The European Union is very upset that member state Hungary’s infringement upon academic freedom is, well, not the same as its own infringement upon academic freedom.
The EU is also pained that Budapest’s governing philosophy — which involves maintaining its Christian character — doesn’t align with Brussels’ governing philosophy: the destruction of Christian character by imposing secular norms.
In fact, globalist bureaucrats appear just certain that Hungary could be enlightened and enriched by embracing the EU’s “transgender” ideology, sex education for little tykes, and Muslim (im)migration model. And they’re so upset the nation balks at such things that, mercy me, they could just throw their collective purse at it — or, at least, the power of that purse. They have, too.
Per Fox News:
Hungary continues to chart a path that officials believe best represents the “will of the people,” even as it puts the national government at odds with a liberal European Union.
“We have been a Christian state for more than 1,000 years since our first saint, King Stephen, has offered the country to the hands of Mary the Virgin, and we take it seriously,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview during his visit to the United Nations in New York.
“We stick to our Christian heritage. We stick to our Christian roots,” Szijjártó continued. “We implement a Christian Democratic political strategy.”
Hungary has increasingly found itself at odds with the European Union following aggressive moves by the European Commission to cut some 6.3 billion euros in funding to a number of Hungarian institutions – most recently voting to cut funding that will impact universities and students studying abroad in the Erasmus program.
Hungary has even threatened to sue the EU over the decision, but the EU has argued that Hungary’s education system does not adequately protect academic freedom from political interference.
In reality, the notion that government schools could possibly be free from “political interference” (there is no government without politics) is a silly illusion. In the United States, for example, our school boards comprise elected officials.
This illusion relates to another: “academic freedom.” There has never been a standard for educators anytime, anywhere stating “Anything goes” (in our schools, Christianity and traditionalism certainly don’t go — except out the window). Do we allow teachers to instruct that Nazism, genocide, or slavery is a good thing, shouting “Academic freedom!”?
But leftists just love Academic Freedom™, which is why they ax any educator resisting their agenda. A good example was the New Jersey teacher fired in 2013 for giving a Bible to a curious student.
Likewise, and despite the protestations of activists warning about “book burning” (as we currently hear from Governor Ron DeSantis’ opponents in Florida), we never, ever allow in schools any and all books, from snuff material to hard-core porn and beyond. Why, leftists have sought to purge Huckleberry Finn from education because it contains the n-word.
Philosopher G.K. Chesterton satirized this phony “No viewpoint discrimination” façade well when he wrote, “Whatever we may think of the merits of torturing children for pleasure, and no doubt there is much to be said on both sides, I am sure we all agree that it should be done with sterilized instruments.”
As with devising any standard, formulating teacher requirements and curricula is all about picking and choosing — it’s about discriminating. Note here that a “discriminating shopper” is a good thing; this doesn’t change just because what you’re shopping for are ideas.
And the EU is livid that Hungary isn’t embracing Brussels’ dogma-mandated discrimination but prefers its own. As Foreign Minister Szijjártó put it, “When you ask the liberal mainstream in Brussels, in Washington, what they think democracy is, then they think that a political structure can be considered as a Democratic one if it is the liberals who rule,” Fox relates.
Fox also reveals that “European leaders” are concerned that Hungary is preventing schools from teaching about “homosexuality” and the MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) agenda. Szijjártó addressed this, too. After expressing some politically obligatory libertarian (libertine?) sentiments, he said that his people’s concern was protecting children and that education in sexuality is parents’ domain. He further mentioned that this is why “LGBT”-associated NGOs have been prohibited from meddling in Hungarian education.
Hungary has targeted entities such as billionaire social-engineer George Soros’ “Open Society Foundations” (OSF), which, among other things, encourage Third World migration into the West. Under this pressure, the OSF left Hungary in 2018.
This brings us to the EU’s immigrationist obsession. Hungary has accepted approximately one million Ukrainian refugees, but has kept more than a quarter million illegal migrants (often Muslim) from other nations out with the help of a border barrier it erected in 2015. Szijjártó told Fox that his people would never relinquish the “national right” to decide who may enter their nation.
Of course, this means Hungary will miss out on much “strength”-inducing diversity, such as the kind inspiring a French intellectual to suggest in 2017 that France essentially be divided to avoid civil war with the country’s Muslims. It also could mean Hungarians won’t sufficiently count their blessings.
After all, just as we only truly understand cold because we’ve experienced heat, maybe you can’t fully appreciate not having no-go zones unless you do have no-go zones.
It’s all enough to make one wonder why the EU must use the funding-cuts stick to enforce its will. Why can’t it merely say, “Hey, don’t you want to be just like us!?”?
