[HN Gopher] Hungarian journalists and critics of Orban were targ...
___________________________________________________________________
Hungarian journalists and critics of Orban were targeted with
Pegasus
Author : r_sz
Score : 580 points
Date : 2021-07-20 06:42 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (telex.hu)
(TXT) w3m dump (telex.hu)
| bwb wrote:
| I always am amazed by how many people value their nation over
| larger groups of human beings who are just like them... isn't it
| time to up our game as humans and start thinking bigger? Why not
| abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with
| different provinces?
|
| Nationalism is an ancient mentality, get rid of it and start
| moving into larger groups who can do more.
|
| I keep reading about the North American Alliance in sci fi books,
| how long until the usa, canada and mexico combine to create a
| bigger economic block?
| raverbashing wrote:
| You can't fully remove nationalism, it's always going to exist
| in some way or the other, even in things that have nothing to
| do with "nations". (Yankees vs. Red Sox for example)
|
| The "no-borders" people are as out of touch with reality as
| Orban, though in different extremes.
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| Nationalism is a new concept invented by the French. You
| can't say about Greece that it is/was a nation. The
| nationalization of Greece's city-states represents a Greek
| tragedy, one that culminated in economic collapse. People
| focus on their group and they think that the same rules apply
| globally, which isn't the case.
| pferde wrote:
| Fully agree. I believe that taps into many thousands of years
| of tribalism - every human that ever lived had an "us" group
| and one or several "them" groups, and inter-group relations
| were rarely friendly.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| > Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU
| with different provinces?
|
| With the borders opened, it's very similar to what you
| describe. It just takes lots of time and stability which Orban
| and friends undermines all the time. That's why we can't have
| nice things.
|
| Don't underestimate the power of cultural diversity, it's not
| like the US where everybody speaks English and you can fit in
| quite easily if you move a state or two.
| visarga wrote:
| Playing devil's advocate for a second: be careful what you're
| saying: some will interpret your call as an attack on their
| identity and attempt at hiding historical injustice. Same
| happens with people who say "I see no color" believing this is
| a good approach to nondiscrimination.
|
| I think emphasizing differences at the expense of commonalities
| is a huge mistake, just as much as disregarding those
| differences. Diversity in unity and unity in diversity, always
| a difficult balancing act.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I am always amazed how many people say things like this while
| comfortably living behind the economic walls of their rich
| nation typing on a phone made by near slaves on the other side
| of it.
| bwb wrote:
| I am always amazed by the assumptions people make :)
|
| What do you disagree with?
|
| I have family living in China, and I live in Portugal. Why do
| you like nationalism so much and feel so threatened by the
| loss of your nation as an identity? Why is it not enough to
| just be human surrounded by other humans who are identical to
| you?
| pydry wrote:
| Economic alliances have never been a particularly good way of
| forming tribal allegiances.
|
| Belonging to a trading bloc doesnt make you actually care about
| the other group.
|
| Also, replacing "French" nationality with "EU nationality"
| doesnt get rid of nationalism it just scopes it at a larger
| level. There exist "EU nationalists" and to be honest, I find
| them as annoying as any other kind of nationalist.
| poisonborz wrote:
| While this is a very simplistical and easy to rebuff argument
| as other replies did, a non-national "country" could be
| theoretically doable - save for the landmass, which is all
| occupied by existing ~national countries. Culture has not that
| much to do with national borders anymore. Just think about a
| "nation" of Elon Musk Followers, a nation of LGBTQ+ supporters,
| Real Madrid fans, or admirers of Oprah Winfrey.
|
| Whenever we will be able to colonize landmasses like the Moon
| or Mars, it would be possible that these kind of artificial
| communities could flurish. Colonisation will most likely be
| done by market-driven corporations, which could allege with
| these communities based on donations/taxation.
| daliusd wrote:
| How do you abolish nation? What's wrong with current EU
| situation endorsing diversity? You can federate EU and abolish
| national governments and that's happening slowly.
| msravi wrote:
| Even if you were to abolish the national governments you
| would still need a local government that can always be at
| odds with the central government, right?
|
| But if you abolish these local governments as well, then
| you're basically imposing central diktats on a population,
| correct?
|
| How do you resolve the dichotomy?
| daliusd wrote:
| Kind of correct. E.g. you may eliminate national
| parliaments and have only EU parliament. Yes, it has
| problems, but it feels something like that will happen
| eventually in EU. I am OK that this happens slowly.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU
| with different provinces?
|
| I can think of a few reasons.
|
| - It would erase culture, a slow process already ongoing.
| National identity, regional culture, etc would all go. - You'd
| have to reconcile the differences in rules, culture and law.
| Take drugs; the Netherlands is liberal with soft drugs,
| Portugal is more liberal with hard drugs, other countries still
| put you in jail for having any of those. Which one will it be?
| Who will pick what option? - Wealth disparity. Euro-skeptics
| have long complained about how much money the wealthy countries
| pay to Europe, and how much is funneled to the poorer
| countries. Make it one nation and every city, every farm, every
| individual will instantly demand to receive and be paid the
| same amount. Same complexities with health care / insurance,
| government stipends, benefits, taxes, etc.
|
| Just abolishing nations is infeasible. Europe as it is is
| slowly turning its members into a more uniformized whole, but
| it can't be an overnight thing. And we have made some really
| big steps towards erasing borders; see the Schengen accord,
| removing border posts and customs between member states. See
| the Euro, removing barriers for moving money from one country
| to the next. And see the UK, who decided that was not to their
| benefit and removed themselves from the EU again.
| bwb wrote:
| It wouldn't erase culture in anyway... just help us remember
| we are all earthlings. You can still be french, french-
| basque, etc etc.
|
| Abolishing nations is totally feasible, what it is replaced
| with is just democracy on a local to global level.
|
| It will take time but I have high hopes it will get there.
| apexalpha wrote:
| What's the point of becoming one nation if everyone has
| different languages?
| mejutoco wrote:
| Leverage against common threads or to accomplish common
| goals. Besides, there are many nations/countries with several
| official languages already. Having several languages does not
| invalidate all the advantages.
| adrianN wrote:
| There are a number of benefits, one that comes immediately to
| mind is having a common army and saving costs. Another one is
| that having a common currency, but not a common fiscal policy
| is not a good idea.
|
| I don't think language differences are a problem. There are a
| couple of nations with multiple official languages.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Ask Switzerland, or, on a larger scale, China.
| reader_mode wrote:
| >Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU
| with different provinces?
|
| Because outside of your bubble nobody wants this. A random
| person from Bulgaria is going to have a very different culture
| from a random person from Netherlands. What do you think
| happens with power in such conglomerate ?
|
| If you want to see what happens when you create a forced
| conglomerate of different nations (but still more similar than
| EU member, languages were way closer and cultures were close as
| well) into a super state look up Yugoslavia.
| 3np wrote:
| > A random person from Bulgaria is going to have a very
| different culture from a random person from Netherlands.
|
| And somehow me, a person from Denmark, has more cultural
| overlap with a hacker hipster from Mexico than most of my
| childhood classmates. And somehow I still coexist peacefully
| with my neighbors.
|
| The internet and global travel are breaking down the national
| cultural barriers (largely induced/imposed by mass media).
| Meanwhile, power imbalance and widening gaps in the social
| fabric are increasing issues globally, even in monocultures
| and regardless of immigrants.
|
| I think the points you raise are orthogonal. Except that
| you're most likely right that most people don't want this -
| because the illusion of the shared nation-culture and history
| has been so deeply imprinted in us by propaganda from the
| education system, the government, advertising, and media.
| blocked_again wrote:
| India does this already. With 3x more population and probably
| has much more diversity and cultural differences than EU.
| Arun2009 wrote:
| The world's second largest standing army that can be called
| to crush insurgencies also helps.
| biscotte_ wrote:
| India and USA are often cites as examples of federations
| than EU should look to implement but that comparison is not
| valid.
|
| The US were a blank page, with roughly the same crowd
| starting with the same common goal and aspirations. Europe
| comes with 15centuries of nationlike structures and
| history. Latin and AngloSaxons have very different
| approaches on life and work (particularly visible in the
| "PIGS" recent controversy...).
|
| As someone said, you cant make the european omelette with
| nations hard boiled eggs.
|
| The mere facts that the euro bank notes has zero european
| symbol (because they couldnt find one) speaks for itself.
| So they put bridges and windows... India has Gandhi.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Latin and AngloSaxons have very different approaches_
|
| "Anglo-Saxons" are not part of the federation anymore,
| and stuff like "PIGS" is simply casual racism. Do
| Northern European countries have a casual-racism problem?
| Very much so. Would that stop a federation from working
| in the long run? I doubt it very much. Otherwise Texas
| and New Jersey would have parted ways a long time ago.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Both India and the US also had their bloody moments to
| make it happen, in the Partition (and then Bangladesh
| Liberation War) and Civil War respectively.
| biscotte_ wrote:
| True, but there have been many attempts to create Europe
| in the past, the 3rd Reich being one of them, Napoleon,
| and others before. Europhiles dont like that reminder but
| people at the time used the same rethoric of "building
| the great Europe", "nations are too old etc", I can give
| you references of actual political figures of the 30s and
| 40s who had that speech and led their country to
| collaboration with the nazis in the name of "Europe".
| dalbasal wrote:
| Agreed, but it's not like europe was all nation-centric
| politics before. Europe _was_ divided into provinces
| within empires. Ottoman, Russian, Austro Hungarian...
| most of Europe was part of a multinational empire, most
| of the time.
|
| The idea that nation states are old, and multinationalism
| is new is fallacious. It's only post WWII that borders,
| political control, and ethnic homogeneity are strongly
| national... Yugoslavia being the most recent example.
| doctorbaum wrote:
| > I can give you references of actual political figures
| of the 30s and 40s who had that speech and led their
| country to collaboration with the nazis in the name of
| "Europe".
|
| I would love to (interested in the topic)
| biscotte_ wrote:
| Check out a guy called Laval in france, leader of
| collaboration, with his famous speech "i wish germany's
| victory".
|
| First national exhibition hosted by the Vichy government
| during occupation: "la France europeenne". Showing maps
| of future europe, where nation-states would have
| disappeared.
|
| French far-right at the time was also calling England,
| "the enemy of europe", for instance on a book from M.
| Deat, another politica leader from the 40s.
| Engineering-MD wrote:
| I think those comparisons are unhelpful. The idea of
| closer integrity in Europe is not what is unsavoury in
| those examples, it is the manner in which it was
| attempted. The EU is an attempt at democratic and
| mutually agreed union, celebrating differences. Napoleon
| and the third reich were conquest, bloodshed and forced
| change.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think that's partly parent's point: that integration
| between disparate cultures has mostly been (and maybe can
| only be) accomplished with force and bloodshed, however
| high minded the ideals might seem to its drivers.
|
| And in contrast, this thread's point: that attempts to
| unify disparate cultures via democracy and mutual
| agreement, celebrating differences, have difficulties and
| failures when constituents decide to abandon good faith.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| reader_mode wrote:
| By that logic India and Pakistan should also merge.
| blocked_again wrote:
| No your logic was it's not possible to have a country
| with so much diversity. I just showed a counter example.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You are comparing uncomparable, the population of India
| and EU are composed of very different people with
| different mindsets, expectations, opinions. Indians are
| generally much more docile (spent 6 months backpacking
| all around that place, it is really different in this
| regard).
|
| Also, comparing diversity is tricky - natives from
| Lappland have 0 in common with say Greek or Spaniards.
| Same would go for india's extremes, its rather impossible
| to say who is more different (personally I would still
| say Europe, since ways of life are almost the same if you
| look on India east, south, north, west, very similar
| cuisine etc... not so much in Europe).
|
| We have proven track of how it doesn't work here in
| Europe, no need to spin another set of wars to re-confirm
| it.
|
| Also, India sees quite a bit of domestic terrorism in its
| eastern parts exactly due to mindsets like yours. Not
| something we like to see here in Europe.
| blocked_again wrote:
| I never said EU should become a country. I just showed an
| example of a country with more population and more or
| less the same diversity which made it work. Obviously
| there are pros and cons with both approaches. And I think
| EU is better off the way it is now.
| reader_mode wrote:
| I know very little about history of India or the culture,
| but I guarantee you that creating such entity would
| result in a civil war, demonstrated throughout European
| history.
| blocked_again wrote:
| Yeah. I also don't think it's probably a good idea for
| the EU to become a country. Countries have a lot more
| power, autonomy etc which states lack. I think the
| current system of EU is pretty good.
| jollybean wrote:
| Indian content has a very long history of common governance
| in the region and very few opportunities for clear cut
| delineation. A few, but not many.
| mipsi wrote:
| I would not overemphasize the cultural differences between
| the Balkan people and call Yugoslavia a super state. The
| history of the people there is intertwined and national
| divisions are very much superimposed by ideologists.
| bwb wrote:
| It requires people to become more than what they are now, the
| same as when we didn't have nationalism and people made that
| leap "up"...
|
| People need to think beyond these tribes and up it a level. A
| random person from Bulgaria is very similar to a random
| person from Netherlands. I welcome the day that our tribe is
| Earth...
| mihaaly wrote:
| I belive there is a serious confusion here concerning the
| terms of nation, country, culture.
|
| EU is made of countries and having countries merged does not
| mean that cultures has to be, actually hundrends of cultures
| and subcultures live together with other cultures in present
| countries, even as parts of nations, even inside cultures
| (subcultures).
|
| It is a basic human need and necessity to collaborate,
| everybody wants and needs that!! (except those living in a
| lone grumpy bubble) Those not doing it are not really viable:
| see Yugoslavia. : )
|
| The EU - and in fact many many countries with hudreds of
| years of success - is made of and founded by former arch
| enemies btw....
| maigret wrote:
| Or Switzerland or Belgium. I'd argue that, by now, there are
| more differences (cultural, economic, political...) between
| parts of the countries, like cities vs countryside, than
| between countries.
| biscotte_ wrote:
| Not really... take a look at the average salary in Romania
| and compare to France of Luxembourg ...
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Isnt belgium unable to form a government for years? I don't
| know that Belgium is a diversity succeess story.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| What's wrong with not having the government? It looks
| like Belgium functions quite well on an administrative
| level that it doesn't really need a "government".
| joelbluminator wrote:
| A lot of countries would have loved to be Belgium, I
| agree. But we're making the case whether national
| diversity is good or not. If Belgium would have split to
| the flemish and french parts - why would that have been
| worse?
| C19is20 wrote:
| As a euperson i want it. And i know many more that would like
| the same. The bubble may be bigger than you think.
| reader_mode wrote:
| I think it doesn't matter how big the bubble is - you saw
| what happened with Brexit (and it got validated by EU
| handling of COVID crisis), now imagine what happens when
| the only option to leave is succession/civil war.
|
| There are independence tensions within European _countries_
| (eg. Spain /Basque, UK/Scotland).
|
| You have to be a blind idealist to think this would work.
| There are going to be a lot of crisis scenarios for EU in
| the next few decades, refugees being the looming one EU
| failed to reach a consensus on and botched previously (that
| helped radicalise parts of it like Hungary and further
| alienated UK). The pending post COVID inflation/economic
| shock could also storm the Euro zone, Greece is still
| devastated from the "bailouts" in the financial crisis.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > There are independence tensions within European
| countries (eg. Spain/Basque, UK/Scotland). > You have to
| be a blind idealist to think this would work
|
| You are confusing independence from nationalism. They are
| very different things and you can have the first without
| the second.
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| What is wrong with the EU handling of COVID crisis? We
| have vaccinated more people than the US and there was no
| major breakout since summer 2020. In constrast with the
| UK where restrictions have been draconic.
| reader_mode wrote:
| EU botched acquiring vaccine compares to most developed
| countries by months, in no small part due to the retarded
| mindset that pharma companies shouldn't profit off of
| this and trying to renegotiate prices forever (overriding
| some countries who tried to acquire it individually and
| would have gotten it faster).
|
| Measures were not dictated by EU, each country decided
| it's own policy.
| ginko wrote:
| The only large countries that did better were the UK and
| US due to banning the export of vaccines. It's mainly the
| UK trying to spin this as a propaganda win after BREXIT.
| reader_mode wrote:
| What other comparable developed countries are there ?
| Australia had it's own isolation thing so it's a
| different context entirely.
|
| Russia had vacation faster, China as well.
| ginko wrote:
| Japan and South Korea for instance, but what's your
| point?
| reader_mode wrote:
| That some EU members had deals for faster delivery and
| got overturned by EU causing a worse situation for those
| countries, just like UK would if it was a part of EU.
|
| Von der Leyen even said so herself, and she still
| believes it was the right thing to do to stifle the big
| countries in order to maintain the EU.
| ginko wrote:
| If Germany or the Netherlands decided to ban exports on
| vaccines they'd probably have had the highest vaccination
| rates on the planet. But that would just be selfish.
| Stifling big countries in favor of a fair distribution of
| vaccines WAS the right thing.
|
| What if some US state with most of the vaccine
| manufacturing had stopped the export of vaccine over
| state borders? Would that be fine by you because it's in
| their self interest?
| 3np wrote:
| Hardly Japan (it being a disconnected island nation)
| throwaway473825 wrote:
| > Russia had vacation faster, China as well.
|
| No, they did not. Here's a site where you can see the
| share of people vaccinated against COVID-19:
| https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Norway, Canada, Switzerland etc.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Russia had vacation faster, China as well.
|
| ... Wait, what makes you think that? Per OurWorldInData,
| except for a brief period in early January, EU total
| doses per capita have always been ahead of Russia and
| China, until June, when China drew ahead (Russia is still
| _far_ behind). And even then, that wasn't supply-driven;
| if you consider EU countries with high vaccine acceptance
| (Ireland, Germany, Denmark etc), those are still ahead of
| China; China overtook the EU as a whole due to vaccine
| reluctance in parts of the EU.
| biscotte_ wrote:
| Not UK's fault if whatever the EU does ends up a mess,
| whether trying to name a corridor in a Brussels building,
| or trying to have The European GPS up and running.
|
| Normal, with 27 participants all responding to different
| national and political interests. Try having a flatshare
| with 27 families and agreeing on how to paint the wall.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > EU botched acquiring vaccine compares to most developed
| countries by months, in no small part due to the retarded
| mindset that pharma companies shouldn't profit off of
| this and trying to renegotiate prices forever
|
| Eh, that's a dubious narrative. In practice, Europe made
| an at the time fairly reasonable-looking bet on the wrong
| horse; significant production problems were expected with
| mRNA vaccines, while no-one really expected big problems
| with viral vector vaccines.
|
| As it turned out, mRNA production went amazingly smoothly
| (to the point that overdelivery by Pfizer/Biontec largely
| saved the EU programme) while viral vector production was
| a _disaster_. If AZ and J&J had been able to deliver what
| they planned, or even modestly underdeliver, the issue of
| contracts would not have arisen.
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| Pharma companies should not profit off pandemics. It is
| an ethical thing to do. And beside that, I know that drug
| companies are heavily subsidised by state and their
| research is mostly done with tax-exempt money.
| reader_mode wrote:
| Profit is the strongest market incentive, you want them
| to profit and invest full on in this kind of research.
| And pharma profits insanely is still negligible to the
| loss due to delaying vaccine deployment, spending any
| nin-trivial amount of time negotiating prices is full on
| retarded from that perspective, not to mention protecting
| vulnerable groups ASAP.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > Because outside of your bubble nobody wants this.
|
| This is just dismissively asserrting your opinion as if it
| were fact. Where are your statistics on this?
| rorroe53 wrote:
| There are many practical problems to actually implementing this
| idea.
|
| First, money. Some parts of the EU are way richer than others,
| with superior welfare systems. If every EU citizen is to be
| truly equal, then that would mean same standards of government
| services and welfare everywhere, which would be costly to the
| richer states. Of course, alternatively we could lower
| standards everywhere, but that's not good for people.
|
| Then there's cultural, economic, geolocial differences in
| general, higher corruption in many members states of
| east/south... Plenty of things to consider. Leaders in some
| parts of the EU really won't understand the situation in other
| parts, which makes any kind of centralized government
| problematic. Perhaps a very decentralized model could work
| though, but then again that's not much different from what we
| have now.
|
| Also, nationalism is hardly "an ancient mentality". Healthy
| nationalism, a common idea and identity is something pretty
| much all well-functioning countries have. United States of
| Europe would never work without a common European identity, and
| controlled outer borders. Cultural differences between
| different parts of the world are still way too large for
| anything like democratic one world government to work.
| biscotte_ wrote:
| So if the concept of nation is ancient why do you want to
| create an EU... nation ????
| bagacrap wrote:
| On the contrary I think people would be happier in the US if it
| did split into multiple nations.
| bwb wrote:
| Would people be happier if they never faced any loss or
| conflict? I think the answer to that question is clearly no.
| Forget about the deeper question of what is real "happiness"
| and is that a meaningful goal in life...
|
| We are resilient and these current conflicts are merely the
| by product of growth, learning, and building a stronger
| community and culture.
| sharken wrote:
| I am not at all surprised by the popularity of Orban.
|
| An important part is the strong resistance to migrants, which
| would mean a great influx of mainly Arabs with an incompatible
| culture and religion compared to Europe.
|
| Look to Sweden to see how it goes when you allow too many
| migrants into a European country.
|
| On the other hand there are many serious problems with Orbans
| rule, e.g. trying to control the free press, not respecting the
| rights of LGBT.
|
| But to many hungarians it is better to have a controlled
| migration than all the listed downsides.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| This is what people in Austria said when the Hungarian people
| were allowed to work here. It was all hate and "they took our
| jobs".
|
| Many people in the west saw and see the eastern Europeans
| just as the eastern Europeans see the "Arabs".
|
| I'd honestly rather see my tax money spent on helping a
| refugee from Africa than see it funneled to corrupt Orban in
| Hungary.
| wrnr wrote:
| Lets merge all soccer clubs into one, then there will no longer
| be a need for matches since one club just has all the players
| they don't even need to be the best.
|
| Nationalism is a very recent affair, the idea that people and
| not just the nobility have nations is a 19 century concept.
| tome wrote:
| > Nationalism is a very recent affair, the idea that people
| and not just the nobility have nations is a 19 century
| concept.
|
| Is that right? Sounds like the opposite to me. The English
| King, German Kaiser and Russian Tsar during WWI were cousins.
|
| https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-kaiser-the-tsar-
| and-k...
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Yes. The German Kaiser was the result of the nationalist
| German speaking people uniting under the Prussian King.
| Russia had steadfastly rejected the ideas of nationalism
| and maintained the Tsar had the divine right to rule, and
| the British royalty was already largely a figurehead for
| the British "nation."
|
| There can exist nationalist monarchies, just the thing
| keeping then bound is not that they are the same rulers
| subjects.
| upgrejd wrote:
| Nationalism may be relatively young but tribalism has existed
| as long as humans. Nationalism just happens to be the most
| successful form of tribalism.
| jakub_g wrote:
| As someone who moved countries within the EU, I started looking
| at things from global perspective, and what matters today is
| the power balance between EU, US, China. Whereas within EU most
| countries still look at their own interest, fueled by
| politicians and their 4-5 years election periods. This is
| really sad, because the EU is digging their own grave.
|
| Re: your comment, it's not only on nation level. People have
| tendency to form groups and build their identity on "us vs
| them" basis. That's why you have rivalries between football
| clubs from different cities etc.
|
| Anyway, language and culture/history is a powerful thing that
| people can't get over in us-vs-them thinking. There's also
| business in play which collides with politics a lot. For
| example Germany are fine doing business with Russia, while for
| Poland, Lithuania and other Russia-bordering countries, RU is
| #1 evil and existential threat.
| [deleted]
| paganel wrote:
| > their nation over larger groups of human beings who are just
| like them.
|
| Because when the going gets really tough that abstract "human
| being" from across the Continent won't care at all about you,
| while at the same time the person geographically closer to you
| and who might belong to the same nation might prove to be a
| better ally. Just think of the Greece crisis of 2012 when the
| "human beings" from The Netherlands were generally just
| assholes to their fellow human beings who happened to live in
| Athens or in Thessaloniki.
| greendesk wrote:
| Or just think of the mirror statement. It is a practice to
| reverse a statement, to see if it logically consistent. Here,
| it will go:
|
| Or think of the Greece crisis of 2012 when the "human beings"
| from Greece were generally just assholes to their fellow
| human beings who happened to live in Slovenia, Munich or
| Denmark. Note that the Greek crisis included a transfer from
| poorer Slovenia to the richer Greece. Note that Greeks as a
| nation has a high savings - the money has been within Greece
| jurisdiction all along. Note that Greece has a high
| corruption rate.
|
| While the first statement stands, the use of Greek crisis of
| 2012 signifies the authority different jurisdictions have in
| aiming for effective administration.
| paganel wrote:
| > Note that Greece has a high corruption rate.
|
| Merkel actively lobbied for the corrupt Wirecard company in
| front of China officials while the company had been under
| investigation, afaik the highest Greek official has done no
| such vile and corrupt things. Unfortunately what Merkel did
| does not get counted in various "corruption charts" for
| various reasons (Orientalism being just one of them).
| seaknoll wrote:
| Isn't it all just a question of what scale is the "best"? I
| agree with your premise but in practice, determining the best
| policies on trade - much less issues like education and poverty
| - on a smaller scale is much more tractable than thinking in
| terms of ever larger subsets of the human race. We should be
| just as saddened by civilians dying in Iraq as the US, but that
| doesn't mean we know what's best for them in terms of any of
| the above. Any grouping of people advocating for themselves
| ultimately needs an organizing body, and the cycle of tribalism
| continues.
| bluthund wrote:
| What a sick mentality. Globalism and mass immigration is the
| destructor of culture.
|
| Nationalism is the only rational mentality for long term
| sustainability.
|
| A people should never be ruled by those who have no blood in
| the soil or by those who don't serve the needs of that people.
|
| Nationalism is what makes great nations. You can forget about
| that for a while and play the game of the inevitable failure of
| multiculturalism, but it will always fail, you will always
| destroy society, and from the ashes, a cohesive, homogeneous
| people will reemerge to build back from the ashes of your
| stupidity as has always been done
| bwb wrote:
| Eh? What a weird response and I can't tell if you are a troll
| given the age of your account...
|
| Globalism is one of the best things to happen to our planet.
| I look forward to the next 1,000 years and hopefully reaching
| a point where everyone realizes we have a responsibility to
| every other person on this planet, as well as the planet
| itself. And, that a base level of respect and acceptance
| should be granted to every person on this planet. Nationalism
| is an interesting step on which we climbed. But, it is an
| arbitrary marker to divide people and I look forward to
| history washing it away in xxx years.
|
| I do not think people should be ruled, I think people should
| rule themselves through some form of democracy.
|
| Are you advocating something other than democracy?
| nameequalsmain wrote:
| > Globalism and mass immigration is the destructor of
| culture.
|
| In what way? It might change the cultural landscape but that
| happens all the time, even the most nationalistic state does
| not have the exact same culture it did 100 years ago. Old
| culture will go away to make place for a new one, or rather,
| culture is always evolving.
|
| > You can forget about that for a while and play the game of
| the inevitable failure of multiculturalism, but it will
| always fail, you will always destroy society, and from the
| ashes, a cohesive, homogeneous people will reemerge to build
| back from the ashes of your stupidity as has always been done
|
| Do you have any examples?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| People are tribal by nature. They will get into fights because
| their neighbour supports the "wrong" sports club, and you can
| extend that up to any level. Within a country there's city vs
| city, city vs countryside, and above country level there's EU
| vs US, or "the west" vs "the east".
|
| People group together with others that share certain cultural
| values. Ever since borders, passports and standard languages
| have been the norm, this has only been reinforced.
|
| I don't feel culturally similar to many other European
| countries, most notable Hungary, Poland and some other
| countries that have been sliding towards the far right. I
| wouldn't want the people who voted Orban into power to outvote
| me, either.
|
| Grand unification of humanity is a good ideal, one we should
| work towards, but it's not something that will be possible
| within our lifetimes. There are very practical reasons against
| the North American Alliance; for example, Canada has socialised
| healthcare, while you can't even get the suggestion off the
| ground in the US. Such political differences don't just
| disappear.
|
| I don't want a European superstate because I disagree with most
| people that would live in it. My ideals would no longer be
| represented by my government. I think that's enough reason not
| to go for complete European unification. Opinions can change,
| so maybe some day we can all agree, but with Hungary fighting
| the free press and its people cheering Orban on, I can't say I
| expect this situation to change any time soon.
| Hokusai wrote:
| > People are tribal by nature.
|
| Maybe, but what "tribe" are you part of is completely fluid.
| Your tribe can be extremely inclusive or exclusive.
|
| > Grand unification of humanity is a good ideal, one we
| should work towards, but it's not something that will be
| possible within our lifetimes.
|
| And it is quite of inevitable as communication and travel
| becomes cheaper.
|
| > I don't want a European superstate because I disagree with
| most people that would live in it. My ideals would no longer
| be represented by my government. I think that's enough reason
| not to go for complete European unification.
|
| That is easily an argument against any form of government. No
| country would exist this way for good or bad. But they
| exists. As you said, bigger communities are a matter of time.
| What it would have been an impossible union 100 years ago it
| makes a lot of sense today.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "Maybe, but what "tribe" are you part of is completely
| fluid"
|
| There is a lot of friction when changing tribes. Especially
| if it means changing your religion, language and culture.
| Few people can make that jump.
|
| I would not call this "completely fluid".
| goodpoint wrote:
| On the contrary, studies clearly show that people are
| aligning themselves more and more with "tribes" that are
| based on a geographic area.
|
| Cheap travel and social networks made it possible.
|
| We are doing it right now on HN.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This only really concerns highly educated professionals
| who can speak fluent English or other lingua franca. We
| on the HN are precisely such a self-selected subset.
|
| But European electorates as such (and we are talking
| about the EU here) do not, in the big picture, resemble
| this self-selected elite, and elected politicians must
| take that into account or risk growth of populist parties
| thriving on topics where the general population and the
| elite disagrees.
| rorroe53 wrote:
| I would argue that a tribe at least need some kind of a
| common identity to remain strong, which by nature excludes
| it from people who lack that identity. An extremely
| inclusive tribe probably won't be a strong one with a sense
| of community. An example could be citizenship - we may not
| relate that much with someone just because he happens to
| live in the same country, compared to him being also our
| neighbour or colleague.
| snickerer wrote:
| > People are tribal by nature.
|
| By nature or not by nature -- they are in fact very tribal.
|
| But I see this as an argument for the United States of
| Europe. Let's give tribalism to the people in the USE. Big
| _cultural_ autonomy for all the regions! The government
| should fund all the locals' funny dances, clothes, and
| rituals.
|
| Having regional culture makes the average tribalist more
| happy than having nation wide culture, I believe.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > People are tribal by nature
|
| This is "appeal to nature" nonsense. Tribalism, just like
| every other social behavior, can be learned and unlearned.
|
| Imagine if someone was getting tribal along odd VS even
| apartment number or floor number. It would be seen as
| ridiculous just because it's not in line with the social
| construct indicating what to be tribal about.
|
| > People group together with others that share certain
| cultural values.
|
| By this logic, relocating across countries should be made
| illegal to prevent diluting culture. This would be
| ultranationalism.
|
| > I don't feel culturally similar to many other European
| countries
|
| Societies are not countries and are not people. We can be
| feel very disconnected from some societal values and yet find
| similar minded individuals in it.
|
| > Grand unification of humanity is a good ideal, one we
| should work towards, but it's not something that will be
| possible within our lifetimes.
|
| Citation needed. Humanity has never seen the level of culture
| and information sharing that is happening now.
|
| For the first time in history some 15 years old girl in
| Vietnam can watch at a viral meme put on social media by an
| equally young boy from Canada. Practically for free and with
| no effort.
|
| > Such political differences don't just disappear.
|
| History shows otherwise. Big, unexpected grass-root social
| changes happen. Especially under the pressure from climate
| collapse and so on.
| jollybean wrote:
| Why not abolish the EU?
|
| EU nationalism is actually stronger than local nationalism in
| many circles - I rarely see comments defending any nation state
| here (except the Swiss, cough, cough, mostly kidding) but any
| criticism of the EU is met with zealotry.
|
| More pragmatically, the EU makes little sense as anything but
| an economic block.
|
| The notion that Germans and Greeks are going to accept real
| transfer payments, common taxation, common fiscal policy and
| similar rights to healthcare quality is basically ... bonkers.
| Germany would be the first to split.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Nationalism is an ancient mentality_
|
| Not just nationalism, but _tribalism_.
|
| That's why the US has such an appalling record of bias. Each
| new wave of immigrants (not to mention the ones that were here,
| to start with, and those that were dragged over, against their
| will) has been met with torrents of hatred, abuse, and state-
| sanctioned terror. In most cases, it had little to do with skin
| color, and everything to do with cultural differences.
|
| When I lived in Africa, I saw tribalism writ large. It gets
| _bad_. If we think it 's only in the developing world, then we
| simply need to look at what happened to Yugoslavia, after Tito
| died.
|
| I think that tribalism is in our DNA, and it takes a real,
| concerted, conscious, effort to fight it. That's hard,
| humbling, work, and most folks aren't up for it.
|
| Externally-imposed structure (Tito) works, but it's a temporary
| band-aid.
| bwb wrote:
| Agreed, it is going to take time to change this cultural
| response to what is different/new. We are not purely slaves
| to our DNA, but it will be an upward battle. Government and
| business can improve this and have. As does time :)
| swiley wrote:
| When you get big enough it's hard to hold people accountable.
| The US federal government is almost too big already.
| dalbasal wrote:
| >> Nationalism is an ancient mentality
|
| In some sense, maybe... The foundations are ancient. But...
|
| The "world order" where the globe is divided into nation states
| is quite new. Before that, multinational empires were the
| dominant mode. We tend to think of west european empires as the
| canonical: french, british and spanish. These empires had clear
| "home countries," so the dynamic was "nation ruling other
| nations."
|
| Other empires were more ambiguous. EG the Austro Hungarian
| Empire & the Ottoman empires. They had capitals, centres of
| power and such. But, geographic and ethnic national boundaries
| were much fuzzier within these empires.
|
| The border changes, forced migrations and ethnic cleansing that
| created the modern nation state world happened mostly within
| the last 100 years. Take Warsaw, for example. Before WW2,
| ethnic Poles were about 50% of the population. Jews & Germans
| were the next biggest groups. This was typical of european
| cities. After the war, Warsaw and Poland within its new borders
| was/is >90% Polish. Also typical. Meanwhile, countries like
| Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Northern Ireland & Belgium that
| didn't fit into the "nation state" template were pretty
| unstable.
|
| The USSR's dissolution pretty much cemented a world order where
| nation states dominate. That's recent.
|
| What you are advocating for is, by some definition, the
| establishment of an EU Empire. Maybe a democratic empire is
| possible, but we don't really have example to draw on.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| We barely trust 'our' own representatives and you want us to
| trust those other guys?
|
| In all seriousness, the issue is trust. And I have no idea how
| we could possibly get there as a human kind.
| bwb wrote:
| I trust my reps to be human, and I trust anyone else to be
| human as that is what they all are :)
|
| It might take a hundred or a thousand years, but that is
| where I'd like to see us go. And, it seems like that is where
| we are going given the global nature of business. Do you
| think people working at FB or Google who are working with
| people in 15+ countries don't realize how similar we all are?
| And, that this entire concept of nations is largely a farce?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I like that optimism and am hoping.
|
| To your point:
|
| But what kind of human are they? Do they share belief A? Do
| they use position B on Tuesdays? Do they not associate with
| Cs? Do they have righteous gene D?
| bwb wrote:
| Ya agreed, it is going to take some time but a good place
| to aim for :)
|
| I'd like to see a shared believe that we are all human
| beings who are not that different in the grand scheme of
| things. And that everyone is worth a base level of
| respect. That seems like a good place to aim for.
|
| And... still thinking on this one... but I think that the
| quickest way to lose that base level of respect is if you
| are someone who advocates that someone else is not worthy
| of that base level of respect. I am blown away by how
| many people define themselves by who they
| hate/dislike/don't-understand, and somehow that becomes a
| rally cry for their identity. It is a weird mentality.
|
| The conflict between being in society and an individual
| is a hard one. I always like to imagine a global system
| where you opt into a legal system / social contract of
| your choice. I'll take Shite law, or I'll take the
| American society contract, or I'll take Chinese CCP
| contract, or Nordic contract....
| workallday21 wrote:
| You are naive.
| mayank_vashisht wrote:
| It'd be interesting to learn how the NSO group's marketing
| worked. Did NSO go knocking on the doors of all these despotic
| regimes? Or was it the other way around?
|
| And what was the hand of the Israeli government in the deal-
| making? For instance, reports state that the spying in India
| began right after the India's PM met with Netanyahu in 2017 [1]
| So was NSO actively backed by the government?
|
| Sigh. So many questions.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/19/key-modi-
| rival-...
| Vaderv wrote:
| Thank you tje country that made it
| haspok wrote:
| TL;DR: the government hacking into private mobile phones is
| completely legal practice according to Hungarian laws and nobody
| can be held responsible for it.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > The son and one of the closest confidants of former oligarch
| Lajos Simicska. They were both selected as targets before the
| Hungarian national election of April 2018. Back then, Simicska
| was the owner of a media empire, and he was openly waging war
| against the Orban government. (It would have been futile to
| target Simicska with this spyware as he did not use smartphones.)
|
| There's literally no winning here. You can literally disconnect
| from the internet and they'll just target the people around
| you...
| alexseman wrote:
| Haha so many comments from the SV & Bruxelles globo-homo bubble.
|
| Hungary is a sovereign nation with a freely elected body of
| leaders who uphold the national, traditional & Christian values
| on which it is founded and which allowed this nation's continuity
| throughout history.
|
| Get over it.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Orban is a cancer on Europe, i really the EU has a decent
| response this time.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Sure, and Orban would have never been able to have so much
| power if EU wouldn't give so much free money to him without
| verifying where that money goes.
| tarere wrote:
| > "Orban is a cancer on Europe"
|
| Orban too little "woke" ? One would say "EU is a cancer for
| european nations and people", I strongly think that this
| techno-totalitarist institution is on the brink of total
| collapse. Brexit first, Hungary, Poland, I sure hope France is
| next with our "startup nation" CEO.
|
| French people voted NO to EU in 2005, it was forced upon us.
| You may argue as much as you want EU and its supra-national
| institutions are not a democratic process.
|
| If EU was good for Europe, US would not have set it up back in
| the days. Everything is about power. Before it was power of
| nations, now it is obviously power from a selected few over the
| mass, supra-national oligarchy.
| biscotte_ wrote:
| Always funny to see the europhiles say how much they love
| europe... but... the Hungarians this... and the lazy greeks
| that... and the Luxembourg cheaters... and the Polish that...
| yes of course they are very "tolerant, "humanists", etc, but
| dont you dare step out of the very fine line of what THEIR
| europe is.
| dstick wrote:
| I read in the newspaper today that the EU issued an ultimatum
| to Poland: get rid of the unlawful special court that deems
| itself above the EU law, or face repercussions. Finally they're
| growing some teeth.
|
| https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/europea...
|
| However, after Googling for an online source, I came across
| this article about another ultimatum for justice reform in
| 2017, and things only got worse after that :-/
|
| https://euobserver.com/justice/138627
| jollybean wrote:
| And how does the EU justify it's legal supremacy?
|
| Where do they get that right? By treaty?
|
| Or perhaps the European Court of Justice simply 'ruled' that
| it's laws were 'supreme' in a bizarre act of defining it's
| own jurisdiction outside of treaty agreements?
|
| Europeans _never agreed_ to give the ECJ supremacy. The ECJ
| just 'took' that power.
|
| It's a baffling bit of legal history [1][2] and it
| demonstrates just how powerful these institutions can become
| outside of democratic norms.
|
| A quote: "The principle was derived from an interpretation of
| the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law
| has priority over any contravening national law, including
| the constitution of a member state itself. The majority of
| national courts have generally recognized and accepted this
| principle, except for the part where European law outranks a
| member state's constitution. As a result, national courts
| have also reversed the right to review the conformity of EU
| law with national constitutional law."
|
| Because of this and the resulting vaguery, it's still not
| always perfectly clear which 'court' is supreme in exactly
| what ways.
|
| The Germans resolve that EU laws cannot contradict their
| Basic Law - to be determined by their own Supreme Court,
| which is kind of a backwards way of saying 'our national
| courts still have supremacy'.
|
| It would be pretty interesting to see Poland take on the ECJ
| in this case, because it might cause an EU level
| constitutional crisis as they'd probably challenge the
| legitimacy of the 'Supremacy' ruling from 1964 that set the
| precedent.
|
| It's not as clear cut as the headlines would have us believe,
| like for example a US State taking on the Supreme Court.
|
| Even in Canada, the provincial leaders invoke Constitutional
| shenanigans to make up their own laws that can't be rescinded
| by the constitution.
|
| We'll have to see what happens.
|
| [1] https://eur-
| lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/primacy_of_eu_law...
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law
| mariusor wrote:
| In your post you seem to imply that European Law has
| precedence over national laws in all cases. As your first
| link details a couple paragraphs down, it's not so, it only
| covers those where nations submit to EU sovereignty
| explicitly:
|
| > It should be noted that the primacy of EU law only
| applies where EU countries have ceded sovereignty to the EU
| -- fields such as the single market, environment,
| transport, etc. However, it does not apply in areas such as
| social policy and taxation.
| jollybean wrote:
| 1) True - but was 'sovereignty ceded'? By legislative
| vote? Referendum? Treaty?
|
| Not so much. It was 'ceded' when the ECJ 'took' the
| power. 'Ceding' wasn't a vote or referendum, it was more
| or less recognizing the ECJ's power grab. Justices in the
| national courts started 'recognizing' the ruling, and
| because France has a weird constitutional basis in 1958
| which recognizes treaties above their own law ... ECJ
| becomes the supreme court.
|
| Nobody voted for it. There was no specific legislation.
| There was no specific treaty. It just happened like legal
| dominos falling over one another after a niche court
| ruling.
|
| In Germany, we are not really sure what the situation is.
| The Germans said that their federal court could 'review'
| ECJ rulings, but never did. So what is the legal
| standing? Well the FCC (Germany) finally did take an ECJ
| case to task in 2020 and now ECJ Supremacy will be
| tested.
|
| It's basically crazy that in 2021 nobody really knows who
| the Supreme Court is in Europe and in what areas. Here is
| the case. [1]
|
| By the way - the French recognition of ECJ rulings
| depends on reciprocity, meaning, they only respect the
| rulings if the other states do. If Germany decides that
| it's courts have jurisdiction in Germany ... then this
| puts France's recognition of ECJ in jeopardy. (They did a
| constitutional review 20 years ago and had to ensure this
| 'reciprocity' which will be called into question by this
| Germany 2020 FCC case.)
|
| It's basically kind of absurd that there is this much
| ambiguity in one of the major pillars of liberal
| democracy.
|
| 2) Yes, as you point out, the ECJ specific areas, but
| notably, the 'The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the
| European Union' is a vague, and therefore very widely
| scoping document. In Canada, after the introduction of
| such a charter, a whole host of laws where overthrown and
| the Supreme Court changes their minds about things and do
| as they please with vague wording such as 'freedom of
| expression and conscience' etc.. So this brings up some
| complicated questions for the EU as well on this. Rulings
| on this charter can delve into anything.
|
| [1] https://www.clydeco.com/en/insights/2020/05/germanys-
| federal...
| [deleted]
| dogma1138 wrote:
| It's hard to issue these ultimatums when in Germany the
| constitution is supreme too and the courts would and do take
| it over EU law when there is conflict.
| trasz wrote:
| Except they don't. Please don't spread polish government's
| propaganda.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Except they do https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-
| prepares-legal-action-aga...
|
| Overall the EU has about the same number of procedures
| open against Germany as they do against Poland, both are
| pretty high on the list Germany is #5 Poland is #4.
| volta83 wrote:
| While the German court ruled against the EU, the German
| government immediately complied with EU law.
|
| Those in the EU suing Germany for its court decision here
| are actually German, and are only doing this to establish
| legal precedent.
|
| This makes it a completely different situation than
| what's going on with Hungary and Poland.
| trasz wrote:
| Except they don't; there's no similarities between those
| cases other than the courts being involved. The German
| case has nothing to do with the government openly
| ignoring its own constitution.
| desine wrote:
| How terrible that local laws, written and enacted by the
| voting population they preside over, take precedent over
| international laws written and enacted by legislators several
| times more distantly removed from the population.
|
| Hopefully the UN gets enough funding to occupy the roles of
| state and municipal police soon. Then we can free the common
| man from the tyranny of local government.
| raverbashing wrote:
| You're free to write all local laws you want and the rest
| of the world is free to not buy anything for you and give
| you one cent for anything.
| majgr wrote:
| First, these local laws were against Polish Constitution,
| because politicians cannot influence judiciary and now they
| can and do, thus, breaking Rule of Law. Second, in Polish
| Constitution international agreements take precedence over
| local laws. By that EU Tribunal is actually defending
| Polish Constitution.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The whole point of international law is that countries
| choose to commit to following the same laws. There's no
| point signing any treaty if you're not planning on actually
| applying its legislation.
|
| If people they don't like the laws they've committed
| themselves to, they can choose not to follow them anymore.
| However, the advantages they receive in return, in this
| case the freedoms and economic benefits of being in the EU,
| will also disappear if they decide to play by their own
| rules. With the massive benefits Poland has gotten from the
| EU, I don't think it's in their interest to leave,
| especially since it doesn't have the negotiating power the
| UK had (and Brexit has been a series of catastrophes
| nonetheless).
|
| Nobody is forcing these people to follow foreign laws, it's
| just that they want the benefits without doing anything in
| return. The EU is not just a trade bloc, it's an
| institution to create a shared European ideal. They may not
| like the deal, but they're free to refuse it and negotiate
| a better one.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > How terrible that local laws, written and enacted by the
| voting population they preside over
|
| They're written by the politicians who were voted into
| power and who have certain vested interests in voting them.
| They were not voted by a population, sorry.
| trasz wrote:
| Erm, the root of the problem is that polish government is
| breaking polish law, in particular the constitution. It's
| not "polish constitution against EU", it's "polish
| government against polish constitution and the EU".
| blfr wrote:
| > polish government is breaking polish law, in particular
| the constitution
|
| This is either not true or impossible to tell because
| Polish constitution was really poorly written with very
| many issues being delegated to lower acts. The
| Constitutional Tribunal gets to freely decide what is or
| isn't against the constitution and current Tribunal
| judges are favourable to the gov.
|
| It's as if the US constitution was stitched from multiple
| Commerce Clauses. The SCOTUS could rewrite it on the fly
| (they already do to some extent).
| Dah00n wrote:
| >Hopefully the UN gets enough funding to occupy the roles
| of state and municipal police soon. Then we can free the
| common man from the tyranny of local government.
|
| Yeah, then you will all become yanks with government in
| Washington you can't vote for (why are we suddenly talking
| about the UN?)
| ipatec wrote:
| Between the power/control being taken over by someone elected
| and supported by most of his country or being taken over by
| some bigger organization like EU with very twisted interests...
| well.. I thing the first is preferred.
| labster wrote:
| I'm sure he'll get a huge GDPR fine for using transferring that
| much PII without consent. And not even one cookie warning! How
| much is 4% of Hungary's GDP?
| jsbdk wrote:
| I'm not defending his actions as I have no horse in this race,
| but he seems to have the support of his country - why should
| the EU be above that?
| meibo wrote:
| Because they are an EU member, which comes with certain
| obligations and values.
|
| If you don't want that part of the deal, you shouldn't get
| the money either.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| Because any country that joins the EU agrees with the
| European Union Treaties in a legally binding way, and among
| other things these guarantee certain minimal democratic
| standards and human rights in the European Convention on
| Human Rights. The government of a country cannot just pick
| those parts of signed and ratified treaties they happen to
| like at one time or another and reap the benefits of
| membership without also fulfilling corresponding requirements
| and duties.
|
| They would have to leave the EU first, which they are free to
| do at any time. Of course, then they would also not get any
| membership benefits.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| This doesn't matter if the elected winner is on the wrong
| team. See: the history of Egypt in the last 30 years.
| tobltobs wrote:
| The EU shouldn't be above that. But when Hungary doesn't like
| the rules of the EU it should leave. Of course it never will,
| as it is depending on the 3.000.000.000 Euro yearly support.
| upgrejd wrote:
| Why would they leave when they can have the cake and eat
| it?
| ipatec wrote:
| Those 3b are such a simplistic narrative. How much money do
| Western companies make in Hungary due to EU? The reality is
| that EU is mostly a neo-colonial project where the East
| Europe is depleted of resources (especially human capital)
| and treated as nothing more than a marketplace for W
| European products.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| What a load of bullcrap to be polite. I hear this from
| various eastern far right wing supporters quite a bit,
| and it isn't based on any facts, just some wishful
| thinking.
|
| Hungary is a net receiver of direct money subsidies. The
| fact is most of it is stolen by government-aligned forces
| within economy, this is a well-oiled machine in place for
| a long time. Western companies come to Hungary because
| its cheap force, despite being generally lower quality
| than west, many of which would be rather unemployed
| otherwise and probably migrate west or live miserable
| life on social support.
|
| The simple problem is, and that's not just Hungary but
| all countries in the east, there aren't enough big
| domestic companies that would be successful and employ
| people. Most failed long time ago, most really skilled
| people went west since life is simply so much better
| elsewhere. Why bother with corrupt semi-dictators, when
| you can thrive in fair and just society not so far.
|
| If you have kids/plan them, its a no brainer - all
| parents want the best for their kids, and giving them
| such a bad starting position in life in a fucked up
| corrupt primitive environment like eastern Europe is
| really just selfish acting at best. I know what I am
| talking about, I am coming from one of those places. Its
| not about how many good things are still there, but the
| amount of bad, and not just some top politics. Society is
| rotten on many, if not all levels. And there is no hope
| for change, not for the better for sure.
|
| Eastern Europe, like many other poor places in the world,
| is depleted of human capital because its simply such a
| crappy place to live. Its not a conspiracy, rather result
| of people wanting better lives for themselves and their
| children.
| ipatec wrote:
| >Western companies come to Hungary because its cheap
| force, despite being generally lower quality than west
|
| I doubt the average Hungarian is of "lower quality" than
| the average Belgian (I live in Belgium and I lived in
| Romania and UK as well) - when it comes to people doing
| manufacturing jobs you refer to I'd say that E Europe has
| a more solid and reliable human capital.
|
| >in the east, there aren't enough big domestic companies
| that would be successful and employ people
|
| Before the collapse of communism E Europe was perfectly
| capable to keep all their population in employment. Sure
| those companies were not prepared to compete in an open
| market and were decimated by their Western counter-parts.
| Today E Europe cannot strong competitors (although that
| is changing in sectors like IT) primarily due to the open
| market (impossible to compete with somebody that has 10x
| your capital; even when some promising E European actor
| appears, gets acquired by some W European company before
| it manages to pass a certain size)
|
| But besides the point, check the unemployment rate in any
| E European country and most fair way better than their
| Wester coutner-parts.
|
| > Eastern Europe, like many other poor places in the
| world, is depleted of human capital because its simply
| such a crappy place to live.
|
| Quite a broad unsubstantiated statement. What is crappy?
| The fact that most people are able to own a house while
| in countries like Belgium is getting impossible to buy
| anything for young people? The nature? The job
| opportunities that are plenty due to continuous and fast
| growth? I don't recall last time a new large corporation
| entered Brussels in the past 10 years.
|
| The main issue is that there is a salary gap. A middle
| class salary in Hungary gives you a similar standard of
| living and lifestyle as a middle class salary in Belgium.
| But working in Belgium temporarily and planning a return
| to let's say Hungary... gives you an even better
| potential lifestyle. That is the issue. The gaps were too
| big to have an open market and there's little focus on
| closing the gaps.
| [deleted]
| tester34 wrote:
| >Eastern Europe, like many other poor places in the
| world, is depleted of human capital because its simply
| such a crappy place to live.
|
| What makes you think that it's crappy place to live (e.g
| Poland)? except politics
| jq-r wrote:
| Because unless you're rich, you're not living, you're
| surviving. And those are vastly different things.
| trasz wrote:
| Apart from economy, healthcare, pensions, schooling, and
| law enforcement? :-)
|
| Food's good, though.
| tester34 wrote:
| I do agree that higher edu institutions tend to be mehh
| unless you attend country's top, but law enforcement?
|
| what do you mean? fighting corruption?
| trasz wrote:
| Poland's top universities - both of them - are at the
| very end of international rankings. As for law
| enforcement - it's just horribly ineffective. A trivial
| open and shut software piracy case can last a decade.
| tester34 wrote:
| >Poland's top universities - both of them - are at the
| very end of international rankings.
|
| It's hard to compare universities, unless you have
| attended both of them
|
| Innovation output != Quality of teaching
|
| Polish "computer-related" people are very often in top
| when it comes to e.g security (src: https://ctftime.org/)
| and top universities grads tends to have open doors to
| faang
|
| I've seen people from both of those groups speaking very
| good about the schools they attended
| trasz wrote:
| Polish "computer-related people" can come out well even
| without graduating. This doesn't say much about
| universities.
|
| Let me put this way: I know people who graduated in
| Computer Science, in Poland, who can't program. Not in
| some particular language; they can't write programs, they
| just don't quite get the idea.
| tobltobs wrote:
| Hungary has a trade surplus with the EU.
| ipatec wrote:
| Of course. Check the largest exporters... yea... mainly
| German companies. That surplus ain't staying in Hungary
| tobltobs wrote:
| what are you trying to say? Hungary has a trade surplus
| against Germany.
| ipatec wrote:
| where are the profits going? if a German company opens a
| factory in Hungary where it produces let's sau Automotive
| parts of course Hungary develops a trade surplus. they
| sell automotive parts to Germany. however the profits of
| the German HU subsidiary will all go back to Germany.
| that trade surplus means nothing.
| majgr wrote:
| It means that GDP per capita rises, isn't it good?
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Hungary benefits much more of the EU. That's how it works
| in the short term. In the long term it's hoping to level
| up Hungary as a whole so we can have more trade with it.
|
| ( Speaking as a citizen of Belgium)
| gznyirfa wrote:
| Actually, the laws of elections have been "fixed" by Orban as
| a very first step - and media completely taken over to stream
| 100% propaganda 24/7 as a second step - so the "support"
| behind Orban is just like behind any other modern
| dictatorship - that uses mass media manipulation and election
| system upgrades instead of tortures and prisons.
| pestaa wrote:
| I'm not sure the premise is certain - in the last election
| his party received slightly less than half of the votes,
| however voting laws were altered in their own favor (managed
| to get super majority with <50% votes).
|
| My feeling is that even most of his voters don't like him,
| they just hate change more.
| poisonborz wrote:
| If there is one single lasting international effect of Orban and
| his party, it's how he demonstrated how EU is completely helpless
| against rouge states (as well). The delicate political balance of
| its parliamental politics make it impossible to react to any
| complex, even if lethal threats. The EU funds and fuels a
| Belorussian-style regime in its own heartland for a decade now,
| and all they can do are angry notices and legal disputes that
| take years without a noteworthy resolution. Due to how alliances
| within the union work - Hungary has the full support of Poland
| and the V4 - any major blowback would result in shattering
| itself.
| rini17 wrote:
| "Hungary has the full support of Poland and the V4"
|
| Oversimplified view. There was common interest of V4 against
| accepting refugees, but Czech & Slovak rep. generally support
| EU's side in judicial and media independence issues.
|
| Elsewhere, German automakers have vast investments in the
| eastern EU and they have been holding Merkel back against
| Orban, together with conservative faction of CDU.
| js8 wrote:
| > Czech & Slovak rep. generally support EU's side in judicial
| and media independence issues
|
| In Czechia, I wish that was true, but our current prime
| minister Andrej Babis is actually openly admiring Orban, and
| playing up the same nationalistic politics (before the
| upcoming elections in October). I am not sure he would
| necessarily support media and judicial independence if it
| came down to that.
| [deleted]
| rini17 wrote:
| Oh, same with recent Slovak governments, they say one thing
| at home and another toward EU. But it is only populism as
| usual that the EU could eventually work out. So far.
| krzyk wrote:
| And here in Poland we already have problems since few
| years, people that oppose judicial and media independence
| are in charge, elected mostly by elderly and eastern parts
| of the country.
| peteretep wrote:
| > German automakers ... have been holding Merkel back against
| Orban
|
| Between this, Nord Stream 2, etc, Germany's commercial elite
| are having more and more to answer for...
| cabalamat wrote:
| > Hungary has the full support of Poland and the V4 - any major
| blowback would result in shattering itself.
|
| Countries can only be kicked out of the EU with unanimity of
| all states except the one being kicked out. But Poland and
| Hungary have a pact to support each other, so that can't
| happen. I suspect though that if Hungary and Poland pissed off
| the EU in a big way, the other states would all leave and
| simultaneously form a new EU2021.
| mcosta wrote:
| EU can't do anything because many other countries are doing the
| same.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Orban exists because of EU overreach. If the Brussels set
| weren't intent on turning the EU into a federal United States
| of Europe, none of these "rogue states" (a completely absurd
| label for Hungary, btw) would have any political interest in
| Fidesz/PiS/etc.
| jq-r wrote:
| Wrong. EU is the boogeyman for the governments in Eastern
| Europe. Whatever unpopular move they make, EU gets blamed for
| it.
|
| It is easy to blame some entity everyone knows exits, but at
| the same time, that entity is more like a group which doesn't
| fight back against it. Even if they fight back and criticize
| the government here and there, the latter own the media and
| that becomes a non-story.
|
| Right wing governments always need a boogeyman to rally
| against. Today it is EU, LGBT+ groups, Roma etc. Tomorrow it
| might be you and me.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Sorry but this is a caricature. These countries were dying
| to join the West 30 years ago. Orban himself was one of the
| most prominent pro-West figures in the 90s.
|
| The only reason these countries are now "hostile" is
| because the EU and the West have changed.
| dathos wrote:
| I feel like you're missing a few key points that have
| also changed. I think almost everything is different from
| 30 years ago, not just the west and EU.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Of course but I don't think it's controversial to say
| that the "problem" EU countries are quite happy with a
| 1990s vision of Europe, while the West isn't.
| jq-r wrote:
| So what's your point then? Of course stuff changes in 20
| or 30 years. Everyone wanted to join the EU. They've
| joined, and for the last 20 years the elites are reaping
| the benefits.
|
| And that doesn't change the fact that there is a very
| strong anti EU sentiment among the Eastern European
| population. Did the EU screw them? They did not. Who did?
| Those same politicians now blaming EU for 30 years of
| their own corruption, suppression of freedoms, stalling
| and maintaining status quo.
|
| Here we had war which ended 26 fucking years ago. No war
| can do as much damage as corruption and incompetence. And
| somehow EU gets blamed for it. I understand that EU is no
| saint, but what we have here is a disaster happening in
| slow motion.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Because these countries joined an organization with X
| agenda which now has Y agenda. This change (and
| demonization of anyone against it) is what gives
| politicians like Orban ammo.
|
| If the EU were more decentralized, none of these
| political parties would exist.
| jq-r wrote:
| My whole point is that "EU-talk" is just a convenient
| scapegoat. It even doesn't matter if EU exists or not.
| Those crooks like Orban don't need a solid boogeyman,
| everything is good for them. Be it EU, "Communists",
| Jews, Roma, gays, trans, immigrants, dwarfs, Serbs,
| Croats, Albanians, hairy women or aliens, there is always
| someone else to blame for their own problems.
|
| This is what fuels these guys. The tanking economy of
| their own doing which leaves citizens poorer and poorer.
| So they take away the money with one hand, and point to
| someone else with another.
|
| EU has its own internal problems and huge overhead, and I
| agree it doesn't help the situation, but blaming EU for
| Orban's success is naive.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| The only reason Orban is the way he is and Fidesz exists
| is because of the overreach of the EU.
|
| Study the history of Orban himself. He isn't just some
| random right wing nut. He was a part of the first wave of
| liberalization in the 90s and was very pro-West.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Is it better to shatter itself, or to have this within it? Do
| you want the EU to be smaller, or to be a bloc without ideals?
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| I'd argue that it's in their interests. Right populist politics
| and bland status quo centrism need the other to justify
| themselves. Bland centrism needs the threat of the right to
| keep the left in their box (see Biden, Macron, Chirac), then
| through representing the interests of the status-quo and not
| addressing any systemic change they create the conditions for
| right populists.. and so it goes on.
| TheFreim wrote:
| > helpless against rouge states
|
| Is Hungary a rogue state?
| b0rsuk wrote:
| From the perspective of EU, it is a rogue state. It acts in
| concert with Putin and Kremlin to destabilize EU.
| dreen wrote:
| > Hungary has the full support of Poland and the V4
|
| this is not going to last forever, its already diminished a lot
| since 2015
| bwb wrote:
| It takes time, good systems move slow :)
| paganel wrote:
| > The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime
|
| Afaik Orban's party has won the last rounds of elections pretty
| conclusively, with no fraud allegations involved (unlike what
| currently happens in the US, I'm talking about election fraud
| allegations). What's with this "Belorussian-style regime"
| nonsense?
| mod50ack wrote:
| Fidesz did win the last election. Part of this has to do with
| a number of scandals from the previous Socialist government
| (before 2010), part of this has to do with the hybrid
| electoral system (half gerrymandered FPTF, half proportional
| party-list) and part of this has to do with horrendous
| organization of all non-Fidesz parties.
|
| Now all the major opposition parties have united into a
| single electoral slate for the next election. Primary
| elections are being held for the first time to determine the
| compositions of the electoral slate. One minor problem is
| that the coalition would be very incongruous. But hey, still
| gonna vote for them (personal opinion).
|
| But while it is not a dictatorship, it is, as Orban himself
| puts it, an "illiberal democracy". And the government's
| attitudes and laws create a ton of problems. And that's not
| even getting into the corruption and so on...
| chpatrick wrote:
| The last election they won fair and square was 2010. After
| that, one of their first acts was to modify the previously
| proportional electoral system to ensure that they get a
| supermajority in parliament despite winning 40%. Since then,
| they've had full control over the constitution and the law
| despite 60% of the country not voting for them, and all
| "debate" has been pointless.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Hungary#The_votin.
| ..
| chx wrote:
| > Afaik Orban's party has won the last rounds of elections
| pretty conclusively, with no fraud allegations involved
| (unlike what currently happens in the US, I'm talking about
| election fraud allegations).
|
| You are partially right: they won the elections conclusively.
| However, their supermajority was due to fraud. I am not even
| sure whether that can even be called "allegations" at this
| point, it's more like "everyone knew on election night
| already but what could you do".
|
| I think the best description of the events in English can be
| found at https://www.unhackdemocracy.eu/en/investigation
| Summary:
|
| > Unhack Democracy's year-long investigation into the April
| 2018 Hungarian Parliamentary elections indicates Prime
| Minister Viktor Orban secured his one-seat supermajority
| thanks to a combination of outright fraud, gerrymandering and
| by engineering the electoral system.
|
| > Our findings reveal extensive polling station
| irregularities including forged voter logs and intimidation
| of ballot counters; a suspicious ticket splitting rate twice
| as likely in areas where there we no opposition delegates;
| electoral clientelism involving large-scale vote buying and
| intimidation of voters, the unlawful transportation of voters
| from Ukraine, Romania and Serbia; missing absentee ballots;
| and a mysterious failure of national election software.
|
| And the full version goes into "fake" parties and more.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Sure they did. I also think Lukashenko would have also won
| most of his elections if they were democratic, losing maybe
| only the last one marginally. Same with the Chinese communist
| party. To no surprise - if your people sit on all levels of
| the government, if you control the media and the public
| discourse, if you persecute anyone having any chance against
| you, you win. This doesn't mean other countries need to
| support this. And voicing an opinion against these tactics
| isn't "meddling in national affairs" as these governments
| like to tout.
| f6v wrote:
| This sort of implies people can't think for themselves. By
| this logic, the liberal countries are only liberal because
| the media tells the people to be liberal. Maybe you're
| right.
| mlang23 wrote:
| Yes, that sounds about right. "public opinion" is
| constructed, covid showed that pretty nicely.
| krzyk wrote:
| Nope, because there are different media available, and
| one can watch/listen/read those.
|
| In Orban like states you loose that free access to all
| media and you are forced into the state one.
|
| For those that are not aware countries that were under
| former Soviet boots all have a state television, which is
| the default source of information for older people (they
| are used to it), whichever party wins the elections sets
| up this TV broadcast to their liking.
|
| All other TV broadcasters need to have a special
| privilege approved by the state - do you see what can
| happen here?
| f6v wrote:
| > For those that are not aware countries that were under
| former Soviet boots all have a state television
|
| Most countries in the world have state-owned television.
|
| > In Orban like states you loose that free access to all
| media and you are forced into the state one.
|
| So many people own smartphones and have internet access.
| Even older ones, who learn to use them faster than PCs.
| People can consume whatever media they want. And people
| can certainly teach their parents how to consume non-
| government news.
| Amhaengosa wrote:
| > Most countries in the world have state-owned
| television. Yes, but not state-owned television almost
| exclusively. The Orban government managed to buy out
| pretty much every independent TV channel leaving
| basically only RTLklub which is free-to-air and available
| anywhere in the country.
|
| > So many people own smartphones and have internet
| access. Even older ones, who learn to use them faster
| than PCs. People can consume whatever media they want.
| And people can certainly teach their parents how to
| consume non-government news.
|
| Still not everyone has access to the internet, especially
| in rural areas. For some people the only news source is
| television and the radio, both which are predominantly
| owned by the government.
| f6v wrote:
| Don't want to downplay the government's role in shaping
| the public opinion. But quick check shows that the number
| of internet users is well over 50%, which gives a good
| shot at winning at election if one decides to defeat the
| government.
| porkbrain wrote:
| I'd like to stress the "_may happen_" in the parent's
| post. I'd argue that in Czech Republic the state TV (CT)
| works well so far. One cannot filter out out biases from
| journalism completely, but in general the quality of
| production is a good indicator to me that they do have
| processes in place which try to address some biases. In
| my eyes on average CT wins compared to the private TV
| stations in the country.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Television#Management
| Turms wrote:
| Sorry, but that is totally factually incorrect. I am a
| Hungarian citizen and there are many well known and worrisome
| circumstances about Fidesz's electoral victories:
|
| - The election system has been changed in a way that
| overcompensates the winner. Fidesz is supported by about 50%
| of the voting population, yet it has a 2/3-s supermajority
| which enables them to pass any law they wish without any
| resistance.
|
| - Fidesz has built up a MASSIVE database of the voting
| population over the years, basically they can tell the voting
| preferences for each home address. There is video evidence of
| this, I am not talking out of my ass.
|
| - Based on this database large scale gerrymandering took
| place in the past years.
|
| - The governing body overseeing the elections is run by long
| standing Fidesz cadres. Many polling districts especially in
| rural areas only had Fidesz-affiliated polling-clerks during
| the last election.
|
| - Thousands if not tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens
| (many of whom have Hungarian ancestry, but many do not) have
| been registered in the Eastern part of the country with
| voting rights. They are eligible for pensions multiple times
| the amount they would receive from the Ukrainian government
| because of an old agreement made bw the Soviet Union and
| Hungary. In exchange they are voting for Fidesz. Again, this
| may sound like bullshit, but it is a documented fact.
|
| - Small cities are told that they won't get any EU funding
| from the government if they elect a non-Fidesz mayor.
|
| - There is a massive amount of very poor people dependent on
| government distributed "public work" in the countryside. It's
| basically modern day servitude. These people are also often
| threatened that if they vote the "wrong way" they will not
| get work.
|
| - Most of the relevant news outlets (TV, Radio, Newspapers,
| online media) are owned by Fidesz-frienly businesspeople and
| they are in 24-7 propaganda mode. I am talking about 1950-s
| style Stalinist propaganda, not some kind of "pro-government
| bias". There have been by now basically one TV station and a
| handful of small websites left that are not controlled by
| Fidesz.
|
| - And add to that that any opposition leader, any journalist
| critical towards Fidesz or any businessman who is not part of
| their circles can be monitored by these spy softwares and
| then you will understand what the term "hybrid regime" stands
| for.
|
| Yes there are elections every four years, but they are just
| for show.
| antman wrote:
| There are military and there are civilian dictatorships.
| Taking control of the legal system, legally removing
| oversight, silencing the media, bribing etc does constitute
| fair elections. Your definition of fairness might need to
| expand its scope.
| eperfa wrote:
| It is true that Fidesz, his party, has won 2/3rds of the
| seats in the Parliament, though they only got 45.2% of the
| total votes. This victory was in part due to them
| significantly re-drawing the regions used during the
| elections to their favour, changing rules for voting from
| abroad (making it easier to vote from neighbouring regions
| where most of the people are traditionally their supporters,
| but more difficult from other parts of the world, where most
| of the population would like to see a change). It was also
| helped by using the state to fund and run their own campaign
| with virtually unlimited amount of money (they were the
| ruling party in the previous term as well), gradually taking
| control of all media outlets (especially traditional print
| and TV ones, further strengthening their base in more rural
| areas), etc.
|
| Since then they have taken even more control of the media,
| diverted the majority of EU and state funds to loyal
| businessmen (a regular gas-fitter became the wealthiest man
| in the country in a few short years, believed to be the straw
| man of Orban himself), filled all major positions with their
| own people (including most recently the high court), created
| laws directly against the civil society and LMBTQ+ people,
| stopped most of the funding to towns that have elected
| politicians from the opposition, taken control of all
| universities and actively worked on getting rid of CEU (one
| of the best, independent university, which was criticised due
| to being funded by George Soros), signed secret business
| deals for enormous amounts of money with Chinese and Russian
| interests that will almost certainly never be beneficial for
| Hungary, etc.
|
| The comparison to Belarus is not correct in the sense that in
| Hungary violence has not been used (fortunately), but apart
| from that the governing party has done everything else they
| can to keep their power and crush everyone else.
| Nesze wrote:
| > they only got 45.2% of the total votes
|
| Think the figures are somewhat higher: Party/FPTP:
| 49.27%/47.89% [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hungarian_parliament
| ary_e...
| ganafagol wrote:
| That's more than what Trump got in 2016. Still nobody
| compared the U.S. to Belarus.
| eperfa wrote:
| Sorry, you are right, I quoted the wrong number.
|
| The point is the same though: due to the nature of the
| Hungarian voting system, the winner can easily get more
| mandates than what would follow from the raw results, and
| this is why it is beneficial to manipulate the voting
| areas.
| wildmanx wrote:
| So, just like the US then.
| cguess wrote:
| Sure, but no one was discussing the US. Not everything
| has to be related to them.
| native_samples wrote:
| I think the problem is that a lot of these claims could
| apply to many other countries as well, and don't obviously
| implicate Orban in doing things that are clearly beyond the
| pale. For example:
|
| - The UK has got a bunch of boundary changes queued up that
| have been pending for years, which will benefit the ruling
| party. It sounds bad when put like that, however the
| boundary changes themselves were recalculated using census
| data (I think) in a neutral way, so although it helps the
| ruling party that isn't what led to the changes.
|
| - It's hard to understand for a non Hungarian exactly what
| the voting rule changes might be about, but it sounds like
| it may be related to postal voting (people in neighbouring
| regions can go there physically). A lot of countries either
| restrict or want to restrict postal voting because it's
| drastically more susceptible to fraud, and there are
| constant allegations that left wing parties in particular
| like to abuse postal voting. Again the UK has exactly the
| same problem and some conservative MPs want to tighten the
| rules over who may vote postally due to a string of
| scandals related to it.
|
| - Using the state to fund their own political campaigns.
| Again, any consistent standard that said this is evil would
| need to have considered the UK a rogue state in 2016,
| because the government at the time used vast sums of
| government money to fund the campaign to remain in the EU.
| For example the government sent a mailshot to everyone in
| the entire country, which alone cost more than the
| theoretical spending limit for the entire campaign.
| Government resources were routinely deployed in other ways
| to try and win the vote. Yet unsurprisingly, nobody in the
| EU complained at the time.
|
| - "Gradually taking control of all media outlets" sounds
| like a reference to supporters of Orban coming into
| editorial positions rather than the government literally
| passing a law that gives Fidesz direct control over the
| press. Is that not so? In which case, under what standard
| can that be described as illegitimate? European media is
| totally dominated by supporters of the EU Commission and
| centre-left parties to the extent that in some parts of
| Europe, Eurosceptic conservative media hardly exists at
| all. Clearly the same thing has happened with different
| political movements in other parts of the world.
|
| - Filling major positions with their own people and other
| such things, that's exactly what governments are meant to
| do. It's a necessary step in order to govern, in fact. No
| government can run a country if all major positions are
| controlled by people who oppose the government. Again, the
| UK is an interesting counter-point: it has major
| constitutional problems due to the _lack_ of the government
| doing this, with the result that various organizations that
| are technically parts of the government are run by people
| who see themselves as some kind of quasi-official
| opposition, and who constantly try to undermine the actual
| elected government instead of doing their job.
| eperfa wrote:
| What is being done by Fidesz is definitely not what "most
| other developed countries" do. I won't be able to discuss
| all topics, but I'll give you a few examples of the media
| situation.
|
| There were several businessmen who became extremely
| wealthy within a very short period, either by working
| directly for the government (usually with all the typical
| signs of corruption), or by getting financed directly or
| indirectly by the government in the form of huge free
| loans, grants, etc. These businessmen then started buying
| different media outlets, some of which were 'usual'
| business transactions, while others were very nasty
| stories in themselves (the ownership change of the news
| site Index.hu was probably the biggest scandal). At some
| point all of these supposedly independent businessmen
| decided to give away ALL of the media companies they
| owned for free to a new non-profit entity. This
| transaction was given a special exemption by the
| government from all the usual checks and requirements
| (like antitrust), even though hundreds of media outlets
| were concentrated in a single entity, which now governs
| the majority of print newspapers and radio stations.
| Since this has happened, all of them transfer exactly the
| same messages - for example look at the following picture
| to see the front page of the 19 or so county news sites
| the day before the last election, where the headline says
| "Both votes for Fidesz!". These used to have independent
| editorial boards and focused on local news previously.
|
| https://assets.4cdn.hu/kraken/78sQpRcFFKsevwZIs.jpeg
|
| The state-owned national media holding MTVA (like the BBC
| in the UK), which of course is supposed to give an
| unbiased view of the world, also transfers exactly the
| same messages - there were several scandals where it
| became public that even senior editors had to send their
| content for review to Fidesz's people for review, and
| they got detailed instructions on what and how to say.
|
| Viktor Orban, the prime minister for 10 years, refuses to
| answer questions or give interviews to any media that is
| considered to be 'the opposition', even the sites with
| the highest number of daily readers. At the same time
| members of the opposition parties are given close-to-0
| airtime on the state-owned national channels, and even
| when they are shown, it is in a negative context.
|
| The national media regulatory body does not check any of
| the previous issues, but they have been very active for
| example in revoking the license of one of the last non-
| Fidesz-friendly radio stations (Klubradio) recently,
| which also became a scandal.
|
| The work of journalist is made more and more difficult
| because the state refuses to give information to them or
| even answer basic questions - for example during the
| corona virus epidemic, Hungary had by far the least
| informative site on the topic, yet it was filled with
| propaganda news. For example to create a chart of the
| daily cases, journalists had to manually check the site
| every day and save the currently shown numbers. In order
| to get a breakdown per county about the cases, they had
| to submit an official inquiry, where first they said that
| such data is not available (!), then used all 45+45=90
| days to give an answer. Of course the answer only
| contained the data for the time period when the questions
| was sent, so it was basically impossible to get up-to-
| date information.
|
| Viktor Orban still frequently uses the same defence that
| "they are working in an unfriendly media environment and
| only try to restore balance", but that is simply not
| true.
| praptak wrote:
| "Afaik Orban's party has won the last rounds of elections
| pretty conclusively"
|
| AFAIK Lukashenko also has some no-fraud elections under his
| belt. You don't need an election fraud to go from a democracy
| to a dictatorship.
| majgr wrote:
| If you only watch regime media, it is impossible to vote
| differently, only successes, no problems, no shady affairs,
| no nepotism. Opposition, on the other hand, is portrayed as
| the root of all evil.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Democracy isn't merely "majority rule". It's also the concept
| of everyone's equal value regardless of ethnicity, sexuality,
| freedom of expression and so on. Merely getting 51% of votes
| by disregarding those values is neither acceptable nor
| democratic. And the EU can't stand for it just like it could
| t stand for a regime that takes power through violence.
|
| "Belorussian style regime" I assume is in reference to
| freedom of press/expression/artists/minorities etc in the
| country.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| > Democracy isn't merely "majority rule". It's also the
| concept of everyone's equal value regardless of ethnicity,
| sexuality, freedom of expression and so on.
|
| As much as I would like this to be true, I don't think it
| is. In practice - and to a certain extent also in theory,
| if you at least add add some nuance - in every democratic
| country the majority has power to decide who's granted full
| rights and value, and who isn't (think of voting rights for
| inmates or immigrants, right to be elected, right to obtain
| a job etc.). Even when the constitution sets those rights
| "in stone", a vast majority has the legal right to change
| the constitution.
|
| Update: part of the nuance is that democracies won't
| technically change the _value_ of a person, to use your
| term. But by removing their rights, the effects are hardly
| different.
| ant6n wrote:
| Modern democracies (i.e. the ones set up including the
| learnings from the Weimar Republic) should include
| minority protections and defenses of democratic
| institutions that can not be overridden by simple
| majorities.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| While I wouldn't call if a fraud, but they skewed with the
| election system to bend it towards in their favour. They for
| example introduced monetary support for small parties in a
| way that made it really easy to commit fraud, which
| surprisingly did happen at a large scale. It also resulted in
| people voting for those fake parties and not on the
| opposition with real power. They won 2/3 power like this.
|
| "Belorussian-style regime", to name a few:
|
| - control of state media packed with non-stop propaganda
|
| - openly friendly towards dictators / other regimes
|
| - suppressive, openly anti-liberal laws
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Since liberal means nothing lately, anti liberal is the
| same. I have seen quite authoritarian tendencies about
| stripping people from basic rights after corona epidemic
| began from self proclaimed liberals.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Sure, liberal is an umbrella term. Instead, imagine a
| country where we let people live their life however they
| want, do whatever they want to their bodies and think for
| themselves.
|
| This is not Hungary and we are heading towards the
| opposite direction.
| emteycz wrote:
| Which country in EU is like that? I don't know of any.
| And there are much worse counter-examples than Hungary.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| And after corona lockdowns, talking about stripping all
| kinds of rights from the unvaccinated which country in
| the world right now is moving in the right direction?
|
| Hungary is not worse than the rest.
| wildmanx wrote:
| US style, to name a few:
|
| > - openly friendly towards dictators / other regimes
|
| Trump cuddling with Kim-Jong Un and being a good buddy of
| Putins.
|
| > - suppressive, openly anti-liberal laws
|
| US Republicans are working on overturning Roe v. Wade,
| opening the door to more anti-liberal laws. Heck, in some
| states, women have to drive hundreds of miles to the next
| abortion clinic and risk getting intimidated by big guys
| with guns on their way in. Cause freedom.
|
| > - control of state media packed with non-stop propaganda
|
| I give you that, the non-stop propaganda in the US is
| privatized, e.g. Fox News, Washington Post, OANN, MSNBC,
| etc. Still propaganda.
| dessant wrote:
| People voting themselves right to the edge of a totalitarian
| regime does not make that criticism any less legitimate.
| jsbdk wrote:
| For many people, any political change that is not a move
| towards an even more liberal view of the world is
| automatically authoritarianism.
| cannabis_sam wrote:
| Far more people have an apoplectic fit at anything that
| can even vaguely be described as "liberal"..
| bbv-if wrote:
| Even when the word is being used in its european sense,
| meaning more or less the same as 'libertarian' in the US.
| cannabis_sam wrote:
| It can be for sure, but at least in Northern Europe, it
| can also suggest a more social liberal ideology (e.g.
| look at Sweden's recent debacle)
|
| To be honest, my comment was mostly a jab at the GP for
| their touch anxiety when using the word "liberal",
| although it's less obvious now, when their followup
| comment is dead.
| dessant wrote:
| I think what's important is respecting human rights, not
| ideological affiliation, and in that sense Hungary has
| noticeably regressed in the past decade.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Human rights are a human construct and constantly change
| over time.
| huetius wrote:
| If you deny any form of transcendence, which is the case
| in the positivist, technocratic culture of the West, then
| this is the inevitable conclusion.
| trasz wrote:
| It's either this, or basing ones moral code on old wives
| tales.
| jsbdk wrote:
| "human rights" is a liberal construct.
| dessant wrote:
| I guess you will change your views about human rights
| when you and your family will be the ones being
| specifically targeted by your own government.
| hyper_dynamics wrote:
| No it's not.
| sharikone wrote:
| It has actually elicited a response. Through many mechanisms
| now big countries in Europe have gained much more power than
| before, when the model was very egalitarian.
|
| And you can look at it in a very different light if you see it
| as Hungary becoming a small vassal state of Germany (an
| autocracy helps it to stay that way, and German manufacturers
| want the situation to remain like this) rather than a "rogue
| fascist" state. Just follow the money.
|
| If you look at things this way you expect to see a war of
| sphere of influence of big countries in the near future. I
| think the Balkans will be the next soft battlefield between
| German and Italian influence.
| pmontra wrote:
| As Italian I've got very few doubts about the outcome of a
| struggle between German and Italian influence. Maybe Italy vs
| France as it happened in Libya but not against Germany. As
| you wrote, "follow the money" and Germany has much more of
| that and can buy out Italy together with France at any time.
| jq-r wrote:
| If you put it that way, the "war" has already been won by
| Germany/Austria here in Croatia. There is next to no Italian
| influence (only in one small region). Everything else is
| German/Austrian owned. Banks, Telecoms, big business,
| construction etc. Most of the houses on the coast and islands
| are theirs as well.
|
| EU needs our country just to be minimally stable. Stable
| enough so millions of foreigners can come to their villas
| each summer, and as poor as possible so their money is worth
| more here. Whatever happens outside summer, that's not their
| problem. That includes tolerating far right politics,
| Christian fundamentalists and other lobbying groups, super
| corrupt politicians (better to say whole governments), huge
| government incurred debt, no freedom of the press or speech,
| and pretty much non-existing economy.
|
| I'm sorry to say, but I'm sure that trouble is coming to this
| part of EU, maybe not in couple of years, but eventually
| surely will. The seeds of radicalization, corruption and all
| that nasty "us vs them" mentality were planted 20 years ago
| already. Only now they are starting to bear fruits.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| As someone living in Austria, I noticed this as well. Rich
| Austrians own all big businesses and all desirable
| properties in Croatia.
|
| I wonder what will happen to Croatia, politically, in the
| future, when the young there find themselves priced out of
| their own country by richer foreigners.
|
| Seems like uncontrolled capitalism has enabled a form of
| economic colonialism, as proven further by the money
| printer let loose during Coving, making the rich richer and
| the poor poorer, to which the response is always "that's
| just how the _free_ market works ".
| jq-r wrote:
| I'm glad that I'm not the only one seeing this effect.
| And economic colonialism is a succinct way of putting it
| as you said.
|
| I mostly blame the government for it. If we had a better
| economy we could compete and the prices for us locals
| wouldn't be prohibitively expensive. But no, our
| government (and most of opposition) is a corrupt criminal
| organization so there is no way out of it. We're just
| getting poorer and poorer relatively speaking
| unfortunately.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| EU is primarily an economic bloc and economic interests will
| carry the day any time, or at least 99 per cent of the time.
|
| Orban has integrated Hungarian industry deep into German supply
| chains and milks this fact as much as he can.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Agree with "primarily an economic bloc." On that note though,
| I don't think German-Hungarian industrial integration is all
| that weighty. Hungary's economy isn't big enough to make it
| compelling.
|
| The EU just doesn't have a political culture where Hungarian
| press freedom is "our problem." It's more of a "very
| unfortunate, next" kind of issue. No more of an EU concern
| than Uzbek press freedom.
|
| This doesn't compute. I agree. The EU clearly _is_ a very
| political union. But that 's how it is. Press freedoms, human
| rights or minority freedoms _outside_ of the EU are more
| likely to become politically hot than inside it.
|
| Maybe this will change over time, but the EU has a weird
| trajectory. I have no idea where it's going. For the most
| part, "culture war" issues don't seem to have a grasp on
| it... as they do on most polities.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| There were thin provisions against member states getting out of
| hand, but they became useless the second Poland conspired with
| Hungary.
|
| I'm not sure if I would've liked en EU with stricter punitive
| measures over its member states before all this, but it's clear
| that the measures to prevent situations like these have all
| failed.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I'm not sure if conspired is the right word. Poland just has
| very strong sympathy for Hungary as a country and its people.
|
| Poland has nothing to do with Orban and wants nothing to do
| with Orban. Unfortunately we have our own populists that like
| Orban wants to remodel our country to be easier for them to
| rule as they please. And results are similar as with Orban in
| Hungary and threats to that from EU are the same so
| cooperation against EU safeguards is kind of natural and
| spontaneous.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "Polak, Wegier, dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki."
|
| (Pole and Hungarian -- two brothers, good for saber and for
| glass.)
|
| Some countries in the EU have better relations than others.
| Czechs and Slovaks, the three Baltic nations, and Poland
| and Hungary. Things must get really bad before they will
| stop having each other's back on the international scene.
|
| This is a historical and diplomatic fact that must be taken
| into account when conflicts arise.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| Poland has common geopolitical interests with nordic
| countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark.
| Hungarian strategy of playing both sides can work because
| Hungary is not between the hammer and the anvil. And the
| languages are radically different. "Gulasz" and "Dobosz"
| are not enough. If you ask 100 Poles on the street, you
| won't find 1 that can count to ten in Hungarian. Finnish
| is an equally hard language and there are common values
| and sentiments between Poland and Finland, for example
| wars against Russia. Simo Hayha is pretty well known.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I don't want to make too much of this, but it is possible
| that you are a part of or have rather eclectic social
| circle. My personal advice would not be to extrapolate to
| the entire society.
|
| That said, I would welcome a citation supporting this
| assertion. My personal experience is very different and I
| do not want to swap anecdata.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| I'm not sure which parts do you find questionable.
|
| The common geopolitical interests - true as long as you
| believe Poland is more comfortable with the West rather
| than in "Eurasian Union". Nordic countries are way more
| liberal, but they are wary of Russia. Historically Russia
| was often in conflict with Poland. Scandinavian Peninsula
| can be a great obstacle to Russia if it wants to expand
| west. It threatens sea routes and airspace and it's only
| going to become more important as global warming makes
| the north more navigable (without icebreakers).
|
| Hammer and anvil - alternate names for the location of
| Poland (and Ukraine) include Bloodlands(Timothy Snyder),
| crumple zone(Jacek Bartosiak). Russia and Germany are
| powerful states and many transport routes lead through
| Poland. The Carpathian mountains in the South and Baltic
| Sea in the north form a sort of a bottleneck. Timothy
| Snyder is of the opinion that central-east Europe had the
| great misfortune of lying right between two totalitarisms
| - fascism and communism.
|
| This is a bit of contrast with Hungary, which is now
| completely inland and land transport is about 10x more
| expensive so it's not as good for trade.
|
| Or do you mean the Finland? I can expand but you can find
| common points between Poland and Finland.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I was referring to Poland, but I am now even more
| intrigued as I never explored Hungary's history as much.
| Thank you for sharing the books -- I added them to my
| reading list.
|
| Can you expand on the Poland and Finland?
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Don't underestimate the EU. It's a slow beast but it can bear a
| grudge. The language used to address Hungary is slowly becoming
| more and more aggressive. A head of state from a small EU
| country explicitly called for Hungary to leave.
|
| You also have to remember that the EU is an union of sovereign
| countries. Plenty can be done by EU members where the EU is
| powerless. History shows that messing with France and Germany
| can be costly.
| hypocry12 wrote:
| History also shows that when Germany messes about with east
| europe it can get messy rather quickly. And sadly hungary is
| in bed with russia. The eu should just cut funding for
| hungary and let everything else play out from there. Anything
| more that that is pure suicide for an already declining eu.
| dmix wrote:
| History as in 80+ years ago?
| hypocry12 wrote:
| AFAIK last time it was when the eu and germany pushed for
| ukraine regime change. ended up with ukraine getting
| invaded and loosing territory. so germany better stay out
| of east europe and so should the eu. the only way to win
| is by economics. thats how the us eventually won the cold
| war. also germany is not particularly popular,
| considering its bullying tactics and it being one of
| europes largest polluters, eu corruption it supports and
| so on. all i want is to make sure the most effective
| tools are used against hungary, as that country is a
| symptom of a much deeper problem. germany should let
| established powers deal with hungary and get into it
| before it messes things up again.
| dalbasal wrote:
| The EU is still, at core, an economic/trade union, not a
| geopolitical actor. That's both cultural and structural.
|
| Meanwhile, european people's appetite for "international"
| politics is been mostly satisfied with world politics...
| especially US politics, which was good and saucy for the last
| few years. The most animating issues of recent years have been:
| Trump, BLM related US politics, Israel-Palestine conflicts &
| climate change. Most of what happens in EU parliament attracts
| very little interest in the greater citizenship-journalism-
| politics sphere. National politics is, by far, still the main
| political sphere.
|
| European politics rarely becomes primary news/politics
| "stories." That applies to both Hungary, within the Union and
| Belarus, an immediate neighbor. It also applies to Ukraine and
| the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which was largely _about_ EU
| affiliation.
|
| Notable exceptions are Brexit, peek refugee migration and the
| Greek/Euro crisis... 12 years ago. The ironic exception to "EU
| politics doesn't exist" is the nationalist, eu-skeptical camp
| which _has_ been developing an EU-wide audience.
|
| In any case, IDK if "helpless" is the right word. It's more
| like "uninterested." Hungarian freedom of the press and such
| just aren't on anyone's agenda. The fact that they're EU
| doesn't really mean much.
| underscore_ku wrote:
| EU is as helpless as USA. what would US of A do with a rogue
| Texas? nothing
| mod50ack wrote:
| Little-known fact, this actually occurred before:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War
| bogomipz wrote:
| You might want to look up the American Civil War. It lasted
| from 1861 to 1865 and some 600K people died. That's what
| happened the last time any states threatened to secede from
| the Union in the US of A. It's also a pretty well-known bit
| of history.
| rsynnott wrote:
| That was about secession, though, not misbehavior. In fact,
| arguably it proves the point; after the US civil war there
| was a period of 'reconstruction', which largely failed, and
| then the southern states carried on doing pretty much
| whatever they felt like for the next century.
|
| EDIT: As mentioned below, desire to misbehave was certainly
| at the root of the secession, but in practice even after
| the war was won the federal government wasn't able to
| impose its will particularly effectively.
| bogomipz wrote:
| No it was not. The Civil War was about states wanting to
| abolish federal laws they didn't support such as those
| that impinged upon the right to keep slaves and take them
| wherever they wanted to(see Western Expansion.) How could
| that be considered anything but "misbehavior"? Secession
| was simply the byproduct of this.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Oh, sure, but afterwards, the federal government wasn't
| able to impose its will particularly effectively. It's
| really hard to see reconstruction as anything but a
| failure.
| bogomipz wrote:
| I don't disagree however my posts were in context to the
| OP's assertion of "what would US of A do with a rogue
| Texas? nothing." And clearly the US did something. Also
| as disappointing as Reconstruction was it was in fact
| responsible for creation of the 13th, 14th and 15th
| amendments to the U.S. Constitution aka the "the
| Reconstruction Amendments."[1] The important of which can
| not be overstated. Surely those should be factored in to
| any judgement of "failure", no?
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Amendments
| rsynnott wrote:
| Again, though, the 15th in particular just wasn't
| enforced for about a century in the states concerned. The
| civil war probably provided impetus to pass these very
| important amendments, and that, as you say, shouldn't be
| understated, but they weren't particularly effective in a
| reasonable timescale. Going back to the original point,
| more or less the entire south were rogue states to a much
| greater degree than Hungary, for a very long time.
| fallingknife wrote:
| The war started well after states started seceding and even
| then only in response to a military attack by the south. So
| it's not quite the example you portray it to be.
| bogomipz wrote:
| The secession convention meeting in Charleston, South
| Carolina occurs on December 20, 1860. Confederate troops
| fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Let's see that's
| 3.5 months later. And for 3 of those 3.5 months the US
| has a lame-duck President in James Buchanan whose cabinet
| was also famously split oh the issue. Lincoln isn't
| inaugurated until March 4, 1861. Further, the attack on
| Fort Sumter is just the "official" start of the war. It's
| not like nothing was being done by the Union in the
| interim. Far from it. As early as January 5th of 1861
| hundreds of troops and provisions were sent to fortify
| the Sumter garrison. Lastly on April 4th Lincoln tells
| his southern delegates that he intends to attempt to
| resupply Fort Sumter. This is understood by the Southern
| states to be a declaration of war. So yes I think this is
| exactly the example I portray it to be.
| refurb wrote:
| I mean the US had a civil war over the "rules", so it's kind
| of clear what it would do.
| [deleted]
| nix23 wrote:
| The EU is not a state...thank god for that, and that it never
| happens.
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| But it can be a federation of states. Hopefully, that will
| happen.
| bluthund wrote:
| Hopefully that never happens. Hopefully more Hungary's
| emerge. Hopefully more Western countries start actually
| serving their people
|
| Hopefully nationalism crushes this perverse anti Western
| virus which has taken over the once greatest nations in
| the world
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| I'm certain that every Romanian sees Vitkor Orban as a
| wolf in sheep's clothing. The protector of interests for
| V4 group through unethical means and corrupted
| politicians. Hopefully, sanctions will follow soon.
| Masking local interests of a few corrupted individuals
| with nationalism is borderline criminal.
| nix23 wrote:
| >Hopefully nationalism crushes this perverse anti Western
| virus
|
| Being totally against the EU, i think full on nationalism
| is wrong too. We life on one big spaceship and with that,
| we should have one organizing (not governing entity) like
| the UN was once meant to be.
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| EU is built on the European thought at least, it is the
| child of Christianity, strongly influenced by Greco-Roman
| world sprinkled with some Germanic austerity. No wonder
| why countries with Muslim minorities cannot join the
| Union. UN would never work because what binds Europe
| together is exactly this shared Christian past starting
| from the division of Catholic and Orthodox Church and
| ending with Protestant thought. Even if our European
| elite act as religion does not play a role anymore that
| is simply not true. Christianity is the most enduring and
| influential legacy of the ancient world, and its
| emergence the single most transformative development in
| Western history. Even the increasing number in the West
| today who have abandoned the faith of their forebears,
| and dismiss all religion as pointless superstition,
| remain recognisably its heirs. From Western France to
| Eastern Romania, the legacy can be felt in everything,
| from language to cuisine, from architecture to music.
| Imagine that those countries are on opposite sides of the
| EU but they both speak a Romance language.
| nix23 wrote:
| >No wonder why countries with Muslim minorities cannot
| join the Union.
|
| Germany has a Muslim minority. And Cyprus has 25%. I
| don't think Religion is a point here at all, culture
| definitely is.
| trasz wrote:
| You do realize that Islam is essentially a Christianity's
| sequel, right?
|
| Also, your mistaking Christianity - which is doing just
| fine in the western world, probably better than ever -
| with its degenerate form of fundamentalist groups, based
| mostly on hate, eg homophobia. This is most visible in
| Poland - which is very Catholic, and definitely not
| Christian.
| egeozcan wrote:
| In this day and age, don't people like you read/watch
| some world history? What you are saying seems so narrow-
| minded (ignoring the racist undertone), it makes me
| confused.
| bluthund wrote:
| It's precisely a studying and understanding of history
| which makes me so.
|
| Perhaps people like you would do better to engage in
| conversation where you might learn something you don't
| know rather than throw out your classic epithets
| egeozcan wrote:
| So, to be clear, you studied and "understood" history and
| came to the conclusion that nationalism is a good thing.
| How? It's clear that I don't agree with you. I think you
| must be too isolated from some nice people to be so
| furious about other people.
| bluthund wrote:
| We can circle back to the psycho analysis later if you so
| desire, but I'll be sticking to the topic at hand for the
| time being.
|
| You seem to have made a connection between nationalism
| and being furious about other people. I respectfully
| disagree that there is a necessary relationship there.
|
| I have no ill will against other people. I would like
| people who share my culture to govern me, and I would not
| like people of my culture governing people of a different
| culture. They can govern themselves and we can govern
| ourselves. We can share ideas, trade, sport, etc., But
| multiculturalism within borders is an inevitable failure
| and globalism is an inevitable failure
| egeozcan wrote:
| > I would like people who share my culture to govern me,
| and I would not like people of my culture governing
| people of a different culture.
|
| When did this ever happen in history? People diverge all
| the time, that's how we have so many cultures.
| nix23 wrote:
| >People diverge all the time, that's how we have so many
| cultures.
|
| Lightly categorized in so called country's?
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| Globalism is inevitable, you cannot stop it. You should
| rather get used to it. The fact that you get anxious by
| ideas penetrating your culture means that globalisation
| works. It is like my Romanian grandfather telling me how
| bankers should have been punished in 2008. Which would
| have never and it will never happen because that's how
| the world works. The alternatives are far too costly and
| our global capitalism does not allow it. Get used to it,
| neighbor.
| nix23 wrote:
| >Globalism is inevitable, you cannot stop it.
|
| If corona told us anything, then this is probably not
| true anymore.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Only death is inevitable and even that is not that
| certain.
|
| I am saying this as a person, who likes the science
| fiction level of species level organization ( vs
| geographical nation-state ), where we pay with universal
| credits and basically have few of the issues inherited
| from the olden days of 2021.
|
| But I dream.
| nix23 wrote:
| Yeah just hope your not a belter ;)
| jpetso wrote:
| I find that despite my national background, there are
| tons of people in my country whose ideas and principles I
| don't share, and lots of people from other
| countries/cultures that I would team up with anytime.
|
| Drawing a line primarily along cultural lines means
| ignoring or downplaying all of the other lines that other
| people might find similarly important or more so.
|
| Why would I bias my decisions about people over other
| people just because they grew up within a few hundred
| kilometres of me? Why would I prefer helping a bunch of
| deadbeats from my own country over a bunch of promising
| bright people from halfway across the world? Because
| they'll stand up for me in return?
|
| Because it's always one team against another? Fuck teams.
| There are my immediate friends, and outside of that I'll
| fight only for principles, not arbitrary teams.
| Everyone's a different person in their own right.
| Everyone deserves to be treated as who they are, not
| where they're from. (Cue Backstreet Boys.)
| jpetso wrote:
| Having written this, I think it's worth pointing out the
| main flaw that I see in nationalism: it's that it uses
| culture and nations as a proxy for principles, as opposed
| to digging for the actual principles underneath.
|
| As an example, I stand for freedom of speech, in the form
| of a diverse, largely independent set of publishers and
| authors that allows me to make up my own mind by exposing
| me to different viewpoints. Many Western countries have a
| better track record at this than authoritarian countries.
| But this doesn't mean that I'm on Team "The West" - if my
| country drops this value, I'd rather drop my country than
| my values.
|
| If my country thinks that skin color or wardrobe of a
| person is more important than what that person is saying,
| I'd rather drop my country than team up against that
| person.
|
| If my country decides that Islamic Law or autocratic
| dictatorship is a better form of government than
| democracy, I'd rather drop my country than abandon my
| principles.
|
| It's great to be in a shared space where you agree with
| everyone. The question is, when you eventually disagree
| (because you don't get to choose what your neighbors
| think, and because nationalism is just a proxy for actual
| values), then are you going to follow your principles, or
| do you let your nation and culture dictate what your
| principles should be?
| remarkEon wrote:
| >the main flaw that I see in nationalism: it's that it
| uses culture and nations as a proxy for principles, as
| opposed to digging for the actual principles underneath.
|
| I think the problem that you are going to run in to is
| that culture and nations as a proxy for principles works
| pretty well since those things are highly correlated.
| Unless you have a strong civic identity that aggressively
| assimilates and ensures respect of those civic norms, you
| have an inevitable clash that just becomes a question of
| scale.
|
| >If my country decides that Islamic Law or autocratic
| dictatorship is a better form of government than
| democracy, I'd rather drop my country than abandon my
| principles.
|
| In your hypothetical, how exactly would this situation
| come about? You should be able to venture a guess.
| jpetso wrote:
| > Unless you have a strong civic identity that
| aggressively assimilates and ensures respect of those
| civic norms, you have an inevitable clash that just
| becomes a question of scale.
|
| I'd like to suggest multicultural cities such as Toronto
| as an example that preserving cultural backgrounds and
| integrating with the rest of society aren't necessarily
| mutually exclusive. You have a broad mix of people from
| (among others) European, East Asian, South Asian and
| Middle Eastern backgrounds here and while all of the
| usual discussions are alive and well (left vs. right,
| urban vs. suburban, immigration vs. bubbling), people's
| cultures are just not the main issue dividing people.
| You'd think that with a lot of Muslim immigrants, Canada
| would have larger problems with value differences, but
| guess what, most people are just people and want a good
| life for themselves and their families. Nothing new here,
| move along.
|
| The point is that full-on assimilation isn't necessary.
| Celebrate shared values. Celebrate diverse backgrounds
| and differences, too. I don't have to tell a Muslim woman
| that she can't wear religious clothing, just like I don't
| like it if her husband tells her the opposite. I can just
| grab food with the two of them and discuss tech, ethics,
| religion and whatever, just like with regular people,
| because they _are_ regular people. The kids just see a
| lot of different ways of people living their lives and
| learn that it 's okay to be different.
|
| > In your hypothetical, how exactly would this situation
| [Islamic Law / autocratic dictatorship] come about?
|
| Recent history suggests that there is a template: a
| politician gets voted into office, gets drunk on power,
| finds a common enemy and sells it to the people, changes
| elections and eventually the constitution to remain in
| power, kills the independent press, persecutes opposition
| leaders and intellectuals with dangerous ideas.
|
| Turkey and Hungary are well on their way. Russia has
| arrived. Iran and China went the revolution route, that
| works too, although probably requires more of a flawed
| system to begin with.
| xdennis wrote:
| Nationalism gets a bad rep now precisely because it has
| accomplished many of its goals and is a part of many
| European states and now the nationalists get confused
| with the extreme nationalists.
|
| Before nationalism, most European states were monarchies
| "answerable by God". Now it's dominated by countries with
| a single people/single language/single religion. Minority
| rights are important, but a minority should never be in
| charge of the majority as it was under the Austrian
| Empire for example (a.k.a as the Jail of Nations).
|
| It's sad that reactionaries are trying to undo this and
| slowly turn the EU into another Austria, which will
| inevitably be dominated by the Germans and French.
| nix23 wrote:
| Depends how much the states have their own freedom and
| power (financial marketplace, and military), remember
| Russia is a federation too.
| taurath wrote:
| Don't underestimate energy companies ability to bring in a
| ton of state firepower to keep their bottom line intact -
| that's one of the main lessons of the 20th century.
| kristjank wrote:
| True. But EU also repeatedly ignores a decent chunk of people
| that want a stable social state without LGBTQ agitprop and
| unlimited illegal immigration. I have a hunch that the western
| left wing would have much more support if they focused on the
| wellbeing of the common worker, not on the countless
| minorities. Instead the choice always seems to be between a
| reactionary right-wing degenerate and a hyper-progressive left-
| wing degenerate. And to think Americans call them communists.
| In communism most of the shit we see today from left and right
| politicians wouldn't fly at all.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| > But EU also repeatedly ignores a decent chunk of people
| that want a stable social state without LGBTQ agitprop and
| unlimited illegal immigration
|
| Can you give me some examples of the EU doing this?
|
| My understanding is that nothing has happened on migration
| because there is no agreement.
| kristjank wrote:
| The most obvious example is Merkel's flooding of the
| bordering european states with economic immigrants and
| "refugees" of disputed international validity. Not only EU
| states like Hungary, Italy, France or Slovenia, but also
| non-EU territories like Croatia, Bosnia etc. It's a
| difference that is showing if you like me live as a student
| in a Schengen-border state. Ignoring the major changes of
| public opinion and trying to arrange no compromises at all
| is (IMO) a common pattern with the EU law- and
| decisionmaking. Saying that a whole international union
| with will somehow deal with and accept an overwhelming
| influx of non-integrated, traumatized, not-fit-for-work
| population is peak bourgeoisie. At the end of the day,
| social state is (at least in my god-forsaken old-school
| commie eyes) there to provide the future productive members
| of society with an education, housing, stipends etc. for
| the betterment of the nation/state/collective/whatever. I
| see little sense in promotion of influx of cheap, abusable,
| low-skill labour or even worse, perpetual social system
| abusers.
| trasz wrote:
| So how is it different from a similar influx of migrants
| from Eastern Europe? (Disclaimer: I'm from Eastern Europe
| myself.)
| kristjank wrote:
| Significantly lower unemployment statistically and a much
| lower cultural barrier anecdotally. But I might be
| ignorant or going off anecdotes. Economically, they are
| pretty comparable if it weren't for the fact that most of
| my compatriots in the diaspora and foreign workers where
| I live are usually employed. EU statictics reflect this:
| https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
| explained/index.php...
| trasz wrote:
| Sure, as the immigrants from Eastern EU countries can
| legally work in the West without all the paperwork
| required for folks from outside the EU. But I still
| remember when it wasn't the case, and Poland was widely
| known for stealing cars and prostitution.
| antman wrote:
| Orban was actively supported by the EU center-right wing
| parties. Do not assume morality, no one was angry they were in
| fact joking about it. Actions are reserved for countries with
| left wing governments. Funniest moment, if it wasn't so tragic
| for hungary:
|
| https://youtu.be/1hl83Jpd_OI
| ganafagol wrote:
| > If there is one single lasting international effect of Orban
| and his party, it's how he demonstrated how EU is completely
| helpless against rouge states (as well).
|
| Helpless and hypocritical. If Orban rolls out surveillance he
| is a dictator. If UK or Germany do it, it's the noble fight
| against terrorists, pedophiles and kids downloading moviez from
| the internet.
| cabalamat wrote:
| > rouge states
|
| States that wear lots of lipstick? It's a word often mis-spelt.
| [deleted]
| mlang23 wrote:
| Which is an indication that the whole system is simply too
| weak. EU was originally founded to make trade easier. Even the
| temporary removal of borders for EU citizens was only done to
| fasciliate trade, the free travel amongst EU states was a nice
| side effect which could also be used to lure the citizens into
| believing the EU was actually more. The social apsect was
| originally only a side effect of fasciliatating trade. And now
| that it starts to show that the different member states have
| different political agendas, and not everything can be pacified
| by just making commerce happy, the system starts to crumble. I
| still remember the biggest fear of EU when brexit came up. That
| more member states could have a similar idea. That isn't
| particularily showing strength and confidence.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Oh so you mean the people who like to call it "EUSSR" are
| full of it?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I think the issue is that EU was founded with an idea that they
| can copy US creation pattern, but without sufficient
| consideration of the simple fact that there is a thousand plus
| years of history that is being crammed into respective
| citizens' heads including, but not limited to wars with
| neighbors. It is hard to forget blood; especially if survivors
| still have a state.
|
| Do not get me wrong. I like the idea of EU. I see its benefits,
| but the idea ignores lessons of creating new federations. Apart
| from everything else, I doubt EU would be willing to do the
| same things US did to maintain its grip.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| > I doubt EU would be willing to do the same things US did to
| maintain its grip.
|
| I think you meant war.
|
| I think the EU is unwilling to make even non-bloody
| sacrifices, like the US did in the beginning at the
| Connecticut Compromise (1787). Basically as early as 11 years
| after the independence, the large US states relinquished a
| lot of power to the smaller states. With that compromise they
| gave 2 senators to each state, no matter how big or small it
| was.
|
| I really don't see Germany relinquishing that much power, or
| France for that matter.
|
| Also the EU cannot function like the US without the
| absolutely massive transfer of cash from rich to poor states.
|
| A poor state in the US receives as much as 10k per person NET
| from the federal government
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/federal-
| aid... Imagine giving out 200 billions to Romania alone every
| year... At best we get 10 billions a year, but only for a
| limited time. In the previous budget we got like 3-5 billions
| a year. For those funds, the richer countries expect a lot of
| obedience in return, always dangling the threat of cutting
| the funds if we "don't behave".
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| War, civil war or re-education of local populations.
|
| Note that either of these would be unlikely to succeed.
| Just about every EU state has survived numerous
| occupations; some partitions; some ceased to be nation
| states. How can you possibly hope to force them to see
| themselves as Europeans first and nation A second? If
| anything, force or even threat of force will likely result
| further digging in.
|
| Overall, I agree with your post though. I personally think
| both France and Germany simply use EU framework for their
| own purposes ( Germany actually just had an interesting
| case that may finally shed some light over whether EU law
| is above German law -- that should be fun to watch -
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/eu-launches-
| le...).
| [deleted]
| throwaway4good wrote:
| What do you want the EU to do? Kick Hungary out?
|
| EU offers a lot to the Hungarian people in terms of travel,
| freedom of business, employment etc. In 10 years Orban likely
| will be gone. In the long run the liberal values of Europe will
| prevail.
| diegocg wrote:
| Orban didn't become president by himself. There is social
| support for his platform and this platform will generate new
| leaders that will be like him or worse
| throwaway4good wrote:
| He has similar platform to what you will find in many other
| european countries. Le Pen in France. AFD in Germany. Dansk
| folkeparti in Denmark.
|
| How does EU "fight" that? By playing for the long run:
| freedom of movement, cultural exchange, freedom of
| business. In the long term this leads to a more liberal
| society, regardless of counter movements.
| alkonaut wrote:
| If there ever comes a time when AfD creates a board to
| "review" Supreme Court justices, or moves to remove
| "foreign influence" on media in Germany and so on - then
| the same discussion will return there. The difference is
| that conservative nationalism can't get that type of
| foothold in Western Europe and the mistake was to include
| countries in the EU that even had a risk of having a
| nationalist majority. We should have "tiers" of
| membership with a legal/political inner union of liberal
| states that can have a common foreign policy, and a wider
| less tightly coupled trade Union with the EEA that
| doesn't necessarily need to agree on such things.
| rwmj wrote:
| > The difference is that conservative nationalism can't
| get that type of foothold in Western Europe
|
| UK says hi!
| alkonaut wrote:
| By conservative nationalism I mean something that is much
| further removed from liberal democracy than Nigel Farage
| or even LePen. It's not about economic conservatism,
| closed borders and populism in immigration matters. I
| mean (extremely) socially conservative.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| " The difference is that conservative nationalism can't
| get that type of foothold in Western Europe and the
| mistake was to include countries in the EU that even had
| a risk of having a nationalist majority"
|
| Does spain is included in your non-nationalistic western
| europe? A state where old fascist are still in charge in
| justice, police and army? Who cheeringly cracked down on
| catalonia who dared to organize a referendum on
| independence?
|
| Or, well france. Who declared as a first move of
| presidency of EU to make french the standard working
| language of the EU?
|
| Nationalism isn't restricted to eastern europe.
| zajio1am wrote:
| > Who cheeringly cracked down on catalonia who dared to
| organize a referendum on independence?
|
| Which would likely be done by every country that respects
| rule of law and equal rights of its citizens.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I supose by rule of law, you don't mean:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
|
| Aside from that, the UK showed with scotland, how it can
| be done dealing with political issues, without involving
| the police. Because that is just in tradition of the
| fascist way.
| alkonaut wrote:
| > Who cheeringly cracked down on catalonia who dared to
| organize a referendum on independenc
|
| Parts of states do not simply arrange independence
| referendums without approval from the central government.
| This would be "cracked down" in every single country on
| earth. It may well be that Catalonia deserve independence
| but it's not exactly surprising or authoritarian of a
| central government to stop such attempts. Scotland
| doesn't arrange an IndyRef without getting a nod from
| London.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| But how could they have proceed legaly, when the central
| government made it clear, they never respect their right
| of self determination?
| alkonaut wrote:
| By trying to move that opinion. It might take three or
| ten generations but it's hard to see an independence
| movement go faster without violence.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| I somehow doubt it. EU's reaction to migrant crisis was
| everything but liberal.
|
| And that's basically only the tip of the fuckberg that will
| be future migrations.
| [deleted]
| underscore_ku wrote:
| they have parliamentary elections in 2022. i bet Orban will
| be out by then
| Hokusai wrote:
| > EU is completely helpless against rouge states
|
| There is a point where politics depend on good intent. It does
| not matter if it is the EU, USA or China. If there is a part of
| the population that is radicalized and hate rhetoric is used
| that will destabilize any society.
|
| The main defense against this situation is that it does not
| work to improve citizens lives. It only benefits a small part
| of society and it will make the rest suffer. Hate calls for
| win-lose deals and an unproductive zero sum mentality.
| Hungarian business will suffer, and Hungarian workers will
| suffer. That is not sustainable long term.
|
| EU can be improved, but if millions of citizens support a far-
| right government there is little to be done. Orban is a
| problem, but that people follows him is another one. It will
| only make Hungary poorer and the EU poorer and more dangerous.
| [deleted]
| hyper_dynamics wrote:
| They should be expelled, but that's not possible. So the EU
| is indeed kinda helpless against member states gone rouge
| mlang23 wrote:
| Why, exactly? For not kissing the rainbow flag? Or for
| opposing illegal immigration? Those are the topics
| presented through media lately, and the argument is rather
| weak. In fact, I think many politically centered people
| dont actually sympathize with this "you are not hip enough,
| you have to leave"-mentality.
| Twixes wrote:
| The government calling people subhuman simply because of
| what gender they prefer or feel like is far more twisted
| than some "not kissing the rainbow flag", and that's
| what's happening in Hungary or Poland receiving huge EU
| subsidies.
| bjoli wrote:
| The recent politicising the courts, and the political
| aftermath, is bad enough to warrant serious action from
| the EU. Orban has had undemocratic tendencies for a long
| time, and his blatant misuse of power has had all
| spectrums of the political field concerned since we'll
| before the 2015 EU migration crisis.
| pell wrote:
| I am really not sure where this notion is coming from and
| I've seen it repeated in this thread multiple times now.
| The reason Orban's government is considered dangerous
| within the EU context has never been because of his
| stance on immigration or that he "doesn't kiss the
| rainbow flag". The problem is that his government has
| been attacking and dismantling democratic institutions
| such as academia, the media, NGOs and even the judiciary
| to some extend. The critique and this development started
| long before the refugee situation in 2015.
|
| This has really nothing to do with immigration or LGTBQ
| policy. A number of EU countries are not really champions
| of immigration or LGTBQ+ matters either (Slowakia,
| Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece). This idea that the
| issue is about him or his government not being "hip" or
| "woke" enough is really odd to say the least.
| 3np wrote:
| While there's a fair amount of hypocrisy from other
| countries going on, the core issues are more about human
| rights and fascism than about hipness.
| majgr wrote:
| Orban will vote easily against Poland just when he is
| guaranteed that he gets money from after-COVID fund. Maybe
| that is why EU are withholding Hungary spend plan for this
| fund.
| pmontra wrote:
| I don't recommended this scenario but: the other states
| could join a new union and leave Hungary and possibly other
| states outside (the usual split into a good company and a
| bad one.) Lots of legal disputes but in international law
| the strongest party always makes the law and shrugs
| problems away.
|
| BTW, is it rouge (as in French for red) or rogue?
| Darmody wrote:
| No, they can't make a new union, that's just stupid. It
| took decades to build the EU as it is now. Building
| something new isn't feasible.
|
| Just look at the Brexit shitshow and that was only a
| country leaving.
|
| And besides that, the EU has never been about controlling
| national governments. The common values thing it's
| something new they brought to the table because they want
| to expand their powers.
| trasz wrote:
| In case of Poland the only value being forced by the EU
| is not breaking Poland's own constitution. Which is
| required for any kind of reliable business, which, in
| turn, is pretty central to fundamental purpose of the EU.
| scrollaway wrote:
| It's Rogue. Common misspelling :)
| peteretep wrote:
| Or they could just develop decent sanctions and enforce
| them. Hungary is a massive net recipient of EU funds,
| which seems a great starting lever, plus throw just the
| smallest amount of friction into their Schengen status,
| and you've got something pretty potent there.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| As far as I'm aware ( source Hungarian people), entire
| families voted for him because he was strongly opposing
| migrants.
|
| All the other shit he does, they deem less important. It's
| ridiculous.
|
| Hungary should go out of the EU or be forced out. The lack of
| obeying rules and abusing subsidies for own gain should be
| enough reason. Hungarians should outweigh pro's and cons,
| it's already a decade...
| bb101 wrote:
| I think Hungary should be very much kept in the EU, so the
| EU can continue to exert its influence. The funding taps
| should be turned off however, and only turned on again
| subject to demonstrable and verified improvements.
| afshin wrote:
| > The main defense against this situation is that it does not
| work to improve citizens lives. It only benefits a small part
| of society and it will make the rest suffer.
|
| This pattern is attenuated when there's a reliable external
| source of energy. Hungary is not a closed system that will
| decay into entropy. It has regular funding from the EU which
| allows the disequilibrium to continue.
| [deleted]
| roenxi wrote:
| > If there is a part of the population that is radicalized
| and hate rhetoric is used that will destabilize any society.
|
| I'm going to point at this as an example of a very
| traditional, very political example unproductive thinking.
| One of the lessons people refuse to see in politics is that
| the people who vote for things they don't like might,
| potentially, be upset about something. There is a lack of
| reflection on how rational people might have ended up here.
|
| I know nothing about Hungary. But I am quite confident that a
| happy, well organised society labouring under the grip of
| sound economic policies tends not to radicalise very easily.
| People get radicalised when it becomes obvious that politics
| as usual is not going to work out well for them. There are
| cases where the cause is lost and there is an intransigent
| radical group. Usually there is a long lead up to that of a
| group who is systemically not having their needs met.
|
| It is totally correct that hate leads to win-lose deals. That
| seems like a very reasonable option to people if the
| alternative loving approach is a win-lose deal but with the
| winners and losers reversed.
| shoto_io wrote:
| It's rare for people to look at things from the perspective
| of the other side. I thinks it's both: lacking abilities
| and willingness to do so.
|
| The world would be a better place if we did that more
| often.
| [deleted]
| ashtonkem wrote:
| If you know nothing about Hungary, why are you so confident
| GP is wrong?
| rbanffy wrote:
| > But I am quite confident that a happy, well organised
| society labouring under the grip of sound economic policies
| tends not to radicalise very easily
|
| Brazil experienced 12 years of prosperity from 2003 to
| 2015, with some trouble starting in 2012, but still with
| solid numbers in unemployment, for instance. Still a hate-
| based disinformation campaign managed to overthrow a re-
| elected president for accusations later proved unfounded,
| paving the way to the election of a far-right president who
| is ripping apart the fragile fabric of Brazil's still young
| democracy.
|
| This is why we need to deal harshly with such
| hatred/disinfo campaigns, ruthlessly deplatforming fringe
| elements and denying them the chance to drag the Overton
| window their way.
|
| In the past century Europe saw the construction of
| facilities used exclusively to commit murder at an
| industrial scale, designed to be the cheapest way to kill
| whole populations.
|
| It's people like Orban, the Le Pens, Jorg Meuthen, Nigel
| Farage, among many, many others, that took this continent
| there and, if we don't act, they'll do it again.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| The conditions that allowed Hitler to rise to power were
| created by the "winners" of WWI with the treaty of
| Versailles. These are not masses of sheep being led
| around by brilliant propaganda, they're often people who
| don't think they have anything to lose by voting for the
| extreme nationalist over the status quo.
| Bayart wrote:
| >The conditions that allowed Hitler to rise to power were
| created by the "winners" of WWI with the treaty of
| Versailles.
|
| That's quite literally Nazi propaganda, although the
| narrative was born in the US with Keynes as Americans
| were oddly keen on washing the Germans of their sins,
| shifting the blame everywhere else and go back to
| business as usual.
|
| The Treaty of Versailles was nothing particularly odious,
| Germany could have coped with it fine if it stuck to the
| terms. It didn't, it broke its economy _on purpose_ to
| avoid honoring the treaty.
| rbanffy wrote:
| While true, this was not the root cause any more than
| keeping tons of explosives together in a port warehouse
| didn't cause the explosion in Beirut.
|
| You are right in the sense that eradicating poverty will
| probably have a stabilizing effect on many societies,
| but, in Brazil at least, it wasn't the poorest who
| supported the rise of fascism - this was driven mostly by
| the middle class.
|
| In Germany it was the hate speech, the scapegoating, the
| xenophobia of the nazi discourse, the framing of other
| people as sub-human, evil and unworthy of living. This
| led to seemingly normal people inflicting unspeakable
| evil upon others. And it's frighteningly easy to make a
| human do that.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| You think that you can "deal harshly with such
| hatred/disinfo campaigns, ruthlessly deplatforming fringe
| elements and denying them the chance to drag the Overton
| window their way" forever, because if the right people
| run it, they can keep the wrong people from ever coming
| to power. That's misguided, for two reasons.
|
| First, sometimes the wrong people come to power _anyway_.
| If they can 't do it by blatant misinformation and
| propaganda, they'll do it by "wolf in sheep's clothing"
| tactics. Once they get power, the machinery is there,
| just waiting for them to use it to enforce _their_
| narrative. Sure, by protecting the narratives that are
| allowed, you might make it more difficult for such a one
| to come to power, and therefore less probable. You can 't
| make it impossible, though. And if the thought of such
| machinery in Orban's hands (or Trump's) doesn't terrify
| you, you're not thinking.
|
| Second, power changes people. You might be a perfectly
| fine, democracy-loving person. Give you that kind of
| power and you might not be the same person forever. As
| Elrond said, "I fear to take the ring to guard it. I will
| not take the ring to wield it" - and for very good
| reason. Too much power is a danger even to the good.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| >>This is why we need to deal harshly with such
| hatred/disinfo campaigns, ruthlessly deplatforming fringe
| elements and denying them the chance to drag the Overton
| window their way.
|
| I can't help but to smile the smile of mild horror that
| calls to overreaching and overzealous censorship of
| wrongthink ( hate is sufficiently innocuous and broad to
| cover just about any kind of wrongthink - just the fact
| that it has been accepted by mainstream as a good enough
| reason is horrifying ) is so common that is used with
| adjectives like ruthlessly without any feel for the
| irony.
|
| I can certainly feel the hate.
| speeder wrote:
| Accusations are not proved unfounded, he was freed from
| prison because of a mix of politics, procedural errors
| from judges that imprisoned him, and changes on how the
| judiciary works.
|
| And many people rightly saw that the prosperity that
| happened during Lula's time was because of booming
| commodities market and exports booming, not because
| anything he did in particular.
|
| Brazillians voted for Bolsonaro not because he is right
| wing, but because he promised he would end corruption,
| and the workers party IS corrupt.
|
| Now that Bolsonaro has proven that he won't end
| corruption either (starting with him protecting his son),
| I doubt he will be re-elected, instead whoever else
| promises to end corruption and is not corrupted that has
| a good shot.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Accusations are not proved unfounded, he was freed from
| prison because of a mix of politics, procedural errors
| from judges that imprisoned him, and changes on how the
| judiciary works
|
| You are talking about Lula, who was jailed after massive
| procedural "errors", mishandling of evidence, witness
| intimidation (bordering on torture), evidence inflation
| and many, many others, conducted by a partisan judge who
| would be named by the election winner (a win Moro helped
| him secure by preventing Lula from running) to head the
| ministry of justice.
|
| Dilma's maneuver was later considered legal and not
| grounds for an impeachment.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| > the prosperity that happened during Lula's time was
| because of booming commodities market and exports booming
|
| Ah, the familiar sound of facts being twisted and turned
| to conform to what you wish reality had been. We've been
| hearing this same rhetoric of denial since before their
| government ended. Somehow we should believe that a
| country of 200 million people was just "going through its
| motions" for over a decade and the figures in power were
| just spectators. I guess that leaves room to say the same
| about the current government - the ongoing destruction of
| the economy is "not their fault" either.
|
| There are a thousand different policies implemented in
| those years that helped the country achieve growth. A
| huge number of them already reversed in the past 5-6
| years. Hand waving _all of it_ as "the commodities market
| boomed" is of such a despicable, willful ignorance.
|
| EDIT: on why I find this so aggravating: to have a decent
| government you need people to vote based on proposals,
| political stance on specific issues, policies, not empty
| promises (like ending corruption). This kind of discourse
| just continues to poison the well by taking focus away
| from real economic/political issues and into a red vs
| blue team mentality.
| roenxi wrote:
| > we need to deal harshly with such hatred/disinfo
| campaigns, ruthlessly deplatforming fringe elements
|
| (1) If you believe that hate-based disinformation
| campaigns routinely unseat good people ... I might
| suggest that normalising ruthless deplatforming of
| "fringe elements" is a strategic blunder?
|
| There is a stereotype of ye goode olde Nazi/Communist
| regimes. It involves tropes of ruthlessness and
| deplatforming of fringe elements.
|
| (2) I'm not sure dismissing political opponents as "far
| right" and "fringe" when they are winning elections is
| rhetorically feasible. It is hard to get away from the
| fact that winning an election involves convincing swing
| voters that a plan is acceptable. It is worth asking some
| what? and why? style questions. Then getting to answers
| that don't involve the public becoming suddenly and
| unexpectedly susceptible to hypnosis.
| kian wrote:
| It seems a shame to downvote someone who is so genuinely
| trying to help in this situation. The moment the populace
| falls for 'far right' rhetoric, it becomes, by
| definition, centric rhetoric, in the same way that what
| was once 'left' rhetoric is now being called right-wing
| because the center has moved so far left. De-platforming
| and de-humanizing are _the_ playbook by which every
| totalitarian government, no matter its political colors,
| has established itself. Be wary listening to anyone who
| suggests these as a genuine solution, no matter what they
| wave in solidarity.
| newacct583 wrote:
| > One of the lessons people refuse to see in politics is
| that the people who vote for things they don't like might,
| potentially, be upset about something.
|
| And one of the lessons other people refuse to see is that
| appeasement of hate generally just leads to more hate. This
| is what we're seeing in the US right now, where what seems
| to be a majority fraction of one of the major parties is
| captured by an escalating rhetoric of hate. The angrier
| they get, the more votes they get. You can't placate that,
| because at the end of the day it's feeding on _ITSELF_ ,
| not a fundamental injustice.
|
| You really think that American voters are so outraged about
| vaccines or masks because of a genuine concern for good
| modern medical practice? No, they hate that stuff because
| it's pushed by the people _they already hate_. So now they
| hate them more.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| How can win-lose (lets say in the expected value) deals
| exist when the participants are free to partake or abstain
| from the deal?
| fighterpilot wrote:
| In this context, they meant to say "outcome", not "deal".
|
| However, win-lose deals can indeed happen, although
| they're rather rare. Consider the example of diminsmished
| agency, e.g a fentanyl addict "choosing" to buy more
| fentanyl. Or consider agency conflicts of interests or
| information asymmetries as examples where deals can turn
| out to be win-lose.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > the people who vote for things they don't like might,
| potentially, be upset about something
|
| Yes, but is the thing they're upset about and the thing
| they're directing their anger towards actually linked?
|
| It's often hugely successful in politics to say "all your
| problems are the fault of this external bad actor" rather
| than " _we_ have a problem and it 's going to take a lot of
| hard work to fix it". It's very easy to blame external
| Jewish financiers (George Soros always gets a namecheck)
| and gay people for all your problems. The last time people
| did that en masse in Eastern Europe it ended up with
| extermination camps and millions dead.
|
| Arguably Hungary's problems _are_ due to the international
| finance industry, but there 's nothing especially Jewish
| about it, just good old mis-selling. See e.g. https://www.f
| t.com/content/6c27cfbc-f50b-11e2-94e9-00144feab... - Orban
| took on the banks, which has to have been a big help to his
| popularity.
|
| The EU is not blameless in this:
| https://www.escp.eu/news/eu-convergence-narrative-played-
| key...
| pasabagi wrote:
| > en masse in Eastern Europe
|
| Is Germany in Eastern Europe now?
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| If I remember correctly, the vast majority of the
| extermination camps were in occupied Poland (or Austria),
| rather than Germany itself.
| pasabagi wrote:
| Well, yeah, but if somebody said the Vietnamese had a
| history of using napalm, because it was mostly used
| there, people might look at them funny.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| OP didn't say 'the Germans', OP said 'The last time
| people did that en masse _in Eastern Europe_ '.
|
| You thought you would score a point by embarrassing a
| stranger on the internet, but it didn't work out because
| you read something that OP didn't say. Pedantry is rarely
| a good look.
| Bayart wrote:
| A chunk of it certainly was, before the Germans got the
| boot. And the Nazi party was popular with a lot of
| factions in Eastern Europe, including in Hungary.
| pasabagi wrote:
| Western europe too, and in the USA. Vichy france, for
| example, is a pretty standout example, or Franco's spain,
| or Mussolini's italy, or some people in the UK (the daily
| mail, perhaps their readership?)
| raddan wrote:
| No, but Bosnia is.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omarska_camp
| zpeti wrote:
| The word radicalized is also way overused.
|
| Orban is seen as hateful or radicalising because he is
| against illegal immigration. He has made a big marketing
| point about this.
|
| But that doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate concerns
| about illegal immigration that Hungarians might have. Just
| because Western european nations have decided they don't
| mind if they add 1-2% yearly to their populations of a
| culturally totally different type of person, doesn't mean
| that that is normal or "good".
|
| Orban is using these emotions for his own purposes. That's
| true. But it's not Orban that is creating these issues, or
| the concerns about them.
| thinkindie wrote:
| because they are part of a community (Europe) with
| certain rules and they are deciding to enjoy the fruits
| of being part of this community (a lot of funds, free
| movements for people) and then you don't want to follow
| the rules. It's part of the basic principles of living in
| a community. You can't have your cake and eat it.
| krzyk wrote:
| Issue is that when they joining EU there was no mention
| of large influx of immigrants to the country.
|
| There is also a difference when you get immigrants of
| somehow similar culture vs large amount of immigrants
| from one that is completely different (and it being the
| same as ISIS, doesn't help, how one can differentiate
| infiltrator from legitimate refugee?).
|
| It is all good if amount of immigrants is not large
| influx.
|
| But what most Hungarians (and Poles) didn't take into
| account is that most of those immigrants prefer to get to
| western Europe, so blocking them was pointless. They
| would quickly go West.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I'm not from Hungary or Poland so can you please explain
| to me why Hungary and Poland seem uniquely inundated by
| refugees and apparently terrorists? Are there terrorist
| attacks happening from refugees regularly in Hungary and
| Poland? Why are they special, or are other EU countries
| just getting terrorist attacks and are ok with it?
|
| I'm genuinely asking because looking at the map, neither
| Hungary nor Poland are the first stop for a middle
| eastern refugee, and I have no idea where the statement
| of infiltrator from ISIS comes from because I haven't
| heard of an uptick of terrorism in either country.
| majgr wrote:
| Poland is very homogeneous regarding race, church. Most,
| who vote for populists, weren't abroad, or hadn't
| opportunity to meet other cultures really. Everything
| they know come from tv, or social media, and right-wing
| uses social media extensively: Facebook groups, or
| YouTube videos to scare them, you know, when one falls
| into Recommended black hole there is no turning back.
| Rapes, burning cars etc. Even government TV likes to
| remind from time to time what a "problem" refugees are.
| So it is mostly by showing everything negative about
| Muslims in Europe that is ever been able to find.
| enriquto wrote:
| they will answer that they don't have terror attacks
| precisely because they don't let terrorists in (unlike
| those pesky french and germans)
| krzyk wrote:
| Well, don't you see it as one of the reasons?
| trasz wrote:
| The polish way of avoiding terrorism is very simple: just
| don't count it as terrorism. Voila, problem solved. Works
| just as well with COVID tests.
| krzyk wrote:
| > I'm genuinely asking because looking at the map,
| neither Hungary nor Poland are the first stop for a
| middle eastern refugee, and I have no idea where the
| statement of infiltrator from ISIS comes from because I
| haven't heard of an uptick of terrorism in either
| country.
|
| People are more reluctant to let immigrants from too
| foreign culture in, e.g. Poland let in > 1M of Ukrainian
| immigrants (they are from similar culture as Poland)
| during last few years. Those assimilate easily.
|
| Also, people are afraid of the unknown. You force that on
| them, they will object -> vote for those that will block
| that. There is no way around that.
|
| This happens more in places that are more religious and
| for example Poland is, if you let in people from
| different (also religious) culture you create a clash.
|
| I think it would be easier for Czech, where there are few
| religious citizens.
|
| As for terrorists. People watch TV -> see that ISIS is
| cutting heads -> EU wants to import people from exact
| same region into your country. Many people objected to
| that, even those less nationalist.
| pell wrote:
| >Orban is seen as hateful or radicalising because he is
| against illegal immigration. He has made a big marketing
| point about this.
|
| I'm not going to go into the topic of migration and the
| "legality" of it. But the reason Orban is considered
| "radical" by many is not because of his stance on
| immigration first and foremost but because he's been
| dismantling democratic institutions left and right,
| starting with NGOs, the media, academia and to some
| extend even the judiciary. The fact that his rhetoric is
| hung up on blaming everything on George Soros does also
| not help.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You don't understand Hungarian history and why he has to
| dismantle those institutions. After the failed 1956
| uprising these 'democractic institutions' became soviet
| levers of power with key left supports in power. After
| the fall of communism there was never a real purge as the
| left has been mostly in power. This is the purge. What
| gets rebuilt?
| pell wrote:
| I fail to see how using spyware against journalists and
| critics is in any way linked to a failed uprising from
| 1956 or how his successful efforts to establish a media
| landscape that largely backs him is supporting "the real
| purge" you're describing. When Miklos Vaszily bought
| Index.hu how did this help remove the soviet levers?
|
| I think you're being willfully naive here, I'm afraid.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > he's been dismantling democratic institutions left and
| right, starting with NGOs, the media, academia
|
| This is precisely where I claim you've gone wrong.
|
| > NGOs
|
| NGOs are not democratic institutions per se. NGOs can be
| incredibly detrimental to societies, whether
| intentionally or through incompetence, and can be used by
| billionaires to social engineer societies as they see
| fit.
|
| > the media
|
| The media are not democratic institutions per se, even if
| they can _in principle_ be used to communicate
| information needed to make sound political decisions. In
| practice, they 've owned by someone with a view that's
| inseparable from the writing. So far I've seen corporate
| media banned and very often, in that part of the world,
| the corporate media are owned by powerful foreign
| interests, thus often becoming instruments for social
| engineering and propaganda.
|
| > academia
|
| A healthy academia can, again and _in principle_ , be
| very important for the maintenance of an informed
| society, but here, too, they are not democratic
| institutions per se, and they have demonstrated enormous
| susceptibility to ideology (which is quite a charitable
| claim; they are, in fact, the breeding grounds of many of
| the ideologies that later enter the political sphere).
| Through funding (gov't and private foundations often
| backed by billionaires) and biased hiring, ideologues can
| be promoted and concentrated within the ranks of the
| university.
|
| So I have to say I am a bit frustrated by the pervasive
| myopia about the reality of these kinds of political
| issues. What I see is often a credulous attitude toward
| the false narratives that corporate media have published.
|
| Whether Orban is using appropriate _means_ to achieve
| certain ends is the subject of another discussion, but
| that Hungary and other countries are the subject of
| foreign imperialist ideological bullying is not an open
| question as far as I am concerned. Whatever flaws Orban
| might have, realistically, I do not see any other forces
| that can mount a serious enough defense against these
| threats. (Mass immigration is only one thing Orban takes
| issue with, btw.)
| Regic wrote:
| I call this argument "totalitarian democracy argument".
| Yes, NGOs and media are not democratic, nor family,
| corporations, etc... Not everything is and it is fairly
| obvious that if everything was controlled through the
| goverment (so in some sense, democratic) it would lead to
| one party rule almost immediately, which unfortunately
| seem to be the point in this particular case.
|
| It is also very ironic that in Hungary these independent
| (i.e. from state) institutions are replaced with ones
| who's mandate last longer than 2 terms of election -
| fairly obvious that public control is not the goal, but
| the exact opposite.
| [deleted]
| pell wrote:
| I think you're playing a bit of a semantics game here.
| Obviously media, NGOs and academia can be detrimental to
| democracy. So can elections or the judiciary too (e.g.
| Hitler's rise to chancellor of Germany was legal and
| Democratic).
|
| When one calls these institutions Democratic it's because
| they do represent opposition and thus a control
| mechanism. This does not mean that they're infallible or
| act for the good of society by definition but if they do
| not exist the government operates - de facto - in a
| completely uncontrolled framework. Unsurprisingly this is
| why many governments do try to dismantle these
| institutions in the first place.
|
| >[..] but that Hungary and other countries are the
| subject of foreign imperialist ideological bullying is
| not an open question as far as I am concerned.
|
| I agree that this is worthy of a discussion however I
| don't think this is the topic in question at all.
| owisd wrote:
| Institutions like that play an important role in
| democracy precisely because they can hold views opposing
| the mainstream and act as a moderating force even if they
| themselves aren't 'democratic'. The populist idea that
| institutions should kowtow to some Rousseauian 'will of
| the people' ideal can be damaging to democracy because
| it's easy for someone like Orban to claim to speak for
| 'the people', so when institutions have to fall in line
| with 'the people' really they're falling in line with
| Orban, and then you've not got a democracy.
| dogorman wrote:
| > _Democratic institutions [...] NGOs "_
|
| What is it that makes non-government organizations so
| democratic? Do they let the general public vote for their
| leaders?
| neel8986 wrote:
| Looks so much similar to Modi in India. At some point we
| are all helpless in front of blatant rhetoric. We will
| destroy our institutions just for the hatred for "others"
| zo1 wrote:
| There is a huge disconnect between the accepted "truths"
| in "public discourse" or "mainstream" opinion, and what
| people _really_ believe. This is a consequence of who
| knows how many years /decades of punishing "incorrect"
| opinions. Just look at the example presented in this
| thread about illegal and/or wide-scale immigration. 100%
| a thing that people can sanely and without being hateful
| hold as an opinion, yet it is stigmatized and punished
| when espoused in any sort of public forum or as a
| political platform. So everyone that doesn't want to be
| clumped into "that right-wing/hate group" category of
| people, just decides to shut up and go with it
| performatively.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Rhetoric on its own is nothing. But rhetoric that
| adresses needs and fears of a big size of the people -
| does.
|
| So I do not see the solution in fighting populist
| rhetoric, but in adressing the cause of the fear of the
| people.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >but in adressing the cause of the fear of the people.
|
| If you address it they won't have a reason to vote for
| you next time. This problem plagues many US cities.
| thinkindie wrote:
| and just to clarify - joining the EU is an exercise of
| free will. Countries are met with some conditions and
| it's their decision to join or not. This is valid for
| both Hungary and Poland. If they don't want to be part of
| EU any longer I think Brexit showed the way, and all the
| consequences of that.
| varelaz wrote:
| Brexit was a way to leave EU by country which wants this.
| But Hungary doesn't want to leave, they want all benefits
| and keep doing what they want. EU has very little power
| to punish Hungary. To do something serious all countries
| should vote for this, but Hungary and Poland have
| agreement on protection of each other. So EU is kind of
| hostage there.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I seem to recall the UK Brexit and that freewill argument
| was almost immediately challenged by calls for next
| rounds of referenda ( presumably until the right decision
| is reached by the population ). As always, it is
| democracy and free will as long as it is exercised in a
| way the conforms to rather specific view of what the
| outcome should be.
| jonp888 wrote:
| I don't understand your argument. Britain voted to leave,
| and they left.
|
| People can 'call' for whatever they like. In this case
| the demand was related to the refererendum being on a
| nebulous idea without any clear idea on how to implement
| it. No-one would ever seriously suggest having a
| referendum on a Trade deal or Treaty before the
| negotiations had even started. The idea of having a
| referendum on the final deal was hardly a crazy one.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > joining the EU is an exercise of free will
|
| This sounds like comments to the effect of "If you don't
| like how America does X, then leave X." It also frames
| things in a relativistic sense, as if consent is
| unconditionally binding and nothing but consent has any
| moral weight.
|
| Anyway, this isn't as simple as it sounds. First, joining
| did not give the EU license to make all sorts of weird
| impositions and to demand these countries cooperate
| against their own good. Second, countries aren't people.
| Politicians in those countries at the time put a great
| deal of energy into promoting entry into the EU among the
| populace, and referenda results reflected a wish to deal
| with frustration caused by domestic political realities,
| and feelings of inferiority, more than some kind of
| reasoned and responsible decision (I recall speaking with
| political analysts at the time who felt that entry into
| the EU was a bad decision, at the very least a premature
| one).
|
| > I think Brexit showed the way
|
| This may be the only option. But this is politics. The EU
| is unjust (put aside the propaganda please) and so the
| moral high ground is not to be found in Brussels. For
| now, tolerating and resisting bullying from the EU is
| likely better than exiting. But I don't expect the EU is
| last another 25 years at this rate, so it might be a
| matter of waiting out the storm.
| pjc50 wrote:
| There's almost seven million displaced Syrians. The real
| failure is to not have dealt with the Syrian crisis, and
| now the demand to kick out the refugees, no matter how
| impractical this is or how lethal it would be to them, is
| rising.
| adolph wrote:
| Pop of Hungary is 10m. What % of Syria can be absorbed by
| Syria?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary
| ipaddr wrote:
| At 1% 100,000 or so max.
| jsbdk wrote:
| I don't really see how the Syrian issue is my fault or my
| responsibility.
|
| Why aren't all those Syrians flown to the United States
| and Israel? Now that would be fair.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Or to turkey, russia, iran, france ... there are many
| powers involved in syria and fighting over it.
| ramphastidae wrote:
| https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/ > Turkey hosts
| the largest number of refugees, with nearly 3.7 million
| people.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrians_in_Turkey > The
| number of Syrians in Turkey is estimated at over 3.6
| million people as of March 2020,[3] and consists mainly
| of refugees of the Syrian Civil War.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Yes. And turkey is also very active in creating more
| refugees by supporting islamists in syria and active
| combat raids. And is using the mass of refugees regulary
| to blackmail the EU.
| ramphastidae wrote:
| Turkey did not start the war in Syria, but they do share
| a border with them, and have a responsibility to secure
| their border from a failed state. They took in more
| refugees than any other country in the world, which has a
| massive impact on their economy and security. Requesting
| economic aid from the EU to deal with this is not
| blackmail. The EU benefits massively from keeping Syrians
| in Turkey, because Syrians primarily use it as a pass
| through on their way to Europe.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "and have a responsibility to secure their border from a
| failed state."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_involvement_in_the_
| Syr...
|
| So you think supporting islamist militias is helping
| stabilize said neighbor state?
| bobthechef wrote:
| > The real failure is to not have dealt with the Syrian
| crisis
|
| Most migrants weren't Syrians, btw. But more importantly,
| I wish to remind you that when this mass migration was
| inflicted on Europe, the Left was very much in favor of
| this shitshow. There was no "dealing with the Syrian
| crisis" then (whatever anyone means by that). Nor was
| there any acknowledgement that the majority of migrants
| weren't fleeing Syrians. Syrians should have been helped
| on the ground in Syria, but only a few states seemed to
| promote that approach (Poland comes to mind).
|
| All of this should suggest that the mass migration was
| weaponized.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > acknowledgement that the majority of migrants weren't
| fleeing Syrians
|
| Which migrants? Where are they from in Hungary, then?
|
| > should suggest that the mass migration was weaponized
|
| By whom? For what purpose?
|
| > the Left was very much in favor of this shitshow
|
| The left (such as this can be described as a homogenous
| bloc!) was not in favour of the collapse of Syria,
| although they generally were against just repeating the
| mistakes of Iraq there. Without the attack on Iraq the
| collapse of Syria might not have happened, after all - it
| released a huge amount of arms stockpiles into the region
| which were taken up by ISIS.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| Syrians were under 30% of the migrants arriving in Europe
| from 2015-2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_mi
| grant_crisis#Causes...
|
| > The left (such as this can be described as a homogenous
| bloc!) was not in favour of the collapse of Syria,
| although they generally were against just repeating the
| mistakes of Iraq there. Without the attack on Iraq the
| collapse of Syria might not have happened, after all - it
| released a huge amount of arms stockpiles into the region
| which were taken up by ISIS.
|
| Obama authorized the CIA in 2013 to supply the Syrian
| rebels with money, weapons, and training [0]. A lot of
| those weapons ended up falling into the hands of
| extremist groups like AQ and ISIL, either by "vetted"
| militia groups getting absorbed into larger ones or
| weapons getting resold on the black market. That may not
| have ignited the conflict, but it certainly prolonged it
| and contributed to the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
|
| [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
| barneygale wrote:
| There would be little reason to migrate if those European
| nations didn't exploit corruption and poor
| labour/environmental standards in other countries.
| Allowing free movement of goods and services without free
| movement of people entrenches inequality and makes the
| problem worse. Time to look at whether global capitalism
| is culturally "good", rather than shifting the blame to
| desperate people seeking safety or a better life for
| their family.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > There would be little reason to migrate if those
| European nations didn't exploit
|
| Which European nations did this and how? Did Hungary,
| Poland, Lithuania, etc. do this? If you're talking about
| colonialism, then if _Western Europe_ has a guilty
| conscience, let them pay the price. Don 't punish nations
| that had nothing to do with any of that and who
| themselves were oppressed under foreign imperialism
| during that time. (Though two wrongs don't make a right,
| so I would avoid the insane rhetoric of "reparative
| cultural and national self-destruction".)
|
| Besides, the idea that the world is poor _because_ of
| European nations is a simplistic claim and the sum
| benefits and injustices. These weren 't typically wealthy
| nations that those European devils colonized, even if
| they later took part in exploiting or mistreating those
| peoples. Odd that only the West receives that attention
| and no one else.
|
| > Allowing free movement of goods and services without
| free movement of people entrenches inequality and makes
| the problem worse
|
| Inequality is not the problem. Poverty and unjust
| treatment are.
|
| Also, free migration actually does actually make the
| world worse. It leads to the destruction of the host
| nation by flooding it with people of a different culture
| beyond a rate at which they can be absorbed, but also the
| draining of the origin nations of labor, expertise, etc.
| It's bad for everyone. Maybe corporations benefit in some
| myopic way. They're the one who will print the bleeding
| heart op eds that tug at sentimentalist moralizers.
| lloydjones wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree. In the UK, the lower middle class are
| (to generalise) materially well-off; they own their own
| homes, they have a couple of cars, they have large
| televisions, one partner does not have to work, etc.
|
| And through pure boredom/decadence, they were radicalised
| through years of negative messaging from the populist press
| into 'caring' about things like Brexit, immigration,
| welfare claimants, etc.
|
| These are people that have most of their needs met and are
| comfortable, yet their emotional buttons were pushed over
| the course of years into making them foam at the mouth
| about things they largely don't fully grasp and that
| definitely don't have an impact on their lives.
| laurent92 wrote:
| The average life in UK is to be a drunkard with bad
| teeth. Don't take it bad, I love such friends and you may
| face difficulties with life, but while some find it
| poetic and party-prone, what does it tell about the
| country's care of its citizen? Which other nation has a
| higher quantity of middle classes who drink themselves to
| near-death experience every second evening? What does it
| mean when the middleclass experience is to use pills at
| every high-school party since 1980?
|
| No matter how you look at it, you cannot possibly tell me
| that the UK-born Englishman has been well taken care of.
| Especially when the representative TV show of the country
| is Top Gear, which, besides being awesome and fun to
| watch, is also stuck in the pollution and selfish age
| (apart from James May, who timidly looks to the electric
| future), and shows those drunkards-with-bad-teeth are not
| at all the lowerclasses or the unlucky, but the normal
| life up to the top of the society. The crib of
| Rock'n'roll is now a nation that is desperate for
| illusions right from the bottom to the top.
| nradov wrote:
| You're exaggerating. The UK isn't even in the top 10 for
| alcohol consumption.
|
| https://www.alcohol.org/guides/global-drinking-
| demographics/
| ModernMech wrote:
| It's not top 10, but at 10.4 liters consumed per capita
| it looks like it might be number 11. Not exactly _not_ a
| problem.
| carschno wrote:
| We have seen an enormous disintegration of social
| stability in many European countries, if not most. Those
| parts of the middle class that have not been affected by
| materially are right to fear they will be. This economic
| development has been a consequence of the politics of the
| past decades which have been dominated by austerity,
| general redistribution of wealth towards the top, and
| accompanying measures against democratic structures that
| can include free press, independent justice,
| marginalization of workers unions etc. Especially more
| radical parties of that sort like Orban have driven these
| classical liberal economic developments; mind the
| hypocrisy in their "illiberalism" claims.
|
| Every other topic that has emotional potential can serve
| as a scapegoat for distraction ("we have to fight the
| common enemy first, then we can care about the poor"):
| immigrants, the EU, Jewish/Marxist conspiracies,
| homosexuals etc. It does not _necessarily_ mean that
| there are no problems related to other topics (e.g. EU
| bureaucracy etc.), but that is hardly relevant in these
| cases. You see this playbook in many countries inside and
| outside of Europe (e.g. Brazil, USA, UK, Russia, Poland,
| Slovenia, Turkey, ...).
| peteretep wrote:
| > the lower middle class are (to generalise) materially
| well-off ... they have large televisions ... through pure
| boredom/decadence they were radicalised ... about things
| they largely don't fully grasp
|
| 8/10 top parody comment. You could have strengthened it
| by suggesting they turn to brioche if they don't have
| enough bread to eat though.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Please address parent's post in good faith. The point he
| was not outlandish or imponderable.
| nindalf wrote:
| I agree with the parent's post FWIW. However, there is a
| strong tendency in mainstream thought to have great
| deference to "the People", however you define it. The
| voice of the People is the voice of God, in fact. So for
| a person to claim that well off people turned to radical
| thought out of boredom and ignorance might be correct,
| but would be considered not just outlandish, as you put
| it, but outright heresy.
|
| It's not just the UK. It's the US and every other place.
| Trump wins 46% of the popular vote in 2016 and suddenly
| there's a deluge of think pieces about how people are
| hurting and what not. Yeah maybe. But there's a lot of
| folks out there who love voting for a guy who "triggers
| libs" and normalizes pussy grabbing. And we're not
| allowed to say this, because again, it's heresy in a
| democracy to imply that a large segment of voters could
| be ignorant or stupid or racist.
|
| Another example, this time with vaccines. One person
| decides not to get a life saving vaccine because he was
| duped by misinformation online - he's an idiot. 30% of
| the population swallow the same bullshit - they have
| valid concerns that we need to empathise with and
| assuage. If they choose not to get vaccinated, we have to
| accept their choice. We shouldn't require vaccine
| passports because it would hurt their feelings and their
| ability to transmit diseases to their fellow citizens.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| You touched on a lot of important things and I will try
| to respond to all of them without distracting myself.
|
| I posit to you that 'people hurting and what not' are not
| merely think pieces (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy ). I
| remember driving through PA months before Trump's
| election and recall seeing some of the sadder signs you
| can read including "Save us Trump". It is not "triggering
| the libs"; it is genuine despair of no options other than
| triggering the libs. It is important to understand where
| it comes from, if one is to have a hope to counter it in
| any meaningful way. Just using that slogan is a mental
| shortcut that undermines our discourse.
|
| I do not see that understanding. What I see is more
| targeted messaged intended to inflame pre-existing
| passions. I do not see discussion. I see bumper stickers.
|
| As for democracy, there is an argument to be made that it
| relies on educated and engaged populace. I am not the
| biggest fan, because US has neither and a lot of ways to
| manipulate public opinion are well understood now. And
| yet, it is still a better option than benevolent
| dictator, monarchy or some sort of theocracy.
|
| Now, we can quibble over whether US is a democracy, which
| in itself is a discussion for a couple of pages.
|
| I do think you have a point with vaccines, but I want you
| to consider the question of choice, mandates and so on in
| regards to government imposing choices upon you. What is
| the lesser evil here?
| jfengel wrote:
| And having elected Trump, what did they get aside from
| triggering the libs?
|
| I see a fair bit of attempts at understanding. Liberals
| love to write books like "The Righteous Mind" and "What's
| The Matter With Kansas?", attempting to understand
| conservatives from a liberal point of view. I can't think
| of anything comparable on the right. Progressives seem to
| me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives,
| and it feels like the only thing conservatives want is to
| make my life harder.
|
| It could very well be that I'm just not listening hard
| enough. That seems to be the response every time liberals
| lose elections: "understand harder", because the problem
| is with me. But I'm starting to think that maybe I do
| understand: they don't want anything from me except
| someone to be angry at, and whatever despair they're
| undergoing is more about the deliberate induction of that
| despair than anything I actually do.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| >>And having elected Trump, what did they get aside from
| triggering the libs?
|
| Just top of my head:
|
| _Well, there is an argument to be made from purely
| economical perspective, avg. earner did see some
| improvement. Regardless of whether you think tax cuts
| were a good idea, Trump tax cuts did have intended
| effects ( even though they also added to an ever
| increasing deficit ).
|
| _ He did pull out of JCPOA, which some of his electorate
| actually wanted for various reasons.
|
| I maintain that listening is important. I would argue
| that understanding is more than important. You want an
| absolution and an easy answer of 'they are just assholes
| so I can be an asshole back', but it is not that easy.
| The people you dismiss have rationale for what they do.
| And now that you know this, you have no excuse but to act
| on that knowledge. Or, at least, use it to your
| advantage.
| nindalf wrote:
| > He did pull out of JCPOA, which some of his electorate
| actually wanted for various reasons
|
| How's that worked out for them? People in Appalachia
| feeling pleased about the pain inflicted on the Iranian
| people? Or are they pleased that Iran stopped adhering to
| the deal and have resumed uranium enrichment? Or are they
| pleased about Iran's expanding influence in the Middle
| East?
|
| It doesn't take much to to give people what they want.
| Pulling out of the JCPOA took only a couple of days. But
| it was not a good decision, and the fallout wasn't felt
| by the people who pushed for it.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| That is on me. The example here was more intended to show
| that IAPAC got what it wanted out of Trump presidency.
|
| You are correct to point out that people of Appallachia
| did not get anything of value out of that exchange.
|
| Since that is the case, would you accept Keystone
| Pipeline ( https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/trump-
| administration-app... ), which was approved and,
| arguably, allowed for a lowering of energy cost across
| US?
|
| < It doesn't take much to to give people what they want.
|
| I do disagree with that statement. This is the hardest
| thing in politics.
| jfengel wrote:
| You're absolutely correct that some of what I want is to
| make my own life easier and be lazy, but there's also a
| political calculus. Almost anything I do to cater to them
| helps split my own political coalition.
|
| One possible way to look at 2016 is that the left wing of
| the Democratic party felt taken advantage of. The party
| put forth a centrist candidate (after 8 years of a
| President who wasn't nearly as progressive as they'd
| hoped). There was little enthusiasm, while the people
| you've asked me to understand voted for a candidate who
| was obviously awful in many ways.
|
| So the political calculus can say, "It doesn't matter
| what they want. You can't reach them, as evidenced by
| their willingness to vote for such a terrible candidate.
| I need instead to lean in the exact opposite direction,
| doing things that they hate vocally, because they can't
| vote against me any harder than they already do."
|
| That's my excuse to not act on that knowledge. I have
| only so many actions I can take, and I will spend them in
| the way that does the most good.
|
| Note that I'm not committed to that, merely explaining
| the view as being something other than "they're assholes
| so I can be an asshole back". But I do believe that the
| time has come to consider making them chase me rather
| than the other way around.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and
| cater to conservatives_
|
| Huh? Do you have any examples of this?
|
| I think you might be generalizing too much what it means
| to be liberal and don't really understand who is or isn't
| progressive, even in the context of the US.
|
| It sounds like by liberals, you are referring to the
| Democratic party at large. You have to understand, the
| Democratic party at large is barely liberal and nowhere
| near progressive. Outside of a small number of
| progressive politicians, they're perfectly fine to waste
| a majority in DC doing very little because the same
| corporate interests that back conservatives also back
| them. They behave like controlled opposition. You can do
| your part to vote for someone who truly is progressive in
| a primary election.
| jfengel wrote:
| You're correct: I conflated liberals, progressives, and
| Democrats. There are definitely important distinctions,
| but I conflated them as all being roughly on the same
| side when it comes to politics and dealing with the
| opposition party.
|
| As for "examples", take a look at those two books I
| mentioned. There are many more books, and many op-ed
| pieces every time Democrats lose elections.
|
| It's only relatively recently that the more progressive
| wing of the party has said, "Hey, rather than try to bend
| over backwards to attract moderate conservatives, how
| about you garner more enthusiasm from your left wing?" Or
| at least, they've been saying it for a while, but were
| generally dismissed. I think 2016 made the proposition
| more thinkable: if they will vote for the Republican
| candidate even if he's obviously insane, maybe a new
| approach is needed.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| FYI, progressives did not write the books you mentioned,
| so they aren't good examples of showing how "
| _Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and
| cater to conservatives_ ".
| jfengel wrote:
| You're correct. I should have said "Democrats", who are
| the party most closely aligned with progressives and the
| more progressive of the two parties, but not really very
| progressive. These books are written targeting centrist
| Democrats.
| nindalf wrote:
| > Liberals every time liberals lose elections:
| "understand harder", because the problem is with me.
|
| Conservatives every time liberals win elections: "let's
| make voting harder", because the problem is still with
| liberals.
| nindalf wrote:
| > the question of choice, mandates and so on in regards
| to government imposing choices upon you.
|
| The government isn't imposing these requirements
| arbitrarily, it's your fellow citizens imposing it
| through the mechanism of government. For example, Big
| Government will outlaw and penalise littering not for the
| sake of it, but because that's what citizens want from
| their democratically elected government.
|
| And as a citizen who fully supports restrictions in
| response to a pandemic - IMO the government can't require
| you to get vaccinated. But you can't demand to be allowed
| into nightclubs and cruise ships while unvaccinated.
| Fair?
|
| > And yet, it is still a better option than benevolent
| dictator, monarchy or some sort of theocracy.
|
| I didn't argue against democracy. I argued against
| putting the population on a pedestal. It's ok to
| criticise people's beliefs. And it continues to be ok
| even if those beliefs are held by a large group of
| people. If a large group of people think that vaccines
| cause 5G ... I don't think we should coddle them and
| think about it from their perspective and accommodate
| their idiocy just because they have plenty of company.
| Let's create rules so the damage they do is minimized.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| > I didn't argue against democracy. I argued against
| putting the population on a pedestal.
|
| Please note that democracy literally is the rule of the
| people. You simply cannot state that you are not arguing
| against democracy and in next breath say that people
| should not be on its pedestal, because, theoretically,
| people are its ruling class. If it is a democracy, people
| are on its pedestal. That is the main weakness of
| democracy. People, as a whole, are idiots.
|
| Your issue appears to be with commonly held beliefs that
| are not your beliefs. But that is a very different
| discussion.
|
| > And as a citizen who fully supports restrictions in
| response to a pandemic - IMO the government can't require
| you to get vaccinated. But you can't demand to be allowed
| into nightclubs and cruise ships while unvaccinated.
| Fair?
|
| I have zero problem with that statement.
| nindalf wrote:
| You've misunderstood and mischaracterised my argument.
| I'm done.
| lloydjones wrote:
| Excellently put.
| joshuahughes wrote:
| "In the UK, the lower middle class are (to generalise)
| materially well-off; they own their own homes, they have
| a couple of cars, they have large televisions, one
| partner does not have to work, etc."
|
| I'm glad you added "(to generalise)" in there, because
| I'd class myself as 'lower middle' and most of my
| family/friends in a similar bracket absolutely cannot
| function without both partners working, and a majority
| are renting rather than buying their home. I'd argue that
| what you've described is only true of those OLDER lower
| middle class folks (like my parents) who struck it lucky
| before the housing market lost its mind.
|
| The only reason I personally fit into your description
| (well, I only have one car) is that I was lucky to find
| my way into the software industry which pays a heck of a
| lot better than most...
| barbarbar wrote:
| The last part of this comment is very well written.
| Actually the whole comment is. Having said that there are
| a lot of EU that is... Well crazy but what was before was
| not really good either.
| roenxi wrote:
| Hasn't the UK's energy availability basically collapsed?
| I keep an eye on the basic stats [0] and it looked like
| the situation was pretty grim leading up to Brexit.
|
| Someone is really hurting. Either production is
| collapsing and people are losing good jobs, or it is
| directly going to result in household pain.
|
| I suppose it would surprise me if 20% of a country's
| electricity can disappear, almost half its primary energy
| production is gone, the population grows by 10% and
| everyone is cheerful. It looks like a situation ripe for
| rage, tension and people asking angry questions.
|
| This is basically the pigeonhole principle at work. If
| energy availability is going down and population is
| rising, someone is going to be developing some
| _profoundly_ anti-migrant views.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Ki
| ngdom
| cranekam wrote:
| Can you explain what "energy availability" means in this
| context? My family lives in the UK and the lights work
| and the gad flows. Prices increase over time (above
| inflation, IIRC) but it still works, so I assume you're
| referring to some other meaning I don't yet know about.
| roenxi wrote:
| The amount of energy is lower - the UK is producing much
| less, electricity use has declined and (although it isn't
| strictly certain) that is suggestive evidence that if you
| tallied up all the Joules consumed in the UK then there
| are less of them in 2016 than 2010.
|
| If there are less Joules and more people, some people
| must - by mathematical necessity - be consuming less of
| them. If your family can still afford to consume the same
| amount then maybe someone else on the margins is really
| being pushed.
|
| That is a pretty decent reason for why a large number of
| people might be getting desperate for political change.
| It is a stronger explanation than some variant of the
| more common "maybe they are just really confused and/or
| hateful and/or unexpectedly stupid". People don't read
| economic stats but they'll notice if 20% of their
| electricity goes away.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I live in the UK, and I don't think energy has anything
| to do with it. We're producing less electricity because
| we're consuming less electrcity, which is mostly due to
| more energy efficient appliances and decreasing
| industrial usage isn't impacting lifestyles.
|
| If you want to point to something, I'd look towards
| massively inflated house prices (almost 10x over 30 years
| in some places), and stagnating real wages.
| toyg wrote:
| Electricity usage as a metric for wealth is such a XX-
| century construct... I have no idea why you would still
| use something like that in a world where Climate Change
| has been socially accepted as fact.
|
| The UK temporarily _outlawed_ older-generation
| lightbulbs, as well as putting in place a number of
| measures to reduce energy use. Even Conservatives,
| historically the party of industry, are now heavily
| committed towards energy-efficiency measures of all sorts
| (sometimes excessively so, like the push for those
| terrible heat pumps).
|
| A decline in energy consumption is a _good thing_ and is
| absolutely not impacting standards of living in any way
| in UK society. The reasons for discontent are many, for
| sure, but not related to energy use in any way. The main
| issue really is wage stagnation (and hence, availability
| of time) for the working classes.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The numbers look like a combination of increased import
| of electricity and move away from lower efficiency
| thermal cycles for electricity production (primary energy
| use is the thermal energy before going through the heat
| engine; replacement of coal and nuclear with gas and wind
| would reduce primary energy use even if electricity
| production were unchanged.)
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > I know nothing about Hungary. But I am quite confident
| that a happy, well organised society labouring under the
| grip of sound economic policies tends not to radicalise
| very easily.
|
| I've travelled a lot in Eastern Europe and I think I know
| where this is coming from.
|
| When communism fell, people rejoiced in joining the EU and
| getting all the benefits of a free society. However what
| really happened was that those spoils went to the people
| who were desirable employees. Meaning mainly the young (and
| those happy few with money or connections). Meanwhile the
| old communist cronies stayed in power and simply became
| capitalist oligarchs.
|
| On the other side, older people's built up state pensions
| were cut or removed due to their jobs being privatised to
| shady agencies owned by these ex-government oligarchs. An
| easy way to cheat them out of their benefits they worked
| for. For all its failures, communism did provide them with
| a sense of continuity and job security that is now lost.
|
| As a result there is now a strong separation between those
| with opportunities and those without. The haves and have
| nots. The older people have been abandoned. Of course these
| people tend to have traditional values and this is what
| people like Orban target.
|
| I don't think Orban will really make things better for
| them, he is just a populist seeing a niche to take
| advantage of. But the disillusionment is real and very
| clear to me. I've spoken to some well educated poor people
| that were just too old to be of interest to capitalist
| companies. And thus ending up living in an apartment with
| plastic bags for windows (in -20 degrees C). I spoke to a
| very well educated school teacher who was begging on the
| street to pay for her husband's cancer treatment. She
| wasn't one to fall for these populists as she was way too
| sharp. But I was shocked how society has let an entire
| class of hard-working people just drop away into
| insignificance. In Western Europe we have built a balance
| between capitalism and welfare, but in Eastern Europe they
| moved straight to a caricature of hard neoliberalism. It
| caused a big culture shock and left a whole class of people
| behind.
|
| We (as the EU) have let this happen by letting these states
| change their industries to capitalism overnight without
| setting up a proper welfare system. This will not go away
| until we find a way to give everyone a decent life in these
| countries. For some people the EU has been nothing but
| broken promises. Of course that's a breeding ground for
| dissent and populism.
| doctorbaum wrote:
| I'll just add that in Israel there is a similar problem
| with older immigrants from the former USSR (a big wave of
| them came to Israel just after the USSR imploding), where
| they don't have any meaningful pensions saved up.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| The people I speak of weren't immigrants though. They
| were just abandoned in their own countries.
| krzyk wrote:
| > but in Eastern Europe they moved straight to a
| caricature of hard neoliberalism
|
| Please don't generalise. Have you been to Czech Republic
| or Poland? There are no such neoliberalisms (I would say
| same about Hungary, but considering Orban, I'm not sure,
| I haven't been there)
|
| We have good welfare and educated people don't beg on
| streets, not to mention plastic bags on windows.
|
| Your description looks more like one for Ukraine.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I was in Romania primarily, many times. Have been to
| Poland a couple of times, but indeed I haven't seen this
| there. Sorry I was indeed extrapolating my experience in
| Romania to other countries. I assumed this happened in
| more countries.
|
| The plastic bags on windows were really common though.
| There was a really poor apartment block just beside the
| office and I always felt so guilty looking at it. From
| the well heated office with free coffee.
| trasz wrote:
| Poland, welfare? :-D
|
| As for neoliberalism: in Poland the usual way of
| employment, called "umowa o dzielo", gives the employee
| pretty much no rights whatsoever. It's almost as bad as
| in the US in that matter, and not comparable at all to
| Western Europe.
| krzyk wrote:
| I have never worked using that "way", always the normal
| one.
|
| What you describe is used by firms that you can smell a
| mile away and don't even try to work there.
|
| I'm sure western Europe has similar companies that abuse
| employer rights.
| trasz wrote:
| In the field of software development, in Poland, this is
| the normal one.
|
| Also, note that this is not an abuse of employer's
| rights: that's precisely how "umowa o dzielo" is supposed
| to work. That's one example of prevalent neoliberalism.
| krzyk wrote:
| No one in my or my wifes family works in any other
| formnof emoloyment. And believe me they are not software
| developers.
|
| Yes, that's not a good proof, but you also did not
| present any sources.
| trasz wrote:
| It's a bit hard to find something on this in English; if
| you can read Polish there's plenty, eg
| https://biznes.interia.pl/praca/news-2030-proc-
| zatrudnionych...
| ptsneves wrote:
| I am not a Pole, but live in Poland. Umowa o dzielo is
| quite pervasive but this is not a problem specific to
| Poland. Portugal, my home country has the same problems
| just the thing is a different name. The translation would
| be contractor. As a contractor you obviously have no
| rights, even so i think this is not the equivalent of US
| employment.
|
| In both countries the governments are trying to make it
| quite hard to have people with Umowa o dzielo, which are
| de-facto employees, but do not pay the appropriate taxes
| nor are corrrectly protected. The employers also have
| some reason to do this, the protections offered to the
| employees often make it a very big risk to hire somebody.
| Regardless, i believe the southern European countries got
| it much worse on that front. (Note, the Polish social
| security model was heavily influenced by the spanish
| one).
| trasz wrote:
| The difference is, in Poland "umowa o dzielo" isn't hard:
| if anything it's easier than normal employment, because
| you don't have to care about things like ZUS, and it's
| much cheaper (in terms of labour costs).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It's not just whether peoples' lives improved. It's also
| how much they _expected_ their lives to improve. If
| capitalism made life 10% better, that 's good. If they
| expected capitalism to make life 500% better, then 10%
| isn't so good. And if they look around and see people
| whose lives are now 500% better, then the resentment is
| pretty natural.
|
| It's not just that we (the EU, or even the West) let them
| switch to capitalism without a proper welfare system. We
| let them without giving them a government that knew how
| to run a capitalist country (because we didn't give them
| a government at all). But we let them have the
| _expectations_ of a functioning Western government,
| instead of the expectations of a transitioning country
| that didn 't really know how to do either democracy or
| capitalism.
|
| It worked out pretty well for Germany and Japan to be
| conquered, and have the US spend a decade showing them
| how to do both democracy and capitalism. Just saying
| "Welcome to capitalism and democracy! Glad you're here!"
| turns out not so well. (The problem, of course, is that
| when you aren't a conqueror, the country doesn't want you
| to run it. And when you're fighting against the "evil
| colonialists" meme _anyway_ , taking over is a really bad
| look, whether or not the results would be better in the
| long run.)
| gypsyharlot wrote:
| When you don't do the EU's bidding, their propaganda machinery
| will work so hard that even Goebbels would be impressed. Then
| comes the sanctions and other bullying approaches to force your
| ways. God I hope more countries follow the UK and leave the
| world's fattest bureaucracy.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Orban used EU money to take total control of the country (media,
| poor voters). If EU lets China come into Hungary, it will
| backfire for the whole EU in my opinion.
| bkovacev wrote:
| China has already targeted Serbia and Montenegro -
| infrastructure mainly. I can't find the source now, but I have
| heard they already started investing in Hungary.
| chpatrick wrote:
| Orban wants to build a massive Chinese university campus in
| Budapest, with a loan from China.
|
| https://telex.hu/english/2021/04/22/hungary-china-fudan-
| univ...
| erk__ wrote:
| A good example of that is the Fudan university campus
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57372653
| Dah00n wrote:
| I don't know much about Hungary so could you provide a reason
| why it is bad "if EU lets China come into Hungary"? Unless it
| is because China Bad, then I'm not interested, but I'm hoping
| for something more interesting than that. Personally I would
| hate to see EU close in on itself and so it needs to align with
| outsiders. China seems just as good a partner as the other big
| markets to me.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| You want someone to explain to you why a certain wine tastes
| nice but you've added a condition that the explanation must
| not include the most fundamental nature of its taste.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Is your point that "bad" is as essential and fundamental
| property to China as taste is to wine?
| raverbashing wrote:
| Cue the Orbanites saying how the EU wants to interfere in
| "matters of their country"
|
| This (and the events of January 6th) are a good reminder that
| the law is worth the paper it's printed on if no one acts on
| it.
| freakynit wrote:
| Fuc** dictator assholes. Screwing up the world and everyone
| living in it.
| freakynit wrote:
| Fuc** inhumane dictators. Screwing up the world and everyone
| living in it.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Where is this list of phone numbers? I want to check if my
| numbers on it or anyone I know...
| germandiago wrote:
| I came to the conclusion that politicians are a big problem. Not
| sure we can get rid of them but they are.
|
| FWIW I just see them use the money of others for their own
| purposes coactively and provoke a lot of polarization. Many times
| with bad intention for selfish interests. I am talking about ALL
| of them.
|
| I think people should be able (Hungarian case at hand) to choose
| whether they want certain contents to be taught at certain age
| for their kids. No matter which ones. It should be a free to
| choose thing.
|
| The minimum stuff we must all agree upon should be not killing,
| discriminating, etc. in legal terms. But when you try to force
| people to like or dislike something, instead of respecting others
| (whether they like or not other people ideas) then you have this
| highly polarized environment because you will always find the
| other half resisting, since it is imposed contents highly
| ideological.
|
| I think that things could be way better with fewer of these
| people.
| mola wrote:
| All of Netanyahu's allies in the world seem to have profited from
| this relationship by obtaining military grade surveillance
| inorder to suppress human rights of journalists and opposition.
|
| This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators.
|
| I'm convince pegasus was used against Israeli journalists,
| opposition leaders and law enforcement officials. Too bad our
| political system is still under his thumb and doesn't shed light
| on this crap even now that he's no longer PM.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Hungary aside, most of Israel's allies in the region are
| dictatorships, actaully all of them: Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi
| Arabia, Morocco (arguably, let's agree it's not a liberal
| democracy) and so on and so on. There are zero democracies in
| the area. So it's easy to see Israel's interest in supplying
| technology to those regimes and assuring good relations; it's
| not like the oppositions to these dictators are any better, the
| Muslim Brotherhood is appalling. Now Hungary isn't really
| important to Israel and is part of the EU, may have been wiser
| to not do that.
|
| > This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming
| dictators.
|
| Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?
| mola wrote:
| In the area, I agree. But Netanyahu chose to spurn democratic
| European allies and allign Israel with Hungary and Poland.
| Basically he made western Europe an enemy of Israel because
| he chose settlements over a peace process, to alleviate the
| foreign pressure he alligned Israel with Hungary and Poland,
| also helping Russia with its cold European conflict.
|
| > Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?
|
| How's that relevant? If you're fishing for hypocrisy, be
| assured I dislike the US take on democracy and it's leaders
| of late no less than Netanyahu.
|
| But At least the US has a constitution, checks and balances.
| And a tradition of freedom and democracy. Israel has a
| growing population, the parts that grow are mostly lacking
| any sense of democratic values or tradition. Guess which
| electorate Netanyahu spurned and which he focused his
| Messiyah propaganda on.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| I'm not fishing for hypocrisy, that's quite a strong word.
| But there is some bias I'm sensing here. You would probably
| never say "Obama's legacy is arming dictators" though it's
| part of his legacy for sure. Merkel's as well.
|
| > And a tradition of freedom and democracy
|
| The U.S was a de facto apartheid state until the 60s. The
| UK castrated gays up until quite recently. Liberal
| democracy as we know it today is quite new. I'm not a
| Netanyahu fan, quite far from it, but bias is bias.
| mromanuk wrote:
| And don't forget all the coups the US has forged in Latam
| and Africa, the first years of the patriot act (NSA
| spying on citizens), putting kids in cages, et cetera.
| pessimizer wrote:
| US and UK policy isn't at all confused about that -
| Israel couldn't operate the way it does without our
| support and direct subsidy. Both countries also use
| Israeli crowd control and intelligence tech on their
| domestic populations, just like all of those Sunni royal
| families attacking their Shia populations. It's only the
| West Wing fans that are confused about how their country
| works.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Thanks for the support btw :)
| andrepd wrote:
| > So it's easy to see Israel's interest in supplying
| technology to those regimes and assuring good relations;
|
| It's easy to see that it's in my interest to kill a woman on
| an unlit street and nick her purse. What kind of argument is
| this??
|
| It's especially aggravating since so much propaganda comes
| out touting Israel as a democracy and decrying the savage
| Palestinians for being a dictatorship.
| yuvalr1 wrote:
| But Israel is a democracy and the Palestinians didn't have
| elections for 15 years already. These are facts, not
| propaganda.
| andrepd wrote:
| But apparently they (Nethanyahu and co) do not have
| problems with supporting dictatorships where it suits
| them, nor of subverting their own democracy. That is the
| point I'm making.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| It's probably not in your interest since you'd go to jail
| and the whole metaphor seems quite simplistic to me. Since
| you seem to be talking about ethics, not interests, If
| Israel supports Egypt's El-Sisi is that immoral? Yes he is
| a despot, but the opposition is worse. Same can be said
| about Israel's support to the Palestinian Authority. It's
| quite difficult to know what the right thing to do is.
| Israel wants good relation with these countries for obvious
| reasons.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > Yes he is a despot, but the opposition is worse.
|
| This is the exact mental process that has brought most
| dictators into power.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| It's either a true statement in the general case of that
| region of the middle east or it isn't. I'm not sure what
| you're trying to argue.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| 1) It's a false dichotomy. There are more paths forward
| other than "tolerate <ally>'s misbehavior" and "let
| <perceived threat> control the region". The fact that
| this line is used by those who want more power should
| make anyone wary.
|
| 2) Tolerating the gross misbehavior of one state or
| leader because you perceive them as a bulwark against
| other worse leaders is an extremely foolish course. Not
| only does it expose ones ideals as being hollow and
| situational, but it often creates new problems that must
| be contained later.
| cmmeur01 wrote:
| They support who they can control, that's it.
|
| Nothing to do with them thinking one is better for the
| citizens living under their selected rulers control.
|
| Israel doesn't care about half the people within its
| borders. Saying they choose who to support based on how
| that person will treat their citizens is laughable.
| [deleted]
| joelbluminator wrote:
| > They support who they can control, that's it.
|
| Or they support who won't try to destroy them, see - I
| said it in a non demonizing way.
|
| > Saying they choose who to support based on how that
| person will treat their citizens is laughable
|
| I wasn't saying that. I was just saying, at least in the
| case of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia (and also the
| Palestinian Authority), it's not clear at all that
| selling them tech/arms is immoral.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Yes he is a despot, but the opposition is worse.
|
| As long as you're just willing to make things up,
| everything is justifiable.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?
|
| The US and UK sell arms to all of these countries. That's not
| a good sign; the US even directly subsidizes the military and
| police of some of them. We like dictatorships that make our
| political donors money.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I'd argue that we like dictatorships that align with our
| strategic interests. Raytheon doesn't really care who we
| sell arms to, as long as they get sold. The politicians
| want to back anyone that'll push back against our mortal
| enemy <strike>the USSR</strike> Iran.
| dogorman wrote:
| > _Hungary aside, most of Israel 's allies in the region are
| dictatorships_
|
| Not just in the region. In the 1970s, Israel worked with
| apartheid South Africa to develop nuclear weapons. South
| Africa has subsequently been disarmed, but Israel has not
| been.
|
| Incidentally, in 1963 JFK was trying to stop Israel's nuclear
| weapons program because American intelligence had failed to
| turn up any evidence that other countries in the region were
| pursuing the same. In a letter to Ben-Gurion, JFK wrote:
|
| > _" I can well appreciate your concern for developments in
| the UAR. But I see no present or imminent nuclear threat to
| Israel from there. I am assured that our intelligence on this
| question is good and that the Egyptians do not presently have
| any installation comparable to Dimona, nor any facilities
| potentially capable of nuclear weapons production. But, of
| course, if you have information that would support a contrary
| conclusion, I should like to receive it from you through
| Ambassador Barbour. We have the capacity to check it."_
|
| Egypt never developed nuclear weapons.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Well times changed, Iran is very close to nuclear weapons
| speeder wrote:
| in response to Israel developing them first...
|
| So I guess strategically for Israel, making nukes was a
| mistake.
| himinlomax wrote:
| > There are zero democracies in the area
|
| Lebanon used to be more democratic; Iran was democratic at
| one point. What happened to Mossadegh?
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Neither of them was democratic as in liberal, free press,
| human rights etc etc. Iran afaik was a full blown
| dictatorship before the islamic revolution (it's still a
| dictatorship, but different), Lebanon's history is more
| complicated but I stand by my view that it was never a
| liberal democracy, definitely not in the last 40 years.
| andrepd wrote:
| >Iran afaik was a full blown dictatorship before the
| islamic revolution
|
| Yes, but he was talking about before that wasn't he? Iran
| was a democracy (flawed, but still) before the US-UK
| alliance overthrew the parliamentary system and installed
| a puppet dictator, to keep stealing their oil.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| I'm no expert on the history of Iran, but no, it doesn't
| seem it ever was (Most countries in the region ever were
| or are one now). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_righ
| ts_in_the_Imperial_S...
|
| "The reign of Reza Shah was totalitarian and dictatorial
| at a time when totalitarian governments and dictatorships
| were common in the Middle East and the world[8] and the
| Universal Declaration of Human Rights was some years in
| the future."
| rjsw wrote:
| It was more of a democracy before the 1953 coup [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%
| C3%A9ta...
| joelbluminator wrote:
| OK, it was more of a democracy at that time I agree. That
| was 70 years ago.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Again, you've got the wrong time period.
| andrepd wrote:
| For the 3rd time, I'm talking about the regime that was
| overthrown to put in the Shah Reza Pahlavi...
| joelbluminator wrote:
| You could be right, I will read up on that. But again,
| you are pointing to a very specific point in history,
| that was an exception to the rule.
| yyyk wrote:
| >Lebanon used to be more democratic.
|
| Lebanon used to be a state. More democratic? Perhaps.
|
| >What happened to Mossadegh?
|
| One of the first things Mossadegh did was to suspend
| elections because the opposition was winning too much.
| iamnotwhoiam wrote:
| Does anyone have any idea how Pegasus actually works? I haven't
| found any teardowns or even a clear description of what the
| iMessage says.
|
| This is some kind of code injection attack that can go through a
| text message?
| est31 wrote:
| From my understanding, the attack can happen through multiple
| ways. Companies like NSO purchase vulnerabilities for this step
| and probably have a set of them on their disposal, ready to
| deploy ones as they get discovered. Pegasus is the rootkit
| which is installed once the attack is successful, and allows
| spying on the user.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
| fulafel wrote:
| Pegasus is a name for their attack repertoire of the day plus
| whatever next stage payloads are run upon a successful
| compromise.
| swiley wrote:
| The iMessage exploit sounds like a Null terminated string
| issue.
|
| The rest of it sounds like a Metasploit-esque framework along
| with some telemetry tools.
| nuker wrote:
| iOS iMessage bugs parsing images, I recall
| deregulateMed wrote:
| From the Amnesty report shown by another commentator, there
| were a bunch of compromised Apple services.
| abhiminator wrote:
| This article from Amnesty International's Security Lab is a
| good primer on the attack vector used by the Pegasus exploit
|
| https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/07/forensic-...
| janjones wrote:
| Here is a technical report about the exploits:
| https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/07/forensic-...
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Holy shit, there's literally a dozen of Apple products
| exploited.
|
| It's not a single "Apple music exploit", it's dozens of
| separate services. Music, messenger, safari, iOS, etc...
|
| I never want to hear Apple cares about security again.
|
| I could forgive 1 mistake, but this seems like negligence.
| (Don't put me down as a defender of MS or Android, but at least
| they don't use "Security" in their marketing)
| t-c-h wrote:
| If you would have actually read the report, you would have
| known the attacks are not specifically device or mobile OS
| bound. They simply say that iOS leaves behind more useable
| traces.
|
| From paragraph 10: Much of the targeting
| outlined in this report involves Pegasus attacks targeting
| iOS devices. It is important to note that this does not
| necessarily reflect the relative security of iOS devices
| compared to Android devices, or other operating systems and
| phone manufacturers. In Amnesty International's experience
| there are significantly more forensic traces accessible to
| investigators on Apple iOS devices than on stock Android
| devices, therefore our methodology is focused on the former.
| As a result, most recent cases of confirmed Pegasus
| infections have involved iPhones.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| The article doesn't mention android again.
|
| And I'm not even defending android, I'm attacking Apples
| unethical marketing practices of claiming security and
| privacy, but failing.
| ohashi wrote:
| That seems dramatic. It's a billion dollar ex-spy run company
| catering towards governments with seemingly no ethics. No
| offense to Apple but this is near state level actor as a
| threat and with enough motivation ($$$$$$$$) they will find
| ways to exploit Apple's software no matter what.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Sure, but their marketing still claims security.
| hu3 wrote:
| That's what happens when Apple pays 100k for a critical
| bug bounty and governments pay millions for the same bug
| exploit.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| And closed sourced projects.
|
| And marketing prioritized over quality
| zsellera wrote:
| So far Orban's regime is the only eu/western government involved
| in this scandal. I see that no surprise.
|
| There is no need of official government approval to conduct such
| surveillance. It's enough to have weak access contol to such
| technologies, political roles within the agencies, and poor work
| ethics in civil servants: there alway will be someone with will
| and motive to act in favor of the system, off the record. Orban
| deliberately shaped the government this way.
| giorgioz wrote:
| Found this article/podcast about how to protect itself a bit more
| more Pegasus: https://threatpost.com/protecting-phones-from-
| pegasus-like-s...
|
| Isn't Android and iOS supposed to investigate what's the security
| vulnerability that allows the remote hacking through SMS and
| patch it?
| ignoramous wrote:
| That's a PR piece by an upstart that sells MDM (mobile device
| management) suite to enterprises. There are many entrenched
| MDMs that can very well do as much, if not more.
| re-al wrote:
| "Pegasus takes advantage of so-called zero-day vulnerabilities of
| software running on mobile phones, meaning built-in flaws that
| not even developers and manufacturers are aware of."
|
| Vulnerabilities, eh - 'flaws'?
|
| Or backdoors there by design?
|
| What's in a name?
| immmmmm wrote:
| a friend of mine had written an interesting piece of
| investigation journalism on this topic
|
| https://medium.com/@maribst
| NiceWayToDoIT wrote:
| I perceive this as an example why allowing privacy violation for
| one group for the "sake of greater good" does not work. Usually
| the same tools will be used with oppressive regimes. In the
| beginning it will start with pretext that "we are using this
| tools to find terrorists, pedophiles and protect children" but
| more often it will end up prosecuting journalist, silencing
| whistleblowers and undermining political opponents creating
| perpetual state of oppression and corruption.
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