Do you hear the latest echo in the chamber, coming from both the left and the right? It is saying: “Putin is evil, America and Russia can never be friends.” Jonah Goldberg perfectly demonstrated this echo in his weekly news roundup for National Review:

Frankly, I resent the fact that I even feel the need to explain how Putin is a bad guy, doing bad things, so I’m just going to skip that part and assert it.

Sorry, Jonah — your mother is a hero — but that doesn’t give you a pass on this. “Putin is a bad guy, doing bad things” just doesn’t cut it when we’re talking about how to stabilize a world in which exactly two people have the power to unilaterally destroy it.

Let’s list and consider each of the reasons Mr. Goldberg and others might give as to why Putin is so evil and why we can never have friendly relations.

The Soviet Union was communist and actively spread communism

True. But the Soviet Union was pronounced dead in 1991 and with it, the militant spread of communism. The Soviet Union was a grand experiment in progressive idealism, and it failed. Miserably. The cost was tens of millions of lives and infinite heartache. Whatever lesson you choose to take from this failure, it should not be that Russia is inherently bad and we should be eternal enemies. If so, why haven’t we applied the same lesson to Germany and Japan — two countries who actually have tried to subjugate us, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans in the process? Yet both Germany and Japan today are considered to be our dearest of friends. Being an enemy once does not mean always being an enemy.

Russia today is not communist, not even close. Russia has embraced capitalism and fully rejected progressive ideologies — in fact, today Russia’s ideologies look a lot like those of the American heartland. Yes, Russia is still trying to project its influence, but not in the spread of communism nor any other particular political ideology. Today Russia seeks to balance raw American geopolitical power in a grand game of no-holds-barred chess, but where the opposing sides share a mutual respect for each others’ power. (Sorry, WaPo, Obama was never winning.)

Stalin was an evil dictator who killed millions of people

True, but the man is dead. Yes, Stalin is making a comeback in popularity in Russia, and Putin may have something to do with that, but Putin is not Stalin.

They want to take over other countries, for example, Ukraine and the Baltics

Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But if they really wanted the whole of Ukraine or any of the Baltic countries, they would have taken them by now. What would have stopped them? NATO? Obama? You jest.

Russia annexed Crimea because they feel threatened by NATO. They told us that very plainly. It’s not because they’re trying to take over the world. They are not. Call up any ten Russians and ask them, and nine will explain it to you clearly. The tenth will say, “goo goo gaa gaa”.

They murder gay people by throwing them off buildings

No, that’s ISIS. In ISIS-controlled territory, the punishment for being gay is execution by gravity. Many countries punish homosexuality with death; Russia is not one of them. But search Google News for “Putin anti gay” and compare to “ISIS anti gay.” You guessed it, 537,000 articles for the first search, while only 166,000 articles for the second.

In Russia, homosexual acts are in fact legal, though there is no hiding the fact that the overwhelmingly conservative population frowns upon homosexuality in general.

The one unequivocally ant-gay action taken by Putin was to support a Russian law that makes it illegal to discuss homosexuality with minors. That’s it. There is no evidence that the law has been widely applied, though it certainly exists as a chilling factor if you wish to speak publicly about homosexuality. It really isn’t that much different from America 30-50 years ago, and in fact we in America still have similar laws on the books in a number of states. So yes, we would be hypocrites to unfriend Russia over LGBTQ rights.

They are trying to manipulate oil prices

Everyone in the world tries to manipulate oil prices to their advantage. For the Russian people, it is an advantage for oil prices to go up, because then they get better pensions, health services, and road repairs. For America, it is an advantage for oil prices to go down, because then we get to drive farther, fly more, and pay less for shipping. We Americans expect our president to do everything in his power to make our gas cheaper. Russians expect Putin to do the opposite. Fair game, let’s play.

They are engaging in cyber warfare

Fair game, folks. We have hackers too. Ever heard of the NSA? If the Russians are better than us at it, who’s fault is that? Stop the whining please.

No matter who is responsible for the email leaks of 2016, even if they did alter the course of history, it wouldn’t be the first time, not even for the office of the President of the United States. Remember a guy named Richard Nixon? His presidency was ended by a leak. We should be used to leaks by now. In any case, as long as there are human beings talking to each other, there will be unauthorized leaks of those talks. Sometimes your side’s gonna win, sometimes your side’s gonna lose.

As far as voting integrity goes, two words: paper ballots. It’s worth the trouble.

They are influencing our elections

Again, fair game, folks. Remember, we in the West welcome and embrace free speech, be it from individuals, corporations, or governments. Russia’s RT news network is no doubt Russian propaganda, but they’ve been living with our Voice of America propaganda since 1947. RT is simply a leveling of the playing field. But only a little — we’ve still got Hollywood. When was the last time you watched a Russian-made movie?

And who says we Americans don’t interfere in elections? Remember the Orange Revolution? If we didn’t interfere in other countries’ elections, we could probably cut a hundred thousand people from the federal payroll.

They sell weapons to bad actors all over the world and befriend all of our enemies

I agree that a world in which only Americans are allowed to sell weapons would be a better world. But aren’t we happy that all the bad guys in the world are using weapons that are inferior to ours? Also, let’s remember, weapons don’t kill people, people kill people. Making friends with Russia will only help this situation, not make it worse. As long as we are arch enemies, it makes perfect strategic sense for Russia to flood the world with weapons pointed in our direction.

As for making our enemies their friends, that’s what the geopolitical balance of power game is all about. Let’s play smarter, not whine about losing.

They are an authoritarian thugocracy that imprisons and murders any one who dares speak out

Yes, there have been a number of politicians and journalists who have been murdered under suspicious circumstances — about ten people, maybe twenty, but not hundreds. This is not a good thing, and I am not going to attempt a defense of Russian behavior on this point. Frankly, most Russians are not particularly outraged when these “naysayers” turn up dead. They are viewed a bit like traitors. Russians love Putin more than liberal Americans love Obama and more the conservative Americans love Trump. Much like liberal attacks on Trump’s character only increased Trump’s popularity among his base, so does Western criticism of Putin increase his support at home.

It must be that warmer ties with the United States will only help to make politicians and journalists with unpopular viewpoints feel more safe in Russia, not less. So again, this argument only underscores our need for a better relationship with Russia.

We should also note that in China citizens are far less genuinely loving toward their leader and dissent is far more swiftly snuffed out by the government, yet we vilify Russia’s weak attempt at democracy far more than we vilify China’s actual policy of totalitarianism.

They are messing up the Middle East

Who will argue that America has done a better job in the Middle East these past 15 years? Let’s give Russia a turn. Better yet, let’s work together to destroy ISIS now that we’re getting a new president who seems to be open to that possibility.

Note that the former Soviet Union made the single greatest contribution to the population of Israel, nearly 1 million people. 20% of the Israeli population speaks fluent Russian. Moscow is the city with the single largest community of Israeli expatriates, and there has been visa-free travel between Russia and Israel since 2008. We in America speak highly of Israel as a close friend, but the fact of the matter is that there are ten times fewer American-born Israeli Jews than there are Russian-born Israeli Jews. There are seven daily flights between Moscow and Tel Aviv; New York has six.

Bottom line: Let’s give Russia a chance in the Middle East.

Please, no death threats

I realize that people from certain countries feel threatened by Putin and may feel the urge to lash out at me with threats of maiming and death. Please don’t. I do understand your position. But we cannot afford to fool ourselves into believing that Putin represents anything other than the will of the Russian people, a will that must be reckoned with. There is no such thing as removing Putin and getting someone who would be more receptive towards the West. Putin is a fair representation of Russia, and a perfectly reasonable person. It will be better for us and for the entire world if we approach Russia with the friendly, optimistic, business-like American attitude that has helped us become the greatest country in the history of the world.