"All you had to do was stick to oppressing your own people, and we would've kept looking the other way..."

why the anti-eu shit? Russian dick sounds tasty to you or what?

and which of these poorer countries do you think id worse off since joining the EU? other than maybe Hungary but that has nothing to do with the EU, lol

We're 100% better off in the EU than we would be out of it, but there is a lot of favoritism and "Rules for thee but not for me" shit that rolls eastward.
Romania and Bulgaria are now suing the Austrian government for blocking our entrance into Schengen despite fulfilling every single point asked of us, and they still turn around and go "Lol no, you're not western EU, you don't deserve to be in this club".
Also, wtf is this shit France is talking about with tiered membership? I fully suspect they'll use this to try and strip poorer EU countries of voting rights if they get their way.
- Exactly, like, the EU is not perfect, shit sucks sometimes, internal conflict is frequent. But let's not pretend like the alternative being turning into a soviet vassal state is all roses and singing.
  
  The cherry on top is that poor EU states are almost universally those that were under USSR subjugation, so we know full well both sides. Unequal treatment is better than subjugation.
- Also, wtf is this shit France is talking about with tiered membership? I fully suspect they’ll use this to try and strip poorer EU countries of voting rights if they get their way.
  To be fair countries like Hungary and Poland have exposed the obvious weaknesses of a fully equal partnership that's present in the EU, it's all nice and stuff untill the whole EU pulls together, once you have bad actors fucking up quasi dictatorships like HUngary can stop your shit way too easily.
  “Rules for thee but not for me” shit that rolls eastward.
  I feel like that would exist regardless of EU or not and while present in the EU it would be worse without it.
  I mean don't get me wrong, the EU isn't perfect, but the person I replied to is clearly doing a false equivalence shit, comparing an imperfect EU with the fuckstorm that is russia.
  
  That can be solved by removing the veto, but it's pretty telling that France wants to replace that with a tiered system rather than accept that they might get overruled by a majority if they do fucked up shit like Hungary was doing.
  EU isn't perfect, but the person I replied to is clearly doing a false equivalence shit, comparing an imperfect EU with the fuckstorm that is russia.
  Completely agree. However many problems I have with the way the EU runs, it's infinitely better than living under a boot.
  
  I've seen European history summarized as "everything was going well until one day a Frenchman had an idea and things went disastrously bad for everyone".
- Romania and Bulgaria are now suing the Austrian government for blocking our entrance into Schengen despite fulfilling every single point asked of us, and they still turn around and go “Lol no, you’re not western EU, you don’t deserve to be in this club”.
  Isn't that just a function of small numbers of dissenting countries being able to gum up the entire EU more than favoritism from the organization itself, though? I feel like I hear similar scenarios from the EU all the time.
  
  Partially true, but you almost never hear about Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, etc vetoing shit because the retaliation would be harsh. It's almost always rich countries doing the vetoing (notable exception of Poland and Hungary's former mutual defence pact to prevent sanctions on each other, and that did cause retaliation).
  I do agree that the veto system needs to go though.
  
  Lifting the veto is more problematic than it might appear. Each country having a veto lends a lot of legitimacy to EU, without it you'll see a lot of discussion about loss of sovereignty which is bound to be explosive. If countries don't have veto and still are strictly against some measure, how does the EU actually enforce it? Will "EU police" enter Hungarian parliament?
Worse off I'm not sure, but you bet Greece, Italy and Spain are not treated as equal partners to France, Germany or even Belgium.
This doesn't mean I'm anti EU, I'm just realistic in that Russia would never be treated the same.
I'm also not confident that US/EU will be on top forever. China is gaining ground.
I would advise you to not confuse your preference for the US/EU with reality. And not every form of criticism means advocating for the other side.

We're literally pumping money into our poorer members to get them up to speed

We're giving them loans, that they have to repay and with the provision that they have to enact austerity. The welfare being cut is being replaced by companies from richer countries, making a lot of money out of it. It's basically the same thing the IMF does to a lot of developing countries.
- https://www.statista.com/chart/18794/net-contributors-to-eu-budget/
  
  After we forced them to privatize their services, so that money basically goes back into German capitalists who now own large part of Greece's infrastructure.

Please let us know when you find out, comrade.

There is still far too many people hurt by the Cold War or its fallout, which many Westerners forget lead to the deaths of millions, for any partnership with Russia to be anything other than tenuous.

far too many people hurt by the cold war
And all of those people hurt are a result of the Soviet Union being a hell state.
- The USSR was not the hellscape you think it was for many people and the decline of the second wealthiest nation brought about real struggles for people in the aftermath.
  
  "The USSR was a good thing, actually" is maybe the worst possible argument you could have made here lol
  The unpleasant reality is, Russians, like the Chinese, have never, in all their long history, existed without authoritarian rule. Their people are culturally inured to it. They actively seek it. They're broken, as a society, and only dissolving their society will cure them.
  Balkanize Russia and China. It's the only way.
  
  I did not say it was good I said it was not a hellscape. Just like China is authoritarian and yet hundreds of millions seem to be happy with it so were millions of Soviet citizens.
  You cannot overlook that there was a huge decline in the average quality of life for many/most immediately following the demise of the USSR. That harmed many many people.
  
  Their people like it because their culture clamors for strongman, authoritarian leadership. They're ill, culturally.
  Everything about the USSR was objectively bad, just like being hooked on heroin is objectively bad. That some addicts fucking love heroin is immaterial.
  Detoxing is painful, and rather than detox, the Russian people relapsed.
  
  You have North Korea level indoctrination my friend. Stop seeing the world so black and white, you sound like a teenager.
  
  No I just understand history.
  
  Trump got elected in the US and a large chunk of the country still supports him. I guess that means the US has an ill culture that clamors for strongman, authoritarian leadership, or does that not count because of American exceptionalism?
  No, the reality is that bad actors can take advantage of instability to gain power and people will go along for a number of reasons (apathy, distracted by just trying to survive, hopes of stability, etc). The US made Putin possible by capitalizing on the collapse of the USSR through shock therapy of forced "free market" principles, creating the oligarchy that exists in Russia to this day.
  
  American culture is susceptible to Trump because American culture is fundamentally distrustful of government. Without reason or rationality, Americans culturally believe their representatives do not represent them, even when faces with evidence to the contrary. This is, historically, because the US was settled and then massively expanded via immigration, by political dissidents, politically/religiously persecuted people, and radicals bent on "making their own way."
  While this leaves us susceptible to "strongmen," it also leaves us susceptible to populism of all kinds, and is a constant pressure that rational people must struggle against in order to build effective governments.
  Before Trump and Sanders, there was the Tea Party. Before the Tea Party, Ross Perot had a fighting chance. Centuries ago, the Know-Nothings were essentially Trumpism without Trump.
  Every culture has weaknesses and externalities. The offset in the US is a federal government that usually keeps these people in check. In China/Russia, their federal government is the problem because of their cultural inheritance.
  
  Okay, so you're saying the US actually is susceptible to strongman, authoritarian leadership and it's not just a Russian culture thing. Also, what's up with you equating Trump and Sanders? You don't seem to be making any sense or have a cohesive point.
  
  No I don't think it is specifically strongmen. Much of the populism in America is focused on the exact opposite.
  Populist demagogues are not necessarily strongmen. Bernie Sanders is hardly an authoritarian, but he is absolutely a populist demagogue.
  Russian and Chinese culture specifically glorifies the "great man" pseudohistorical idea, and their cultures are uniquely slanted toward embracing authoritarianism.
  What's up with you equating Trump and Sanders
  They're both populist demagogues, and their commonalities and differences are central to my overall point
  You seem to think I'm making a point based on opinion and what I'm doing is describing cultures as they actually exist.
  My opinion is in my OP, in which I heavily imply that liberal democracy is the only moral form of government.
  
  Balkanization is divide and conquer bullshit. Why do you think the US commits to keeping the states together even though red and blue states are supposedly so much different from each other?
  
  The US is a very different case, in that the state/federal divide and disagreement is almost entirely illusory, and those arguing for more state control are just using slanted language to hide their desire to persecute others.
  There has never been an instance of Americans fighting for dissolution of federal power where they have not also wanted to use that power to persecute others.
  The opposite is true is Russia.
  
  None of that has anything to do with breaking apart a country to make it weaker, which is entirely the point of the balkanization argument.
  
  No one wants to conquer Russia. No one has wanted to since Napoleon. Even Hitler's dumb ass only invaded out of paranoia.
  Personally I want Russia balkanized because the only thing holding that mess of a state together is authoritarianism. I'd much rather see a whole lot more liberal democracies in place of a single Russian country.
  Same with China.
  
  There more than one way to conquer a land, it's not just a matter of occupying it physically. According to you, they resort to authoritarianism because of culture. How would splitting up the country change that instead of simply making a bunch of smaller authoritarian governments? In fact, the situation would be worse because a bunch of smaller authoritarian governments bordering each other would be more likely to go to war. Of course, that's an intended consequence of balkanization: the weakening of those countries.
  
  More localized nations can more easily be guided toward liberal democracy through soft power.