Germany - Hungary is a disgrace for Europe.

[Martinus]

I suppose the problem is the same as with Peronist Argentina, Venezuela or other places where authoritarianism and new, improved constitutions and censorship pop up: Brain drain, clientilism (with pay days) and international isolation.

The people who voted for you eventually will want something significant in return. Either you give them what they want and break your financial back or go more authoritarian with an eroded public support with all that entails of investment in repressive measures.

Concur. People don't know what is best for them and need to be regulated. It is clear that the EU needs to step in when the wrong choices are made in popular elections. Anything else would be undemocratic.

If you finished some decent school (I assume you didn't - you don't become a kitchenette salesman with decent education) and read Toqueville you would know democracy without safeguards against the tyranny of majority is worthless.

I guess that's a real problem with democracy, to be honest - lowlifes like you get the same vote as everyone else.

[Josquius]

Sounds awful.
What can be done?

[Martinus]

Sounds awful.
What can be done?

Wait. Countries like Hungary (or Poland) need a generational change. Fortunately, thanks to the much-maligned EU, this is not as bad as it sounds.

[Zanza2]

By almost a year of hindsight, it is fair to assume that their original plan was to stall until the local election during the autumn, then speedily bully the EU into accepting a 7-8% budget deficit (we have been under a 3.8% limit), so they can do whatever they want with the budget, and delay the actual budget cuts.

Yeah right. They can try asking for that. The EU might not be able to intervene directly against Fidesz' authoritarian policies, but they will definitely use money and the terms of the 2008 (?) bailout as a lever to try to influence this Hungarian government. Orban should better look how Ireland, Greece and now Portugal ended up and they had governments that weren't considered a disgrace before asking for a bailout. If he wants just one more euro, he should better vacate a room next to his office for the grey eminences of ECB and European Commission.

[Slargos]

I suppose the problem is the same as with Peronist Argentina, Venezuela or other places where authoritarianism and new, improved constitutions and censorship pop up: Brain drain, clientilism (with pay days) and international isolation.

The people who voted for you eventually will want something significant in return. Either you give them what they want and break your financial back or go more authoritarian with an eroded public support with all that entails of investment in repressive measures.

Concur. People don't know what is best for them and need to be regulated. It is clear that the EU needs to step in when the wrong choices are made in popular elections. Anything else would be undemocratic.

If you finished some decent school (I assume you didn't - you don't become a kitchenette salesman with decent education) and read Toqueville you would know democracy without safeguards against the tyranny of majority is worthless.

I guess that's a real problem with democracy, to be honest - lowlifes like you get the same vote as everyone else.

As when the subject is Law, on this you have only a very rudimentary idea.

[Tamas]

Sounds awful.
What can be done?

Wait. Countries like Hungary (or Poland) need a generational change. Fortunately, thanks to the much-maligned EU, this is not as bad as it sounds.

Yeah, wait, pretty much. Too bad we will turn into a Greece soon at this speed.

The only positive aspect of this, which I hope will keep growing, is that the removal of freedoms and checks and balances actually make the population more aware of them, and the liberals has a rallying cause.

[Norgy]

I suppose the problem is the same as with Peronist Argentina, Venezuela or other places where authoritarianism and new, improved constitutions and censorship pop up: Brain drain, clientilism (with pay days) and international isolation.

The people who voted for you eventually will want something significant in return. Either you give them what they want and break your financial back or go more authoritarian with an eroded public support with all that entails of investment in repressive measures.

Concur. People don't know what is best for them and need to be regulated. It is clear that the EU needs to step in when the wrong choices are made in popular elections. Anything else would be undemocratic.

Actually, it is quite unclear what you concur with, and your conclusion is somewhat moronic.
Have you become significantly dumber the past few years or just twenty times more obtuse?

[Slargos]

I suppose the problem is the same as with Peronist Argentina, Venezuela or other places where authoritarianism and new, improved constitutions and censorship pop up: Brain drain, clientilism (with pay days) and international isolation.

The people who voted for you eventually will want something significant in return. Either you give them what they want and break your financial back or go more authoritarian with an eroded public support with all that entails of investment in repressive measures.

Concur. People don't know what is best for them and need to be regulated. It is clear that the EU needs to step in when the wrong choices are made in popular elections. Anything else would be undemocratic.

Actually, it is quite unclear what you concur with, and your conclusion is somewhat moronic.
Have you become significantly dumber the past few years or just twenty times more obtuse?

I was being sarcastic.

I think that the EU should get the fuck out of local elections and the notion that we should somehow enforce a continental will on national elections makes me furiously angry.

I don't give a flying fuck what Martinus (or you) ((or Toqueville)) has to say on the matter.

[szmik]

See, thats the problem with this government, apart from being authocratic assholes: they are just totally unpredictable.

Yeah, that was the worst thing about the (brief) rule of Kaczynskis - you dreaded to open the news each day, because you never knew what they would think up next.

They were just barking at everyone, which was more entertaining than dangerous maybe that hurt your ears, if anything.

In fact they didn't do anything worse than current goverment, which is just trying to grab pension funds the same way their Hungarian counterparts do  not to mention VAT increase and tax cuts removed, clear signs they need money badly and budget is on the edge.

I wonder when Poland defaults. 

[Berkut]

Wouldn't the conservatives in Hungary be the communists? That's what going back to the past means, right?

The problem with Hungary (and pretty much all of ex-communist Europe) is this: the people in power now went through their formative years when it was "hip to be square", or in other words, you went through the "youth rebellion" by allying with radically conservative, religious forces against the communist state. It is natural for people to grow more conservative as they grow older, but that's all fine and good when you start from a position of socialism, and then grow older moving to move moderate/conservative positions. If you start from being a religious right winger, you end up being a nazi when you are in your 50s.

Turns out Bismarck was right: "who had not been a socialist in their youth, will be a swine in the old age".

Oddly enough, I've found myself going the other way...well, sort of.

[Razgovory]

It seems odd to me that a small country like Hungary even has a constitution.  It's a lot easier to change one of those in a small country then a big one, almost to the point where a constitution isn't much of a defense.

[Maximus]

Oddly enough, I've found myself going the other way...well, sort of.

Me too, although in my case it was more a matter of broadening my horizons.

[Valmy]

Oddly enough, I've found myself going the other way...well, sort of.

Yeah lots of people start right and move left as they get older, especially in this country.

[Barrister]

I dunno - I've found that while my own brand of conservatism has chanegd over the years (I was once much more libertarian, less realistic), I can't say I've become any less right wing than I was before.

[Norgy]

It seems odd to me that a small country like Hungary even has a constitution.  It's a lot easier to change one of those in a small country then a big one, almost to the point where a constitution isn't much of a defense.

What are you on about?

The size of the country determines the need for an institutional and legal framework? 

How is it easier to change it in a small country? Because it's made of cheese? Or written with crayons?

We have ink. And even laser printers. And you still need 2/3 and 3/4 majorities to amend the constitution in Norway. Which I suppose is "small".