Well, except for me, of course.
But then again, we are free speech ideologues here, we are not true Libertarians. We simply lean in that general direction.
The American Left is hailing Volodymyr Zelensky today as a hero.
The American Right, all of a sudden, is worried about sending too much money to Ukraine.
And American Libertarians slander the Ukrainian President at every turn.
I don't care what any of those nimrods think, let me tell you about Volodymyr Zelensky. He is the greatest avatar of freedom in the 21st Century.
Let's do some lazy writing here, because at my core, I am a stereotypical American. I look in the mirror in disgust at my thickening midsection. I don't fight for anything. Last year, some coyotes came and ate my pet ducks. Did I grab a gun and hunt down those predators? No. I sighed, "I guess I don't have ducks anymore." When something really, really annoys me, I make a snarky comment on Facebook or rail about the topic on my unread blog.
With that being said, let's continue our slothish streak and cut and paste the definition of Freedom from Google:
free·dom /ˈfrēdəm/
noun
the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. "we do have some freedom of choice"
absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government. "he was a champion of Irish freedom"
the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
That is what Ukraine is fighting for, its own future. Americans used to embrace the concept of fighting for Freedom. Do you remember those ungrateful bastards in Kuwait? In 1990, in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq surprisingly, and quickly, stormed across Kuwait in under 3 days. Kuwait was then annexed and became the 19th province of Iraq. Did the Kuwaiti populace rise up and fight off the invaders?
No.
George Bush and his army used Hussein's aggression toward Kuwait to justify the Gulf War. America's ground forces drove Hussein's Army out of Kuwait in under a hundred hours less than a year later. Do Kuwaiti Citizens line the streets every February 26, flying their American flags, to celebrate Kuwait Liberation Day?
Also no.
Libertarians would howl that we finally left Afghanistan, we don't want a quagmire in Ukraine. That is a very valid point. The Russians shouldn't have been in Afghanistan in the 80's and we shouldn't have been there for the past decade. When we left Afghanistan at the beginning of the Biden Administration, that country folded like a house of cards. What our leaders in Washington didn't tell us was that our money was propping that country up. No one inside Afghanistan was fighting for a better Afghanistan, they were fighting because they have been at perpetual war since about 1978.
But Ukraine is not Kuwait, Ukraine is not Afghanistan.
This is why Ukraine, specifically, deserves our support. Not our troops, our red line has to be Poland, but our support. In 1991, as the Soviet Union was dissolving, Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence. In return for guarantees of a peaceful transition, Ukraine went from the world's third largest nuclear power to destroying and/or relinquishing their nuclear arsenal. That's not me speculating, that's from the Budapest Memorandum. Also from the Memorandum: The Memorandum "prohibits the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, 'except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.'"
That's why Vladimir Putin bent over backwards trying to explain his invasion of Ukraine, claiming he was defending his country from the Nazis.
What a farce. Ukrainian Nazis were never going to invade Russia. No way, no how. Let me tell you a little secret about the Nazis. (Shhhh. Nazis are everywhere.)
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there are significant Nazi populations in Germany, Hungary, the United States, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Is it okay if Russia invades America because of a few thousand Nazi knuckleheads residing inside of our border of 300 million+?
Again, no.
And don't forget the Russian Nazi Serial Killers "The Cleaners," that terrorized the Moscow area between 2014-2015. Libertarian Presidential Candidate Spike Cohen, at the turn of the calendar year, said that we shouldn't send troops to Ukraine because of the Nazis.
Listen, there was never a groundswell to send troops to Ukraine from this country. Cohen, and other Russian Sympathizers, manufactured the Nazi angle to justify a Russian Invasion.
Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, could have left Ukraine as soon as the Russians invaded and lived a nice quiet life of exile in Paris. Instead he stayed with his army to fight for Ukraine's existence.
Zelensky's message has been singular from the start: Arm Ukraine. Ukraine's message has been clear from the start: We are a Sovereign Nation. Zelensky stayed in his country to fight for Ukrainian Sovereignty. His resolve never waned, his message never waned. When he appeared before Congress, he wasn't asking for troops, he was asking for weapons.
Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, has been playing the long game to destabilize Ukrainian Sovereignty for over a decade. Putin eroded the local governments in Luhansk and Donetsk, funding regional "freedom fighters." Then, early in Russian's invasion, he recognized the "independent governments" of the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. Finally, on September 30th of this year, a frustrated Putin tired of his own ruse and signed multiple declarations that the former Ukrainian Oblasts were no longer independent, but part of Russia.
The world yawned.
Putin wants Ukraine and Ukraine wants their sovereignty. The conflict is that simple.
If you're sitting on your couch in America, casting a curious eye on Eastern Europe, you may ask: Why can't Ukraine just be part of Russia? Look up the Holodomor. Look up Chernobyl. That's why Ukraine yearns to be free from Moscow's Thumb.
In this country, we exacerbated the problems between Ukraine and Russia. Over the past decade, both Joe Biden's kid and Donald Trump's kids played footsie with various governmental regimes in Ukraine.
Any disdain of Zelensky by the Right is the residue of partisan politics. (And I didn't even mention the partisan response to the expansion of NATO.)
You don't care about the recent history of Sovereign Ukraine, you don't care about what snot-nosed Hunter Biden or cake-eater Donald Trump Jr. did, and you certainly don't care about a country you didn't even learn about while you were in school, you don't want your tax dollars going to Ukraine.
You know what? I don't have any problems sending my tax dollars to Ukraine, not one bit. You know how much other crap the government wastes my money on? I never get input on any Democrat or Republican pet projects. How come all of a sudden we are worried about the cost of foreign aid?
So I looked up the dollar amounts on foreign aid: Yikes. President Fred isn't cutting foreign aid to Ukraine, President Fred is cutting foreign aid to three quarters of the countries on that list. First country to lose their aid? Pakistan. Until Dr. Shakil Afridi is released from prison, Pakistan gets ZERO dollars. Then after Pakistan releases Afridi, the country gets a decade-long penalty for being jerks. We are sending nearly half a billion dollars a year to the government that was hiding Osama bin Laden?
Your angle is also that we shouldn't risk nuclear war and angering Putin? Listen, in March I felt the same way. I saw no path to victory for Ukraine. Putin has been threatening to nuke Ukraine for almost a year now. Putin has dictated the agenda in Ukraine, he is the bully that needs to be stood up to.
Zelensky and his troops, not our troops, have almost single-handedly willed his country to exist. I am almost euphoric that he spoke before Congress. As Zelensky's country continues to struggle with infrastructure issues as a result of the Russian bombings, 74% of Ukrainians still support the fight until all pre-2014 boundaries in Ukraine are restored.
As Putin weaponizes the winter, I throw another blanket across my legs as I write. Short of sending troops, which will surely trigger World War III, the Untied States must do everything within its power to support Ukraine.
Ukraine defending itself from a Russian Invasion should have been an easy bipartisan topic to rally behind. What country has asked the United States for support, and not troops, after giving up their nuclear weapons in their fight for existence.
It has never happened before.
Editor's Note:
To my fellow Libertarian-leaning bretheren:
If you can't tell the difference between Ukraine and nearly every other war in the last 200 years. Try opening a history book.
No one is asking you or your family to fight or to get out from behind your keyboard. You just have to support those who want to fight for themselves.
As for Putin, if Ukraine falls, who's to say he wouldn't use a nuke when he tries to annex the separatists in Moldova?
Editor's Note II:
You're a hardcore libertarian and believe in no foreign aid for anyone. You argue that even if Ukraine had nuclear weapons, they didn't have the codes, they were very expensive paper weights.
Good thing no one listens to libertarians.
Editor's Note III:
Way, way back in my memory banks, I vaguely recall reading about Lithuanians trying to weed Russian interests out of their political process. The reason being that Russian dark money was carrying out a systemic campaign of destabilizing the Lithuanian Government.
The years of those accusations? 2002-2004. When did Lithuania join NATO? 2004.
Is Lithuania, or any of the other Baltic States for that matter, satellites of the United States? Hardly, but since Putin was elected Prime Minister in 1999, he has continued to undercut Eastern European democratic movements.
What hardened Putin that caused him to evolve from an instigator to an invader?
That's a great question.