Orban wants to build 'illiberal state'

[Geronimo2006]

Is Hungary headed the way of Russia? References to nefarious NGOs representing foreign interests, and protecting Hungarians abroad sounds eerily familiar. Are Hungarians worried?

Hungary leader Viktor Orban has said he wants to build an illiberal state based on national foundations, citing Russia and China as examples.
Speaking at a retreat of ethnic Hungarian leaders in Baile Tusnad, Romania, on Saturday (26 July) the right wing leader said that the 2008 financial crisis triggered changes as significant as the two world wars and as those in 1990, the year of transition in Eastern and Central Europe.
The experience of the financial crisis showed that “liberal democratic states cannot remain globally competitive.”
“I don’t think that our European Union membership precludes us from building an illiberal new state based on national foundations," he said, according to Bloomberg.

Orban said that there is a race in the world now on how best to organise the state to make nations successful.
"Today, the world tries to understand systems which are not Western, not liberal, maybe not even democracies yet they are successful" he said, and mentioned Singapore, China, India, Russia and Turkey as examples.

Orban, who has a two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament, said he is seeking to find the best way to organise the Hungarian state to make it more competitive and that it was time to break with liberal principles and methods of social organisation.
He said that these efforts were being obstructed by civil society groups and that NGO workers are political activists representing foreign interests.
Budapest recently got into a political dispute with Norway after the Hungarian authorities raided the offices of NGOs involved in administrating aid from the Nordic country. Orban's goverment had accused the Norwegian Fund of supporting opposition political groups.
Orban's speech, which is on the government website is likely to raise eyebrows in Brussels which has had several clashes with him over changes he has made to tighten the control over the judiciary and press.

[wilpuri]

References to nefarious NGOs representing foreign interests

That sounds so out of touch with reality.

"A lot of what we [national endowment for democracy] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA"
-Allen Weinstein.

protecting Hungarians abroad

Sounds reasonable.

[Sir Adrian]

Sounds reasonable.

Hungarians are the minority who enjoy the most rights in the entire EU so what is he trying to protect them from? Free education in thier own language?

[Mayer]

Hahahaha, that's hysterical. That's what you think whenever you think of Nazism's legacy? Hell, even the Bolshevik decrees in the first years after the Revolution were light years ahead of most of what was happening in Europe at the time.

living conditions under war communism were better you say? Is that why Tambov Rebellion and Kronstadt happend?

Tolerance within a society prevents minority groups from being victimized, no it doesn't feed people but luckily it is not a choice between being tolerant of others and having enough food to feed everyone.

Tolerance for social ills is the reason why these minority groups exist in the first place.

So as long as a society is sufficiently intolerant the problem of too expensive food (or too low income), unemployment or homelessness will solve themselves?

relief for food (especially for families), right to work (public works), provision of basic housing and voilà
The opposite of liberalism is interventionism

[Visna]

relief for food (especially for families), right to work (public works), provision of basic housing and voilà
The opposite of liberalism is interventionism

That's all fine and dandy, but how is it related to tolerance or lack thereof?

[Heathen Hammer]

How dare he run a state with regards to his nation's interests and without the pseudo-"liberal" fifth column!

[Mangalore]

How dare he run a state with regards to his nation's interests and without the pseudo-"liberal" fifth column!

He is handwaving national interests = his personal interests. That's what it means when someone starts spouting nonsense against liberty: He wants all the liberty, hence he needs to limit everyone else's.

That nutjob ist worrying and he apparently has never read the EU treaties if he thinks they don't have several things to say about iliberal states.

[Heathen Hammer]

He is handwaving national interests = his personal interests. That's what it means when someone starts spouting nonsense against liberty: He wants all the liberty, hence he needs to limit everyone else's.

And what is the evidence for that? Most pseudo-"liberal" movements, especially in EU and Eastern Europe are often fifth-column groups that represent foreign interests and often limit real political freedoms if it comes to defending those interests.

That nutjob ist worrying and he apparently has never read the EU treaties if he thinks they don't have several things to say about iliberal states.

I guess he is Hungary for power.

Anyways, it would be a breathe of fresh air in comparison to other stagnating EUSSR states.

liberalism is crap

I don't think that political groups and movements that call themselves liberal are, in fact, liberal in anything but the name.

[Mangalore]

And what is the evidence for that? Most pseudo-"liberal" movements, especially in EU and Eastern Europe are often fifth-column groups that represent foreign interests and often limit real political freedoms if it comes to defending those interests.

This is nonsense. The only thing a state can do is influence the rights and freedoms of its people, hence if he creates an iliberal state, the ones that will suffer are Hungarian citizens, like in every iliberal state in the world. The primary stake of liberty is to protect individual citizens against the state, factions or groups. Someone proposing an iliberal state thus threatens citizen rights.

[Heathen Hammer]

This is nonsense. The only thing a state can do is influence the rights and freedoms of its people, hence if he creates an iliberal state, the ones that will suffer are Hungarian citizens, like in every iliberal state in the world. The primary stake of liberty is to protect individual citizens against the state, factions or groups. Someone proposing an iliberal state thus threatens citizen rights.

In theory.
Hungarian citizens are the ones who elected that government. If it proves to be ineffective, then it is their responsibility, since they elected it. That is how democracy works.
Also a lot of "liberal" parties often neglected personal freedoms and engaged into authoritarianism. Current Russian government initially came to power as a liberal one, and look at it now. So especially in Eastern Europe, just because a party calls itself liberal, doesn't really mean that it is.

Nope, laws are the product of elected representatives making interpretations and voting on the basis of higher authority charts that can only be reformed through specific means (one of those higher charts include the EU agreements on inalienable human rights), and that's without mentioning the ethical implications of free voters suppressing the conditions of their free vote.

Hungary is a sovereign state, so its laws are its internal matter. Also I can name countless examples of states in EU limiting individual rights and freedoms.

[Mayer]

liberalism is crap

[Mary The Quene]

liberalism is crap

So is Socialism

[IZob]

liberalism is crap

So is Socialism

Whys that?

[Hobbes]

liberalism is crap

Definitely, but this guy has a nationalist anti-democratic agenda, which is really disturbing.

[Mayer]

says this while having a arab socialist symbol as avatar

[Basil II the B.S]

Yep because invading the personal life of EU citizens like the US does is very liberal. Selective nonsensical criticism.

[Adar]

Yep because invading the personal life of EU citizens like the US does is very liberal. Selective nonsensical criticism.

Yeah, it's crazy that we aren't talking more about USA in a thread about Hungary!

[Claudius Gothicus]

Wonder what will the Union do with the Hungarian government, if there really is a turn for the authoritarian regarding civil rights and political balances there'll definitely have to do something.

[Heathen Hammer]

Wonder what will the Union do with the Hungarian government, if there really is a turn for the authoritarian regarding civil rights and political balances there'll definitely have to do something.

Why? Hungarians elected that government. They have a right to decide the laws of their country.

It's the same old nonsense, the same crap the Nazis talked, the same BS about the "failings" of liberal democracy.

Implying that because Nazis said that, what today is understood as liberal democracy is infallible.

[Mayer]

Merkel could do another sulky face at Orban