Authoritarism in Hungary and Poland

[lucklucky]

1 hour ago, DB said:

Why do you keep posting about countries other than Hungary and Poland in this topic?

Because it singled only Hungary and Poland for authoritarian tendencies when it is going in, in in all  "Western" world.

[sunday]

35 minutes ago, lucklucky said:

Because it singled only Hungary and Poland for authoritarian tendencies when it is going in, in in all  "Western" world.

But it is only authoritarianism when Hungarians and Poles, or more exactly their current governments, do it. Same things in other Western countries are examples of our very Democratic with Rule of Law Western Civilization.

So, no, no French riot police beating French Yellow Vests here, nor New Mexico governor suppressing 2nd. Ammendment either, etc.

[BansheeOne]

2 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Because it singled only Hungary and Poland for authoritarian tendencies when it is going in, in in all  "Western" world.

If you go back to the first post, the thread starter singled out Hungary and Poland with the expressive suggestion that all the talk about authoritarianism there is leftist lies. Of course within three posts, bojan told everyone authoritatively that it's real, with some interesting subsequent deconstruction of Orban's system in particular. Since expectations of hearing that it's all lies weren't met, whataboutisms about other countries started right on page one.

[John T]

39 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

If you go back to the first post, the thread starter singled out Hungary and Poland with the expressive suggestion that all the talk about authoritarianism there is leftist lies. Of course within three posts, bojan told everyone authoritatively that it's real, with some interesting subsequent deconstruction of Orban's system in particular. Since expectations of hearing that it's all lies weren't met, whataboutisms about other countries started right on page one.

The most amusing sign of Hungarian democracy is that the Hungarian Parlament might not accept Sweden into NATO due to the Swedish government's inability to suppress critical comments about the lack of Hungarian democracy in the free press.

 

"All pigs are equal but Hungarian pigs are more equal"

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungary-parliament-speaker-flags-possible-further-delay-swedish-nato-2023-09-18/

[Roman Alymov]

On 9/1/2023 at 9:20 PM, urbanoid said:

Not about authoritarianism, but still about Poland and Hungary

 

For sure it is much better to be dependent on transit via Poland  

[urbanoid]

18 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

For sure it is much better to be dependent on transit via Poland  

That's up to Hungary to decide, Czechs and Slovaks are apparently interested - and from there it's just a short way really, a matter of some interconnectors most likely. That'll give Budapest an option which they may or may not use, maybe now, maybe a few years down the road? 

The goal is obvious - less Russian resources in Europe. Few billion cubic meters here, few billion cubic meters there and suddenly we're talking about serious money.

 

[JWB]

 

[BansheeOne]

Not exactly an issue of authoritarianism, but Hungarian politics anyway:

Quote

Hungarian president resigns amid pedophilia pardon scandal

38 minutes ago

Hungary's first woman president, Katalin Novak, has announced her resignation in the face of public protests. Her pardoning a man who helped cover up a sex abuse case in a children's home prompted the pressure.

Hungary's President Katalin Novak announced on national television on Saturday that she was resigning, as she faced mounting pressure for issuing a presidential pardon to a man convicted as an accomplice for helping to cover up a sex abuse case at a children's home. 

"I made a mistake," Novak said. "Today is the last day that I address you as a president." 

Novak, 46, is a close ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and a member of his party, Fidesz. She returned from an official visit to Qatar at short notice to make the announcement. 

Why was the president under pressure? 

She had faced intense criticism from some members of the public and opposition parties since the news of the presidential pardon became public knowledge on February 2.

Independent news site 444 revealed that one of the pardons had been granted to the former deputy director of a children's home who had helped his boss cover up sexually abusing children and adolescents there. The news outlet also spoke with the pardoned man, who said he had not directly requested clemency but said it was too soon for him to answer further questions.

The pardons were issued last April to around two dozen people, on the eve of a visit to Hungary by Pope Francis.

[...]

https://www.dw.com/en/hungarian-president-resigns-amid-pedophilia-pardon-scandal/a-68223392

[lucklucky]

I would say that is a demonstration of non authoritarianism.

[Ivanhoe]

1 hour ago, lucklucky said:

I would say that is a demonstration of non authoritarianism.

We now live in a world where doing the right thing is white privilege, which is a cornerstone ingredient for authoritarianism, ipso facto you're wrong.

IOW, Kafka was an optimist.

 

 

[BansheeOne]

Harsh, but the facts check out.

Quote

Ian Williams

Hungary has become China’s useful idiot

22 February 2024, 1:53pm

This week a security deal was announced that could see Chinese police on the streets of Hungary. Despite this, there was remarkably little fanfare about the agreement – just a few vague details in public statements made days after the deal was signed between the interior ministers of the two countries. Yet is represents another troubling challenge by Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orban to both Nato and the EU, of which he remains an increasingly troublesome member.

The security pact will involve ‘enhancing cooperation in law enforcement and joint patrols,’ according to the Hungarian statement, while the Chinese version said the two countries would, ‘deepen cooperation in areas including counter-terrorism, combating transnational crimes, security and law enforcement capacity building.’ It appears to be modelled on an arrangement with Serbia (which is not in the EU), where Chinese police jointly patrol areas popular with Chinese businesses or tourists.

Hungary was the first EU country to join China’s troubled Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an umbrella programme for Chinese infrastructure investment overseas, and more generally for extending its influence. Budapest has vigorously courted Chinese cash – even as Brussels has grown increasingly wary, urging members to ‘de-risk’ their relationship with Beijing. The country is home to Huawei’s biggest logistical base outside China, and CATL, a giant Chinese battery maker, plans to build a $7.7 billion plant near Debrecen, the country’s second largest city.

BYD, an electric car maker, has also announced plans to build an assembly plant in Hungary, even as the EU is investigating Beijing’s vast government subsidies to EV makers, which it suspects of dumping their vast excess capacity overseas at below cost.

These investments have not been uncontested in Hungary – which may explain the relatively low-key announcement of the security pact. There have been protests in Debrecen against the battery plant, sparked by concern over pollution and the pressure on local water resources. There were also protests in Budapest against plans to build a campus of Shanghai’s Fudan university at a cost of $1.8 billion, which now appears to have been shelved. Concerns were raised about academic freedom and the loss of land earmarked for student accommodation. The mayor of Budapest renamed several local roads, creating ‘Uyghur Martyrs Street’, ‘Dalai Lama Street’ and ‘Free Hong Kong Street’. Opposition politicians have also criticised another Chinese project, a multi-billion railway linking Budapest and Belgrade, claiming that it is overpriced and riddled with cronyism in the awarding of contracts. Though few of these controversies get wide coverage in the Hungarian media, which is tightly controlled by Orban.

It has long been Chinese Communist party policy to drive a wedge between Europe and America, and in a narrow sense its investment in Hungary has paid dividends, since Orban has faithfully blocked the EU from issuing communiques criticising human rights abuses in China and been a drag more broadly on security-related affairs, such as the expansion of Nato and support for Ukraine, which also serve Beijing’s wider security interests.  

[...]

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/hungary-has-become-chinas-useful-idiot/

[Ssnake]

A match made in heaven;

 

[old_goat]

On 3/2/2024 at 12:49 PM, BansheeOne said:

Harsh, but the facts check out.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/hungary-has-become-chinas-useful-idiot/

Thats again a proof of Orbán's hipocrisy. He constantly babbles in the state propaganda about "protecting Hungary's sovereignity and freedom" while in practice he sells his own country to multinational corporations, only to enrich himself and his cronies. He is probably one of the worst traitors in the history of this country after the communists, and would deserve to be executed for this.

Unfortunately, this deal with the CCP makes lots of sense for him. There is a growing opposition against his policy of turning the country to a car battery manufacturing wasteland, more and more protests are erupting. Not long ago, main focus was inviting german car manufacturing plans. This was already bad, since these firms are interested in the exploitation of workers, and greatly affected to liberalize the labor rights of the country (via corruption) to enforce this. People more or less tolerated this. Chinese firms are also work like this, but they are far worse actually. Their priority is not just simple exploitation, but to introduce sweat shops to hungary. Also, they do not care at all for environment. Factories do not only take our land, but also poison the air and water supply too. More and more people realize this, and the number of mass protests are growing against battery plants. Chinese security forces would be vital for Orbán to protect the battery plants, and also to oppress the protesters. And also to ensure his victory in the elections in 2026...  

[urbanoid]

Doesn't the 'based defender of white christian Europe' also allow a shitload of non-European worker migrants into Hungary?

Edited March 3 by urbanoid

[old_goat]

3 hours ago, urbanoid said:

Doesn't the 'based defender of white christian Europe' also allow a shitload of non-European worker migrants into Hungary?

Oh yes, me stupid. I forgot the most important thing. Yes, it is true. It is basically just another form of the "great replacement". Hungarians, and other nationalities living in here, including even gypsies, are being replaced en masse at most multinational firms. My workplace also does this, about 50-60% of the workers are already replaced by Filipinos, whose performance at work is significantly lower than hungarians, but the firm doesnt care, because they get massive financial support from the regime, just to employ these migrants. Of course the official state propaganda says that "we have the most strict laws in europe concerning migrant workers" but these laws are extremely easy to bypass. For example, the law says that a firm can only employ migrants if they cant find any hungarians for the job. Actually, the firm simply say that they didnt find any hungarian employees, the law doesnt require to prove it. Sometimes they doesnt even advertise the jobs here. In the case of the massive CATL factory in Debrecen, they already began to build the aparment complexes for migrant workers, and there were quite a few job advertisements, of course not for hungarians. Last year there were massive protests against the factory. Locals were trying to organize a referendum against it several times, but the local government (filled with Orbán's cronies) didnt allow it. There were concerns about the significant environmental impact, but the government didnt even care for the opinion of experts and investigators. Also, the case with the site of the factory was again quite outrageous. It occupies a massive area near Debrecen, exactly where the absolutely best quality farmlads were. The regime simply expropriated the land, paying a pitiful amount of money to the farmers, who couldnt do anything because the law allows this. 

 

[urbanoid]

Authoritarianism, you say...

Quote

Prime Minister

@DonaldTusk

in #Senat : If we want to restore the constitutional order and the foundations of liberal democracy, we must act in the categories of a fighting democracy. This means that we will probably make mistakes more than once or take actions that, according to some legal authorities, may not be entirely in accordance with the letter of the law, but nothing releases us from the obligation to act.

 

[rmgill]

I would argue that the US and the UK should be gently steering Hungary and Poland to greater fairness. But then the West has seemingly lost it's connection to the principles of the English/Scottish Enlightenment. So we're a bit lower than we should be on the high ground. 

The point is striking a balance between the rights of everyone. Not aligning rights to one set of citizens over another set of citizens. 

[urbanoid]

Behold, a pathetic cuck aide to the 'based savior of Western civilisation'.

Quote

Hungary would have given in to Russia, says Orbán’s top aide

The political director of Hungary’s PM says that the Ukrainians killed fighting Russia died “for nothing.”

If it were in Ukraine's shoes, Budapest wouldn't have fought the Russians, said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's top aide.

Balázs Orbán, the political director of his namesake (but no relation to him), was a guest on a podcast on Wednesday where he talked about Ukraine's self-defense against Russian aggression. 

“Every country has the right to decide its own destiny, and leaders take responsibility,” Orbán said. However, he went on to add that if the same situation had happened to Hungary, they wouldn't have taken up the fight against the aggressors — a lesson learned in Hungary's own unsuccessful pushback against the Russians in 1956.

“We probably wouldn't have done what President Zelenskyy did two and a half years ago, because it's irresponsible,” the political director said. “Because obviously he put his country into a war defense, all these people died, all this territory was lost — again, it's their right, it's their sovereign decision, they had the right to do it. But if we had been asked, we would not have advised it.”

Opposition politicians have already called on the political director to resign, including the leader of the center-right Tisza Party, MEP Péter Magyar: “With these words Balázs Orbán has humiliated the memory of thousands of Hungarian freedom fighters, hundreds of whom — unlike Balázs Orbán — were ready to sacrifice their lives for the freedom and independence of their country.”

The leader of the center-left Democratic Coalition, ex-Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, wrote in a Facebook post: “The Orbán government would hand Hungary over to the Russians without a fight.”

In invoking this historical example, Orbán has touched on a sensitive point in Hungarian history: October 1956, when a revolution broke out against the totalitarian communist regime, demanding democratization and exit of the Warsaw Pact. But in less than three weeks, Soviet troops invaded the country, and the struggle for freedom left 2,700 dead and 20,000 wounded; 176,000 people fled the country of less than 10 million after the fight was lost. 

In addition, the new communist regime that ruled Hungary for another 33 years after the Soviet invasion executed 229 civilians, including the prime minister during the revolution, Imre Nagy.

The lesson of this chapter of history, according to Balázs Orbán: “We have to be careful here, and we have to be careful with very precious Hungarian lives. You cannot just throw them away in front of others.”

After the pushback, Balázs Orbán defended his statement, saying that “Hungary's position is clear: we see no sense in the Ukrainian-Russian war” in which hundreds of thousands of people have died “for nothing.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/hungary-russia-viktor-orban-balazs-orban-ukraine-war-volodymyr-zelenskyy-vladimir-putin/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social

Edited September 27 by urbanoid

[sunday]

He chose a bad example. The Soviet Union of 1956 is not the Russian Federation of today.

 

[urbanoid]

Defending one's country from the invasion shouldn't be a matter of the debate and the analysis of what the enemy is and what isn't?

As far as I'm concerned there's also zero PRACTICAL difference of the natures of Soviet and Russian invasions. 

'Pacifist (cuck) right' has to be the most cringe phenomenon of recent times. 'Boo hoo why are you defending yourself, the people are dying! Peace now!'

Edited September 27 by urbanoid

[sunday]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

'Pacifist (cuck) right' has to be the most cringe phenomenon of recent times. 'Boo hoo why are you defending yourself, the people are dying! Peace now!'

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P81.HTM

Quote

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. the gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. the power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

So, there are 4 conditions that should be met for a war to be considered as a just war.

Quote

1. The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.

We are not talking of Russia wanting to impose Communism totalitarianism here. It could be a more or less corrupt State, but not substantially different from the existing one, in the Ukrainian case. In the Hungarian case, that is not so clear, as Hungary has a long history as an independent nation, and a substantial, independent culture.

Nor it is a Islamic invasion wanting to impose Sharia.

Quote

2. All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.

There was not trying in the Ukrainian case, thanks to Brit Boris, for instance.

Quote

3. There must be serious prospects of success.

Not the case, not in Ukraine, not in Hungary. Short of WWIII, of course - and then we need to reconsider the point 4 below.

Quote

4. The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. the power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

Would Ukraine surrendering have resulted in more deaths that the current estimates after so many months of war? Infrastructure destruction? Destruction of the economy? Economic effects of sanctions in Europe?

Edited September 27 by sunday

[urbanoid]

31 minutes ago, sunday said:

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P81.HTM

So, there are 4 conditions that should be met for a war to be considered as a just war.

We are not talking of Russia wanting to impose Communism totalitarianism here. It could be a more or less corrupt State, but not substantially different from the existing one, in the Ukrainian case. In the Hungarian case, that is not so clear, as Hungary has a long history as an independent nation, and a substantial, independent culture.

Nor it is a Islamic invasion wanting to impose Sharia.

There was not trying in the Ukrainian case, thanks to Brit Boris, for instance.

Not the case, not in Ukraine, not in Hungary. Short of WWIII, of course - and then we need to reconsider the point 4 below.

Would Ukraine surrendering have resulted in more deaths that the current estimates after so many months of war? Infrastructure destruction? Destruction of the economy? Economic effects of sanctions in Europe?

I don't give a flying fuck what the church says about a just war, I don't give a flying fuck about the character of the aggressor and I don't give a flying fuck about prospects of success. I'm all for opposing the Russian invasion if it costs the life of half of my country, myself included.

When my country had no prospect of success against the German invasion, we did everything to make sure the potential regional war turns into a world war, with tens of millions of deaths instead of 'mere' millions. I hope we'd do the same if we're ever faced with a prospect of invasion from any direction, by any kind of a state. 

Ukraine surrendering would indeed result in less deaths. Taiwan surrendering to China would result in less deaths. Worst Korea surrendering to Best Korea would result in less deaths. I. Don't. Care. It's not even a factor in my thinking. And yes, we should defend any NATO member or other important ally even if it results in WW3 (hint: it won't, but let's pretend I take 'pacifist right' scaremongering seriously).

Ukrainians engaging in costly defense of their country against the invasion are more worthy of having a country that the likes of Balazs Orban who would have surrendered.

Edited September 27 by urbanoid

[sunday]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

I don't give a flying fuck...

Me neither about your opinions in this matter, sorry.

[urbanoid]

1 minute ago, sunday said:

Me neither about your opinions in this matter, sorry.

That's ok, even though I'm always right about the likes of this eastern abomination, there's no shame in not agreeing with me (i.e. being wrong).

[rmgill]

My view is that, if you DO want war then you be prepared to go all in. I don't doubt that Poland would be ALL in on repelling another Russian invasion. I don't see the EU/NATO or the bulk of the US government being all in on such a defense. Worse is having a half hearted effort that gets Poland to stick it's neck out and then pull back support when it's most needed. I don't want to see another Vietnam and our cowardly exit in 1975. The same goes for Afghanistan. If we can do a quick and brutal war to bring about a useful victory ala the 1st Gulf war, excellent. All in. I'd be all in for a longer defense of Poland. But I wonder if the US left would be willing to suffer OR if they'd turn into another 5th column like they did during Vietnam. 

My objections to Ukraine is that the support is very tepid from the folks supposedly FULLY in for such a war. I suspect Dave has the same view based on his commentary.