The unrelenting call to isolate Russia is both broad and deep, and so far, has been done without NATO firing a bullet. Using every tool in it's arsenal, even non-NATO nations are falling in line with the West. But not all sanctions are equal.
Consider the seizing of the assets of Russian oligarchs. Or put in plain language, taking things from rich people in Russia.
Now, Russia is highly socialist, with the power brokers controlling all major industries while the average citizen struggles along at what Americans would consider below-poverty levels. So snatching up all their property should have an effect on Putin, since they're his closest comrades. So in the short term, it's a strategic move. And in war, it's not unprecedented. However, most of the precedents are now widely panned.
So do we want to go down this road again? Tired of hearing the term "slippery-slope" yet?
With the U.K., New Zealand, and Japan, among many other European nations, essentially freezing rich Russians out and taking their boats, a precedent is being set. If we don't like what you're doing, we're going to crush you. Aside from the obvious question, "did these people cause this war?" We also have to ask, "Who else will this be used against?"
After all, we just watched a so-called "free" nation, Canada, seizing the assets of people it simply didn't like, because they doth protest too much.
Ultimately, we're talking about the corruption of the human heart, which the founders of the U.S. understood very well. They spread power out as much as possible, and lo and behold, it worked, producing the freest and most prosperous nation in history. But when those principals are threatened by powerful thought-leaders who don't understand how their actions might be used by power-seekers down the road, the sirens go off. Especially, when things are moving as fast as they are now, those "power-seekers down the road" might be the same people manipulating the current events in question.
Ryan Wiggins is the author of the extremely serious and not funny robot novel, The Life of Human, and is a writer and producer of television shows. He is the host of Wiggins America on 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis.
