Hungary and the Future of Europe

Orbán believes that Western countries are in decline, and that they are in decline because of “liberalism,” which in his political vocabulary is a slur. He uses the word to describe the contemporary process of creating neutral social structures and a level playing field, usually in the name of rights.

This project of creating neutral institutions has two problems. First, it is destructive, because the bonds of affection out of which communities are built are—by definition—non-neutral. Second, it is a lie, because someone must administer this project, and administration, though advertised as neutral, rarely is. Some must administer over others.

Carried to its logical conclusion, liberalism will, in Orbán’s view, destroy Hungary. “It is not written in the great book of humanity that there must be Hungarians in the world,” he said in his State of the Nation address in February. “It is only written in our hearts—but the world cares nothing for that.” This sense that Hungary might be only one political miscalculation away from extinction is widely shared. There was one country, in the wake of World War I, that was treated more harshly than Germany. The Treaty of Trianon turned a cosmopolitan, advanced central European powerhouse of 20 million people—the Kingdom of Hungary, Budapest’s half of the Austro-Hungarian empire—into a statelet of 8 million and divvied up two thirds of its territory among other nations.

This dismemberment helps explain many of the worst things Hungary did, and had done to it, in the century since. Hitler helped the country recover some of its territories in World War II, but Russia repressed them and then some. The historic heart of Hungary is Transylvania, now on the other side of the Romanian border.

This project of creating neutral institutions...is a lie, because someone must administer this project, and administration, though advertised as neutral, rarely is. Some must administer over others.

Merkel plans for this current project (the EU) to be administered (and owned) by Germany. Like Der Fuhrer before her, she has made room for folks of other countries who have promised to help.

She has promised a job to Emmanuel Macron for selling out his countrymen. There is even a comfy place for Tony Blair.

One has to wonder if there might have been a place for Hillary Clinton with Jim Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, and their intel community brethren stepping all over each other to grab a handful of her skirt for the post election excursion over to the EU.

the contemporary process of creating neutral social structures and a level playing field, usually in the name of rights.

Socialism.

...is destructive, because the bonds of affection out of which communities are built are—by definition—non-neutral.

So is nature. It bestows certain abilities on some that it neglects in others. Any attempt to enforce an artificial egalitarianism must ultimately devolve into tyranny.

Second, it is a lie, because someone must administer this project, and administration, though advertised as neutral, rarely is. Some must administer over others.

Thereby displacing nature's tyranny with one of man's own making. Not much of a substitute in the end.

'Orbán believes that Western countries are in decline, and that they are in decline because of “liberalism”'

I think he's right but that "liberalism," at first, was a result of the decline.

Western Civilization reached its zenith with the Normandy Invasion, when Western men--men! most of them were less than 21 years old--walked directly into machine gun fire on the beaches of Normandy to rid the world of the Nazi nightmare.

The Decadence of Western Civilization burst into the open in the 1960s, when the children and grandchildren of these men sashayed onto the dance floors, provided and polished by the hard work of many generations of their predecessors, chanting "sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll" and "if it feels good, do it": the Counter-culture Revolution.

"Liberalism" is an outgrowth of their Counter-culture Revolution, a manifestation of their basic chant and a combination of lazy self-indulgence and sloppy "new morality," which is nothing more than immorality.

"Liberalism" is nothing more than an excuse for self-indulgence, mendacity, laziness, and moral vacuity for the spoiled brats of a nation grown wealthy by hard work and the blessings of Western Civilization.

At its core, "liberalism" is nothing more than "sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll" and "if it feels good, do it."

However Orbán's right. "Liberalism" is responsible for the continued decline of Western Civilization. Nations that reject it, will ascend. Those that succumb to it will fall.

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