Authoritarians of a Feather...

Eric's Lyceum has a typically thoughtful piece on Putin and the notion of Law vs. Order. In reading it, I noticed the similarities between Putin's Russia and Bush's America becoming painfully apparent: the fetishizing of authority, the Good Ole Boy Corporate corruption, the downgrading of independent media and the stiffling of dissent, the never-ending "war on terror" as an excuse to erode civil liberties. Of course, Putin is much further along (and is wildly popular in his country), putting me in mind of Lincoln's comment, "When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."