Most of my family is military (multiple generations), and all but one of them have purple hearts.
I have kids who will (relatively) shortly be military aged, and have been through some really shitty life experiences that have surprising corollaries to this situation.
I personally am 'not of fighting age', but know that despite how wise it would be personally, I would have to take up arms in this situation.
I hate war. My family does too. But what you are describing (and the individual incentives), while 100% true, with a strong and hungry adversary lead to a situation where the society overall will be conquered, and everyone's individual situation will be worse.
Sometimes far, far worse. It's the short term safe option that feeds into the long term disaster.
Overlooking corruption because confronting it is too painful often leads to the same outcome - suffocating corruption everywhere.
That it is possible for some to live in those situations doesn't take away from what is truly being lost.
Because it almost never stops at whatever border they thought crossing would keep them safe. Giving in means they'll take more, and more, and more - and be stronger each time they do.
The kind of hunger this type of diseased mind and government has can never be sated. Only stopped.
Good fences make good neighbors, because firm boundaries that are firmly defended keeps everyone honest and normal people from turning into opportunists and predators.
Something that happens surprisingly easy for a very large portion of the population when enabled.
If no one is going to stand and protect what is theirs when something like that happens, they won't have it for very long. And when a lot of people in a society won't do that, that society won't last for long.
Zelensky knows better than most what he is dealing with - his grandfathers siblings were murdered in WW2 by the Nazis for being Jewish. But Ukraine overall has long experience being abused by Russia, especially USSR Russia.
He's putting his ass on the line and leading the way he is, because he truly knows the stakes and what he is dealing with, and has the courage to face it, and the love for himself and the people to do what needs to be done to keep them truly safe.
If you research the Holodomor, understand the impact that the years behind the iron curtain had on eastern Europe, and the crushing of the East German (and many other countries) spirit and it's long term consequences, you might better understand the stakes.
If you think Putin is going to be better than Stalin and the rest, that is very, very unlikely.
And if you think these refugees are going to be safe one border over - I appreciate the optimism. For those staring something like this in the face, understand, but appreciate what they're really facing.
Stalinism isn't a realistic outcome of this conflict. You have a poor understanding of what modern Russian repression looks like.
If the war goes on for any length of time, though, all the mass death and destruction that comes to fighting a modern war in urban areas will take place. See - literally any war zone in history, but I'd like to draw particular attention to Chechnya. It wasn't the peacetime repression that killed two hundred thousand people, there, and displaced half a million more. It was the war.
Your entire family fought in wars, but how many of them have lived in the middle of one? There's a staggering difference of perspective between bringing war to foreign soil (which, if your family has been receiving purple hearts, they've been doing), and living through one fought in your back yard.
I have kids who will (relatively) shortly be military aged, and have been through some really shitty life experiences that have surprising corollaries to this situation.
I personally am 'not of fighting age', but know that despite how wise it would be personally, I would have to take up arms in this situation.
I hate war. My family does too. But what you are describing (and the individual incentives), while 100% true, with a strong and hungry adversary lead to a situation where the society overall will be conquered, and everyone's individual situation will be worse.
Sometimes far, far worse. It's the short term safe option that feeds into the long term disaster.
Overlooking corruption because confronting it is too painful often leads to the same outcome - suffocating corruption everywhere.
That it is possible for some to live in those situations doesn't take away from what is truly being lost.
Because it almost never stops at whatever border they thought crossing would keep them safe. Giving in means they'll take more, and more, and more - and be stronger each time they do.
The kind of hunger this type of diseased mind and government has can never be sated. Only stopped.
Good fences make good neighbors, because firm boundaries that are firmly defended keeps everyone honest and normal people from turning into opportunists and predators.
Something that happens surprisingly easy for a very large portion of the population when enabled.
If no one is going to stand and protect what is theirs when something like that happens, they won't have it for very long. And when a lot of people in a society won't do that, that society won't last for long.
Zelensky knows better than most what he is dealing with - his grandfathers siblings were murdered in WW2 by the Nazis for being Jewish. But Ukraine overall has long experience being abused by Russia, especially USSR Russia.
He's putting his ass on the line and leading the way he is, because he truly knows the stakes and what he is dealing with, and has the courage to face it, and the love for himself and the people to do what needs to be done to keep them truly safe.
If you research the Holodomor, understand the impact that the years behind the iron curtain had on eastern Europe, and the crushing of the East German (and many other countries) spirit and it's long term consequences, you might better understand the stakes.
If you think Putin is going to be better than Stalin and the rest, that is very, very unlikely.
And if you think these refugees are going to be safe one border over - I appreciate the optimism. For those staring something like this in the face, understand, but appreciate what they're really facing.