[Arech]

It doesn't matter. What matters are how many of them and their staff or supporters gets bullied by the authorities, forced to flee the country, found themselves or their relatives in the middle of absurd lawsuits, gets beaten, poisoned or killed?

[jhgb]

My point was purely about elections, and that elections only matter if you have a reasonable amount of choice. You're arguing about something completely different.

[Arech]

My arguing is exactly about that! You can't name something as "elections" when ~~a huge~~ any part of country's people not just don't have a political representative at all, but gets actively counteracted to have such representative.

[jhgb]

What is "a huge any part"? Looks like too many determiners to me, so I'm not sure what you're saying there.

> don't have a political representative at all

That doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you live in a place like Puerto Rico. I'm not sure if Russia has similar places, but I assume it doesn't.

[lotusmars]

All people allowed to take part in elections are sanctioned by Kremlin.

Try to sign up as a candidate and best case you'll get rejected, worst case beaten, bullied, jailed or murdered.

[jhgb]

I have no doubt that what you're saying is true. Still, that doesn't make the difference between lack of choice and illusion of choice any bigger.

[lotusmars]

You can create a political party in US. In Russia even attempting it will get you jailed or murdered.

It's still weird how on the West it's customary to compare the uncomparable. In Chechnya (or Iran) all gay people are lynched without exception and women are treated as slaves. The West has its share of homophobia and misoginy but it's not even close, not by a thousand miles.

[Arech]

> What is "a huge any part"?

HN doesn't support a strike-through markup. "~~a huge~~" means striked-through font here. I've written it first and then after some thought tried to show that actually the proper word there is "any".

> That doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you live in a place like Puerto Rico. I'm not sure if Russia has similar places, but I assume it doesn't.

You are so much disconnected from what is and how it's happening here...

[jhgb]

> You are so much disconnected from what is and how it's happening here.

How am I "disconnected" in thinking that Russia doesn't have US' federal structure that includes non-states?