A lot of bruhaha over the past years - intensifying now, actually - about Poland supposedly being on a slippery path towards a soft dictatorship, what with PiS, the ruling Law and Order party, wanting to implement several changes to the country's constitution.
I admit that I don't know the full extent of all the changes PiS wants in Poland's constitution, other than that rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal - Poland's Supreme Court, so to say - would require a two thirds majority, which sounds actually as if PiS would be making it harder for itself to pass legislation, and that it wants term limits to the Constitutional Tribunal's members. And to be honest, that sounds only reasonable to me. No matter how much I look forward to Brett Kavanaugh serving as a Conservative Judge on the US's SC for at least 20 years to come, I do not think justices should sit on the SC until they drop dead. Same goes for the supreme courts of any country.
Now, the EU Commission, the main instigator of the negative news, is as usual its hypocritic self because in 2015, when PO (the Civic Platform, Polands center left ruling party at the time) wanted to quickly fill up the Constitutional Tribunal with PO-friendly justices right before elections they were basically scheduled to lose, they said nothing. The importance of PO hastily filling the seats before an electoral defeat would have made it impossible, cannot be overestimated, because had they had their way, of the Constitutional Tribunal's 15 justices 14 (!) would have been PO men and women. It's an angle to the story that is com-ple-te-ly underreported. All we hear is that Kaczynski and Co. are new autocrats. So outrageous was PO's move at the time that the new Polish President, Andrzej Duda, refused to swear in these judges.
We are three years further now and PiS continues to try to implement judicial reforms. Without going too much into detail, these reforms have, understandably, their supporters and their detractors. As to whether they constitute a danger to democracy that would, in my opinion, be a serious overstatement. The EU did and said nothing when in 2011 the PO-led government apprehended PO-critical journalists, and suddenly, while nothing like that has happened under PiS yet, democracy would be in danger? It only makes sense if you realize that Poland's PM at the time, PO founder Donald Tusk, has been... Chairman of the European Council, one of the three EU top jobs, since 2014. Tusk is an outspoken EU hack, a fact which was already well known back in 2011. In other words, the EU is only critical vis-à-vis European governments who don't sing their tune - which is a no brainer, of course.
Poland under PiS now pushing through constitutional changes do not seem to me to be any different from a US President using his privilege to nominate SC justices. Obama appointed Sotomayor and Kagan, known for their very leftist stance. As much as I loathe Obama, he used his constitutional right. Now the pendulum has swung and President Trump has appointed Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, making the SC majority conservative. How would this be that much different from what's happening in Poland?
Then there's so much consternation about PiS's Media Law. Laughable, if you see to what extent the European governments use their state broadcasters to force leftist narratives on their populations. I live in Belgium, I know of what I am speaking. The State Broadcaster is the regime mouthpiece, basta. And these same governments are now accusing Poland of being... undemocratic? Ridiculous!
Anyway, here's some videos by The Rebel Media's Jack Buckby, who offers an alterative viewpoint to what you find in MSM:
As for Polish youth, dunno. Looks like Buckby got to interview a couple of right stuff guys there, for from what I see Polish youth is relatively laid back. I think I got some right to speak, since I'm married to a gal from Poland and I visit at least once a year. What I notice is that church attendance among youth is in steep decline. And my brother-in-law is as leftist as they get.
On the other hand, there was that gigantic human chain thing to remind Poland of its Christian roots and warn of Europe's islamization. It was a colossal event which did mobilize tens of thousands of youths - unthinkable in Western Europe.
So I think it's indeed still fair to say that 'Poland is not lost yet'.
And may well be, yet another time, Europe's Savior.
MFBB.
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