Double standards in Europe through Slovak case studies -- did you know these?

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Lame try to misrepresent the truth. I can stand the heat, and I can utter the reality: there is disgusting insolence not just from the direction of several members here, but also internationally by certain Western politicians/governments. If you think that the task of small countries (such as Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia etc.) is to serve the big ones (and to be able to fill your tummy and get much money, even if you need to give up your cultural traditions and conservative moral values, then it's your call -- no I'm not talking of Slovenia before you would be offended, this is merely an example that I know about other countries that I know better than Slovenia).

There is no problem with the heat of the Alley. And you'free to continue pretending not to understand the simple thing (the double standards applied by certain Western European governments/politicians regarding Hungary).

No, I didn't start them to convince "all of you". Each time it is so funny when you think like that. You often hide behind this "we" and "us" concepts on SP. First of all, the threads have a double reason: (1) informing the public (including passive readers) and drawing the attention to the cases. (2) convincing those who are interested and are open to my approaches. Second, you cannot even define "all of us". On a public place, you can't know who exactly read it and how many passive users you have.

It is a common and funny thing that the active "cream" of the forum thinks they are the "ALL", that everything is directed only to them, and only their opinion matters. No, "you" guys are not the only one who matters.

Political puppet text, or too big pride. Don't you feel it suspicious a bit that noone actually tried to give an answer to my question here about how come Slovakia got much less criticism for big democratic issues?

Was painful to see someone dared to tell the reality, eh? You thought everybody is conformist just to get a "good international opinion" of the big countries?

I ask you better. You support the double standard yourself. While you (also) objected that in the other media law topics "Baronius thinks he is right because he is says so" i.e. accusing me of not giving explicit valid arguments, you choose to ignore that exactly THAT happens in this topic by all replies: they all jump on the HU media law, and ignore the cental question of my topic: "how come Slovakia got much less criticism for big democratic issues?". Only Rotku answered it. And he proved what I wanted to prove: the double standard. Feel free to continue supporting the double standard and "we rock here, you are noob minority" approach.

 

This is a FACTUAL question of topic:

I do not see any answers, except Rotku's, whose answer proved what I said: there is political bias.

Apart from that, there was only one type of answer: "don't point to Slovakia, look into yourself and deal with the criticism you get". Now this can be an acceptable answer to a topic that deals whether the HU media law is good or not, etc. There are two other such topics.

"don't point to Slovakia, look into yourself and deal with the criticism you get" is irrelevant in this topic.

What is relevant: (1) why Hungary gets stronger criticism than Slovakia which has had much serious democratic issues than what the media law is accused of?

This is a question. Direct me to those "several" answers then, Taluntain. No, I don't care in this topic if the media law is good or not; the question is given by (1) above.

IF your answer is as Rotku's ("it's politics" i.e. there is bias), then how is it possible that (2a) THOSE WHO ALLOW THEMSELVES TO HAVE A POLITICAL BIAS AGAINST HUNGARY EXPECT AN UNBIASED MEDIA LAW? (e.g. French or German officials who didn't attack the Slovak antidemocratic acts/laws at all, but were harsh with HU now) In other words:

Come on, direct me to the answers of (1), and (2a) or (2b). I'm waiting.

 

Baronius, I hate double standards as much as you do -- I even had a post with just that label a while back. It's the same reason that the US screams bloody murder about human rights abuses in some countries, but remains relatively quiet about similar or worse abuses in others (like Saudi Arabia, China, etc). The fact is that they have an interest, be it economic or political, in not aggravating certain countries, and also an interest in whipping up malice toward other countries.

An excellent example from my own neck of the woods. Lots of Americans LOVE to point fingers at my home province and complain about the dirty oil (while they fly around the world in their fuel sucking jets and drive their cars all over hither and yon) but they don't criticize the Saudi's or other POS Middle Eastern tyrannies for far worse offenses. The reason is they know that we won't go OPEC on their butts and cut the flow. They also know that by criticizing us, they can make the far too polite Canadians knuckle under and drop the prices of the oil we send them. It's purely economic and political game playing, nothing more. Obviously, there is profit for the EU countries to urinate on Hungary at the moment. No big deal, it's part of life. Take their criticism with a grain of salt, knowing that despite their assertions, they are hardly neutral in their behaviour.

 

Truth be told, I think most people's attitude towards Orban - and Hungary in general - is one of indifference. I consider myself fairly well informed, and two weeks ago, I would not have been able to name a single public official from Hungary. I really don't think there's an anti-Hungary bias out there. I just don't think that people hold particularly strong opinions about Hungary either way.

 

I don't know, at least the host knew France was a country. Gosh, I never get tired of that clip. If she's acting, she's a great actress.

 

Much better, much better, people actually start to become on-topic a bit... Now there are two types of answers:
(1) answers that agree that there is a great political bias (Rotku, LKD)
(2) answers that "don't think" there is bias

I acknowledge both, but (2) do not provide any arguments apart from the occassional -- and irrelevant -- "look, the Hungarian media law is antidemocratic, that is why you are criticized, don't point to others".
Answers of type (2) (e.g. Taluntain and the "several" posts which share his view he implies) do not address my question at all: "How come Slovakia's antidemocratic events/law are not attacked by the same Western governments who dare to attack HU media law so rudely now?".

Views of (2) seem to use the feat that they try to answer the (off-topic) question "Is the criticism justified on the media law" instead of "Is the amount of criticism credible on the media law from the mouth of those who stay silent about dictatoric Slovak events/laws?!". The two questions are fundamentally different. IN THIS TOPIC, IT DOES _NOT_ MATTER WHETHER THE CRITICISM ON THE MEDIA LAW IS JUSTIFIED OR NOT, WHAT MATTERS IS ITS AMOUNT AND THAT THE SAME "DEMOCRACY DEFENDER" GOVERNMENTS HAVE BEEN SILENT ABOUT SLOVAKIA'S DICTATORIC EVENTS/LAWS. EXPLAIN THIS, IF YOU CAN, (2) !

Aldeth: the USA government or any politicians haven't yet attacked Hungary at all. In my posts, I'm talking about the hipocritic Western European governments such as France or Luxembourg.

 

My opinion is there there is a bias, but not for the reason you're touting.

I don't think anyone is flat out denying a bias, more that they're saying they don't care and don't see why you do.

Seems to be you're getting to caught up with two extremes Baronius; right and wrong. Not everyone has to think you're right or wrong, nor do you have to be completely right or wrong.

 

Hey, what does our neck of the woods have to do with this? People here don't beat Hungarians... I think, although I wouldn't be surprised if Baronius' next topic has to do with Voivodina.

Regarding Baronius' two-sided qualification, here I put option 3: There may be some bias towards most Central/Eastern European media, but it's neither all that "great" nor as prevalent as he states. Yeah, I'd say France or Germany are more likely to cut more slack to each other or Belgium for, say, a financial issue than they would afford Hungary, and it would probably be quite some time when the city I'm in would be considered a "true" European capital. Color me unsurprised. We shouldn't ignore the problem or give up on fixing it, but it wasn't exactly unbelievable. I'd say Slovakia isn't being treated with the same kid gloves either.

Baronius, if anything, the accusations against the media law that got you so riled are just because it's in the current news. It's a Topic of the Month, so to speak. Reaction to a far-right party making it in the government in 2006 or a single case of possible/probable government abuse in 2007 getting the same attention... Yeah, right. There might have been more outcry regarding those cases if ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia and elsewhere could organize campaigns like those protesting the Hungarian media law, but apparently the chance was missed.

Do you really think the governments of France or England care that much about how someone would win or lose some positions over the media market? I've heard my share of statements how law/action X was unpopular because it touched someone's interests, and I tend to consider it worth very little on its own. At most the outside critics might have reacted to some media campaign, and from what I've seen about this law they didn't need that much lying to. IMO the law needs some editing if you want to make sure it doesn't just give the people in power undue influence over the media.

Oh, and by the way - don't try persuade me that crimes against Gypsies in Central/Eastern Europe are treated just as honestly as those agaisnt everyone else. Whether in Hungary, Romania, Greece, Serbia, Turkey or the nearest police department in my neighborhood - I'd say they won't quite get the same attention and support that a "whiter" native can expect.

 

Yeah, noone ever denied it might "need some editing" When Orbán said no changes will made at all, the reporter question was "Will you change it now?" or something like that, and his answer referred to that moment.

It's possible they are not treated as honestly in every case, but at least the police (due to government instruction, on top of it all) does not frame the poor victim in OBVIOUS cases when EVERYONE knows the truth*, as it happened with Hedvig Malina, and also in other, smaller cases.

* (do you think U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos, may he rest in peace, would have contacted Fico otherwise?)

The media market has a great lobby, but (other) multionational companies have an ever greater one. Hell, they are one the major things which make the economy of a country successful. E.g. in case of Germany, which was one of the loudest in its media law attacks, Hungary is its 17th biggest commerce partner (from 200+ countries) in the world. Orbán's taxes on German multionational companies might cause a loss of enormous money for them.

A note to all: we have heard many times in these threads "don't think the world cares much of Hungary", "Hungary is negligible", "the world does not care". Indeed this is true. Hungary is neither economic, nor military power. And true, "average" citizens of the other parts of the world might not even know Hungary exists. But never forget: it's a market. Especially for countries such as Germany. It's a market which means much money to them. Now that their interests and optimal calculations were crossed a bit, they are angry.

 

Hungary is a great country, most famous for its pornstars... my favorite actress is Christel Starr



she's plenty gorgeous

 

Yeah we have awesome girls... and good wine too (& a number of other stuff but I don't want to use this thread for self-promotion )

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Prof. Detlef Kleinert, in Die Presse:

"In the criticism coming from Germany and Austria on the new media law of the Orbán government, there is a great deal of hypocrisy involved."

In German:

He also adds that in Austria, the chancellor's party decides who goes to the influential positions of the media. By the way, the whole article is available online, it's a good read.

He mentions the word hypocrisy not just once in the article. So apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so (regardless of how democratic the media law is).

 

(1)
By this, you contradict yourself, you fell into your own trap. Earlier you tried to imply there is no double standard against Hungary. Now you do not deny hypocrisy. Since hypocrisy in the current case exactly means double standard (in Kleinert's case, it's because of what he says about Austria; in Germany/French/Luxembourg case, it's that they pretended not to see the antidemocracy in Slovakia). Hypocrisy in the present case is exactly the manifestation of a DOUBLE STANDARD. Nice job, Tal!

(2)
As we already know, by this, you nicely admitted the double standard. The ironic tone of your post implies that you accept political hypocrisy as if that was the most normal thing of the world, or at least YOU IRONICALLY SUGGEST ME TO DO SO (otherwise you wouldn't ironically imply to me: "Hey, are you surprised that there is hypocrisy in politics?"), therefore this discredits all your "democratic" worrying about the media law. Because:
It's one thing hypocrisy (besides other things) exists and noone is surprised about it in politics, BUT those of you who appeared as the champions of justice regarding the media law now pretend that it's the most normal thing of the world that Hungary is treated with a double standard. You shameless weak-personality people! (those who didn't act in the above-specified hypocritical way are obviously excluded from this, so "shameless ... people" does not apply to them).

You know, it's all nice that many of you were so worried and acted as justice champions in the "HU media law" topics, but how funny noone had the balls here to write something like:
"You know my opinion about the media law. It is bad, regardless whether you point to Slovakia or not. Nonetheless, it's a shame that Slovakia did and supported all those that you've presented there, and almost everyone stayed silent e.g. about the Benes laws". YEAH, it's not about WHY they stayed silent ("politics..."), it's that if you're the warrior of justice about the media law, you should probably condemn the Slovak events/laws as well (even if politics does not do that).

Miserable conformists!

 

Baronius, as Tal is implying, such stuff is par for the course. I don't think the world has an especial hate on for Hungary or Viktor Orban, it's just that, as I said before, right now they want to paint Hungary in a really bad light for reasons of which I am not aware but can hazard a guess as to their general nature.

What I am confused about is why you are so worked up about it. Take criticism from hypocrites and left wingers with a grain of salt (and possible a Bromo) or you're gonna give yerself an ulcer before summer hits! None of the criticism will hurt Hungary long term any more than the stuff that was spewed at Bush or is spewed at Obama will hurt the US long term.

 

That’s the way, Baronious. Give it to those fraudsters, evil sinners and long-haired hippie freaks!