Washington Post not unbiased either -- Hungary media law

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WOW.

You've got chrome-plated balls, I'll give you that.

EDIT: Page 13! Oh, what have I done...

 

Funny that he used caps on Jack Daniels ond BBQ sauce though, eh? Makes ya wonder what everyone here thinks is more imoprtant, hungarian politics or FOOD?

 

Blades of Vanatar: No, it's not a question of importance, it's a question of respect (and thus mental level, education). I would never write the name of any country in lowercase (yes, I did in the previous post, but that was illustration, between apostrophes). Moreover, this is a thread about Hungarian politics, so if that's not important (even on theoretical/discussion level) to the visitor, then the visitor is advised to keep out

Talking about media laws, I heard that in the USA, no foreign-owned media is allowed! Is this true? Only American companies can own media in the US?

 

I get foreign owned TV stations on my satellite TV - but I have no idea if they are owned and/or operated from within the US. For example is the station BBC in America owned and operated by an American company? I have no idea.

That said, you can get news on the internet from anywhere, and certainly many news sites are foreign owned, so at least online media is available.

 

Yeah, talking about media laws ... still trying to create some false equivalence? Other countries have media laws too! Why is everybody picking on Dear Leader? Hypocrites, hypocrites, I tell you!

The next thing you wanted to say was not possibly that in contrast the Hungarian media law allows foreign ownership, showing how free Hungary is in comparison, and how awesome and wise Dear Leader is?

To wit: US law does allow for that. Too bad.

The point is: Other countries don't have as homogenic partisan and as as loosely mandated media councils, nor nearly as long appointments for its members.

 

Jared:

My bad! I wanted to say (ask) something, and wrote something totally different.

Actually, I heard that only American-owned PRESS is allowed in the USA. Is this true? (I didn't hear anything about American media, just since the media law of Hungary regulates press as well, and everyone refers to it as the media law, I guess this is responsible for my mistake in wording.) Sorry!

So the question is about press. I.e. that no foreign-owned press is allowed in the USA.

 

It applies to the press too. Too bad.

Case in point is the Washington Times, a conservative bastion, founded by Korean national and Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and which was long owned by News World Communications, Inc., an international media corporation founded by members of the Unification Church.

 

Such ire and I didn't even mention Improved Anvil....

united states. it doesn't happen very often but i occasionally miss the 'shift' key. Just like I occasionally mssppel wrds. Of course, I could correct every typo of yours too, but that would be such a waste of time....

 

Some addition to make my question more accurate: of course, 'foreign-owned' exactly means what it says: that the (direct) owner is not an American company. Funny that some lawyers don't seem to know this

 

Demanding repsect now, are we? Putting down board memebers mental capacity and education w/out knowledge of their background? You have been the butt of the joke for this entire thread and you don't even realize it....

 

It only proves that you lie.

What part of the News World Communications, Inc. being an international media corporation, i.e. multinationally i.e. foreign owned is it that needs elaboration? It is not particularly difficult to understand.

Or take another case in point: Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal - he owns 75% of Fox.

 

I think everyone has been asked before -- and not (just) by me -- to keep the thread non-personal. If personal stuff is written, I need to answer personally, but let's avoid it in the future. This is a thread about Hungarian politics generally and about media law, and my last post had a media/press related question. Nonetheless, to answer your "question": I mentioned mental standard and education, not mental capacity. And yes, someone who is too lazy (or just intentionally) writes a country name with lowercase in a tactless sentence is indeed a not too intelligent person, so yes, mental standards to be followed are not too high in that case. (That can't be called a typo either, because all other surrounding sentences were fine, plus before someone sends a message and checks it before posting, lowercase country names are easy to notice.) Moreover, I don't demand respect to myself (if someone doesn't do it, I'll just have the opinion about that particular person, but this doesn't belong to this thread), it was about a name of a country. That wasn't just disrespectful to myself, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned the disrespect at all.

 

I have to chime in as well. All that over a common enough typo? And no respect? Hey, now...

 

So I'm an uncultured lout with low mental standards and questionable education ... ex-Mrs Bruno?!?! Is that you?

 

This is an interesting comment. Two thoughts here:

(1) Put it down to Cultural differences, that you seem to cite so often. The only reason I would get annoyed if someone wrote New Zealand in lower case is that it doesn't abide by "proper" grammar rules. I would get just as annoyed (not very annoyed, mind you, but equally so) if someone didn't include full-stops, commas or apostrophises in their writing.

I find this even more silly than people getting upset when someone goes and burns a flag.

(2) No place, person or thing is deserving of respect for simply being.

 

This is what the neoliberalism makes with/from people. They forget what respect means.

For example, a child who was just born, only exists and didn't do anything... still, his life deserves to be respected. Every human deserves respect by default, unless there is a good reason against it. Hungary is a country of long history, e.g. defended the Christian Europe from Turks while it was one of the most influential kingdoms in Europe -- it deserves respect even from foreigners for a lot of reasons, and one of the reasons is its historic role, yes. Not Orbán, not the government gets this respect -- instead, the Holy Crown that manifests the State of Hungary. In other cases, respect exists for protocol reasons. When Obama won and a known Polish politician claimed that "the white civilization in the Earth has come to an end", he was disrespectful for many reasons; he was disrespectful to black people, he was disrespectful to the President of the United States, etc.

That's what neoliberalism makes with people. They forget the value of human life and sensitivity (e.g. that's why they don't mind that the liberal version of media laws allow child-harming content in TV), they forget that respect also exists for protocol reasons in particular cases, and their only value is uncontrolled FREEDOM, at any cost.

Fortunately, there seem to be some promising changes in Europe. Orbán is not the only one: there are other conservative forces getting big popularity in their own countries.

 

Aha. Right. Speaking of which: Wasn't I a socialist last time? Am I neo-liberal now? Or am I still socialist? I am getting lost and need direction.

And as for neo-liberalism itself, it is something else entirely than what you refer to ...

Just saying ...

 

I'm not really surprised that Ragusa imagines life every day based on third-party definitions, without the ability to apply abstractions and understand how actually a word is interpreted by its user in its context. It is HIS LIFE, interpreting definitions and finding who doesn't use them in their most commonly used meaning

Those who are not so obsessed with me and thus can think more clearly already know that I used neoliberalism to describe the mentality, the thinking. I.e. that liberalism in thinking was never wrong in itself, but its "new" version which demands even more freedom in certain things has become quite harmful.

On a side note, even the economic definition of neoliberalism may be relevant, as it mentions state deregulation and reduction of state. Obviously, a stronger media law is against this.

Nonetheless, I think poor Ragusa thinks that every comment is directed to him or a reply to him. When I answered Rotku, he sent this in his post to the AoDA (he edited his post since then, but initially, his post started with this):

Also, he is a person who contradicts himself. While he attacks the Hungarian Media Law because of its strictness and stronger control over media & press, he accepts that in the USA, it's fine how the rules are made by self-regulated influential groups. And the biggest things that hurts Ragusa when e.g. Chandos reminds him to such things:

I remember Ragusa was a legendary anti-American poster in these boards, maybe it changed and now he needs a new "victim", my poor Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Hungary.

 

Eh? Ragusa's meaning was the common one that I know. I was scratching my head trying to work out exactly what you were getting at before your post just now.

Let me try my hand at talking about people in the third person - it seems to be the thing to do in this thread.

Baronius keeps asserting that Ragusa and others are been unfair in picking only on his beloved Prime Minister and country. What Baronius fails to realise is that Ragusa is in no means picking on Orban because he needs a new target, or even because he particularly cares. Baronius seems to have not read the last two dozen posts where numerous posters have tried to explain to him that the reason such attention is been focused upon Orban here is only because Baronius keeps trying to defend his Prime Minister, using illogical arguments, insults and selective readings.

I feel that if poor Baronius was to open his eyes he would notice a few things.

First, Baronius would notice that Ragusa is indeed still critical of the USA.

Second, that if Baronius were to stop with these unreasonable defences and assumptions (such as that Ragusa needed a month to chill and that many here are obsessed with Hungary/Baronius/Orban), then all attacks against Hungary/Baronius/Orban would seize.

I do often find myself wondering how Baronius can continue to see the world (or at least this thread) through such shaded goggles. Is it that he does it on purpose? Maybe in an attempt to prove a point, maybe because he knows it annoys people, or maybe because he knows no other way to argue. Or is it that he doesn't actually realise how absolutely [self-moderated] he is acting, in not understanding others arguments and definitely not treating anyone in this thread with an ounce of this respect thing that he so proudly talks about?

Baronius seems to consistently be waving the flag of Respect around - saying how an important thing it is, and how those Neo-liberal/Socialist/Your Insult of Choice in the west seem to not understand it any more. Yet despite this, Baronius does not seem to understand that he has not shown one bit of respect for anyone, right from the very beginning of the thread. Baronius does not seem to understand that respect breeds respect. Maybe it is not the Neo-liberal/Socialist/Your Insult of Choice society in the west that seems to value respect so little, but also the Neo-Nazi society that Baronius seems to be wanting to bring to Hungary.

Hmm... I don't quite see the appeal of speaking about people in the third person. I guess it does allow observations and attacks seem a bit less real, but it also makes me sound like a complete tosser. I don't know how Baronius pulls it off so well. He out shines me in talking-about-people-in-the-third-person.

 

Yes, exactly. He used the common meaning, and common definition, as it was visible from Wikipedia too. I used it in an own interpretation, talking about "neoliberalism" in THINKING, i.e. thinking about the world in a way that wants to reduce centralization and allow total freedom almost without any control. I'm sure there are better words for this in English, but I'm not a native speaker and neoliberalism was more or less suitable. Ragusa tries to attack me wherever he can, so even when I don't follow the commonly accepted definition of something, he tries to abuse it. Poor guy.

Rotku, if you feel I was disrespectful with you unfairly, then it must be a communication problem between us. And yes, a cultural difference. There are other behavioral patterns, expectations and standards in my culture than in yours. This is an international forum mostly following English/Western patterns, but I wouldn't be able to get rid of my patterns entirely even if I wanted to (so I try to adapt my style to this place in many things, but it can't be complete; in other things, I just don't intend to give up my national characteristics, and instead I expect others to understand them, i.e. to interpret them in an understanding, unique way -- I know this is hard for many Americans, sorry guys, but you'll have to try).

On the other hand, I may sound harsh indeed in cases when something totally unacceptable is written, e.g. totally incorrect and misleading information is written in an arrogant and conceited tone. Then, of course, my reply is harsh too.

Most of us Hungarians (especially those who don't try to mimic Western European and American patterns or have little Western influence on us e.g. at job) are very impulsive people. We use many exclamation marks (!). Actually, the Hungarian mentality and character is impulsive in advance. Even our official letter format starts like this:
Dear Rotku!
and not with a comma (Dear Rotku,).

So if you communicate with me, start to make yourself familiar with experiencing the Hungarian style I'm trying to adapt too to your communication style. Really. If I gave my true Hungarian nature here in some of the replies, probably there would be 10 times stronger harsh statements flying in the air than what you've seen until now...

And yes, talking about third person means that I don't directly talk to him; this is a sign of ignoring him because of the behavior the person has shown to my direction. You know, like not acknowledging his presence. If you check Sikret's posts (by the way, he is not Hungarian), you will find very similar patterns. (In this aspect, his culture is more similar to mine than e.g. to American.) However, he is usually less direct and harsh than myself, and has better constructed posts than myself (he is a Professor in universities after all, so probably even now he would advise me just to ignore those users who arrogantly and rudely attack me or my views instead of wasting time on them).

Back to cultural differences, also one point I noticed on some English-speaking international forums:
Attacking someone's opinion tactlessly is fine, but attacking the person is not.
In my culture, if you're tactless with someone's opinion or work, it is considered an attack to his person. You need to be basically tactful about his opinion and views (so any criticism must be polite -- even if the content of the criticism is harsh, it must be packed carefully), otherwise the person will probably ignore your opinion even if it makes sense or will consider himself/herself attacked.