I found a reddit post from a year or so ago, reportedly Bazzite has drivers for the dongle out of the box. I’m a little more concerned about the keyboard+touchpad combo, since I’d imagine that’s not quite a standard device. Fortunately, I give negative fucks about any RGB, so I really don’t care if any RGB the components happen to have don’t even light up.

NATO not expanding eastward was never put to paper. No one ever officially signed off on it, nor was it ever an official decree. It was never anything more than words of appeasement. Russia “agreed to democracy on its doorstep” because they were going through a regime collapse and were a tad preoccupied with preventing the collapse from going further. Even if they had kicked up a storm about it, what were they gonna do? The breakaway nations weren’t going to just unpack their bags and stay with the abusive ex cause the ex said they can’t leave. Russia would’ve had to suppress them militarily once again, and they didn’t have the resources to do that.

NATO expanding eastward was because the former Soviet bloc countries wanted it. Because if you’ve regained your independence (for some of them it wasn’t even the first time) from an aggressive neighboring nation, would you not wish to protect it with the means available to you? If Poland and the Baltics believed that, for the first time in centuries, Russia would stop doing Russia things, would they have sought to join? Because the only reason they’ve been spared Ukraine’s fate is that Russia was in no position to execute militarily when those countries were accepted into NATO. And look at us now, thirty some years later, Russia is doing Russia things.

Russia’s inability to conquer any of its neighbors is irrelevant. The possibility of them even attempting is unacceptable if you share a border with Russia. Sure, maybe Putin can’t hope to depose your government, but the destruction and deaths before his failure are still a horrifying reality that’ll take years, possibly decades, to recover from.

As for why Sweden felt the need to join, despite not having a single meter of border with Russia, it’s because Finland felt the need to join. The two countries are tightly bound and do not want to end up on the opposite sides of a war. Now they’re much less likely to.

First off…

So I have no idea how you can pretend that you are doing them a service by actauly actively stopping them from making their own choice to go where they can for search of better life.

Now, perhaps it’s creative interpretation on my part, but it came across as you implying I’m arguing for their best interests. Apologies, if that’s not the case.

Secondly, whether you like it or not, there’s more to consider than the lives of these refugees or any that would follow. National security and the security of the Schengen zone. The very likely tensions and conflicts between the refugees already housed here and the newly arrived Russians. I assure you, when emotions run high, it won’t matter if everyone involved are innocent civilians. And our own history of Russia attempting to use the local Russian population as a weapon. That was under Putin’s rule, I don’t find it unreasonable to think he’d do it again.

And finally, I’m not letting you ignore the inconvenient fact that we don’t have the resources. It may not have been the point of the article, but it’s most definitely a factor in the decision. Because the reality is that these people would need help, because practically everyone who was rich enough to snag plane tickets, or had VISAs, and wanted to leave has already left. They did that over the first year of the war. These people need housing, food and healthcare, none of which they can provide for themselves. The reality is that if we let them in, we have a sharp spike in homelessness. Soon after, a spike in people needing healthcare. Around the same time, a rise in crime, as some of the refugees are unwilling or unable to get jobs. Followed by another spike in people needing healthcare. And during all that, families freezing to death in the streets. But I suppose all of that is fine if they’re searching for a better life, yes?

Just out of curiosity, where are you from?

You’ll note that at no point did I claim that turning them away is in their best interests. I’d appreciate it if you stopped telling me what I said.

And yes, forbidding them passage through the country is what “closing the borders” means. Very astute of you. Not like they’d get to go anywhere anyway, seeing how they have neither a Schengen VISA nor a EU passport. So all those masses would be ours to deal with. Again, we don’t have the resources to do that. It’s a point you seem intent on ignoring.

And how can someone so unfamiliar with the situation preach, with such conviction, to the uneducated and clearly right-wing xenophobic untermenschen who actually have to deal with it?

You speak as though we’re closing the borders with a giant “fuck you” to the people on the other side. We can’t help them. Can’t. Not won’t, but can’t. We don’t have the resources to help them. You can talk about the EU being rich as fuck all day, but the reality on the ground is that we have nothing left to give to help these people, because all that wealth isn’t here. We’re stretched thin as it is.

You ever heard the saying “Don’t light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm”? Because that’s what you’re proposing.

You are clearly unfamiliar with Estonian winters. The days are below freezing, often in double digits. Anyone not sheltered will freeze to death. And where, pray tell, would we shelter them? Refugee shelters? Full of Ukrainians. Hotels are full of Ukrainians. There’s a Ukrainian family living across the street from me, because a call went out for private residences to house Ukrainian refugees and my neighbor took his family and moved in with his parents. There’s nowhere left.

But please, continue to tell me how we’re not doing enough by giving all the help we had to give to the first victims of this war.