HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

Here is a telling vignette of a new cold war between an America hell-bent upon tearing herself up by the roots and a Russia striving, however unevenly, to reconnect to her roots. Last month, The Thinking Housewife posted a comment about homosexualists’ threats to disrupt the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera of New York’s 2013-2014 season, a gala performance of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin featuring Valery Gergiev at the podium and Anna Netrebko on-stage, to protest recent Russian laws restricting homosexualist propaganda.

According to The New York Times, which we must acknowledge as expert in matters both New York and homosexual, if not Russian, the homosexualists made good on their threat:

After the lights dimmed for the Metropolitan Opera’s Russian-themed opening night gala on Monday evening, the first solo voice that rang out in the house was not of a tenor or soprano, but of a protester criticizing the recent antigay laws signed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“Putin, end your war on Russian gays!” a man shouted in the vast auditorium, which was packed for the black-tie gala opening of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” before turning to two of the evening’s Russian stars: Anna Netrebko, the popular Russian diva, and Valery Gergiev, the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. “Anna, your silence is killing Russian gays! Valery, your silence is killing Russian gays!”

Some members of the audience tried to shush the protester, as security guards walked into the house. After a pause, the opera began.

Four protesters in the Family Circle were asked to leave and did, opera officials said.

At issue was a new law banning “propaganda on nontraditional sexual relationships” that Mr. Putin signed into law in June, drawing worldwide attention to the difficulties gay people face in Russia. Both Ms. Netrebko and Mr. Gergiev were vocal supporters of Mr. Putin in his last election.

The outburst in the opera house capped an evening of picketing outside it, as opera patrons in black tie and ball gowns were met with chanting protesters and a 50-foot rainbow banner that said “Support Russian Gays!”

Truly post-American America and reviving Russia must be very different places! Can anyone imagine publicly prominent American artists openly supporting a politician who acts to restrain the homosexual assault on American society?  Or a politician who says things such as these, as Vladimir Putin just did at the Valdai Discussion Club’s meeting last week?:

“People will lose their human dignity without values enshrined in Christianity and other world religions, without moral standards that have taken millennia to take shape,” said President Vladimir Putin.

“We believe that it is natural and appropriate to defend those values. Any minority deserves respect for its distinctive identity, but the rights of the majority must not be questioned,” Putin said during a meeting of the Valdai discussion club.

He believes, that Russia can’t move forward without cultural and national self-determination. Otherwise the country won’t be able to respond to external or internal challenges, can’t be successful in global competition.

“Events that take place in the world represent one more serious challenge to the Russian identity. There are foreign policy and moral aspects to this. We have been able to see many Euro-Atlantic countries effectively embark on a path of renouncing their roots, including Christian values, which underlie Western civilization,” Putin said.

“That involves the negation of moral principles and any traditional identity – national, cultural, religious, or even sexual,” he said.

“Policies are pursued that put large families and same-sex partnerships in the same category, belief in God and belief in Satan. Excesses of political correctness reach the point where there are serious discussions on the registration of parties that have propaganda of pedophilia as their objective. People in many European countries are ashamed and afraid of speaking about their religion, holidays are abolished or given other names, names that shyly conceal the nature of those holidays, and aggressive attempts are made to force this model on the rest of the world,” Putin said.

“This is a direct path to degradation and primitiveness, to deep demographic and moral crises,” he said.

“What can be a better indication of a moral crisis in human society than its loss of the ability for self-reproduction?” Putin said. (emphasis added)

And can anyone imagine a Western politician who says such things today being elected president or prime minister of his country?  Rumors of Russia’s demise may be exaggerated.  I hope the feelings I have of America’s impending demise are exaggerated as well.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

I don’t trust Putin in the least, but the United States is making it very easy for him to adopt a position of moral superiority.

— Comments —

Paul writes:

Wow. Who would have thunk Putin could hit the nail on the head, and eloquently?  Well Hitler could have.  Hitler did it a lot.

In any event, the words are wonderful.  I wish the brilliant Senator Ted Cruz could match Putin’s intellect, though I expect only a handful of people could match Putin’s cleverness.  Washington, Reagan, or Lincoln could have.

Mark Eugenikos writes:

You mentioned in your reply to H. McCulloch “I don’t trust Putin in the least…” and I was curious about what you meant by that comment.

Did you mean that you don’t trust Putin, as a president of Russia, to watch out for the interests of the United States? That can’t be, since that’s not his job. And even if that were his job somehow, I can’t imagine he would do worse than most of our presidents over the last five decades at least.

Or maybe you meant that you don’t trust Putin to watch out for the interests of Russia? But by most accounts he is doing a superb job of that, much better than our presidents have done minding the interests of the U.S. since before Kennedy.

Or did you mean that you don’t trust Putin to watch out for the interest of the Church? Again by most accounts he is doing quite well helping the interest of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), and many other sister Orthodox Churches who are in communion with ROC.

Or maybe it was another thing altogether?

In the same article, I didn’t understand the link Paul made between Putin and Hitler. Was the intent to put down Putin by comparing him with Hitler, which I believe is completely inappropriate, or was the intent to praise Hitler, which should also be unacceptable among believing Christians? You don’t usually let such things slip by you.

 Laura writes:

I’m sorry for the confusion. I think of Putin as an entirely pragmatic leader. I meant I did not trust him to guard the interests of the Church over the long run. Is he a religious man? If he is a follower of the Russian Orthodox Church, why does he support Communist Cuba, Muslim Iran and North Korea? Isn’t criticism of the government still often ruthlessly crushed? As I understood it, the Russian Orthodox Church is still very limited in its ability to criticize the government. That said, his stand against Western decadence is impressive. Truthfully, I should not comment on Russia today. I do not follow it closely enough.

Paul’s comparison of Putin and Hitler was inappropriate.

Mr. Eugenikos writes:

I grew up in a (former) socialist country in Eastern Europe, so I have some experience here. When the government asks the Church, “How can we help you,” the Church’s reply has been, “You don’t have to help us, just don’t harm us.” There is a real danger for the Church in relying too much on the governments of this world. The Church has been around for two millennia and it has outlived many forms of government and many regimes, and it is best if governments just leave it alone. The Church as the Body of Christ can and will guard its own interests without the state interfering.

Is he a religious man?

From Wikipedia:

Putin’s father was “a model communist, genuinely believing in its ideals while trying to put them into practice in his own life”. With this dedication he became secretary of the Party cell in his workshop and then after taking night classes joined the factory’s Party bureau.[367] Though his father was a “militant atheist“,[368] Putin’s mother “was a devoted Orthodox believer”. Though she kept no icons at home, she attended church regularly, despite the government’s persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church at that time. She ensured that Putin was secretly christened as a baby and she regularly took him to services. His father knew of this but turned a blind eye.[367]

According to Putin’s own statements, his religious awakening followed the serious car crash of his wife in 1993, and was deepened by a life-threatening fire that burned down their dacha in August 1996.[368] Right before an official visit to Israel his mother gave him his baptismal cross telling him to get it blessed “I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off since.”[367] When asked whether he believes in God during his interview with Time, he responded saying: “…There are things I believe, which should not in my position, at least, be shared with the public at large for everybody’s consumption because that would look like self-advertising or a political striptease.”

Isn’t criticism of the government still often ruthlessly crushed?

I can neither speak nor read Russian, so I have to depend on sources in English. A good source is a blog which I found via Steve Sailer’s blog, written by an ex-pat Russian. Based on what I’ve learned from that blog, the answer seems to be no, not by a long shot.

You write, “The Russian Orthodox Church is still very limited in its ability to criticize the government.”

It’s not my impression that ROC has any serious reason to criticize the government, after living for seven decades under the Communist rule.

Paul writes:

Let me replace my comparison of Putin to Hitler with a comparison to someone between Julius Caesar and Huey Long.  A sage that used to contribute online to Lawrence Auster, Matt, once said that as soon as someone brings up Hitler or Nazis, the discussion is over.  He was right, and I was lazy.

Long was not a violent man based on what I have read about him (which is more than most) unless extortion and a visitation by a huge policeman are violent.  Caesar most certainly was violent but not to the extent of many purely evil dictators.  Huey and Caesar were smart and ruthless but not megalomaniacs or medically paranoid.

So no, I did not intend to generate admiration for Hitler even though he was an exceptionally gifted public speaker and politician.  It is irrational to ignore an evil person’s gifts.

Editors are humans who get to know and to trust their many contributors.  So when they know what the contributor is trying to say, albeit ineloquently, they sometimes let things slide.  Nitpickers are human also.  Rhetorical questions are usually pitchforks except when used sparingly by writers.

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