[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[nockermensch]

Redshirt, what was the Ukrainian Parliament's motivation behind removing the 2012 law?

[Redshirt]

To shake their fist at Russia for past crimes by taking a shit on the Russian-speaking half of the country.

[Username17]

Oh, and fuck you, truly. I posted two fairly long analyses of Ukrainian law on languages awhile ago, which you quite clearly never read.

Honestly, fuck you. I have not a single fuck to give about some crank's rant about Ukrainian language law. You are quoting tiny out-of-context snippets of unverifiable English translations of laws written in Ukrainian under a Napoleonic code. Not only is the meaning of the quoted segment almost certainly different in the original language (which neither of us fucking speaks), assuming the translation is accurate (which neither of us have any way of verifying because neither of us speaks the fucking language), but since it's a Napoleonic code of law, any quoted sections could be partially or wholly inapplicable in any particular case due to any number of laws written elsewhere, and there isn't even any precedent system to make sure conflicts are handled the same way every time. Any analysis you present is a priori worthless because it's totally unverifiable and also almost certainly wrong.

The fucking Ukrainian press releases in the Ukrainian fucking national news about what the change in the language law did said that the new laws guaranteed access to speakers of Russian and Moldovan to state documents in their languages. This may or may not have been provided before (although signs point to "not" in many cases), but the new law guaranteed it. So frankly, any crank you link to who claims that the Ukrainian national news and the European Union were lying when they said it protected minorities in Ukraine is highly fucking suspect.

The reality is that anti-Russian activists wanted to repeal the law, and that Russian speakers were afraid when that happened. You can and have pulled up people who claim that it really wasn't a big deal and that the fears weren't justified, but that doesn't even matter! Even if the repeal was entirely symbolic, the symbolism was that they were doing something that they knew in advance would scare the living shit out of their Russian speaking citizens and did it anyway as soon as they took over the parliament building. If it genuinely didn't have any effect, that makes it worse. Because it means the new junta government took time out of its busy schedule to take a completely symbolic act whose entire purpose was to scare the living shit out of the Russian minority.

-Username17

[nockermensch]

To shake their fist at Russia for past crimes by taking a shit on the Russian-speaking half of the country.

Assuming your answer wasn't some attempt at sarcasm, then do you agree that the response from the Russian-speaking half of Ukraine was appropriate, right?

[DSMatticus]

Redshirt, you are still being a dumbass, and it's getting very annoying.

The 2012 national law extends to the provincial and local governments the right to declare official languages within their jurisdictions, and as a result of doing so, burden themselves with a lawful obligation to provide documents and services in those languages. As I have already pointed out several times, the national law is not an obligation - it is a permission! It is a law which extends an authority from the national government to provincial and local governments. That is why the law is worded so weakly, that is why it prefers "may" over "shall" except in cases of reaffirming Ukrainian as the sole official language under the national government, and that is why your attempts to paint the law as weak by comparing it to other federal laws are stupid and worthless. Because of the authority granted to them in this law, half of Ukraine's 27 provinces recognized languages other than Ukrainian as official and placed the legal burden upon themselves to offer documents and services in those languages by passing their own laws.

Though, even your efforts to grab out-of-context snippets that make the law seem weak at first glance are pretty dubious. In order for two Russian-speaking Ukrainians to get their legal proceedings conducted in Russian, the 2012 law requires only that they live in a locality that is 10% Russian-speaking. The 1989 law requires a Russian majority or it is a language that local government considers "acceptable" with some additional criteria and blah blah blah. So, uhh. Yeah. I'm gonna say both on paper and in practice no small number of Russian-speaking Ukrainians have a much stronger security in this regard.

And last point: shame on you for pretending the presidential veto means fuck all. As has also already been pointed out to you, the Ukrainian Parliament voted successfully to tell Russian-speaking Ukrainians to go fuck themself on February 23rd. The Russians and separatists made their move on the 26th. The repeal was vetoed on the 28th. So yes, the interim government did something so dickish it tore apart the country. When they realized "oh shit, we just tore apart the country," they desperately struggled to close the Pandora's box they had opened. Pretending a veto of something that shouldn't have happened at all that happened two days too late have mattered anyway somehow makes the entire matter moot is just goddamn ridiculous.

[nockermensch]

http://rt.com/news/donetsk-republic-protestukraine-841/

[Stahlseele]

http://www.independent.ie/business/tech ... 65968.html
this is remarkable enough to post here.

sadly though, as always when the decision actually follows the will of the people and not the will of the paranoid fucks of the stasi/gestapo 2.0, there's loopholes and backdoors built into it . .

and there still are no laws against making unlawfull/unconstitutional law requests <.<

[Redshirt]

Redshirt, you are still being a dumbass, and it's getting very annoying.

The 2012 national law extends to the provincial and local governments the right to declare official languages within their jurisdictions, and as a result of doing so, burden themselves with a lawful obligation to provide documents and services in those languages. As I have already pointed out several times, the national law is not an obligation - it is a permission!

A permission is not the same as a guarantee. You cannot have it both ways.

Even then though, you're still wrong about the contours of the law, because the status of a language as "official" is not in fact a matter of permission. If the population reaches the 10% threshold, that creates an obligation on the level of Oblast, Rayon, Township or Village to recognize it as an official language. What that status actually means is largely left up to local governments to interpret. (As far as I can tell, only Russian and Tatar were recognized at the level of Oblast or higher. Hungarian, Moldovan and Romanian were recognized at the level of Township and Village.)

It is a law which extends an authority from the national government to provincial and local governments. That is why the law is worded so weakly, that is why it prefers "may" over "shall" except in cases of reaffirming Ukrainian as the sole official language under the national government, and that is why your attempts to paint the law as weak by comparing it to other federal laws are stupid and worthless. Because of the authority granted to them in this law, half of Ukraine's 27 provinces recognized languages other than Ukrainian as official and placed the legal burden upon themselves to offer documents and services in those languages by passing their own laws.

No. Recognizing a language as an official regional language does not actually mean there is an automatic guarantee of a lot of the things you're claiming there is. For instance, there is no guarantee that a person from Tarasivtsi will be able to use Romanian in their dealings with the government of Zakarpattia or Ukraine just because their 5000-person village recognized Romanian as a regional language. That's important, since the state and oblast level are where they're going to be getting a lot of their tax documents, dealing with the legal system, etc.

Though, even your efforts to grab out-of-context snippets that make the law seem weak at first glance are pretty dubious. In order for two Russian-speaking Ukrainians to get their legal proceedings conducted in Russian, the 2012 law requires only that they live in a locality that is 10% Russian-speaking. The 1989 law requires a Russian majority or it is a language that local government considers "acceptable" with some additional criteria and blah blah blah. So, uhh. Yeah. I'm gonna say both on paper and in practice no small number of Russian-speaking Ukrainians have a much stronger security in this regard.

The only reason any of this is out of context for you is because you refuse to do any fucking research. If you would like to provide any documentary evidence, of any sort, or any scholarly analysis of the legal situation in Ukraine, be my guest. I've resorted to quoting things verbatim because the links I already provided from legal and cultural analysts like Bowring and Ulasiuk were just ignored, and I'm apparently the only one who's read the law you guys are making pronouncements about. Now sure, there could be translation issues. Probably not serious ones though, since the translation is hardly "unverifiable" since the translation's right there on the Venice Commission website complete with its source--which was the legislative body that drafted the bill.

Some of the other stuff I'm working from is in print, and the Google books version of my main text only has the introduction and Bowring in it. I haven't been able to find stuff by Volodymyr Kulyk and Nadiya Trach in English online.

Meanwhile, you've posted, what? Anything? You made this claim, repeatedly, that the 2012 law is just a "permission" but you've provided nothing to back that analysis up. Instead, there are a bunch of unsourced assertions followed by whining when I contradict them with actual evidence that I'm taking things out of context. You don't know what that context is, because you can't be assed to look it up, but you know for sure that it totally supports your position. It is incredibly disingenuous.

I've already said, twice, I think, that the 2012 law was a step in the right direction. It's largely symbolic, since a lot of its protections are redundant with or less general than the ones outlined in other laws or treaties, but not all of it is, and it moved Ukraine's language approach away from a primarily ethnic one to one based more on self-identification. It also clarified some things that were previously very vague. It isn't "weak", it just doesn't amount to what you think it does, which isn't surprising since you don't seem to have read it. Laws from 2005 and 2002 provide various guarantees of the right to use Russian when dealing with the government in legal proceedings, specifically, so we know that Frank's assertion that repealing the 2012 would delegalize the use of Russian in court is bullshit.

Repealing the 2012 law would not have "outlawed" or "banned" Russian.

[Username17]

Redshirt:

Meanwhile, back in the real world: a Ukrainian MP from the Communist party took Svoboda to task for using political violence, saying that the fact that they used violence to intimidate and silence their political opponents was playing into Russia's hands. Svoboda decided to make his point for him by physically attacking him in the middle of Parliament.

People portray Svoboda as being pro-Fascist dangerous lunatics because they are pro-Fascist dangerous lunatics. It's not an exaggeration that they are dangerous lunatics who use political violence, they are actual dangerous lunatics who actually use actual political violence. Even in the middle of fucking parliament while there are fucking cameras from the world press watching. Their MPs can't stop themselves from running over and punching people they disagree with in the middle of a structured debate. How hard do you think Russia really has to dig to find footage of their supporters behaving threateningly?

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

A permission is not the same as a guarantee. You cannot have it both ways.

Actually, I fucking can. Permission for the oblasts to offer a guarantee is, in fact, both a permission and a guarantee. The entire fucking point is that I get it both ways, and your argument is dishonest bullshit because you refuse to consider any of this law's effects that aren't enacted at the national level (where it is the weakest and most favorable to you). And while I was (and still am) under the impression that the federal law was a permission and not an obligation, it quite obviously does not hurt my case if it is actually an obligation upon the oblasts.

No. Recognizing a language as an official regional language does not actually mean there is an automatic guarantee of a lot of the things you're claiming there is. For instance, there is no guarantee that a person from Tarasivtsi will be able to use Romanian in their dealings with the government of Zakarpattia or Ukraine just because their 5000-person village recognized Romanian as a regional language. That's important, since the state and oblast level are where they're going to be getting a lot of their tax documents, dealing with the legal system, etc.

Put the goalposts down. 13 of Ukraine's 27 oblasts/special districts recognized (or in Crimea's case, already recognized) Russian. There are oblasts where Russian is not recognized. There are oblasts where languages other than Ukraine and/or Russian are recognized. There are local governments smaller than oblasts that recognize further languages. But the only metric I have ever brought up as meaningful is that half of Ukraine's oblasts have recognized Russian. So your attempts to make this law seem insignificant by bitching about how 5000-person villages don't even have enough paperwork to make this law do anything is fucking dishonest as hell. You're the only one even trying to talk about village governments! "This law doesn't do anything because I can construct examples in which it does nothing!"

Meanwhile, you've posted, what? Anything? You made this claim, repeatedly, that the 2012 law is just a "permission" but you've provided nothing to back that analysis up.

Do you even remember why we're arguing about whether or not it's a "permission?" It's because you are hung up on the analysis of the law at a federal level and ignoring anything that happens at the provincial level or lower while the law is actually enacted through policies at the provincial and local level! Aside: also because you linked to someone who had downright puzzling concerns about why lawmakers weren't talking about the costs, because at the federal level it doesn't cost anything to begin with, and actual costs will vary wildly based on policy at the provincial and local level).

And as for your "but I have sources!" bullshit, you set fire to your own credibility when you linked Mykola Riabchuk. Hilarious story: I was going to link you to a crazy rant of his until I realized you already linked it in your own defense. Did you not fucking read this? Here are some gems:

This seems to be actually the main goal of the language bill: not to protect Russian, which is the dominant language in most regions and areas, but to marginalize further and ultimately eliminate Ukrainian. Or, as Volodymyr Kulyk, a leading expert on language politics in Ukraine has aptly remarked, they are fighting not for the right to use Russian, which is actually used everywhere, but for the right not to learn and not to use Ukrainian under any circumstances.

Here he is arguing that not forcing citizens to learn and use Ukrainian in at least some part of their life is the same as marginalizing and eliminating Ukrainian, and very clearly bad because... Ukrainian > Russian? FUCK THOSE DIRTY RUSSIANS

First, it speaks about the right to use Russian (and, hypocritically, other languages, even though they barely meet the 10% threshold anywhere, with a few minor exceptions) but it says nothing about the duty to learn and use Ukrainian.

Here he is implying there exists a duty to learn and use Ukrainian. What the fuck?

The Soviet type of “bilingualism,” on the contrary, prioritizes the state, i.e. the bureaucracy that chooses the preferable language (inevitably Russian) and imposes it upon citizens.

Look at that delicious fearmongering. Absolutely 100% not true, of course, but very scary indeed.

The language bill is designed not for Ukrainian citizens but for post-Soviet bureacrats, who are increasingly tired with a de-facto bilingualism, i.e. daily communication mostly in Russian but paperwork mostly in Ukrainian, and would like to move legally toward a more comfortable Russian mono-lingualism, under the fig-leaf of the “regional language.”

And here he is bitching that Russian-speaking bureaucrats in regions where Russian is a regional language might be able to do their jobs in Russian, and not Ukrainian. And that would be bad. Because... Ukrainian > Russian? FUCK THOSE DIRTY RUSSIANS

Mykola Riabchuk argued that the law would be used to force citizens to learn and use Russian through Soviet-style bilingualism in which the bureaucracy is a tool for encouraging the use of a particular language. That is obviously not true, but it is also incredibly ironic, because he is arguing for Soviety-style bilingualism-lite in order to protect and promote Ukrainian instead. He is a fearmongerer trying to sell a boogieman with a different accent.

[Redshirt]

People portray Svoboda as being pro-Fascist dangerous lunatics because they are pro-Fascist dangerous lunatics. It's not an exaggeration that they are dangerous lunatics who use political violence, they are actual dangerous lunatics who actually use actual political violence. Even in the middle of fucking parliament while there are fucking cameras from the world press watching. Their MPs can't stop themselves from running over and punching people they disagree with in the middle of a structured debate. How hard do you think Russia really has to dig to find footage of their supporters behaving threateningly?

What the fuck does any of this have to do with anything we've been talking about? No one in this thread, at any point, has tried to pretend Svodboda isn't fascist or violent.

Actually, I fucking can. Permission for the oblasts to offer a guarantee is, in fact, both a permission and a guarantee. The entire fucking point is that I get it both ways, and your argument is dishonest bullshit because you refuse to consider any of this law's effects that aren't enacted at the national level (where it is the weakest and most favorable to you).

You know what's dishonest bullshit? The constant use of strawmen by you and Frank, and your constant attempt to memory hole anything you said that was just factually incorrect. The law, on every level doesn't offer the guarantees you're claiming it does, not just the "federal" level. Your attempt to paint my position this way is a fucking lie, just like your lie that I said Russian speakers "have nothing to fear" or the imaginary world where "this isn't about an attempt to ban Russian" when that is in fact exactly what I was responding to.

It is weird that you insist on shrieking at your imaginary friend in public.

That said, no, you do not get to have it both ways. First, there was never any obstacle to regional or local governments providing documents to their citizens in Russian. They already did that, and it was legal. Your whole line about how for the first time local governments had permission to do this is horseshit emanating from who knows where, because you still refuse to cite anything other than your own asshole.

Second, since the law obligated local governments to adopt local languages as "regional" but left a lot of the details of what that meant vague, or up to local governments to decide for themselves, it can't be construed as guaranteeing much of anything. You put it pretty well yourself:

...but a lack of an obligation to not is not the same as an obligation to, and people who speak Russian in areas where Russian is not an official language are living at the mercy of whatever administrative decisions the current officials make.

That, in many ways, remained the same.

You're the only one even trying to talk about village governments!

Village governments are relevant because the law operates on different levels, and understanding how it works is important to having an informed opinion on how strong its guarantees are. Otherwise, you have Frank saying that Hungarian was recognized as a regional language in Zakarpattia Oblast and you might get the misapprehension that that had any serious legal repercussions.

You've done a great job so far of keeping things vague so as not to have a specific policy claim that can be tested, but Frank fucked up and did make specific claims, and that's where the meat of the argument is. For instance, he claimed that this was about getting passport applications in Russian, but oblasts don't fucking issue passports, so the lack of guarantees on the state level is a problem there. Frank also mentioned tax documents, but tax documents come overwhelmingly from the upper levels of government, so there's really nothing guaranteeing that people who read Moldovan can get their tax documents in a language they can understand.

Do you even remember why we're arguing about whether or not it's a "permission?" It's because you are hung up on the analysis of the law at a federal level and ignoring anything that happens at the provincial level or lower while the law is actually enacted through policies at the provincial and local level! Aside: also because you linked to someone who had downright puzzling concerns about why lawmakers weren't talking about the costs, because at the federal level it doesn't cost anything to begin with, and actual costs will vary wildly based on policy at the provincial and local level).

Ok, maybe we need to walk through this again. First of all, oblasts are not like states in the U.S. Ukraine is a unitary state, and local government is heavily dependent on the state apparatus to provide resources. Further, the heads of local government at the oblast and raion level hold most of the real power, and are appointed from up top. Failure to budget for this law nationally was the same as failure to budget for it locally.

Local government in Ukraine is more or less completely dependent on funding allocated by the Ukrainian national parliament in the state budget each year. Direct revenues form only a small part of local governments’ budget at around 10% of their overall income; the remaining 90% comes as a grant from central government.

http://cor.europa.eu/en/documentation/s ... kraine.pdf

This was important to the discussion we were having in only two ways: First, it demonstrated that the concern for other minority languages was a legislative fig leaf. A 5000 person village in Transcarpathia doesn't have the fiscal means or independence to do much of anything with the law. Second, it showed that support for Russian was already baked into the practices of the governments with Russophone populations, so it didn't need a new line item in the national budget.

Look at that delicious fearmongering. Absolutely 100% not true, of course, but very scary indeed.

So you're saying the Soviet style of bilingualism didn't do just that? Do you have a shred of evidence to back that claim up?

Mykola Riabchuk argued that the law would be used to force citizens to learn and use Russian through Soviet-style bilingualism in which the bureaucracy is a tool for encouraging the use of a particular language. That is obviously not true...

No, his argument was that it was a legal cover for them to continue doing that. You and Frank have yet to provide any compelling reason to believe he's wrong, either. Meanwhile, there are documented cases of Russian-speaking judges in the Donbas conducting trials in Russian of non-Russian speaking defendants, without translators, in full contravention of the law, or deliberately choosing to use Russian to conduct a civil proceeding about workplace discrimination against a Ukrainian speaker.

...but it is also incredibly ironic, because he is arguing for Soviety-style bilingualism-lite in order to protect and promote Ukrainian instead. He is a fearmongerer trying to sell a boogieman with a different accent.

Remember when you were bitching about "taking things out of context?"
Here's some fucking context:

Loyal citizens who pay taxes have a right to get services from the state in their language of preference. Civil servants have responsibility to deliver these services in the language chosen by the client, not by themselves.

In other words, no, he's not.

[Kaelik]

Ok, maybe we need to walk through this again. First of all, oblasts are not like states in the U.S. Ukraine is a unitary state, and local government is heavily dependent on the state apparatus to provide resources. Further, the heads of local government at the oblast and raion level hold most of the real power, and are appointed from up top. Failure to budget for this law nationally was the same as failure to budget for it locally.

Local government in Ukraine is more or less completely dependent on funding allocated by the Ukrainian national parliament in the state budget each year. Direct revenues form only a small part of local governments’ budget at around 10% of their overall income; the remaining 90% comes as a grant from central government.

http://cor.europa.eu/en/documentation/s ... kraine.pdf

Your conclusion does not follow. The Law as passed does not have a funding provision, but the state budget each year allocates funding to the oblasts. It could and therefore did allocate funding that paid for the actual additional languages.

Your argument from earlier in the thread was that the law didn't provide for funding. Of course it didn't, because it will be provided on an ongoing basis in the allocations in the state budget. Which makes sense, given that you don't know how much it is going to cost because you don't know what policies are going to be instituted in what oblasts.

[Redshirt]

Your conclusion does not follow. The Law as passed does not have a funding provision, but the state budget each year allocates funding to the oblasts. It could and therefore did allocate funding that paid for the actual additional languages.

The state government dictates to the oblasts, raions and townships what they get, and there's nothing that says a budget request by a local polity has to be honored. Without some kind of language that obligates the state government to allocate resources for support--even if a specific number isn't given--at best the supposed "guarantees" made by the local governments are at the mercy of whoever controls the Rada and the Presidency.

[Kaelik]

Your conclusion does not follow. The Law as passed does not have a funding provision, but the state budget each year allocates funding to the oblasts. It could and therefore did allocate funding that paid for the actual additional languages.

The state government dictates to the oblasts, raions and townships what they get, and there's nothing that says a budget request by a local polity has to be honored. Without some kind of language that obligates the state government to allocate resources for support--even if a specific number isn't given--at best the supposed "guarantees" made by the local governments are at the mercy of whoever controls the Rada and the Presidency.

Which is completely irrelevant and does not support your argument that the lack of a funding provision in the bill makes it a bill that does nothing.

[DSMatticus]

That said, no, you do not get to have it both ways. First, there was never any obstacle to regional or local governments providing documents to their citizens in Russian. They already did that, and it was legal. Your whole line about how for the first time local governments had permission to do this is horseshit emanating from who knows where, because you still refuse to cite anything other than your own asshole.

Why is this so fucking difficult for you to understand? Here is a hypothetical for you:
Imagine that the U.S. federal government 1) retains complete authority to define marriage across the states, and 2) has no laws concerning the permissibility nor impermissibility of same-sex marriage. The status quo is that some states recognize same-sex marriages and others do not. The states have the de facto authority to recognize same-sex marriages, but not de jure.

Then the U.S. federal government declares that only opposite-sex marriages must be recogized, but they defer authority over same-sex marriages to the states. The states that previously allowed same-sex marriages choose to recognize them. Now these states have the de jure authority to recognize same-sex marriages.

The 2012 law explicitly enumerates the authority and power of provincial and local governments to offer certain rights to their citizens. What was previously an incomplete patchwork of de jure protections and de facto "no one's said we can't, and we sure do have an awful lot of Russians..." is now a matter of law. You are arguing that people should not care about the difference between de facto and de jure rights. You're fucking wrong. You absolutely should care.

Village governments are relevant because the law operates on different levels, and understanding how it works is important to having an informed opinion on how strong its guarantees are. Otherwise, you have Frank saying that Hungarian was recognized as a regional language in Zakarpattia Oblast and you might get the misapprehension that that had any serious legal repercussions.

Cut the fucking bullshit. Half of Ukraine's oblasts, which are the highest administrative unit below the Ukrainian government itself, recognized Russian. I have said this repeatedly. That's 25 out of 50 U.S. states. That's 5 out of 10 Canadian provinces. When you bring up Bumfuck, Nowhere as an example of how there exist circumstances in which the law does very little because Bumfuck, Nowhere doesn't even have any significant paperwork to translate, you aren't responding to anyone - you are sidestepping them.

And also, a big what the fuck on Zakarpattia. Zakarpattia is an oblast with 1.2 million people, more than 12% of whom are ethnically Hungarian. Zakarpattia is not an example of a 5000-person village government called Bumfuck, Nowhere. It is a fully-fledged provincial government (an oblast) with more than 150,000 Hungarians.

Remember when you were bitching about "taking things out of context?"
Here's some fucking context:

Loyal citizens who pay taxes have a right to get services from the state in their language of preference. Civil servants have responsibility to deliver these services in the language chosen by the client, not by themselves.

That's not context, you moron. If someone says both ~A and A, and I criticize them for ~A, and you point out that they said A, you are not defending them by providing context. Inconsistency is not a defense, and it is not context. Now, as an aside, I find it hilarious that you are accusing me of taking him out of context, while when I was writing my post I had trouble not quoting four solid paragraphs in one giant block. So here is the entire section labeled "Real aim monolingualism?" from my link, spoilered and with a little analysis after each paragraph:

This seems to be actually the main goal of the language bill: not to protect Russian, which is the dominant language in most regions and areas, but to marginalize further and ultimately eliminate Ukrainian. Or, as Volodymyr Kulyk, a leading expert on language politics in Ukraine has aptly remarked, they are fighting not for the right to use Russian, which is actually used everywhere, but for the right not to learn and not to use Ukrainian under any circumstances.

[I quoted this paragraph in full. Please, tell me more about how Mykola Riabchuk isn't claiming that the bill's goal is to eliminate Ukraine by the dastardly deed of "not forcing people to use Ukrainian." Because that is literally what he fucking says, right there. It's the entire paragraph. There's nothing that got left out.]

The bill, besides its numerous contradictions, ambiguities and mistakes, has two fundamental flaws in its very concept. First, it speaks about the right to use Russian (and, hypocritically, other languages, even though they barely meet the 10% threshold anywhere, with a few minor exceptions) but it says nothing about the duty to learn and use Ukrainian. And second, it does not distinguish the rights of citizens to choose the language of their convenience and rights of civil servants (or, rather, lack thereof) to do so. Both flaws are significant because they reflect the Soviet mentality of the bill’s promoters and the way they envisage the so-called “bilingualism” in Ukraine.

[What's the context here that makes him not look like a dick for talking about a duty to learn and use Ukrainian as though that is a thing that exists or should exist?]

The bill has nothing to do with the official bilingualism in some Western democracies where the citizen has priority while the state (state officials) must provide services in the customer’s language of preference. The Soviet type of “bilingualism,” on the contrary, prioritizes the state, i.e. the bureaucracy that chooses the preferable language (inevitably Russian) and imposes it upon citizens. If anyone should doubt how the system works, let them go to Belarus where two “state languages” theoretically co-exist, or to Transnistria, or, even to Crimea where three “official languages” were established long ago, and try to start a discussion in these places in Belarusian, Moldovan,Tatar, or even in Ukrainian.

[There he is claiming that the bill is Soviet-style bilingualism, which is all about shoving a language on people through bureaucracy. Meanwhile, you are describing the bill as too weak to do anything. And he is, ironically, above here complaining about how not shoving Ukrainian on people is the same as marginalizing and eliminating it. So yes, again, deceitful fearmongerer.]

The language bill is designed not for Ukrainian citizens but for post-Soviet bureacrats, who are increasingly tired with a de-facto bilingualism, i.e. daily communication mostly in Russian but paperwork mostly in Ukrainian, and would like to move legally toward a more comfortable Russian mono-lingualism, under the fig-leaf of the “regional language.”

[Quelle horreur, Russian-speaking Ukrainians might be able to get government jobs in which they use only Russian! This is bad because reasons! Also the accusation that somehow this will kill Ukrainian, presumably because it depended upon a monopoly on the internal bureaucracy for its survival!]

The bill merits harsh criticism, but the arguments employed by its critics from the Ukrainophone camp are, in most cases, weak and, in long run, self-defeating. They target typically the very idea of bilingualism as unsuitable for Ukraine, even though the bilingualism exists in Ukraine de-facto and should be properly formalized de-jure. Such a formalization is a nightmare for Ukrainophones because the Soviet (and post-Soviet – Crimean, Transnistrian, Belarusian) experience tells them clearly what “bilingualism” is likely to mean in a country with no rule of law and strong predominance of the post-Soviet / Russophone bureaucracy and oligarchy.

[Here is where the 180 starts, and he begins talking about how bilingualism good and people should totally have the right to interact with their government in their language of choice. Yes, he is still a fearmongerer. Yes, this contradicts his complaints about duties to learn and use Ukrainian and about Russian-speaking bureaucrats being able to do their jobs in Russian. He still occasionally ventures into the outskirts of crazy town, but the density has dropped off enough that I don't feel the need to continue walking through it.]

The above notwithstanding, the idea is not necessarily bad in principle. Loyal citizens who pay taxes have a right to get services from the state in their language of preference. Civil servants have responsibility to deliver these services in the language chosen by the client, not by themselves – a practice conducted in the Soviet Union and still prevalent today. A clearly outlined and properly regulated bilingualism would have benefited Ukrainophones in south- eastern regions where they have such rights on paper but not in reality. Such a bilingualism would require tough and strictly enforceable rules on language usage, hiring and firing of personnel, attestation and penalization, and so on. Of course, this would entail a firm rule of law, which has never been strong in Ukraine and has been completely dismantled under Yanukovych. But it does not mean that the idea of official bilingualism in some regions should be rejected wholesale. Rather, it should be placed in a proper context, with due accent on the rule of law, rights of all citizens including Ukrainophones, and the responsibility of the ruling bureaucracy to be bilingual and support citizens’ rights to use their language of preference, not vice-versa.

Such legal requirements for the bilingual regions might be a nightmare, however, for Russophones, at least for those who promote Soviet-style “bilingualism” in Ukraine. They would certainly prefer today’s ambiguity, which de-facto allows them to use only Russian in their work without any sanctions for ignoring or even deriding publicly the so-called “state language.”

This impasse means that ambiguity will persist in Ukraine for the foreseeable future, and power politics will continue to prevail everywhere, including the sphere of language. The bright idea of European bilingualism has been rejected by Ukrainophones because they do not believe it is viable in a lawless post-Soviet country, quite reasonably suspecting that any bilingualism here would be Soviet, rather than European. And Russophones are not interested in European bilingualism because they still enjoy the Soviet-style bilingualism that suits their needs much better. All they need is merely to legitimize their right to ignore Ukrainian and to preclude any possibility of changes. The Kivalov-Kolesnichenko bill is just one of many attempts to ensure the dominance of one group over another. It resolves no problems, but rather multiplies them. And this is unfortunately what the governance of the Party of Regions is all about.

Seriously. Mykola wants a bureaucracy that favors Ukrainian. He talks about how equal access is great and necessary and blah blah blah, but he also describes weakening Ukrainian's grip on the Ukrainian bureaucracy as 'the elimination of Ukrainian.' That's just fucking fearmongering used to push an agenda of "Ukrainian deserves a privileged status."

[Redshirt]

Your conclusion does not follow. The Law as passed does not have a funding provision, but the state budget each year allocates funding to the oblasts. It could and therefore did allocate funding that paid for the actual additional languages.

The state government dictates to the oblasts, raions and townships what they get, and there's nothing that says a budget request by a local polity has to be honored. Without some kind of language that obligates the state government to allocate resources for support--even if a specific number isn't given--at best the supposed "guarantees" made by the local governments are at the mercy of whoever controls the Rada and the Presidency.

Which is completely irrelevant and does not support your argument that the lack of a funding provision in the bill makes it a bill that does nothing.

That was never my argument?

[Kaelik]

That was never my argument?

Fine, the argument of the person you linked to and said was right and that was why Frank was wrong. Does that get around your wiggling? I mean yah, you have never presented an actual argument of any kind, but that is hardly a selling point for disagreeing with Frank.

[Redshirt]

You are arguing that people should not care about the difference between de facto and de jure rights. You're fucking wrong. You absolutely should care.

I have never said you shouldn't care. Ever. Fuck you. You are completely incapable of having an argument in good faith.

Village governments are relevant because the law operates on different levels, and understanding how it works is important to having an informed opinion on how strong its guarantees are. Otherwise, you have Frank saying that Hungarian was recognized as a regional language in Zakarpattia Oblast and you might get the misapprehension that that had any serious legal repercussions.

Cut the fucking bullshit. Half of Ukraine's oblasts, which are the highest administrative unit below the Ukrainian government itself, recognized Russian. I have said this repeatedly. That's 25 out of 50 U.S. states. That's 5 out of 10 Canadian provinces. When you bring up Bumfuck, Nowhere as an example of how there exist circumstances in which the law does very little because Bumfuck, Nowhere doesn't even have any significant paperwork to translate, you aren't responding to anyone - you are sidestepping them.

Do not fucking talk to me about sidestepping you dishonest piece of shit. That has literally been my entire conversation so far. For instance, remember the multiple times you tried to change the topic into "this isn't about banning Russian" except that's exactly what it was about and I pointed that out, and then you pretended that my position is that "you shouldn't care about this law?"

Meanwhile, IN WRITING, Frank said that "it's about someone who speaks Moldovan being able to get tax documents in a language they understand", which is false. The 2012 law did dick about that.

And also, a big what the fuck on Zakarpattia. Zakarpattia is an oblast with 1.2 million people, more than 12% of whom are ethnically Hungarian. Zakarpattia is not an example of a 5000-person village government called Bumfuck, Nowhere. It is a fully-fledged provincial government (an oblast) with more than 150,000 Hungarians.

Right, and Zakarpattia Oblast didn't recognize shit. A town in Zakarpattia did, and that's why it's misleading to say "Hungarian was recognized in Zakarpattia", because a stupid person with bad reading comprehension, like you, would take that the wrong way.

[Redshirt]

That was never my argument?

Fine, the argument of the person you linked to and said was right and that was why Frank was wrong. Does that get around your wiggling? I mean yah, you have never presented an actual argument of any kind, but that is hardly a selling point for disagreeing with Frank.

That wasn't his argument either. He never said it was a weak law that does nothing, he said its proposed protection of minority rights other than Russian was bullshit and in bad faith, because those languages were the ones that needed further allocations of funds, not Russian, and a failure to allocate funds was a sign the drafters weren't really serious.

My argument, which hasn't changed from the beginning is that there was never a credible threat of ethnic cleansing in Crimea, and that repealing the 2012 law would not have amounted to delegalizing, outlawing, or banning Russian.

[Kaelik]

and a failure to allocate funds was a sign the drafters weren't really serious.

Which is false. Because there was no failure to allocate funds. Because the funds are allocated in other bills. By that logic 90% of US laws are unfunded, because they create administrations with whose discretionary funds are allocated in yearly budgets.

My argument, which hasn't changed from the beginning is that there was never a credible threat of ethnic cleansing in Crimea, and that repealing the 2012 law would not have amounted to delegalizing, outlawing, or banning Russian.

Then you are an idiot, because no one ever at any point claimed that the repealing of the law constituted the banning of speaking Russian. They argue it as depriving them of the assurance and/or ability to conduct government business in Russian as a spit in the face to Russians. And while that may or may not be a credible threat of ethnic cleansing depending on the circumstances, it is obviously clear evidence of a goal of treating them as second class citizens.

I mean, no one thinks we are about to ethnically cleanse Mexicans, but if the State of Texas passed one of the umpteen billion stupid "Official English Language" bills they used to try to pass, no one would question the actual goal of the law as being to create second class citizens.

[DSMatticus]

I have never said you shouldn't care. Ever. Fuck you. You are completely incapable of having an argument in good faith.

You have repeatedly argued that the law doesn't meaningfully influence the legal standing of Russian because it merely reinforces a de facto status quo. If you are now acknowledging that the transition from exercising a de facto authority to exercising a de jure authority is meaningful in and of itself, then you are setting a huge number of your own arguments on fire.

Right, and Zakarpattia Oblast didn't recognize shit. A town in Zakarpattia did, and that's why it's misleading to say "Hungarian was recognized in Zakarpattia", because a stupid person with bad reading comprehension, like you, would take that the wrong way.

Funny story: 12% is more than 10% (the cutoff). Surprising, but true. If the 2012 language bill is an obligation as you said, then the Zakarpattia oblast does in fact have an obligation to recognize Hungarian as a regional language.

Beyond that, still fucking wrong: Vynohradiv, a ~120,000 person district within Zakarpattia, recognized Hungarian as a regional language. That is still significantly larger than your example. And then there are still all of the oblasts that did recognize Russian about which no one is fucking confused.

[Redshirt]

Then you are an idiot, because no one ever at any point claimed that the repealing of the law constituted the banning of speaking Russian. They argue it as depriving them of the assurance and/or ability to conduct government business in Russian as a spit in the face to Russians. And while that may or may not be a credible threat of ethnic cleansing depending on the circumstances, it is obviously clear evidence of a goal of treating them as second class citizens.

Remember how the new guys sort of banned the Russian language?

The new government in Kiev already moved to delegalize their language.

If you outlaw a language, everyone who speaks that language will become outlaws.

[Redshirt]

I have never said you shouldn't care. Ever. Fuck you. You are completely incapable of having an argument in good faith.

You have repeatedly argued that the law doesn't meaningfully influence the legal standing of Russian because it merely reinforces a de facto status quo. If you are now acknowledging that the transition from exercising a de facto authority to exercising a de jure authority is meaningful in and of itself, then you are setting a huge number of your own arguments on fire.

A de-facto and de-jure status quo. It was an improvement on the previous legal regime in some ways, and moving to repeal it was bad. My point was that repealing it didn't amount to delegalizing Russian, it didn't delegalize the use of Russian in court, and it didn't prevent people from getting representation in their own language. I've told you this repeatedly.

Right, and Zakarpattia Oblast didn't recognize shit. A town in Zakarpattia did, and that's why it's misleading to say "Hungarian was recognized in Zakarpattia", because a stupid person with bad reading comprehension, like you, would take that the wrong way.

Funny story: 12% is more than 10% (the cutoff). Surprising, but true. If the 2012 language bill is an obligation as you said, then the Zakarpattia oblast does in fact have an obligation to recognize Hungarian as a regional language.

Beyond that, still fucking wrong: Vynohradiv, a ~120,000 person district within Zakarpattia, recognized Hungarian as a regional language. That is still significantly larger than your example. And then there are still all of the oblasts that did recognize Russian about which no one is fucking confused.

Well, I guess I'm wrong about that then.

[Kaelik]

Then you are an idiot, because no one ever at any point claimed that the repealing of the law constituted the banning of speaking Russian. They argue it as depriving them of the assurance and/or ability to conduct government business in Russian as a spit in the face to Russians. And while that may or may not be a credible threat of ethnic cleansing depending on the circumstances, it is obviously clear evidence of a goal of treating them as second class citizens.

Remember how the new guys sort of banned the Russian language?

The new government in Kiev already moved to delegalize their language.

If you outlaw a language, everyone who speaks that language will become outlaws.

Okay, first off, no one actually pays any attention to Tussock, because he is an idiot.

Secondly, you'll note that at no point in my list of things people did not say did I say "delegalize" because that is a word that doesn't have an actual meaning. So if you want to prove that they didn't delegalize languages, you have to first define delegalize in some way that is different from "make illegal" and that secondly, they didn't move to do. Good luck with that, because the only thing delegalize could possibly mean is "made not a guaranteed language of government communication with citizens" which is exactly the thing they did in fact move to do. So Frank is right, and then Frank is right, and Tussock the idiot is an idiot, and also said sort of, so if you want to pull out dumb shit people said, even he was obviously just making a general statement that was not meant to be specifically accurate.

So hey Redshirt, do you admit that the government moved to strip the right to communicate with the government in languages other than Ukranian? Keep in mind that when the government could do something or not, and it is in their discretion, you do not have a right.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Anyone in eastern Europe want to comment on this? My gut tells me it's oversensationalized scaremongering, but what do intestines know?