I used to know a professor at law school, who was very proud that he has never been to vote at any elections. Ever. Not once. He talked about politics a lot, teaching administration law, he had stuck quite a few political comments to each and every topic. He kept repeating his conviction that not voting entitles him to criticize all political sides as he wishes.
I always thought just the opposite! If you don’t care to share your opinion on the one single occasion it actually counts, then shut the f#@$ up all other times.
As a sociologist, I used to work with politics a lot myself, in my thesis I analized elections in the media. I have never planned to work in politics directly, as a lawyer I am still pretty close to it, but at least in every four years (or a lot more, actually) my sociologist self comes out and makes me see things through a different lense.
Although, referring to my professor, I do think voting gives me the prerogative to share my opinion about whaterver I wish, I consciously try to avoid being political here. So, let me just say this briefly. I am far from being satisfied with how things are going in Hungary lately. I am a strong believer in democracy and international organizations, and these are just two things I believe in that the current government is drifting our country away from.
It is one thing that there is a political party with tyrannical pursuits (there will always be parties like that in every country). The much sadder thing in my opinion is that there is a people that lets them do these things almost without critisism.
As one of my favorite historical figures, István Széchenyi put it: “Every nation has the government that it deserves. If for some reason goofy or nasty people hold down on a wise and honest population, the people will send those poor fellows to the depth of hell in no time. But if a rascal government stays in position permanently, then it is certain that the failure is of the nation. Then that nation is infamous or uneducated.” I think it is the latter for us.
My sociologist self wanted to go into more detailed political analysis, but I stopped her. Maybe some other time. Or some other platform. Instead, let’s see what interested my international lawyer self this week.
/Oh, the pictured quote is of course from Aaron Sorkin, as said by C.J. Cregg on The West Wing./
Palestine Seeks to Join UN Treaties and Conventions. What This Means
As Israeli-Palestine peace talks seem to have reached a stalemate once again, Palestine decided to join a few UN bodies and not to join others.
North Korea lies to the world ahead of its UN review
While it is no surprise it does, it really makes me wonder who writes all this stuff, and whether they really believe what they are stating. Again the psychology of politics is the most amazing.
I did not really care about this case before, but its judgement seems to redefine quite a few concepts of international law.
This is a very crucial question in Hungarian politics, one that political parties can gain or loose votes on. I, for one, am a strong belilever in education as the foundation of any solution of the roma issue, so I was extremely happy to read about successes on that front. Make sure to check out the other posts of this series too.
