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They Killed My Lawyer

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#51

Post by roundsquare »

osipov wrote: post #4

>>It is also a story about how Stalinism and the gulags are alive and well in Russia today. It is difficult to convey the depth of my disgust after reading the above sentence from the first paragraph of the article. I share both Russian and Jewish heritages and to my dismay I frequently encounter writings that belittle the history of Holocaust. In comparison, Stalinism and gulags are less known to the Western audienc…

Seems to me that this line was meant to convey that Russia isn't as cleaned up as people might think. It would be similar to a line such as "companies are still doing what Enron did and getting away with it." I think its important to keep in mind that the author was probably not attempting hyperbole (even if that is what happened).

From that point of view, I think the author felt this was his clearest method of communicating his point. Not that I think it needed to be communicated (how many FP readers really think Russia is not corrupt...?) but that is seperate from your point.

From that point of view, I feel that what was written is sensible... though I freely admit that I'm not able to take into account how hurtful this might to some people.

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#52

Post by osipov »

roundsquare wrote: post #51
osipov wrote: post #4

>>It is also a story about how Stalinism and the gulags are alive and well in Russia today. It is difficult to convey the depth of my disgust after reading the above sentence from the first paragraph of the article. I share both Russian and Jewish heritages and to my dismay I frequently encounter writings that belittle the history of Holocaust. In comparison, Stalinism and gulags are less known to the Western audienc…

Seems to me that this line was meant to convey that Russia isn't as cleaned up as people might think. It would be similar to a line such as "companies are still doing what Enron did and getting away with it." I think its important to keep in mind that the author was probably not attempting hyperbole (even if that is what happened). From that point of view, I think the author felt this was his clearest method of commu…

Well, there are several points in the article including: 1) failure of the rule of law in Russia, as evidenced by legal issues encountered by the author and his attorney; 2) politically motivated killing of author's attorney.

In my comment I wasn't addressing point #1. With respect to point #2, I think there is a better analogy than Enron: imagine that NYT publishes an article about a cop tasering a Jewish man to death. If the article started with a line about "Holocaust by police force is alive and well", it would be entirely fair to call out NYT for false moral equivalence and bad judgment in publishing the article.

Why shouldn't we keep Foreign Policy to the same standard?

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#53

Post by yummyfajitas »

osipov wrote: post #4

>>It is also a story about how Stalinism and the gulags are alive and well in Russia today. It is difficult to convey the depth of my disgust after reading the above sentence from the first paragraph of the article. I share both Russian and Jewish heritages and to my dismay I frequently encounter writings that belittle the history of Holocaust. In comparison, Stalinism and gulags are less known to the Western audienc…

Ok, I'll bite. How is there a qualitative difference between killing a man and killing a race? I'll grant you that the Holocaust was about 12 million times worse than killing Sergei Magnitsky. But how is that more than a quantitative (not qualitative) difference?

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#54

Post by roundsquare »

osipov wrote: post #52
roundsquare wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me that this line was meant to convey that Russia isn't as cleaned up as people might think. It would be similar to a line such as "companies are still doing what Enron did and getting away with it." I think its important to keep in mind that the author was probably not attempting hyperbole (even if that is what happened). From that point of view, I think the author felt this was his clearest method of commu…

Well, there are several points in the article including: 1) failure of the rule of law in Russia, as evidenced by legal issues encountered by the author and his attorney; 2) politically motivated killing of author's attorney. In my comment I wasn't addressing point #1. With respect to point #2, I think there is a better analogy than Enron: imagine that NYT publishes an article about a cop tasering a Jewish man to dea…

Urg... miscommunication somewhere.

The point of my Enron example is to show what the Stalinism/gulag example is trying to do. In my view, they are trying to say "things haven't changed as much as you think." Of course, there are other ways to put this, but the author needed to balance out the sadness/horror/etc... he felt with being historically accurate[1]/sensitive.

[1] As some here have argued, he may have thought the historical analogy was accurate enough. Just from some of the replies, it can be argued that this view isn't totally nonsense.

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#55

Post by camccann »

chrischen wrote: post #34
camccann wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter? He seems to be alleging that the author of this piece is potentially responsible for as much misery and destruction as the people who killed the lawyer in the story, and that this undermines the moral legitimacy of the article. Whether osipov himself condones what happened is completely irrelevant.

Even if the author is responsible for misery and destruction, which is debatable, it still doesn't mean we should marginalize his accusations or condone the actions. If everyone is doing it, why does the hypocrisy matter?

Don't know, it's not my argument. I was objecting to what seemed to be an attempt to make an issue of osipov's feelings on the matter. Arguments whose topics include the emotional state of one of the participants rarely end well.

There also seems to be a lot of presumptive sorting into binary opposition; osipov disliking the author of the article doesn't mean he supports the "other side", and my objection above doesn't mean I agree with osipov (in fact I don't, though it sounded like you and rbanffy assumed I did).

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#56

Post by nice1 »

huhtenberg wrote: post #18

Perhaps I am missing something obvious, but how is this HN material ?

Well, obvious to some, I suppose. The point is that people with an entrepreneurial bent should be familiar with business environments around the world. When you hear that Russia is a country ruled by an ex-KGB/military mafia you may get a false picture of a Don Corleone style of doing business: live and let live; pay up and you're OK. This is quite false. A story like this may save somebody from making a very grave mistake.

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#57

Post by asciilifeform »

There are a number of people prattling on about "the rule of law."

"The rule of law" is not an unmitigated good, like clean air. Laws can be and are written to benefit the lawmakers, their pets, and their puppetmasters - as they were in 1990s Russia.

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#58

Post by e40 »

rms wrote: post #42
raquo wrote: post #41

The worst thing is that even though this story received a lot of attention in Russian media and people are well aware and furious about it, there is nothing that will be done about it. Neither the president nor the prime minister nor the parliament nor the government nor anyone else with any power in this country have done or are going to do anything about it. As if it's normal.

The corruption allegations were ignored, but Medvedev did fire some prison officials. :/ http://lawandorderinrussia.org/2009/russia-fires-prison-offi...

Yeah, once the public outrage mounts, token actions will be proffered.

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#59

Post by helveticaman »

This is the kind of event that sets your credibility as a business-friendly country back ten, twenty years. How far does the rabbit hole go in Russia? All the way to the other side of the earth, apparently. Disgusting.

Re: They Killed My Lawyer

#60

Post by andreyf »

astine wrote: post #22
osipov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>As an American it's strange to imagine celebrating rule of force over rule of law What about Al Capone? The guy was caught on tax evasion charges, was US government's rule of force justified in his case?

What does that have to do with anything? He was in fact guilty of tax evasion, which was in fact against the law.

He was clearly guilty of much more than tax evasion. The rule of law failed in regard to most of his misdeeds.
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