RUTHFULLY YOURS

By Vincent van den Born

The English translation of Hungarian president Viktor Orbán’s State of the Nation Address of 10 February has been published. For highlights of his speech, see below.

“A common mistake among humanity’s rich and powerful is to believe that they can act like God and be immune from the consequences. They declare supposedly incontrovertible facts; they push utopias onto other countries and peoples; they decide what others can or cannot say, and what they can or cannot believe in; they decide on membership of elite circles and they believe their global power is unquestionable.

Money, the media, global governance and an open global society – in 2016 people in many places around the world had had enough of all this. There was Brexit, the US presidential election, the ejection of the Italian government, the Hungarian migrant referendum – and perhaps there is still more to come. Oh people, ‘you are finally beginning to be great’; but of course using the poet Petőfi as a shield will not stop the sinking liberals saying that listening to the people is an act of pure populism – which, as we all know, is a ‘bad thing’, and is in fact ‘harmful’. In Europe properly house-trained politicians must not say things like that.”

“There has been an uprising by those who are not usually asked, whose voices are not usually heard:(…) whose mouths have been gagged in the name of political correctness; (…). They demanded the return of their homelands, of their economies and social opportunities. They demanded the return of the world in which they once felt at home: the wide and diverse world of nations.”

“And we too are members of the European Union: we cannot distance ourselves from this either, and the bell also tolls for us. This is not a game, and the stakes are real – in fact they are the highest imaginable. The people of the West feel that the history of their generation and future generations could indeed be at an end. (…) Can they continue the way of life they inherited from their parents, or will something change forever without their consent – and indeed against their will? Will they have the right to their own culture? Will they be able to protect Europe’s non-material, intellectual assets? (…) And will there be security without the threat of terrorism, and will life in big cities be free of fear? Regardless of the prosperity and affluence of today, within the European Union the future is now casting a shadow on the present. That shadow is a long, dark one. And this isn’t being pointed out by envious Eastern Europeans or ludicrous old Soviet propaganda. This is different: Western Europeans are saying all this about themselves, about their own situations and their own future.”

“The issue of migration will also remain on the agenda. Despite the fact that illegal immigration raises an insoluble problem and the threat of terrorism, and despite the bloody reality and the terrible events seen throughout Europe, migrants can still move freely around Europe until their claims have been finally ruled on in the courts. The question for 2017 will be whether we should detain them and keep them in detention until there are final verdicts on their applications. And in 2017 we will also need to take up the struggle against international organisations’ increasingly strong activists. In addition, in 2018 there will be elections in several countries – including here at home. It is a problem that foreign funding is being secretly used to influence Hungarian politics. (…) We are not talking about non-governmental organisations fighting to promote an important cause, but about paid activists from international organisations and their branch offices in Hungary. Are we going to do something to at least ensure transparency, and make these issues publicly known?”

“They say that it is generally impossible to show a correlation between demographic indices and changes in the standard of living. But I believe that there is indeed a correlation between a nation’s will to live, a people’s discovery of themselves and changes in demographic indices: between whether a nation is capable of believing in itself and in the future of its offspring, and the number of children it wants to raise. It is my firm belief that there is a correlation between what over the past seven years we have been striving to achieve and the fact that the nation wants to become younger; because what individuals cannot achieve – turn their old age into youth – is possible for the nation. A people that has begun to age can still become a youthful people: it is up to its members, and it is a question of will.”

The Islamic State has reportedly banned any red clothing today in the section of Mosul it still controls out of fear residents will celebrate Valentine’s Day — and even beheaded a teddy bear to drive home their edict.

The holiday of hearts and candy is big in Iraq, with vendors stocking up on roses, plush red and pink teddy bears, mylar balloons and other classic gifts.

Eastern Mosul has been liberated by Iraq forces, who are preparing their assault on the rest of the city west of the Tigris — smaller, but more densely populated with civilians.

According to Alsumaria News, a source in occupied Mosul told the satellite network that ISIS media distributed the alert barring shades of red even on children’s clothes.

The source further reported that an ISIS cleric delivering a sermon days ago ripped the head off a red stuffed bear to underscore the ban.

Chaldean Catholic Bishop Basel Yaldo, meanwhile, posted pictures of a Baghdad Valentine’s Day party attended by Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk and Mosul Louis Sarko.

Valentine’s Day hasn’t been the easiest thing for Islamist governments to control — the handful who try to ban observance of the holiday, anyway.

Islamabad’s High Court banned celebration of the holiday in public places throughout Pakistan on Monday after a citizen argued it was “against Islamic teachings and should be banned immediately.” TV channels and newspapers were told to pull any promotions for V-Day.

Still, the ruling didn’t have an immediate effect.

Arab News in Saudi Arabia reported last year that even though the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice bans the sale of Valentine’s gifts, vendors do furtive home deliveries of roses and bears at hiked-up prices.

In America, if you’re a young woman and your parents disapprove of your boyfriend, you’ll probably marry him anyway. But in Afghanistan, it happens a little differently, maybe even something like this:

1) Your parents will force you into an arranged marriage.

2) They will sell you for something like 30 goats, and even some cows, if you look sexy in a burka.

3) If you instead elope with your boyfriend, your family will hunt you down to try and kill you.

4) If you go to the police for help, the police will arrest you for adultery.

5) When a mob comes to the police station to demand your release, the police will hand them over to you.

6) Your family members will execute you for having shamed them, since they received all these lovely goats and you refused to let a strange man rape you.

An armed mob that included relatives of a young woman who had eloped with her lover stormed a police station holding the couple in eastern Afghanistan over the weekend, then dragged the lovers off and killed them, officials and witnesses said.

The woman, Fatiha, 18, was described as having been married against her will and eloping instead with a young man…. But on Saturday the police caught and arrested the couple on suspicion of adultery.

The American people must hear the truth about the nature of Islamic doctrine continually until they are totally aware of its threat to their way of life and the US Constitution. Sadly, our Churches and other religious institutions dare not speak up for fear of being accused of intolerance toward another religion. Our academia, the university teachers and professors, left or right, dare not, because, most likely, they would be expelled and lose their income. Our elected officials and politicians dare not because they are mostly master practitioners of euphemism, hedging, doubletalk, and outright deception, and they need your votes as well as your money. Many media contributors and editors dare not because they could lose subscribers and be shut down. Countless entrepreneurs and businessmen dare not because they might lose customers and clientele. Even ordinary workers dare not because they might be fired or called bigots and racists. So, I thought I would tell you!

America is faced with a formidable adversary. This adversary has a name: Islam, not radical Islam or political Islam, just Islam. Muslims don’t call it radical Islam, why should we? I think it is time to revisit the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and see if Islam is qualified as a religion. Is this an outlandishly absurd proposal? Not at all, serious problems require equally serious solutions. The call for evaluation of the First Amendment may be seen as an attempt to curb Islam or other militant cults. The truth is: it is. It is truly a matter of survival of the United States and the free world.

It is long past time to take a stand and shift the debate to orthodox Islam. There is no need to exhaustingly investigate every other religion on the planet in order to compare them or offer an opinion about their relative “goodness” in declaring that on the whole, Islam perpetuates malevolence and violence. Let others devolve into religious disagreements. But for the press and some commentators who would further question: “OK great, so now what? You claim Islam is malevolent. How do we combat that?” Your response is already clear: Through the spread of truth, not deceit. Through voluntary social sanctions and laws in every civilized country that forbid evil practices likeSharia, coercion and violence against women, threats against those who disagree, honor killings, apostasy and other hate crimes. Let the world know the truth and decide for itself. Let Muslims who come to their senses, opt out.

Brexit represents a remarkable historical moment for the possibilities it opens up. Many of these will not be realised, but the ones that are realised will work because enough people will say ‘No’ to depressive political economies and ‘Yes’ to the spirit of endeavour, adventure and resolution.
The British vote to leave the European Union was surprising. But in a good way. The EU is a long-term slow-motion train wreck and the reasons to leave it are compelling. Ruled by an unaccountable bureaucracy, the EU is a facade democracy, conceived during the Second World War by the Italian Communist Altiero Spinelli. Its elected parliament can neither propose nor repeal laws, only amend them;[1] EU legislation is crafted by the unelected European Commission. The European Parliament is designed not to limit government but to rubber-stamp its expansion. The Commission is lawmaker and executive in one. EU insignia, citizenship, referenda and elections in different degrees are all phoney. The European Union is contemptuous of opponents and disdainful of public opinion. It conducts itself by political stealth and subterfuge. Its ministers are anonymous appointees. It ignores referendum outcomes, overturns governments and violates its own laws if it doesn’t like them.[2] Its temperament is omniscient and authoritarian.

It is a self-appointed supranational power that operates by means of the capillary action of a million microscopic rules. Its officials enjoy Soviet-era nomenklatura-style private shopping malls, national-tax exemption and low-tax privileges. From its inception in 1951 the EU was a political project. It was designed to create a technocratic-bureaucratic superstate that eventually would replace Europe’s nation-states. It has already evolved from a customs union into a regulatory leviathan. The final step envisaged by its advocates is a mega-state with taxing and fiscal powers. The EU meets its every failure with one response: we need more power. The EU’s founding notion was that nationalism, not militarism or totalitarianism, led to two world wars. From day one the EU’s purpose has been to white-ant the sovereignty of its member states. The activist European Court of Justice expedites this. Its rulings repeatedly invalidate national laws in favour of EU directives.

The EU sees itself as a superstate based on the free movement of labour, services, capital and goods. In reality the “eurocracy” oversees an ugly parody of these principles. Rather than the free movement of skilled labour, EU rules encourage benefit-seeking, kin-driven immigration. The mass flow of people, legal and illegal, from kin-based low-growth societies places a drag on dynamic economies. High-growth societies replace kin with couples. EU migration reverses this. It replaces efficient self-reliant skill-based nuclear families with dependency-prone extended family groups.

Sixty years on, the EU still has in place innumerable regulatory barriers to free trade in financial services. This has been a source of perpetual British frustration. On exiting, this frustration may get worse. The UK could lose its existing right to sell financial services across the EU from one location, London. The doomsday scenario is that business will flee to Frankfurt. But that’s unlikely given the efficiency of UK financial services. Nevertheless British-based finance companies may be forced to open needless branch offices in Continental cities. Campaigners against Brexit cite this as a reason to stay. Equally it is a reason to leave. The “office-in-every-country” penalty for exiting reveals a basic flaw of the EU. It reflects the widespread discomfort in the EU with the distance delivery of services.

The internet and increasingly “fintech” facilitate long-distance trade, trade without offices, trade between machines, and trade between distant strangers. Continental Europe has an historic unease with this. In contrast Britain and its offshoots including Australia and America are good at doing things at a distance. The most cogent reason why Britain never fitted very well into the EU was coined not by an Englishman but by the French President Charles de Gaulle. In 1963 and 1967 France vetoed the UK’s entry into the European Economic Community. De Gaulle explained that Britain was a “maritime” nation and was accordingly “linked though her interactions, her markets, and her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries”. Britain was instinctively at ease acting at a great distance. This “very original habit” put Britain irredeemably at odds with its Continental peers.

Conservatism is not the best hope for mankind simply because of its positive agenda. It is the best hope because it offers a limited bulwark against a progressive political class that professes to be improving the lot of mankind while almost invariably making things worse.
People are apparently sick of politicians. I am not sure anything has changed. Personally I think most have always viewed politicians as a necessary blight. They recognise that leaderless people turn into mobs. Better, therefore, to be led by dimwits and carpetbaggers than not led at all.

One of the charges levied against politicians is that they are ‘all talk no action’. Oh, if it were only thus. I like them better when they talk endlessly, stalling the exponential growth of pages of legislation and regulations. I admired Kevin Rudd in verbosely failing to get in place an emissions trading scheme.

Filibusters are a great American invention and might have saved the world if they’d been available to all democratic parliaments since the dawn of civilised time. Unfortunately it is now too late. Urgently, we need the kind of action which goes deeply against the psychological disposition of politicians. To wit, action which undoes action of their ‘esteemed’ predecessors, most of whom ended up with gongs for public service; when they should have been put in stocks.

Australia’s fractured parliament is preventing things from getting done. Is it not? No, it is preventing things from getting undone. Try to get an unaffordable social welfare benefit reduced or rescinded without some compensating measure; there is Buckley’s chance.

Wonder why Australia’s parliament is fractured and therefore can’t get things undone? It is because politicians of the past have created such a mess that people are flailing around for answers. Misfits become appealing. Try herding misfits into a corral without offering inducements. Ironically, the damaging legacy of past politicians is protected by the very social malaise they created.

Mind you, a fractured Parliament simply makes matter worse. Even in the best of circumstances, getting anything undone brings out numbers of special interests who have nothing better to do than fight for their ‘rights’. And, of course, increasingly the courts are used to protect the status quo.

Consider some of the main policy goals of Donald Trump. He wants to repeal Obamacare, which is in process of collapsing in any event; to dismantle job-killing regulations and onerous environmental overreach; to reduce uncompetitive rates of taxation; and to undo damaging trade deals. Sure he also has a ‘doing agenda’ (e.g., building a wall) but much of his agenda is tearing down political idiocies of the past. Already there is strident political opposition, and not just from the Democrats; and the beginning of endless litigation.

What is Theresa May’s biggest policy goal? Clearly it is to make Brexit a reality; to get something undone. Fear-driven political leadership in the past led a world-trading Britain into making common cause with an insular, sclerotic, bureaucratised, European sanctuary. Never mind, nothing to see there. Yesteryears’ politicians did their pathetic best, even if they contributed to undermining the cultural identity and cohesion of British society. Now you can get arrested for quoting Churchill. Just maybe, out of Europe, you will eventually be able to freely quote Churchill again. Though don’t bank on it. Can’t blame the EU for everything.

A conservative political agenda is not the best hope for mankind because of its positive agenda. It is the best hope because it offers a (limited) bulwark against most politicians, who desperately want to do things to improve the lot of mankind. Almost invariably these things worsen the lot of mankind. Often this takes a long time to become evident. By then the political perpetrators are gone. They undeservedly escape opprobrium. If not dead, their fat pensions continue to be paid.