But again it was a throwaway line I didn't mean to start a discussion on politics.

Yeah, sure, I should've guessed you were ironic; the reason I asked was simply that it's the first time I remember you applying any political label to yourself. I'm not overly concerned or distressed by your (or anyone's) ideas about the relative merits of political systems, seeing as in my mind it's inevitably largely a "red herring", disguising other factors of a society's nature. E.g. I think that the formal dissolution of the USSR, the adoption of a new constitution, Putin's (much-criticized and now rolled-back) electoral reforms and other post-Soviet political rearrangements were not among the factors that seriously impacted life in Russia, with the exception of the severed links with other Soviet republics and the effects of those.

(Of course, when e.g. I'm arguing about the merits of liberal vs. restrictive laws, or censorship, or whatever, I'm usually genuinely concerned - as I always try to be when it's about real people's lives.)