Washington Post not unbiased either -- Hungary media law

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Nobody needs system breaking on freedom of the press or freedom of speech. Where they enact system breaking laws they eventually end up breaking the law outright.

 

And who are you to tell what freedom of the press and freedom of the speech is in Hungary? About your self-confident clever comment about system breaking always resulting in law breaking: you are free to send suggestions to Mr. Orban (his office accepts them by mail) if you can reorganize Hungary better and get rid of the post-communist heritage (that you don't even have anymore, considering East Germany was developed up pretty nicely; even though I still hear things that some West Germans look down their Eastern compatriots).

So who are you to define freedom of speech? In your country, denying the Holocaust is a crime. In Hungary, it is not a crime. In United States, it is not a crime either. So in this respect, according to your logic, USA and Hungary have more dictatoric regulation of freedom of speech than Germany? Or you say Holocaust denying is something that doesn't belong to freedom of speech?! Then you already make exceptions. The Hungarian nation has no right to add its own exceptions regarding the media their OWN children watch as well?!

 

I'm certain this won't help at all, but the point was that Hungary has created a very large hammer for what seems to be a pretty small nail, so there are good chances of side effects. Or to put it even more simply: overkill.

The way you argue about it only makes it seem worse.

 

Baronius,
I don't care that you don't like me telling you this. I'm not in the business of patting you on the back so you feel good about yourself, or Hungary. If that law is enacted, freedom of press in Hungary will be chilled. Period. That is how it is. Deny it all you want. I don't care what delusions you choose to indulge in.

PS: One more thing, that has been nagging me in the back of my mind until I was able to confirm it - as for your recurring theme of Hungary having that special legal heritage, that is culturally and legally embedded in a way utterly incomprehensible to foreigners - the Hungarian constitution is closely modelled after the German constitution i.e. the principles, in particular the basic rights as a result must be not only very much comparable, but systematically very similar (if not identical). You might just be interested to know that.

PPS: As for Germany prosecuting holocaust denial, that is correct. We also don't allow for uniformed paramilitary marches, so this would be prohibited as well:

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PPPS: I understand that the Orban government enacted a law that would have allowed them to fire any public employee without having to give reasons. It didn't enter into force because the president refused to sign it.

 

You see, Holocaust denial is not possible, it is even a crime, so it is definitely a restriction on freedom of speech (and I did not say I'm against this; it was just an example to you). So the media should be able to show whatever dirt they want to children (and the punishment is just a few bucks), that is not an allowed exception, but Holocaust denial is? Every country can decide what exceptions to add.

It seems I was right, you are greatly misinformed in many things about Hungary, but nevermind. Despite the fact you're a lawyer, those pictures about that uniformed guard also reached you and seemed to make an effect for you. It is the result of our left-liberal propaganda, actually. They *look* paramilitary, but they are not. They have no weapons, and their organization has been put outlaw by a court order. Furthermore, they only had and have little negligible support. In a word, they are unimportant and not much different than your gay pride parades (in fact, the latter look more significant).

Oh, I do like that you write things The more viewpoints, the better. And I also don't mind Hungarians are so persistent in their decisions, despite this hipocritic ridiculous outcry of some countries (where was this international outcry in 2006 when the HU government -- socialists -- ordered police to beat and shoot-with-rubber-bullets innocent protesters in Budapest?!). I'm proud of this persistence (no wonder we Hungarians had the leading role in many big inventions too; e.g. nuclear chain reaction; because achievements don't just need talent -- they also need hard work; but before I accidently go too off-topic: I just say that I hope this government succeeds, because this -- until 2010 -- was not what Hungary deserves after protecting the Christian Europe from Turks for a very very long time centuries ago;finally, Hungarians would deserve to live better than how they did until now).

It is not just about constitution and law; it is greatly about cultural specifics too, indeed. And yes, that is what you will probably never be able to understand. And you cannot be blamed for that: you didn't try to live here under communism or between 2002-2010.

All in all, as Orban said somewhere, those who have problem with Hungary now in the foreign countries hate one thing: the 2/3. Because that is practically nowhere else.
I can imagine it hurts. But that is how parliamentary democracy works per definition

I feel good about Hungary! Finally a change is happening. It was enough from communists and their limusine-socialist "descendants" who got their wealth from privatization and cheat.

This is a typical example about not knowing something when you have never met with them or tried living near to them. Noone wants them around? Disgrace of Europe? No wonder! I know their integration is also the task and responsibility (a challenge) for the countries, but THEY -- THE GYPSIES -- ALSO NEED TO COOPERATE. They refuse. Most of them (except a little percent) refuses it. It is not that anyone wants to interfere or force them to change culture, but they refuse even to keep the law. Not because they are not supported or tried to be integrated. They DID and DO GET a lot of support, and integration attempts etc., but they refuse most of it. They take the money they get for feeding children, but spend it instead in the pub while children are starving.

The point is, they do not want to integrate. Not even a bit. It's very rare. And this makes the situation terribly difficult.

 

You criticise everyone for failing to understand hungarian culture yet feel free to disparage a broad culture and people as a drunken criminal minority who aren't fit to be parents. Hipocrite! The largest group of Roma in hungary are considered to be fully assimilated into the culture, that leaves two major roma distinctive groups plus familial spreads of a minority around half a million people in a country of ten million. There are records of segregation in schools of roma children, amnesty international were even involved after a spate of hate crimes that killed six roma (one being a four year old boy) even the overall life expectancy is ten years less than the average hungarian. Poverty is rife with little education and prejudice in the workplace making founding a career difficult. Most of them can't even perform their own funeral traditions without interference.

Participation in the Decade of Roma Inclusion will hopefully help matters, until then I can only hope the above is not the expressed of the average gadjo they encounter!

 

A significant part of your post is basically the nice and seamless repeating of the nonsense that can be read in certain countries/places. It is nonsense because you simply don't know what you're talking about. You never lived near to them or got contact to them.

For example:

Lot of people tried and try to give them jobs. Except very few positive exceptions, this is what happened:
1) They do not want to work at all, because their lifestyle became like that
2) Very many of them steals (even from employer). And from anywhere. E.g. I know from a local doctor that the child told that he is beaten by mom if he goes home after school without bringing anything home (anything = stolen object from classmates, school). You think this is an isolated case? Then go and ask the other hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who WORK HARD and their word is the most credible. They have everyday EXPERIENCE with gypsies.

So, imagine you have a home enterprise. You and your family work a lot, to be able to pay the bills and feed your kids. Then you have a choice: who to take up for a job? A non-gypsy or a gypsy. The latter has a really really high chance that he is going to steal from you etc. (This is from STATISTICS.) Yes, you choose the non-gypsy one instead of endangering the hard work of your family. Is this racism? Yes, it is. And what the hell you can do?! Only the government can help on this, by supporting employers who employ gypsies. And such thing exists in Hungary.
But it doesn't change on the fact that gypsies do NOT WANT to work or cooperate, mostly.

By the way, on a side note, there are two "types" of Gypsies. In these posts I'm talking of the group which has a high number and most of them does not want to integrate or know the COUNTRY where they live in. The second group, musicians etc. are different gypsies, with elite and nice history. (E.g. we have a world-famous orchestra that consists of Gypsies.)

This "gypsies-are-discriminated-and-do-not-get-chances" is a very talented nonsense in the European Union. I'm not racist and no nationalist, and I do say: they DO NOT want to assist in anything they're offered (except very few exceptions). The afroamerican/african/chinese/etc. people in Hungary can also live here without problems. Not because they are so rich or have so common culture with Hungarians -- because they know that common respect and cooperation is the basis of living together.

Again, something that you CAN'T KNOW if you don't live here. In most schools, there is no segregation, and yes, it has very negative consequences as well (not that I support segregation -- because I support their education and integration instead -- but read below). Most of them refuses rules of the society, including health-related and medical things. To be brief, it does not matter they are warned etc., they live in terrible circumstances (NOT because they're poor by default; because they usually ruin brand-new houses that they received for free from the government!), so terrible circumstances that their children bring all sorts of illnesses to school due to the lack of hygiene. Would you be happy to send your kid to school when you know the gypsy kids have Hepatitis-B? And there ARE MEDICAL RECORDS about these as well.

My point, only education can help them to integrate. To teach them that they shouldn't teach their children to be hostile with the country they live in. To teach them that they must cooperate. Noone wants to take their culture. But they must follow the rules of society: work honestly, respect hygiene, etc.

It's so "funny" when people who have never lived in Hungary and never met any gypsies are trying to tell what happens here and what laws are good and what are not. This is an unbelievable arrogance of certain countries and people who think they are so clever. If I don't know Belgium or whatever country, I'm not going to tell them what's the best. But that is me.

 

What you describe is the common view of romani in many many places. I have actually worked a lot with them, I am a teacher and many of my students are romani and I am aware of many of the problems you bring up but shouldn't the question be why it is like it is and how to help people instead of the disgust you show? Jews were basically considered even worse than gypsies and look where that ended up? Heck, the gypsies took a beating from the nazis as well. Of the romani I have gotten into contact with there are very few I expect will get a nice future and many of them have been very unlikable and the things I have heard and seen makes it very easy for me to go down your path. Why is it like this though? I refuse to believe that they are genetically predisposed to being stupid, lazy or criminal. So unless you wish to finish what Hitler started we better find a way to revert the situation and stop looking at an entire people like vermin.

Reading your posts in this thread you sure could have fooled me. Especially like the bit about defending Europe from the Turk and you should get some credit for it, hung out much with Milosevic?

 

I am jaded, Ragusa. When the American press starts "preaching" about how great the tradition of the "free press" is in America, and speaking of "Putinism," it should take a gander at this:

Yes, America's most "trusted newscaster" is on Comedy Central. I can completely understand why Baronius would scuff at being preached to by the US media. When I hear the daily news about "America's role as the leader in the world," I scuff myself these days. I thought that was where the thread was going, (about the US telling other countries how to conduct their business) but since it is not, I don't want to go further and derail the actual topic at this point.

 

But then how can we even have a discussion at all if we're not allowed to talk about Hungary and the people living there? I mean, AFAIK, none of us (other than yourself) have ever lived in Hungary.

 

Some context

#1 The Hungarian Guard Movement is closely linked with Jobbik, which got 16,7% of the vote in the last election, and after being banned they changed their name to the Hungarian equivalent of 'New Hungarian Guard Movement' and changed their uniforms a bit so they no longer are prohibited, and try make a nice face by giving bread to the homeless or donating blood and the like. As for what they are and how they look like - I know a bunch of skinheads when I see them. This, for instance, does not look insignificant to me:

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According to Der Spiegel, Budapest today is the capital of Anti Semitism.

#2 The ruling party Fidesz and Jobbik cooperate. This article also helps to clarify some of the incoherent references by Baronius to Hungarian police shooting up demonstrators

Probably a liberal-left source, but, so to speak, rabbits and deer are said to have a very reality based assessment of hunters.

#3 Interesting article from the EU Observer, looking at Orban from a European point of view:

i.e. they exchanged the career folks with loyalists, at the expense of professionalism. Interesting priorities.

#4 Amnesty International's assessment of the law:

i.e. the chilling effect is already there. Shut up, or else ...

Aldeth, we can't. We are apparently supposed to agree with Baronius and accept his (partisan) view.

 

Now THAT sounds too familiar.

Spoiler

G-O-N-Z-A-L-E-S
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy

Edit: That's a very good post, DMC.

 

Ragusa: I do not have the time nor the intention to react to those points. Most of them are from left sources, with crazy manipulations and speculations. Only one point, because your words may imply to readers that what I said about the police shooting of innocents did not happen:

(bold added by me to emphasize parts)

1) I was here in Budapest at that night, and in those days. The illegal acts of the police DID HAPPEN. Lot of people can prove them. Instead of just focusing to deal with the minor groups of provocators and vandals, police basically attacked innocent people. One innocent citizen who was walking alone from work to home got an AIMED rubber bullet as well. He tried to escape but the police officers shot him. He got his eye severely damaged.
2) The person whose eye was basically shot out by a rubber bullet got a compensation (several millions) in 2009, which was still under the socialist government, so Fidesz had no chance to influence the trial or the police.

Implying that my statements about police shooting innocent demonstrators (which is a known fact in Hungary) may not be true is a severe thing, Ragusa. A lawyer should never do what you have just did (or implied, by referring to my statement about shooting in the context of "show trial" and similar quotes). Implying things without even making a basic level of research. Your linked articles are from a left-liberal and thus horribly biased source for sure.

Nationalist, i.e. in its negative definition (which is the most common definition) is basically about preferring your nation WHILE HARMING OTHERS. I only said that I'm proud of my nation, because I can be. (Despite the fact we are a small nation, we achieved a lot; for example, in science and inventions, etc.) I'm proud of my nation, and I do believe in its potential to finally rise (as it was in the time when we were one of the most influential kingdoms of entire Europe). So I do not hurt anyone with the fact I'm proud. You can say I'm a patriot, or whatever.

What I presented is not a "common view" about gypsies "in many places". They are FACTS, and not "in many places" but HERE IN MY COUNTRY, in places where people LIVE TOGETHER WITH GYPSIES EVERY DAY...

I presented facts about gypsies. I do not find them disgusting. I do not hate them. I live here. I see how they act, and how 99% of them does not want to accept the help and support they receive; no wonder that people who got stolen, robbed, killed etc. by gypsies lost trust in them. It is crime STATISTICS. Official statistics even. And everyday experience. In the street. In the shop. In the village. In the school. Everywhere.

The gypsies you met belong to the very small minority of them who were able to get up from the deepness. I am talking of lots of people who do not want to get up, because the example shown by their parents and community does not encourage them to do so.

There is no disgust here. What I said about gypsies not WANTING to respect hygiene, law, basic rules of common living etc. is TRUE. If you do not believe me, come here and live with them. Please. And then decide. Do not base your opinion on news. Try it. Come and try.

There is no digust here, again I say. A newborn child -- gypsi or not -- is innocent and a tabula rasa. The way they are brought up --the way they grow up -- makes them what they are. Their parents do not show them example that in order to BE ACCEPTED by other people (e.g. Hungarians), they also need to respect the law. In USA, immigrants must respect the law, right? And citizens must respect that law, too. Hungary only expects that they respect the same law as everyone else must. They are offered education and integration programs, but for those to be SUCCESSFUL, they also need to WANT it. You cannot force people to integrate who don't want to integrate.

As I said, I am talking of the 90-99% of them. Not all. A relative of mine is a psychologist. Parents/teachers also visit her with children in school, or with children who are about to start their first year in school. She sees gypsies. Some gypsy parents are enlightened and they want a chance to their children. To have a better life than they had. To study and get out from the deepness. But this is not typical at all. The typical is what I have described before: even the small children are taught by parents to steal in school and in city, and they are taught to pretend themselves to be mentally unhealthy (former, rude word: "retarded", I do not use it). To get benefits from the state (support received by mentally damaged people) or to be able to avoid normal school. Of course, the psychologist easily detects this, she is not fooled.

I do not hate gypsies. I just say that you non-Central-European folks should understand why a lot of people here seem to become p*ssed off to gypsies. IMMENSELY much negative experience. They rob and optionally kill your grandmother. They steal your money. They blackmail your kid in school for money. If he doesn't give, he gets beaten. Etc. etc. etc. Non-gypsies do this as well? Yes. But usually, in many regions, 8 from 10 crimes of many types are committed by gypsies. Defending their crimes with the fact "they are discriminated, segregated, they are poor" is nonsense. Every person must respect the law. Period. About their integration/education, yes, a solution is needed for that. Mr. Orban has plans for that too, by the way. Hopefully he succeeds. But gypsies must realize too (and not just their few percent, who you also met with joacqin) that they must respect the country's laws where they live in. Period, and this is final period.

dmc and Aldeth (and others): there is no problem with your arguments and that you participate despite of the fact you haven't lived in HU. But I often feel arrogance, because the level of self-confidence (cleverness) is sometimes so high. In my culture, if you do not know something very well, talking with crazy self-confidence makes you look a fool. Of course, I know it doesn't happen in this forum. But you guys shouldn't be surprised that I tend to remind you that have little PRACTICAL experience with the things you talk about. You haven't been following what was going in HU press and televisons for years, you haven't lived with lots of gypsies (and only met with a small -- and educated, intelligent -- segment of them, like joacqin). And so on and so on.

Many of you who disagrees me in this topic seem to talk horribly self-confidently about things related to my country. This is an offense in my culture. You forget about the fact that you are forming your views and opinions with bounded rationality. Much more bounded than mine; because I've lived here, and that gives me an additional point of view that you do not have. With your (often arrogantly self-confident) arguing, you do not respect the possibility that you might be wrong. You think that you can only be right. And here is where bounded rationality comes in: you do not have all the information on the matter, so your conclusions might be consistent and logically perfect in the scope of the information YOU have. Buf if you knew/experienced other things as well, it could break your knowledge model (because you just can't use the closed world assumption...). True that I also don't have *all* the information on the matter. But I have a bit more insight due to the long YEARS I've lived, studied and worked in this country and in this region of Europe. Moreover, even if indirectly, I know a bit about several other places of the world as well. Besides the places I've seen, I know much from my father who saw the world from London to Tel-Aviv, and from Hamburg to Johannesburg. But before I go off-topic, let me tell you one thing: you are not always right just because your "logic seems seamless", whether you admit this possibility or not (remember what I said about bounded rationality and experience of years). I know that I said to you that it is hard to be credible if even you don't believe you are fully right. But you can be more humble when presenting your opinion in cases where your communication partner is more experienced. And you do not need to win at any cost in these cases. When I present things like "facts" e.g. about Improved Anvil or about certain conditions of my country, I'm self-confident because I know deeply what I'm talking about. I do not talk about Sword Coast Stratagems or about the conditions of Germany, because I cannot know them as well as DavidW or Ragusa. I CAN tell my opinion, but I also acknowledge I may be wrong, with a bigger chance than in case of things I know much more about.

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I know there are lawyers here, but any managers and executives around?

Competence is a personal resource that you gain through studying and experiencing. What are the basic components of competence?
1) Explicit knowledge
2) Experience, expertise, ability to judge
All of us in this discussion have both, I'm sure. But when drawing conclusions, I often see that you use (1) (especially about Hungary). Because you don't just have (2). You may have a bit (2) in similar fields, or similar countries, or in sciences that may be applied in our discussion etc. But directly with Hungary, its culture, with the gypsies living here, etc., you don't have the same degree of (2) as I do. This is what I called "legal and cultural embedding" in my previous posts.

I feel that when you think your arguments are so great and so universal, you only use (1). You are convinced that every logical train of thought you have is seamless. Yes, logically it is. But think of (2). Think of experience. Think of non-conscious, implicit knowledge that you gain while living in an area, in a culture etc. (1) is limited by BOUNDED RATIONALITY much. (2), on the other hand, gives you an insight you just can't have purely with (1).

This is quite abstract theory, but I'm sure it's clear. You can't just think you are 100% right because your explicit arguing is logically correct. You can do so for a mathematical proof of a theorem. Not for judging countries and their leaders, or their citizens with their "racist" views on gypsies.

So, I am offended by the self-confidence when I see that you think that PURELY your correct logical reasoning makes your opinion infallible and universal. You forget that you might miss something that you don't know about, and this puts you to the prison of your closed world assumption.

The only way you accept your logical arguments to be disproved is logical counterarguments. Yes, this is how a civilized debate should work. But sometimes, there is a point where you can take into account that your partner might be more experienced than you. Or you can say, as I hear often: we agree to disagree. There is a point when you feel you are right, but you can't offer a counter-argument to your partner. It is because you are talking from expertise, from experience. From implicit knowledge. That is what I do when I say that most gypsies do not accept any help (or when they accept, they abuse it). You either believe me or you believe what you hear in your country media, in European Union reports, etc. Up to you.

Again, guys, let me offer you a bit manager approach.

For a company to work successfully, decision-wise, two things are needed:
1) Effectiveness
2) Efficiency
(1) means you make good decisions. Despite of bounded rationality, problems etc., you make as good decisions as possible. (2) means you can execute, implement the decisions. I.e. that those decisions take effect in practice, they are executed.
In theory, (1) requires a complete democracy in the organization, while (2) requires complete dictature. (By the way, as you guessed, it is not me who made up these things ; my former university professor taught them to me, he was also the former deputy CEO of Hungarian telecom -- currently owned by Deutsche Telekom).
Why? Because to make the optimal decision, everything (as in democracy) should be taken into account, while for executing decisions without obstacles, the dictature is the best. Good decisions do not matter much if it's terribly difficult or impossible to execute them.
So there is a conflict of (1) with (2). A good company management is able make this conflict constructive. Not an easy task.

When you need to choose people to your team, do you only decide based on PROFESSIONALISM? That should be the primary factor, true, but tell me, which is better, a very very professional person who cannot get along with you, or a little bit smaller expert who is loyal to you?

In politics, of course, leaders often put their loyalists to all positions with no regard to their professional competence, I do not doubt it. But sometimes it is not so clear, and constantly attacking e.g. Mr.Orban because he put his own people to positions after getting a 2/3 authorization from people is not the way to go. As you can see, it is HARD to find the balance between loyal people and professional people. Because professional people are able to make the best decisions (=> effectiveness) while loyal people support you and allow you to have a concept (=> efficiency). If Mr.Orban puts purely loyalists to place who do not have any knowledge in the tasks they get, then it's bad and I disagree with it. But in most cases, it does not look like that. He and his "men" proved their ability to improve the economy between 1998 and 2002. I hope they will find a similarly good (actually, hopefully better) road this time.

You are not supposed to agree, but you are supposed to respect my "partisan" view in some things. Hungary needs "partisan" types of changes. Powerful changes that do not fit your long-estabilished Western democracies, but may fit the current Hungary which needs to be shaked up from the zombie sleeping state. Once democracy will have such traditions here as in your countries, I will agree with you about all those freedom of speech rights etc. But now, I say that Hungary needs a special mix of powerful government and free democracy. The government needs efficiency, not just effectiveness. Or nothing will ever change here.

 

Right. You notice that you wrote that at the beginning of a ~100 line post that must have taken you about an hour to type, at least?

Which leads me to assume that you added the 'I do not have the time' for drama only. All you lack is the intention. Only the question whether that's rooted in lack of ability to do so is left to the reader to answer. And considering that your arguments have not been all that compelling the conclusion the reader will come to is pretty much pre-determined.

You need a cape. That you could swing over your shoulders dramatically, declaim you don't have the time for trifles like arguments, put your chin in the air, turn on your heel and leave. Because that's the audio-visual equivalent of what you're typing.

PS: You are aware that probably very few people here speak Hungarian? That article that you wrote is about the person whose eye got shot out could be a Hungarian cookie recipe and we couldn't tell. What about something in English?

 

I did not have the time or intention to react to the points in YOUR post. So I did not. In those 100 lines I indeed did not, except to your implying that it's not true that police was shooting innocent protesters. In those 100 lines, I reacted to other things mostly.

If you think that effective arguing on a forum consists of stating your opinion and finding web links to pages that support it, then you're wrong. In political things, there are always articles to prove/confirm something, and also to disprove the same thing. It would not be hard to find some right-centre pages to create counterparts to your left-liberal sources. No, I don't think it makes sense. It is pretty laughable. What is not laughable is that you dared to imply -- with biased sources -- that my statement about innocent protesters shot was not true -- this level of amateurism even questions whether you deserve your lawyer diploma. It is not me who needs to disprove your implying about what happen and what did not: it is you who should have made an initial research before implying anything such severe.

I'm aware of two things:
(1) Those who are interested in the matter have the mental ability to use a powerful search engine to find more information on the matter. It will return many types of results, a plural collection that is not only from left-liberal or only from right-centre sources. From the results, it will become obvious that the intentional shooting of innocent protesters DID happen.
(2) I'm also aware that people here have the mental ability to use Google translate on my linked article and then use some intuitive heuristics to interpret the (initially problematic) translated text. EDIT: ok, using google translate on it makes too crazy results (e.g. the title is incredible: "Four and a half million protesters get a shot eyes"; the truth is: "the protester whose eye was shot out can get 4.5 million"), but using method (1) above is still completely fine and available. Moreover, just to see it is about a shot eye of a protester and not a cookie recipe, even Google translate is enough.

 

Yet you doubt people have the mental ability to look up hungarian in formation in the first place, interesting.

 

8people: sorry, I don't get the meaning of your sentence. If you mean that people cannot find information on Hungary (or that I say so), then read the previous posts again. I explained that they can get explicit knowledge and information on Hungary, but they do not have the practical, implicit, experience-based understanding that a person who has lived here for a long time possesses. And judging purely on explicit information is affected by the closed world assumption and bounded rationality more easily.

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About the media law:

Didn't I say recently that the same topic can be approached in multiple ways and confirmed with sources?

Interview with Jan Mainka in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (it's in German; I couldn't find an English version):
http://www.faz.net/s/RubDDBDABB9457...3284B49BEB90D1807F~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

Mainka, who is a German publisher in Hungary, does not feel his rights became restricted. In the interview, Mainka says that the Western reactions to the HU media law are overly histeric, and that Viktor Orban is not antidemocrat, and Hungary is not North-Korea, it is an open country.

And how suspicious that all the known sources of news (including but not limited to left-liberal press) that I checked "forget" to mention this Mainka's interview?! How suspicious they always prefer to refer only to the anti-Orban and anti-media-law interviews and statements, silently omitting to show that the other side exists too.

This reminds me to Chandos the Red's words:

Because the press (with negligible exceptions) is intentionally "forgetting" to present the other side. If the press is so much worried about its freedom, it should set an example by presenting both sides for everything, proving that it does not need further restrictions. This proves the opposite.

I got the link about the Mainka interview from personal sources. Most sites "forget" to mention it.

 

Baronius I do not think you read my post, you spent a lot of text replying to what I guess is my post but it is a reply to the post you think I wrote. Not the post I actually made.

 

No, it is you who don't understand several major points.

If you had read my previous posts carefully, you would know that it's not about genetics or whatever. It is a lifestyle gypsies got used to (and some governments, e.g. in Czechoslovakia, even confirmed them they get more support than others and they don't need to work). A lifestyle, and they teach/show it to their children too.

Just like several other posters of the internet, you seem to belong to those who think themselves very clever. Otherwise, you wouldn't be writing nonsense such as this:

Because from my posts -- which presented *facts* about gypsies in Hungary -- you should know I don't think they are vermin or whatever. I nowhere implied such a thing. I said many negative things, because they exist. They are truth. I nowhere implied that a radical solution is needed for that (so your mentioning of Hitler in your post to me is absolutely baseless), or quote it if I implied it anywhere. In fact, I told the opposite: education and integration programs are needed, to achieve somehow that most of them also understands that they must accept the basic rules of living together. PERIOD.

Many of you folks (not everyone, but many) seem to pretend to be very clever in things that happen outside your country. Purely based on your limited explicit knowledge and "logics" about it. Well, if you want to have fond delusion that you're right, and keep yourself cheated in your life, it is a problem to you, not to me. On the other hand, those who read my posts with a minimal interest and respect might also find some new information. I'm open to constructive discussion and counter opinions, but not to arrogant talk of overly "clever" users.