Tea at Trianon: Hungary and the EU

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, April 30, 2012

Hungary and the EU

Hungarians want sovereignty. (Via A Conservative Blog for Peace.)

In under two years, Viktor Orbán’s regime has reduced the Hungarian budget deficit, reduced personal income taxes, returned the GDP to growth and proclaimed sovereign primacy over supranational diktats. Adopted at the beginning of this year, Fidesz’s new national constitution finally overthrows the Communist era law of 1949. Hungary is the last former East Bloc nation to have achieved this. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that 300,000 Hungarians marched to support their government when the reforms came under fire from the EU in January. It was the biggest demonstration in Hungary since the regime change. The message was clear: Fidesz’s democratic mandate is as mighty as ever and Hungarians want sovereignty.

This is bad news for anyone bent on a macro-managed, uniform European society. Whereas a big national debt and a powerful, unaccountable civil service are required for Brussels to maintain its grip, Hungary’s new constitution shrinks the public sector (in real terms – not David Cameron terms), and stipulates that budgets may only be adopted provided that they do not lead to an increase of the state debt. Desperate to find some legitimate reason to punish the Hungarian regime, Orbán’s critics test the waters here and there with little success. The Commission protests that Hungary brought retirement ages for judges in line with that of other civil servants, although similar moves attracted no animosity elsewhere. The BBC whipped up criticism of ‘Soviet-style’ media laws, which turned out to be nothing more than a competitive tendering process (beyond government control), in which a Socialist radio station lost its bandwidth. ALDE’s Sophia in ’t Veld fumed that schools are being handed from the municipalities to the Church and students introduced to morning prayers. Others have whined that the constitution’s conservative approach to marriage, abortion, and contraception are not consistent with ‘European values.’ (Read entire post.)

The North Coast said...: I never did think that the European Union was a good idea, mainly because it imposes costs and liabilities on all its members that are not easily borne by the fragile, nascent market economies of Eastern Europe, and, like all centralized systems, robs the "periphery" to feed the central state.

It has turned out to be a way to rob all the peoples of Europe to enrich the banking cartel, while imposing massive bureaucracy and costs on the poorer countries, and it has destroyed their economies. I believe it will disintegrate completely within the next 5 years as countries completely destabilized by the huge debt they piled on in order to take part in the "new" economic order imposed on them, drop out of the union.; April 30, 2012 at 7:06:00 AM EDT