To someone who modded this flamebait - presenting relevant facts that disagree with your point of view is not baiting flaming. It's bating an intelligent discussion.

If you disagree, grow a pair, show that you can be called a person who supports freedom of speech as a core Western value and present your counter arguments instead of downmodding it.

Especially when the issue is of that importance - voting apathy in the West is exceptionally destructive to democratic process, and one of the key elements which have allowed corporatist and militarist agenda holders to take power even when their platform is not the one most voters would prefer.

And I would agree. Which is why it's relieving that it in fact we have not seen those numbers in Crimea.

In fact, some of the more reliable and neutral press in the West, such as Der Spiegel (you'll know them from the fact that people like Snowden and Assange trusted them enough to give them the source materials for redaction) posts stories like these today:

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

Juicy quote: "Nevertheless, the situation here is not as unambiguous as it was on the Crimean Peninsula" when talking about situation in Eastern Ukraine. In other words, they agree that situation in Crimea has had little ambiguity - people by far and large wanted to join Russia and they got their wish.

Considering that euronews mentioned in the a footnote of their story on pullout of Ukrainian troops from Crimea after the annexation that "2/3 to 3/4 of the ukrainian soldiers are actually staying behind because they deserted before or during the conflict in Crimea", we can see that desperate attempts to claim that Crimea's vote wasn't geniunely democratic have little merit.

About the only argument you can make is that situation was orchestrated to manipulate public opinion. But if we call that an offence that makes referendums and political decisions invalid, shouldn't we have already put other people who have been proven to have used massive disinformation to get the outcome they wanted in prison, such as former US president G.W. Bush? And can we really argue that Russia is in this alone, and West has not been the prime instigator of current situation with Russia being the massive loser who's merely reacting? They lost entire country of Ukraine after all, with all its industrial base. This isn't some crappy third world oil producer - they make things like engine parts for space rockets. And they are historically ally of Russia throughout several centuries against threats like Ottoman slaver empire or Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, not to even mention being the birthplace of modern Russian culture.

We were discussing Crimea just a moment ago, so I think we can safely say that your passionate "never" has been debunked before it has been uttered.

So in your opinion, if a state is not perfectly stable and/or has any issues that people are passionate about, it's not a "real Democracy".

I humbly disagree. I do believe that vast majority of sane population of the West is with me on this particular issue, regardless of their views on the Ukrainian conflict.

Since the only comparison you could come up with here is Nazi Germany, I think I will just label you a "standard, shameless militarist nut job" and stop talking. Arguing on merit of facts with your kind is pointless - you will twist the reality to fit your own, warped imagination and disregard any inconvenient inconsistencies with your story, like your aforementioned claim that democracy is not "real" if people feel compelled to vote.

Funnily enough, most pro-democracy movements continue to make an argument that one of the biggest problems with democracy in the West is low participation. Inconvenient, and I'm sure you'll ignore that tidbit as well. After all, they're probably not about "real" democracy.

Yes. There's little difference between the morality of the militarist wing of East and West. Both are two sides of the same militarist coin, with same level of ethics.

Did the whole Snowden debacle show you nothing? Iraq?

My argument is actually that if US annexed Iraq, it would have had to take responsibility for people it left in an impossible situation after its invasion.

Russia is giving all Crimeans, regardless of ethnicity of vote a right to vote in Russian elections for example. When will people of Iraq, who are massively impacted by results of US elections be given the same right?

How high are we talking here? They voted with participation of over 85%, and of that vote, overwhelming majority agreed to annexation.

To compare, average Western country has election for government with voter activity barely around 50% (often much lower) and ruling parties are often elected with very small minorities of under 20% of those who came to vote.

So your requirement is largely met, unless you're planning on insisting on 100% kind of numbers.

Notably: OECD received invitation to the elections to monitor them. They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation.

And you chose to make an example that US didn't annex Iraq. Which lead to my argument.

And the people on the streets, celebrating after the referendum en masse were shipped from Moscow. In containers. Because that's how Russians treat their own people. You know it because you have been told so by the same sources.

And while at it, you may wish to check just how much support people currently installed by the West in Kiev command. May make for a good example of hypocrisy for which your types are known so well.

Aye. US doesn't take that kind of responsibility for people it "liberates". It just leaves them to largely fend for themselves. Like in Iraq.

Mind telling us how that is a good thing, other than for your bottom line - i.e. less mouths to feed?

Kosovo today is a de facto EU protectariat. Independent, it has a viability of a large, crime infested town with no industry of its own.

It's always nice to see the same, tired propaganda, that the person behind it himself officially admitted to being a lie repeated time and time again.

I'm sorry to tell you, but that particular number was in fact a misquote from the original announcement of results of referendum, where "1,5 million" said to the camera became "1,7 million" in the press. "Accidentally" of course. To provide people such as yourself ample talking points.

You russophobes are like the anti-vaccine crowd, who cares if the original study is a lie. The goal is good, therefore all lies to back it up are good.

Not even the West has the gall to claim Crimea is occupied.

Annexed, yes. Occupied, no. By who? Locals?

Wait, what so the japanese porn to date was NOT the peak of depravity?

Mind blown.

Games design? Certainly.

Control scheme design? Hell no. Vast, overwhelming majority of those who think they have the new revolutionary thing in that aspect create a horrifying abomination that should have never left designer's desk. While all the best schemes typically use derivates of well known control schemes.

After all, we've been working on control schemes for far longer than we had games, or even computers. We know what works and what doesn't. The only shifting goal post is the advancement of technology, and more often than not it results it complete and utter shit anyway, such as kinect motion controls.