Generally speaking, the west has been significantly improving the living conditions and human rights protections for its citizens over the last several hundred years, many times in direct response to some horrible mistake that was made and then subsequently learned from (slavery, Vietnam, etc.)

The same cannot be said at all about Russia. All the intelligent, brave people who could see through the propaganda or who had the bravery to do something about it have largely either been killed off or emigrated away at this point. The country has been in a continuous cycle of totalitarian suffering for hundreds of years, with no end in sight.

Everyone and every institution is a hypocrite. If that's going to stop us, we might as well have submitted to the Nazis or Bolsheviks or someone long before that - after all, we were hypocrites then too!

But who am I to say that - I'm a hypocrite. No hypocrites allowed on HN!