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation 354.
Democracy is worse than totalitarianism: Scientific censorship
Science without different opinions and theories is not science. The problem of scientific censorship occurs both in the Russian Federation and in “tolerant” countries. Most often, scientific censorship extends to history, political science and some related sciences. It is understandable, because any, for example, biology, is unlikely to have such a strong influence on society. Opposition in science can either be deprived of the status of a scientist, or punished in some other way. I would characterize the system of punishments in the United States as follows: say what you want, but expect persecution and harassment (not particularly repressive, but with different consequences). And in the Russian Federation, it is precisely repressive. And it’s not just about science.
As you know, history is written by the winners. And this is not some kind of joke or exaggeration, this is the absolute truth. The winner will always try to exalt himself and denigrate his opponent. But now scientific censorship is introduced by law. At least in Russia. Now even photographs of the leaders of the Third Reich cannot be shown, which is very strange, because the Russian Federation forbids showing those whom it condemns.
In “tolerant” countries, censorship acts against traditional values, but the opposite gender idea is increasingly popularized. Moreover, even those who have nothing to do with science and politics are forced to consider this idea. Thus, the modern social sciences and humanities do not represent anything significant and are absurd.
Democracy is worse than totalitarianism: Ideological impotence
But what makes democracy worse than totalitarianism is ideological impotence. When we are told that the Russian Federation has no ideology, this is all complete nonsense. Each country has its own ideology, even if it is not marked. The ideology of the Russian Federation consists of pseudo-conservatism, cheap populism, a cult of personality, pseudo-religiousness. We have fake conservatism, because in fact the authorities do not care about any ideas, their main essence is serving mammon. There is only a visible fight against LGBT people, there is no obvious one. In general, the ideology in the Russian Federation is extremely indifferent, it is rather a kind of image that serves as a cover for corruption and other government actions. This is especially clearly seen in the example of the situation with veterans, to which I dedicated the article «The Cult of Grandfathers». The authorities publicly show interest in them, raise their ratings, but in reality they only use them and do not want to help.
The ideology of the United States has always been to promote its interests and create the image of a «world policeman», as stupid liberals now call it. Not particularly advertised, but no less important for the United States, there has always been the idea of being a colony of Israel, currying favor with it in every possible way. Now this is complemented by full support for LGBT people, pseudoscience and pressure on conservatism. The United States condemned the “Russian special operation” in Ukraine, but approved the Israeli attack on the Palestinians. At the same time, the United States is trying to put pressure on those who disagree. A few days ago, US senators called for the Russian Federation to be included in the list of states that are sponsors of terrorism. One of them said: «I believe the administration should tell Russia that we are making them pariahs, like Iran and Cuba.»
Why is democracy worse than totalitarianism within the framework of ideologies? Totalitarian regimes often had a clear ideology, which they were fanatical about. The USSR tried to be against capitalism and therefore developed rapidly to oppose the USA. Democracies do not have any clear position, they need power “just for themselves”, without any goals. Here the Russian Federation is now experiencing a recession in all areas, because there are no goals. The lack of a clear ideology means that the most powerful people in the country will bend their own line. Although, and not only in the country itself.
Here Putin and journalists-sycophants said on TV how terrible the countries of the “West” are, wow, they have completely lost their minds with their LGBT people. This is where all conservatism ends, there is nothing more. And at the same time, Roskomnadzor approved the LGBT propaganda for children “Summer in a Pioneer Tie”. This is how gradually the whole tube of conservatism will end, the heirs of the deceased Putin will take a new paste called «tolerance», they will crush it, continuing to steal.
For some reason, countries like the US and Canada fund LGBT propaganda around the world, films about it are recorded and other forms of propaganda are used. And how does the Russian Federation spread conservatism? In groups on Odnoklassniki with titles like «Putin is the best president»? With the help of Putin’s stupid quotes? Or speeches of journalists with their delirium on TV? Why do we not yet have a fund for the promotion of traditional values that will work around the world? This indifference is a very big and sad omission.
Democratic intervention
Democracy is worse than totalitarianism, again, in its hypocrisy. Hiding behind the protection of democracy or something else, it will ruthlessly kill its opponents. Recall how the United States annexed Texas, arranging a war with Mexico. Now they condemn the joining of Crimea. Recall how the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Japan. Now they are talking about the inadmissibility of a nuclear war, when their enemy turned out to be not as weak as Japan then, without having nuclear weapons. Now they have made Japan their colony, where they impose their values and interests.
Now Ukrainian democracy is finally destroying its citizens. “The more powerful our weapons and the longer the range of their use, the faster this will end,” says the crazy democratic dictator, ready to drown Ukraine in blood. In fact, the Ukrainian Armed Forces and others did not need to attack Russian troops, they only made things worse. In any case, they would not have been able to defeat the Russian Federation, and so they have aggravating consequences: destroyed infrastructure, dead citizens, a weakened economy, and so on. They only made it worse for themselves. By the way, the same Zelensky called on the citizens of the Russian Federation to leave so as not to pay taxes. Now he is calling on other countries to close the borders for former Russian citizens and deport them home.
