EU countries sypathetic to Russia

[Josh]

The playing field isn’t level. During the last election, opposition parties were given five minutes total on state media to present their platforms. Five minutes total. For the entire election. The rest of the coverage was pro-Fidesz and anti-opposition.

There are plenty of places to get news besides state owned media.

Most of the media is owned by supporters and allies of Fidesz. It's possible to find independent media online, but most traditional media is controlled by Fidesz. Most rural areas only access traditional media.

Perhaps they like that media.

In today’s world with the Internet people can access whatever media they want.

Allegegations of fraud by Trump were investigated and there were even court cases. The allegations were found not credible. There were no investigations in the allegations of fraud in Hungary.

“It’s fraud if I don’t like who wins.”

“If I like who won, it wasn’t fraud.”

Whatever dude, you're wrong.

You’re wrong.

[Josh]

This is a liberal talking point. Liberals are angry that 1 country isn’t supporting their all-out agenda. They demand complete control over every country and every institution.

Take a look in the mirror Josh. You do this sort of sweeping strawman stereotyping way more than anyone else on this forum.

Ken, this is the Politics forum.

Szdfan decided that when anyone who isn’t a Soros-funded liberal wins an election, it’s in democratic and fraudulent. This is leftism 101.

There are some countries where the voters aren’t electing liberals. And liberals like you and Szd are mad about it and claim it’s fraud. Your attitude is identical to the 1/6 protesters.

[PetrChelcicky]

First, I don't agree with the way szdfan uses the term "authoritarianism". The term may be defined in personality research but it is rather undefined in political research. As far as I know it is used for every country where an energetic and popular politician rules longer than eight years. Insofar it has replaced "fascist" - Adenauer and de Gaulle were simply "fascists" at their time, but even if this term is still popular with the proles, the intellectual elites are rather shy to use it.

My simple definition of "democracy" stems from van Mises and Popper and says: A democracy is a country where people are able to dethrone their political leader by vote - if they want to. In this sense. Hungary and Russia are democracies - if the people wanted to dethrone Orban or Putin they simply had to vote for the opposition parties.

In fact, this doesn't happen because the people prefer the man at the top they have to the alternatives. So we ought to ask why. And there are much more reasons than that "most media shill for him". That's the normal state of affairs - media write what their public wants to hear. In the U.S. most readers did not want to hear about Hunter Biden and Burisma, that's why their media did not report it. So let us get back to the people.
As for Hungary, Orban is popular, because the average citzizen nowadays has a higher standard of life than before (for instance, German enterprises emigrate to Hungary), because the last left government before Orban is in a bad memory, because the leftist opposition in their despair has tried to join with the rightwing extremists (in this way alienating its possible Jewish voters) etc.

An interesting point of view is Ukraine. Ukraine has among others a Hungarian minority. The pro-Russian "Party of the peoples", which is now forbidden, tried to connect all ethnic minorities against overboarding ethnic-Ukrainian nationalism. My electoral statistiscs about Ukrainian votes are too inexact to tell - but it would be normal to expect that the Party of the peoples had its Hungarian voters, too. So why should Hungary support Ukraine against Russia?

[Josh]

Much of the territory of the Ukraine belongs to Hungary.

[ohio jones]

For that matter, much of the territory of the Ukraine belongs to Poland and Lithuania.

[Szdfan]

By this logic, most of the southwestern US belongs to Mexico.

[ohio jones]

Indeed, Seward's Folly might be the only legitimate possession of the United States, having been bought rather than conquered or obtained through coercion or deception.

And if anyone objects by introducing the Louisiana Purchase, that was essentially the French ceding their rights to the US, rather than actually transferring control of the territory which was mostly occupied by Native Americans. More of a Quit Claim deed rather than a Warranty deed, to use legal terminology.

[Ken]

By this logic, most of the southwestern US belongs to Mexico.

No, the Spanish Mexicans only got there a century before the US and were conquerors too. It would belong to the Navajo, Hopi, Utes, etc.

[Ken]

Indeed, Seward's Folly might be the only legitimate possession of the United States, having been bought rather than conquered or obtained through coercion or deception.

And if anyone objects by introducing the Louisiana Purchase, that was essentially the French ceding their rights to the US, rather than actually transferring control of the territory which was mostly occupied by Native Americans. More of a Quit Claim deed rather than a Warranty deed, to use legal terminology.

The Louisiana Purchase was purchased too.

The issue with both Alaska and the Louisiana purchase is whether the US was buying stolen goods. Were the Russians and French the legitimate rulers of those territories before the US bought them?

[Szdfan]

The point is that stating that parts of Ukraine belong to other countries is silly. Borders change and in Europe, borders frequently changed because of frequent conflict due to the close proximity of countries. Poland was dismantled for a couple of centuries. Finland once was part of Russia. Vast parts of Germany are now part of other countries. Nobody except Neo-Nazis will argue that East Prussia or Silesia still belongs to Germany.

We don't argue that parts of the US still belong to France, Mexico or various native people. Why do we say this about Ukraine?