Did anyone listen to Biden's SOTU speech last night? My wife tuned in while baking in the kitchen. All I could hear were the muffled shouts of an angry old man. Did I miss anything?
I watched 15 to 20 minutes of it and got so angry I went upstairs and read about , ofall things , something about Kant s view of Swedenborg.Might sound a bit dreary but anything beats listening to the ranting of that absurd man. I’m more pro Ukraine anti Putin than most people on this page. Still I nearly blew a gasket when I heard that man announce that if Putin wasn’t stopped in Ukraine tanks would roll into Western Europe and American troops would be called up to fight them. This is crazy stuff.Then he lectured the Supreme Court that they got Roe wrong and he was going to restore it.It was a horrible spectacle. Oh and January 6 was even a greater threat than the Civil War. This is our president!
Biden also seems to think, or wants the public to believe, that he has the ability to raise the salaries of public school teachers. And the ability to cure cancer.
He apparently has reached the point where he is a magical all powerful being can solve all the worlds problems if only we will believe in him. The word narcissism is overworked. It’s routinely- and- rightly applied to Trump. What is not sufficiently appreciated is that Biden is a nasty , demagogic narcissist of the highest order who is bound and determined to prove all the people who put him down for decades as a dolt and mediocrity are wrong he’s the greatest man who ever walked planet!
Amusing and frustrating to see him claim that no one should go to prison for smoking pot, when his own heavy hand in the 1990s crime bill has been totally memory-holed.
And I suspect if you go back a few years you’ll discover a much more negative attitude towards abortion. Biden has no core principles other than a vague “liberalism “ which must conform to whatever the Democratic Party zeitgeist is at the moment.Also in his narcissistic to quest to be a “ historic “ president who changes the world, he is perfectly ok with the transformation of this country into zombie apocalypse!
I recently saw footage of Biden from the late '80s where he's responding to reporters' questioning of him by telling him he has a higher IQ than they do. He's always been a bullshitter and a buffoon.
It was interesting to read the transcript of Hunter Biden's recent deposition where he tells the Republican committee he has a better resume than they all do, brags about how many corporate boards he's been on, gets angry when asked about his drug use, and seems weirdly unaware that he's a nobody without his father. It's the same sort of poisonous,. unrepentant bluster, passed down to the son.
With the sort of people who are super into IQ, I like to suggest to them that it is only below a certain threshold of IQ that one obssesses about IQ. Ah, watch the needle spin.
Yes—agreed. I have no idea what my IQ is, I have no interest in finding out, I don't care about the IQs of others, and I've never met anyone who bragged about IQ of whom I was able to say, "gosh, that person is impressive."
Biden was always a dopey, dishonest mediocrity. The first thing about him that really grabbed me and should have been the end of him was when an aide cribbed a speech from Neil Kinnock which Biden delivered as if it was about him. I’m also very tired of the fake Scranton Joe routine and Joe trying to pretend he’s oh so working class.
You're old enough to remember that, too. Biden is without shame. One wonders how a tiny state like Delaware could propel a dishonest mediocrity like Biden to the high mountains of American politics. It is mindboggling.
Because of all the banks in Delaware. They didn't call him "the Senator from MBNA" for nothing.
Much propaganda was made out of Biden continuing to live in Delaware and commuting to DC to work via Amtrak, but I have never been able to determine—and I have searched a bit—who paid for those daily Amtrak trips when he was a senator.
Well the train ride from Wilmington to Union Station Washington isn’t that long and probably wasn’t all that expensive if he had a monthly pass. Once you get to the station, the Capitol is within walking distance. And it’s not as if he had a regular 9 to 5 job and Congress is not perpetually in session.
You shoulda watched the speech, Jack! You woulda seen kitchen table trickle-down predecessrr brrkkks minnoterrr shrmto! Not a joke!
In all seriousness, it was a shouty, hyper-partisan speech meant to rally conflicting camps of the DNC. Biden had high energy for an old man and, although I hate to admit it, had a couple of charming moments amid his lies, leaps of logic, pandering, and misplaced assumptions.
One of the craziest parts was Biden's rant about how you're getting fewer chips and fewer Snickers in your candy bags. The rants about "shrinkflation" just reek of shitty little wonks and their focus groups who think we the public don't understand the difference between addressing the symptom and addressing the actual problem.
I questioned her about the speech but she remembered little. When she's baking I've learned to stay away from the kitchen. She has an online baking business on the side, mostly gluten-free, Eastern European-style cakes, and her focus is intense.
I'd be much more sanguine about Hungary if Orban would groom a successor and retire to write his memoirs. Hungary could become like Japan, governed by a single party, but with regular changes in actual leadership at the top, with mechanisms for junking bad or corrupt leaders. Instead it risks becoming like Mexico under Porfirio Diaz.
Trump last presidency was an utter fiasco- things got worse not better. Competence is not an optional virtue in leaders! I can't comment on Hungary, but here in the US there are non-"progressive" alternatives to Donald Trump. I am mystified why so many people are addicted to him, almost as if he were political meth. Teddie Roosevelt said "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Trump rants and raves like a demented parrot-- and he can't even find his stick.
And yes, there are more than one fairly good alternatives for Trump 2.0. But they were rejected by primary voters, so now it's going to be Biden or Trump. Sigh!
Still, not a difficult choice: Just hold your nose when voting.
Things improved for the American people during Trump's tenure, until China gifted the democrats with Covid, which few countries (and certainly not large heterogeneous ones like the US) handled successfully. And in the end, it was Trump's policies that provided the vaccines.
Re the banking system, I am wondering if the current regime decided that the more non-governmental essential systems they weaponize, the less likely that a credible mass of "domestic terrorists" and actual journalists will have time and energy to track and expose it all.
These posts from Hungary seem a contradiction in terms to me. The first rule of Benedict is anchoring and rootedness. You live as ... a cosmopolitan, that is, with no city. Or an expatriate? Why this emotion about the representation of Hungary in the United States? Why not return to the United States and contribute to your country, here? I don't understand it.
From a personal standpoint, Rod does not want people to think he lives in a dictatorship. And he led with an American political point - the Democrats are claiming Republicans are close friends with a dictator. This could be a point for them, a point that, sadly, helps keep some from voting Republican. Rod is helping to take that point away. Finally, if you have read Live Not By Lies, you know that Rod specializes in knowledge from former communist lands about how to prevent something like that in America. So he lives in a former communist land.
But I'm not hearing Rod or other conservatives from the Heritage Foundation, etc. (forget Trump and his love for strong men) address concerns from Applebaum and other democracy specialists about Hungary's shortcomings-- changing the courts, etc. Yes, Rod has written about the Hungarian media, which seems a very complicated matter that no one seems to be getting right. Do they make any good points about democratic deficits in Hungary (or Poland or Israel for that matter)? I just hear less intelligent discussion from anyone nowadays and just a lot of talking points. Before Trump and the hardening of political lines, there was criticism of Orban from classical liberals, even conservatives in the U.S. Now it's just more of a sentiment of "are you one of our guys or not?"
I'm watching Applebaum now. She says "the private press was made totally partisan, there is no television news that is not pro-government".
I stopped after that. Based on the linked article, she is making completely false statements and I cannot trust her as a source.
But to your larger point, not being fluent in Hungarian does make it difficult to find and answer various finer points regarding Orban. Rod can basically say we are free here, the press is free, democracy is fine, and people are not suffering in many of the ways they suffer in the USA. This is from personal knowledge, which is what Rod the only information Rod would wish to give on Hungarian politics, I feel sure.
Funny about Anne Applebaum. Her book on the Gulag was brilliant and she should be proud of her work. When she was with the Washington Post, she was the closest that rag had of a centrist board member. She is married to a Polish diplomat who once wrote for National Review before that publication's decline. But she has become a dishonest writer due to Trump derangement and her contempt with the modern right.
Trump and the modern right are an existential threat to her class, their entire project of remaking the planet into an American satrapy run according to the dictates of Social Justice Inc., and maybe even a theat to herself, her friends and family.
Anyone can be tolerant and open-minded when they live safe and prosperous lives in safe, stable countries. The real test of character and integrity comes when these things start to crumble.
Applebaum is responding like any other aristocrat would: protect the social pyramid she sits at the apex of at all costs, even if the country you lead becomes postliberal, postnational, post-rational and even if all the principles you claim to embody have to be discarded or turned upside-down.
These people will never relinquish their sacred beliefs and their fanatasy of what amazingly enlightened and compassionate leaders they are, just like all aristocrats who preen in front of mirrors yet start to hear the distinct rumblings of a peasant revolt somewhere in the distance...
There's a great old Wizard of Id comic strip where Sir Rodney tells the king, "The peasants are revolting!" To which the king replys, "You can say that again." Pretty much like today.
I have to admit, I think much of the modern American right is a clownmobile that deserves a fair amount of contempt, particularly for its ineffectiveness and its inability to mainstream some of its policies with widespread potential.
The senator who gave the GOP response last night was kinda hot, though.
It seems it happened to many, going beyond the woke phenomenon. Check out the Jan./Feb. issue of the Atlantic predicting what will happen (again) under Trump.. These people aren't necessarily on the left (at least as we thought of it) but the panic of these articles about a Trump re-election is frightening in itself. One article is even about the detrimental mental and physical health outcomes that will result with Trump. It seems it is massive exaggerated fear of Trump that puts the worst construction on anything he ever does. So it seems we have a crazy "never-trump" population, who might identify as conservative or liberal, a more crazy woke population and, for me, a crazy "always Trump" population who will defend him come hell or high water. I don't feel like I fit in into this country anymore and I fear that feeling may grow in the next few months, whomever is elected.
Thanks for providing the best reason to wish for a Trump victory- the massive nervous breakdown that tens of millions of people will have, in America and the rest of the world.
I think you’re right. I used to read her years ago in The Spectator and she was pretty good. I haven’t read anything by her in years except for an article I read somewhere where she commented on Laura Ingram in a somewhat condescending tone.
You simply cannot compare the Hungarian media system to America's. They were not remotely the same, even before Orban came to power. I do wish I could understand the finer points of life here, but look, if a left-wing government came to power, the media situation would be the same. I have spoken to more than a few Hungarian conservatives who say that if not what Orban did, there would be no conservative voices at all in the media. Americans need to understand that not every country is America.
I need to find a way into understanding the judicial system. I have been told by Poles (about their country) and Hungarians that the old communist system withstood the transition, such that communist judges could appoint their successors. If that is true, then of course I understand the desire to radically reform the judicial system. The point these people make is that the EU accepts the former communist system because it is something they can work with -- meaning, it represents their point of view. I'm trying to be honest and say that I don't know the details; I can only tell you what I have been told when I ask.
That was a very detailed article Rod sent us to but it absolutely puts paid to the notion that Hungarian media is only conservative and government controlled. Proven not true. Some highlights below:
"he biggest TV channel, German-owned RTL, is critical of the government. So is the biggest daily, tabloid „Blikk”, owned by Swiss publishing House Ringier, whose online edition ranks among the top four in digital ratings on most days. The biggest political broadsheet is leftwing „Népszava”. The biggest weekly magazine is independent and critical „hvg”. Of the four biggest news portals - apart from „Blikk” - two are very critical of the government (24.hu and telex.hu). Index, under its new owners, has become more government-friendly, but also contains articles that hurt Fidesz. Only origo.hu is a decidedly pro-government news portal.
Hungarian still has a pluralistic media market, critical voices remain influent, and the spectrum of published political opinion remains broad. These are the most recent statistics: In September 2021, the most-viewed news site was the independent, politically critical portal 24.hu with almost 3,6 million real users. Second, third and fourth were centrist index.hu, pro-government origo.hu and and the foreign-owned, poltically independent website of the Swiss-owned tabloid Blikk, each with around 3,3 million real users.
In total, amongst the Top 20, websites supporting, or not hostile to the government counted 11 million real users in September 2021. Internet outlets independent of, and critical of the government had 13,7 million."
It helps if you remember that Rod has a paid fellowship with the Danube Institute as a Visiting Fellow. (How else could he live as an expat in Hungary?)
Well, yes -- but the majority of my income comes from Substack. If I left Hungary tomorrow, I would not have the income from here, but my opinions would not change one bit. One reason I accepted a position at Danube was that there was zero pressure to adapt my opinions to the government line. John O'Sullivan runs the outfit, and he is very good on this point.
Of course the Danube Institue has its biases - everyone does. But it's very open about those. If it ever had a use for a broken down lawyer, I'd head over there in a flash, linguistic difficulties be damned!
I can't explain this out of respect for the privacy of my wife and kids back in the US. Believe me, I would rather be back in America. Nevertheless, I have passion for Hungary, because I see what they are going through, and I see how unfairly they are treated. I recognize a similarity between the way conservatives, especially religious conservatives, are treated in the US, and the way Hungary is regarded. I live here now, and they have been kind to me in my despair.
What’s Budapest like at Christmas? We’ve been talking about a trip in December and I love Munich so that was pencilled in for there but wouldn’t take a lot to convince me otherwise.
Rod will likely be here soon to tell you, but here is my take. Though I was not here on December 25 I was here in December. It is not very cold - maybe 45 degrees on average during the day. The Christmas markets are beautiful. There are a lot people visiting, just like most of the other months, because the know about the Christmas markets. The trees have died so you will miss some of the splendid beauty, but the buildings can still take your breath away. All the museums and tourist attractions are open on normal business days. They have some find things here.
I've been in Munich at Christmas, though that was quite a few years ago. I think Budapest is much nicer at Christmas compared to what I remember - though Munich may have done more in recent years, or maybe I missed something in Munich due to being "otherwise occupied". If you have already seen Munich but never seen Budapest, and you are in Europe anyway, by all means, come to Budapest, imho.
I'm looking forward to visiting Hungary in July with my bride, as part of a Danube honeymoon cruise. It will be difficult to choose what sights to see in a short time. The Scruton Café is definitely on the list. Been trying to learn a bit of the language on Duolingo.
Perhaps you love languages and it gives you pleasure to learn some Hungarian. You won't need any. But of course, of course (heavy emphasis) you must learn to say "good day (hello), please, thank you". I also use Yes, No, Take away, How much, and my favorite, which sounds like "Nem sook sheg ish" - it means "not necessary" and you can say this to every kind person who wants to take away your plate at table, or clean your room every single day - things like that. And you do know that you can download Google Translate, speak into y9our phone, and it will transcribe your words, then type them in Hungarian as well as say them aloud, and do this was fair accuracy.
Hungarian is considered one of the five most difficult languages for English speakers to learn. Additionally, the Hungarians do not enjoy poor pronunciation, and their ability to discriminate sounds, with so many different ones in their language, is great. So work on the pronunciation. But learn "Co pilot sinned in Vietnam" - "Co sin nam " (that is a sound OK version of the Hungarian word for thank you. And "Yo na potehun" (pote as in POTUS) is "hello" (literally good day). Huzzah, those are the two biggies and your pronunciation will be acceptable if you use those sound-outs :)
PS: I thought about my reply and I want you to know it is "not like me" in general. In life, my ability to speak Spanish and have simple conversations in French and German has made a huge difference when I travel. Just - I didn't learn to converse in Hungarian, almost no non-native speaker does learn, yet I've been happy and not in need - the Hungarians seem to understand folks have not been so rude as to not try to learn, its just that we can't.
I've been to Budapest three times, on business. Lovely place, lovely people, great food and drink. Because it was business I got by with English and pidgin German. Vastly preferable to Prague, which unfortunately feels like a theme park.
Good point about German. In Hungarian schools, the students can choose between English and German. I once held a long conversation, for instance, in a shop in (my simple) German with a Hungarian salesperson who did not know English. I would have used my phone and the Google translation app that speaks if I could not have done that. It would have been fine, but speaking is rather better when possible.
Heh - well, good catch, and it certainly sounded like I was saying that in my post. The difference: With Parisians you will know they don't like it. Hungarians won't let you know, but they will privately say "it hurts my ears" later. - - (I'm a bit like them, I cringe when the newscasters talk about President Gee. It's pronounced like She). And, example: Kiraly instead of Kee rahee, oh my...yep, there are silent Ls. Also, every "s" is "sh" whereas "sz" is our usual "s" - Just two examples from among many - sounding out words is a heck of a thing in Hungary.
I had a cousin who married a woman from Hungary. They actually had to go to an immigration office, and their marriage was instrumental in approving her residency. My cousin practiced over and over the pronunciation of the town she was born in. He had to in order to be able to say it correctly. Apparently, it was a mouthful. And, apparently, the immigration official was impressed when he heard him say it.
Cool. I didn't get any pronunciation test for my residency card nor language test of any sort. Oh well, it is only for one year so I must re-apply to stay longer, but my lawyer advised to go or the easy one first (kind of like getting a foothold).
I don't know if this true or not, but I was told by someone who studied Central and Eastern European grammer that the way to think about Hungarian verbs was as a weird family of adverbs. The thought of adverbial verbs makes me want it to be true!
When I was at the Defense Language Institute learning Polish, all the Slavic students felt sorry for the folks learning Hungarian - they always looked like they had been beaten. Them and the one poor soul who had to learn Albanian.
I was there all of 1984. Tom Sharpe could have written a book about our instructors, all native Poles. We had one who kept up on his American slang by reading Hustler. Classes with him were . . . interesting.
I had a professor named Richard Lewis who learned Polish at DLI; it would be funny if you knew him, but I'm guessing he's somewhat older than you are.
I worked with a man in Germany who had been through DLI for Hungarian. He was African-American, probably 6'4" and husky (at least when I knew him). I met a girl who was Hungarian over there as well, and she was obsessed with all things American. She let me give him her contact info, because she couldn't believe an American could speak Hungarian. They got together for coffee at least once, and she was over the moon about it. :)
When visiting Budapest in 2017 with my son, two couples from the UK approached while were at the Ronald Reagan statue. After realizing we were from the US, they frowned at the Reagan statue, assuming that we as Americans disliked Reagan. When I explained that I considered Reagan one of our greatest presidents ever, they all enthusiastically agreed, and started telling stories of the things he did that affected them in the UK, and asked me to take pictures of them around the statue. It was nice moment, but it was, and is, sadly shocking that the media and our government has cowed people into suppressing their own rational and honest opinions if it does not fit their narrative, which is what they are now trying to do with Orban.
Rod, not sure if this the appropriate outlet for this, but I made a Youtube video of me speaking in my broken Hungarian about what has happened in my hometown regarding immigration, LBGTQ and "woke" culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4UO9VJoLhM. I made this video as a warning to my Hungarian friends who don't truly understand what is happening here in the U.S. In the video I describe how one of the churches in my hometown welcomed a few Bangladeshi families in the Eighties. Now they represent twenty percent of the population, and they control the local elections. There are the pornographic books that have made their way into the local elementary schools and what's funny is that the local newspaper couldn't quote from the books because of antipornography laws. I have mentioned this here before and Rod has written about it, but a transwoman, Annie Christ, has read at the local library and even had a float in this past year's Christmas parade. As president of the county prison board, I was ordered by the county commissioner at the time to allow transpersons to be housed with the gender they identified with. The prison wardens and I told her to go pound sand. When my reappointment to the board came up, they replaced me with a convicted murderer (in the first degree no less) because of his lived experience. He was charged seven months later with 94 counts of COVID fraud. It's an upside-down world, and the Hungarians don't know what they're in for if they don't have someone fighting this evil. Hopefully, in the short term, Orban can advise Trump on how to end the war in Ukraine, however, solving the cultural problems is going to be more difficult. Unfortunately, even with a Trump win, I don't see my hometown rejecting "woke" anytime soon. If anything, I see the Left doubling down on their insanity.
The only one who can end the war in Ukraine is Zelensky, unfortunately. Any westerner who calls for negotiations will be smeared as a tool of Putin, and it will stick.
"...Hungarians don't know what they're in for if they don't have someone fighting this evil."
But, as I think you have discovered, you have to have more than one 'someone' or fighting accomplishes nothing. Hopefully your video will encourage more to join together to fight.
Good post, and for a person not raised in Hungary your command of Magyar is quite good. In pre-89 times I used to spend hours trying to explain the US to my communist-light friends and relatives. Nowadays they doubt me when I tell them about the Obama-Biden America.
As for your American city, I can imagine it to be almost anywhere except the South. It is a special shame that even small communities allowed themselves to be taken over by "woke" warriors.
Thank you for your compliment about my Hungarian. It's one of my goals in life to become "almost" fluent because fluent is impossible. What happened in my town in less than twenty years is unbelievable. I don't know how the pendulum swings back or if it swings in a completely different plane. If you have the inclination, share my video with any of your Hungarian friends. As I mentioned, when my family and I go to Hungary each year, we tell our friends and family there what has happened, they think we are exaggerating or lying to promote Orban's agenda.
Book burning! Fascist! Dictator! Threat to democracy! I stop listening when I come across these hyperbolic screeds from the media. They no longer represent the truth of what happened or what is happening, but rather what they want you to *think* about what’s happened. It’s turtles all the way down.
Oh and we love to sniff at backwards “corrupt” countries, just because we’ve devised slightly more sophisticated forms of corruption (think tanks, book deals, lobbying, professorships, etc. to enrich the political class). Give me a break.
I'm still trying to understand which was the greater consequential disaster for Western Civ. - WWI or Vatican II.
Re WWI: I am haunted by Wilfred Owen's "Strange Meeting" with its ending of despair. He wrote it not long before he was killed in action. I wonder if he sensed more broadly the death of the West.
Today on NPR's Science Friday -- Drag Queen Math (because math is usually so boring)! So all the kids in Baltimore's public high schools, none proficient in math, still have a chance to add & multiply at grade level.
It's hardly surprising that the US government, including Biden, would criticize Hungary. As Jim Kunstler has been pointing out for years, because of all the government disasters, its default position now is to lie about everything, to cover for all the problems it has created--think Covid, the Ukraine war, the Afghan fiasco, the green energy push rapidly turning into a debacle, etc. Rather than come clean about this, those responsible prefer to lie about them and double down on failure to avoid looking like the incompetent screwups that they are--think Victoria Nuland.
The left has its own delusional narratives. Hungary is fascist. Trump is fascist. As an aside, lefties also like to point out that the Southern states in America have higher crime rates and lower incomes. They don't mention that the crime is caused mostly by Democrats and most of the lower income people in the South are Democrats.
Did anyone listen to Biden's SOTU speech last night? My wife tuned in while baking in the kitchen. All I could hear were the muffled shouts of an angry old man. Did I miss anything?
Re: the muffled shouts of an angry old man
Get used to it. Substitute "men" for "man" That's going to be a description of the entire presidential campaign.
I wonder if there will be another pandemic to make this 2020 deja vu experience truly complete.
I haven't watched a State of the Union speech since Reagan turned them into touchy-feely media spectacles.
My wife watched Casablanca last night.
Maybe ask your wife?
I watched 15 to 20 minutes of it and got so angry I went upstairs and read about , ofall things , something about Kant s view of Swedenborg.Might sound a bit dreary but anything beats listening to the ranting of that absurd man. I’m more pro Ukraine anti Putin than most people on this page. Still I nearly blew a gasket when I heard that man announce that if Putin wasn’t stopped in Ukraine tanks would roll into Western Europe and American troops would be called up to fight them. This is crazy stuff.Then he lectured the Supreme Court that they got Roe wrong and he was going to restore it.It was a horrible spectacle. Oh and January 6 was even a greater threat than the Civil War. This is our president!
Biden also seems to think, or wants the public to believe, that he has the ability to raise the salaries of public school teachers. And the ability to cure cancer.
He apparently has reached the point where he is a magical all powerful being can solve all the worlds problems if only we will believe in him. The word narcissism is overworked. It’s routinely- and- rightly applied to Trump. What is not sufficiently appreciated is that Biden is a nasty , demagogic narcissist of the highest order who is bound and determined to prove all the people who put him down for decades as a dolt and mediocrity are wrong he’s the greatest man who ever walked planet!
His administration increased the carrot crop by five percent!
Amusing and frustrating to see him claim that no one should go to prison for smoking pot, when his own heavy hand in the 1990s crime bill has been totally memory-holed.
And I suspect if you go back a few years you’ll discover a much more negative attitude towards abortion. Biden has no core principles other than a vague “liberalism “ which must conform to whatever the Democratic Party zeitgeist is at the moment.Also in his narcissistic to quest to be a “ historic “ president who changes the world, he is perfectly ok with the transformation of this country into zombie apocalypse!
I recently saw footage of Biden from the late '80s where he's responding to reporters' questioning of him by telling him he has a higher IQ than they do. He's always been a bullshitter and a buffoon.
It was interesting to read the transcript of Hunter Biden's recent deposition where he tells the Republican committee he has a better resume than they all do, brags about how many corporate boards he's been on, gets angry when asked about his drug use, and seems weirdly unaware that he's a nobody without his father. It's the same sort of poisonous,. unrepentant bluster, passed down to the son.
This.
With the sort of people who are super into IQ, I like to suggest to them that it is only below a certain threshold of IQ that one obssesses about IQ. Ah, watch the needle spin.
Yes—agreed. I have no idea what my IQ is, I have no interest in finding out, I don't care about the IQs of others, and I've never met anyone who bragged about IQ of whom I was able to say, "gosh, that person is impressive."
Biden was always a dopey, dishonest mediocrity. The first thing about him that really grabbed me and should have been the end of him was when an aide cribbed a speech from Neil Kinnock which Biden delivered as if it was about him. I’m also very tired of the fake Scranton Joe routine and Joe trying to pretend he’s oh so working class.
You're old enough to remember that, too. Biden is without shame. One wonders how a tiny state like Delaware could propel a dishonest mediocrity like Biden to the high mountains of American politics. It is mindboggling.
True . I am old and at times wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.
Because of all the banks in Delaware. They didn't call him "the Senator from MBNA" for nothing.
Much propaganda was made out of Biden continuing to live in Delaware and commuting to DC to work via Amtrak, but I have never been able to determine—and I have searched a bit—who paid for those daily Amtrak trips when he was a senator.
Well the train ride from Wilmington to Union Station Washington isn’t that long and probably wasn’t all that expensive if he had a monthly pass. Once you get to the station, the Capitol is within walking distance. And it’s not as if he had a regular 9 to 5 job and Congress is not perpetually in session.
Re: dopey, dishonest mediocrity
Pretty much describes the whole crop of politicians, both Left and Right.
You shoulda watched the speech, Jack! You woulda seen kitchen table trickle-down predecessrr brrkkks minnoterrr shrmto! Not a joke!
In all seriousness, it was a shouty, hyper-partisan speech meant to rally conflicting camps of the DNC. Biden had high energy for an old man and, although I hate to admit it, had a couple of charming moments amid his lies, leaps of logic, pandering, and misplaced assumptions.
One of the craziest parts was Biden's rant about how you're getting fewer chips and fewer Snickers in your candy bags. The rants about "shrinkflation" just reek of shitty little wonks and their focus groups who think we the public don't understand the difference between addressing the symptom and addressing the actual problem.
I didn't watch the speech but I'm certain your wife's baking was wonderful in comparison of that old fool's ranting off a teleprompter.
I questioned her about the speech but she remembered little. When she's baking I've learned to stay away from the kitchen. She has an online baking business on the side, mostly gluten-free, Eastern European-style cakes, and her focus is intense.
I don't bother with them, especially not Joe's. I had better things to do, like watch comedy movie reaction videos.
I'd be much more sanguine about Hungary if Orban would groom a successor and retire to write his memoirs. Hungary could become like Japan, governed by a single party, but with regular changes in actual leadership at the top, with mechanisms for junking bad or corrupt leaders. Instead it risks becoming like Mexico under Porfirio Diaz.
The FIDESz coalition is blessed with plenty of young(er) talent. (Quite a few women, too.)
But Orban is in his (political) prime, as demonstrated in his handling the EU's threat.
Why should he retire now?
Because he's at risk of being in office too long. Even highly capable leaders grow stale. See: Margaret Thatcher.
I will take anyone like Maggie Thatcher, even on what you may consider their "stalest" day.
What I see as rancidly stale is the "progressive" uniparty regime running/ruining, our lives.
Trump is far from the perfect alternative. But electing him promises to be a promising start.
Trump last presidency was an utter fiasco- things got worse not better. Competence is not an optional virtue in leaders! I can't comment on Hungary, but here in the US there are non-"progressive" alternatives to Donald Trump. I am mystified why so many people are addicted to him, almost as if he were political meth. Teddie Roosevelt said "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Trump rants and raves like a demented parrot-- and he can't even find his stick.
Not being a user, I can not comment on "meth."
And yes, there are more than one fairly good alternatives for Trump 2.0. But they were rejected by primary voters, so now it's going to be Biden or Trump. Sigh!
Still, not a difficult choice: Just hold your nose when voting.
Things improved for the American people during Trump's tenure, until China gifted the democrats with Covid, which few countries (and certainly not large heterogeneous ones like the US) handled successfully. And in the end, it was Trump's policies that provided the vaccines.
Re the banking system, I am wondering if the current regime decided that the more non-governmental essential systems they weaponize, the less likely that a credible mass of "domestic terrorists" and actual journalists will have time and energy to track and expose it all.
I love Hungary. More to the point, I respect them. I cannot say that about most Europeans nowadays, and many Americans, for that matter.
These posts from Hungary seem a contradiction in terms to me. The first rule of Benedict is anchoring and rootedness. You live as ... a cosmopolitan, that is, with no city. Or an expatriate? Why this emotion about the representation of Hungary in the United States? Why not return to the United States and contribute to your country, here? I don't understand it.
I think the idea is that the same people who lie about what's going on abroad in Hungary are also the ones who lie about conservatives here at home.
Of course they lie. Ho hum.
From a personal standpoint, Rod does not want people to think he lives in a dictatorship. And he led with an American political point - the Democrats are claiming Republicans are close friends with a dictator. This could be a point for them, a point that, sadly, helps keep some from voting Republican. Rod is helping to take that point away. Finally, if you have read Live Not By Lies, you know that Rod specializes in knowledge from former communist lands about how to prevent something like that in America. So he lives in a former communist land.
Excellent response.
But I'm not hearing Rod or other conservatives from the Heritage Foundation, etc. (forget Trump and his love for strong men) address concerns from Applebaum and other democracy specialists about Hungary's shortcomings-- changing the courts, etc. Yes, Rod has written about the Hungarian media, which seems a very complicated matter that no one seems to be getting right. Do they make any good points about democratic deficits in Hungary (or Poland or Israel for that matter)? I just hear less intelligent discussion from anyone nowadays and just a lot of talking points. Before Trump and the hardening of political lines, there was criticism of Orban from classical liberals, even conservatives in the U.S. Now it's just more of a sentiment of "are you one of our guys or not?"
I'm watching Applebaum now. She says "the private press was made totally partisan, there is no television news that is not pro-government".
I stopped after that. Based on the linked article, she is making completely false statements and I cannot trust her as a source.
But to your larger point, not being fluent in Hungarian does make it difficult to find and answer various finer points regarding Orban. Rod can basically say we are free here, the press is free, democracy is fine, and people are not suffering in many of the ways they suffer in the USA. This is from personal knowledge, which is what Rod the only information Rod would wish to give on Hungarian politics, I feel sure.
Funny about Anne Applebaum. Her book on the Gulag was brilliant and she should be proud of her work. When she was with the Washington Post, she was the closest that rag had of a centrist board member. She is married to a Polish diplomat who once wrote for National Review before that publication's decline. But she has become a dishonest writer due to Trump derangement and her contempt with the modern right.
Trump and the modern right are an existential threat to her class, their entire project of remaking the planet into an American satrapy run according to the dictates of Social Justice Inc., and maybe even a theat to herself, her friends and family.
Anyone can be tolerant and open-minded when they live safe and prosperous lives in safe, stable countries. The real test of character and integrity comes when these things start to crumble.
Applebaum is responding like any other aristocrat would: protect the social pyramid she sits at the apex of at all costs, even if the country you lead becomes postliberal, postnational, post-rational and even if all the principles you claim to embody have to be discarded or turned upside-down.
These people will never relinquish their sacred beliefs and their fanatasy of what amazingly enlightened and compassionate leaders they are, just like all aristocrats who preen in front of mirrors yet start to hear the distinct rumblings of a peasant revolt somewhere in the distance...
There's a great old Wizard of Id comic strip where Sir Rodney tells the king, "The peasants are revolting!" To which the king replys, "You can say that again." Pretty much like today.
I have to admit, I think much of the modern American right is a clownmobile that deserves a fair amount of contempt, particularly for its ineffectiveness and its inability to mainstream some of its policies with widespread potential.
The senator who gave the GOP response last night was kinda hot, though.
Beauty before brains.
It seems it happened to many, going beyond the woke phenomenon. Check out the Jan./Feb. issue of the Atlantic predicting what will happen (again) under Trump.. These people aren't necessarily on the left (at least as we thought of it) but the panic of these articles about a Trump re-election is frightening in itself. One article is even about the detrimental mental and physical health outcomes that will result with Trump. It seems it is massive exaggerated fear of Trump that puts the worst construction on anything he ever does. So it seems we have a crazy "never-trump" population, who might identify as conservative or liberal, a more crazy woke population and, for me, a crazy "always Trump" population who will defend him come hell or high water. I don't feel like I fit in into this country anymore and I fear that feeling may grow in the next few months, whomever is elected.
Thanks for providing the best reason to wish for a Trump victory- the massive nervous breakdown that tens of millions of people will have, in America and the rest of the world.
I think you’re right. I used to read her years ago in The Spectator and she was pretty good. I haven’t read anything by her in years except for an article I read somewhere where she commented on Laura Ingram in a somewhat condescending tone.
You simply cannot compare the Hungarian media system to America's. They were not remotely the same, even before Orban came to power. I do wish I could understand the finer points of life here, but look, if a left-wing government came to power, the media situation would be the same. I have spoken to more than a few Hungarian conservatives who say that if not what Orban did, there would be no conservative voices at all in the media. Americans need to understand that not every country is America.
I need to find a way into understanding the judicial system. I have been told by Poles (about their country) and Hungarians that the old communist system withstood the transition, such that communist judges could appoint their successors. If that is true, then of course I understand the desire to radically reform the judicial system. The point these people make is that the EU accepts the former communist system because it is something they can work with -- meaning, it represents their point of view. I'm trying to be honest and say that I don't know the details; I can only tell you what I have been told when I ask.
That was a very detailed article Rod sent us to but it absolutely puts paid to the notion that Hungarian media is only conservative and government controlled. Proven not true. Some highlights below:
"he biggest TV channel, German-owned RTL, is critical of the government. So is the biggest daily, tabloid „Blikk”, owned by Swiss publishing House Ringier, whose online edition ranks among the top four in digital ratings on most days. The biggest political broadsheet is leftwing „Népszava”. The biggest weekly magazine is independent and critical „hvg”. Of the four biggest news portals - apart from „Blikk” - two are very critical of the government (24.hu and telex.hu). Index, under its new owners, has become more government-friendly, but also contains articles that hurt Fidesz. Only origo.hu is a decidedly pro-government news portal.
Hungarian still has a pluralistic media market, critical voices remain influent, and the spectrum of published political opinion remains broad. These are the most recent statistics: In September 2021, the most-viewed news site was the independent, politically critical portal 24.hu with almost 3,6 million real users. Second, third and fourth were centrist index.hu, pro-government origo.hu and and the foreign-owned, poltically independent website of the Swiss-owned tabloid Blikk, each with around 3,3 million real users.
In total, amongst the Top 20, websites supporting, or not hostile to the government counted 11 million real users in September 2021. Internet outlets independent of, and critical of the government had 13,7 million."
It helps if you remember that Rod has a paid fellowship with the Danube Institute as a Visiting Fellow. (How else could he live as an expat in Hungary?)
https://danubeinstitute.hu/en/content/visiting-fellows
Well, yes -- but the majority of my income comes from Substack. If I left Hungary tomorrow, I would not have the income from here, but my opinions would not change one bit. One reason I accepted a position at Danube was that there was zero pressure to adapt my opinions to the government line. John O'Sullivan runs the outfit, and he is very good on this point.
Glad to hear it.
Of course the Danube Institue has its biases - everyone does. But it's very open about those. If it ever had a use for a broken down lawyer, I'd head over there in a flash, linguistic difficulties be damned!
I can't explain this out of respect for the privacy of my wife and kids back in the US. Believe me, I would rather be back in America. Nevertheless, I have passion for Hungary, because I see what they are going through, and I see how unfairly they are treated. I recognize a similarity between the way conservatives, especially religious conservatives, are treated in the US, and the way Hungary is regarded. I live here now, and they have been kind to me in my despair.
What’s Budapest like at Christmas? We’ve been talking about a trip in December and I love Munich so that was pencilled in for there but wouldn’t take a lot to convince me otherwise.
Rod will likely be here soon to tell you, but here is my take. Though I was not here on December 25 I was here in December. It is not very cold - maybe 45 degrees on average during the day. The Christmas markets are beautiful. There are a lot people visiting, just like most of the other months, because the know about the Christmas markets. The trees have died so you will miss some of the splendid beauty, but the buildings can still take your breath away. All the museums and tourist attractions are open on normal business days. They have some find things here.
I've been in Munich at Christmas, though that was quite a few years ago. I think Budapest is much nicer at Christmas compared to what I remember - though Munich may have done more in recent years, or maybe I missed something in Munich due to being "otherwise occupied". If you have already seen Munich but never seen Budapest, and you are in Europe anyway, by all means, come to Budapest, imho.
I'm looking forward to visiting Hungary in July with my bride, as part of a Danube honeymoon cruise. It will be difficult to choose what sights to see in a short time. The Scruton Café is definitely on the list. Been trying to learn a bit of the language on Duolingo.
Magyar on Duolingo? That would use more juice than Bitcoin.
Perhaps you love languages and it gives you pleasure to learn some Hungarian. You won't need any. But of course, of course (heavy emphasis) you must learn to say "good day (hello), please, thank you". I also use Yes, No, Take away, How much, and my favorite, which sounds like "Nem sook sheg ish" - it means "not necessary" and you can say this to every kind person who wants to take away your plate at table, or clean your room every single day - things like that. And you do know that you can download Google Translate, speak into y9our phone, and it will transcribe your words, then type them in Hungarian as well as say them aloud, and do this was fair accuracy.
Hungarian is considered one of the five most difficult languages for English speakers to learn. Additionally, the Hungarians do not enjoy poor pronunciation, and their ability to discriminate sounds, with so many different ones in their language, is great. So work on the pronunciation. But learn "Co pilot sinned in Vietnam" - "Co sin nam " (that is a sound OK version of the Hungarian word for thank you. And "Yo na potehun" (pote as in POTUS) is "hello" (literally good day). Huzzah, those are the two biggies and your pronunciation will be acceptable if you use those sound-outs :)
PS: I thought about my reply and I want you to know it is "not like me" in general. In life, my ability to speak Spanish and have simple conversations in French and German has made a huge difference when I travel. Just - I didn't learn to converse in Hungarian, almost no non-native speaker does learn, yet I've been happy and not in need - the Hungarians seem to understand folks have not been so rude as to not try to learn, its just that we can't.
I've been to Budapest three times, on business. Lovely place, lovely people, great food and drink. Because it was business I got by with English and pidgin German. Vastly preferable to Prague, which unfortunately feels like a theme park.
Good point about German. In Hungarian schools, the students can choose between English and German. I once held a long conversation, for instance, in a shop in (my simple) German with a Hungarian salesperson who did not know English. I would have used my phone and the Google translation app that speaks if I could not have done that. It would have been fine, but speaking is rather better when possible.
Thank you. Yes, I expect only to show that I’ve made some effort, nothing more.
So, you’re saying they’re like the Parisians, only with a language even more difficult for Americans to pronounce.
Heh - well, good catch, and it certainly sounded like I was saying that in my post. The difference: With Parisians you will know they don't like it. Hungarians won't let you know, but they will privately say "it hurts my ears" later. - - (I'm a bit like them, I cringe when the newscasters talk about President Gee. It's pronounced like She). And, example: Kiraly instead of Kee rahee, oh my...yep, there are silent Ls. Also, every "s" is "sh" whereas "sz" is our usual "s" - Just two examples from among many - sounding out words is a heck of a thing in Hungary.
I had a cousin who married a woman from Hungary. They actually had to go to an immigration office, and their marriage was instrumental in approving her residency. My cousin practiced over and over the pronunciation of the town she was born in. He had to in order to be able to say it correctly. Apparently, it was a mouthful. And, apparently, the immigration official was impressed when he heard him say it.
Cool. I didn't get any pronunciation test for my residency card nor language test of any sort. Oh well, it is only for one year so I must re-apply to stay longer, but my lawyer advised to go or the easy one first (kind of like getting a foothold).
Sátoraljaújhely, Hódmezővásárhely or Hajdúböszörmény? ;-)
😀 I’m sure it only scratches the surface. 50+ lessons and it hasn’t yet started on how to conjugate a verb.
That's OK. When you get to cases, there are 35, I'm told. (English has 3, 2 that that make actual changes other than adding s).
I don't know if this true or not, but I was told by someone who studied Central and Eastern European grammer that the way to think about Hungarian verbs was as a weird family of adverbs. The thought of adverbial verbs makes me want it to be true!
When I was at the Defense Language Institute learning Polish, all the Slavic students felt sorry for the folks learning Hungarian - they always looked like they had been beaten. Them and the one poor soul who had to learn Albanian.
My friend Father Nectarios, whom I wrote about earlier this week, learned Polish at the DLI when he was younger and in the service.
I was there all of 1984. Tom Sharpe could have written a book about our instructors, all native Poles. We had one who kept up on his American slang by reading Hustler. Classes with him were . . . interesting.
I had a professor named Richard Lewis who learned Polish at DLI; it would be funny if you knew him, but I'm guessing he's somewhat older than you are.
I worked with a man in Germany who had been through DLI for Hungarian. He was African-American, probably 6'4" and husky (at least when I knew him). I met a girl who was Hungarian over there as well, and she was obsessed with all things American. She let me give him her contact info, because she couldn't believe an American could speak Hungarian. They got together for coffee at least once, and she was over the moon about it. :)
When visiting Budapest in 2017 with my son, two couples from the UK approached while were at the Ronald Reagan statue. After realizing we were from the US, they frowned at the Reagan statue, assuming that we as Americans disliked Reagan. When I explained that I considered Reagan one of our greatest presidents ever, they all enthusiastically agreed, and started telling stories of the things he did that affected them in the UK, and asked me to take pictures of them around the statue. It was nice moment, but it was, and is, sadly shocking that the media and our government has cowed people into suppressing their own rational and honest opinions if it does not fit their narrative, which is what they are now trying to do with Orban.
I almost danced across the square when the guide surprised me on my first visit to Budapest with the sight of that statue.
Rod, not sure if this the appropriate outlet for this, but I made a Youtube video of me speaking in my broken Hungarian about what has happened in my hometown regarding immigration, LBGTQ and "woke" culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4UO9VJoLhM. I made this video as a warning to my Hungarian friends who don't truly understand what is happening here in the U.S. In the video I describe how one of the churches in my hometown welcomed a few Bangladeshi families in the Eighties. Now they represent twenty percent of the population, and they control the local elections. There are the pornographic books that have made their way into the local elementary schools and what's funny is that the local newspaper couldn't quote from the books because of antipornography laws. I have mentioned this here before and Rod has written about it, but a transwoman, Annie Christ, has read at the local library and even had a float in this past year's Christmas parade. As president of the county prison board, I was ordered by the county commissioner at the time to allow transpersons to be housed with the gender they identified with. The prison wardens and I told her to go pound sand. When my reappointment to the board came up, they replaced me with a convicted murderer (in the first degree no less) because of his lived experience. He was charged seven months later with 94 counts of COVID fraud. It's an upside-down world, and the Hungarians don't know what they're in for if they don't have someone fighting this evil. Hopefully, in the short term, Orban can advise Trump on how to end the war in Ukraine, however, solving the cultural problems is going to be more difficult. Unfortunately, even with a Trump win, I don't see my hometown rejecting "woke" anytime soon. If anything, I see the Left doubling down on their insanity.
The only one who can end the war in Ukraine is Zelensky, unfortunately. Any westerner who calls for negotiations will be smeared as a tool of Putin, and it will stick.
"...Hungarians don't know what they're in for if they don't have someone fighting this evil."
But, as I think you have discovered, you have to have more than one 'someone' or fighting accomplishes nothing. Hopefully your video will encourage more to join together to fight.
Good post, and for a person not raised in Hungary your command of Magyar is quite good. In pre-89 times I used to spend hours trying to explain the US to my communist-light friends and relatives. Nowadays they doubt me when I tell them about the Obama-Biden America.
As for your American city, I can imagine it to be almost anywhere except the South. It is a special shame that even small communities allowed themselves to be taken over by "woke" warriors.
Thank you for your compliment about my Hungarian. It's one of my goals in life to become "almost" fluent because fluent is impossible. What happened in my town in less than twenty years is unbelievable. I don't know how the pendulum swings back or if it swings in a completely different plane. If you have the inclination, share my video with any of your Hungarian friends. As I mentioned, when my family and I go to Hungary each year, we tell our friends and family there what has happened, they think we are exaggerating or lying to promote Orban's agenda.
Book burning! Fascist! Dictator! Threat to democracy! I stop listening when I come across these hyperbolic screeds from the media. They no longer represent the truth of what happened or what is happening, but rather what they want you to *think* about what’s happened. It’s turtles all the way down.
Oh and we love to sniff at backwards “corrupt” countries, just because we’ve devised slightly more sophisticated forms of corruption (think tanks, book deals, lobbying, professorships, etc. to enrich the political class). Give me a break.
Don’t believe the propaganda about the Palestinians either.
"The 20th century for [Hungarians] was a catastrophe, a serious national trauma, because of war."
In the long run it was for us as well.
Yep. And you can't understand where we are if you don't understand World War I.
I'm still trying to understand which was the greater consequential disaster for Western Civ. - WWI or Vatican II.
Re WWI: I am haunted by Wilfred Owen's "Strange Meeting" with its ending of despair. He wrote it not long before he was killed in action. I wonder if he sensed more broadly the death of the West.
War is like an earthquake; you just survive it. You don't really win it.
Today on NPR's Science Friday -- Drag Queen Math (because math is usually so boring)! So all the kids in Baltimore's public high schools, none proficient in math, still have a chance to add & multiply at grade level.
It's hardly surprising that the US government, including Biden, would criticize Hungary. As Jim Kunstler has been pointing out for years, because of all the government disasters, its default position now is to lie about everything, to cover for all the problems it has created--think Covid, the Ukraine war, the Afghan fiasco, the green energy push rapidly turning into a debacle, etc. Rather than come clean about this, those responsible prefer to lie about them and double down on failure to avoid looking like the incompetent screwups that they are--think Victoria Nuland.
The left has its own delusional narratives. Hungary is fascist. Trump is fascist. As an aside, lefties also like to point out that the Southern states in America have higher crime rates and lower incomes. They don't mention that the crime is caused mostly by Democrats and most of the lower income people in the South are Democrats.
»Come to Hungary and see for yourself. «
Hopefully someday.