News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


No one (that i know of) is attacking the legitimacy of the Polish government (they won the elections fair and square). They are criticizing the actions of the government which are against the constitution (in letter and spirit).

People protesting against government actions (any government) are a sign of a healthy society engaged in the political process.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


A little late for calling for respect of rule of law now. The fraudsters and slick and slimy personalities disguising themselves as defenders of the nation are exposed for the party hacks they are (to use your own rhetoric against you).

Feedback / Member warning system to prevent abuse / spam / off-topic posts [145]

Merged: What's the deal with warnings?

I got my second warning (oooooh I'm sooooo scared!) but I'm puzzled as to why. I can't think of anything in particular that I wrote recently that was worse than what regular posters (like p3) get away with.

Is it too much to ask for a OM on just what the warning was about? Or are they passed out like candy so that's feasible? Is there a policy or is it moderator whim (the only explanation I can think of). You may visit your profile and find out the meaning of 'O.'

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


gotta cite for that?

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


As opposed to PiS's restrained "let's give them a chance" approach?

You really have no idea what life on the ground in Poland is like. Move to Poland a live here for a few years and then pontificate about what's going on.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


They don't want to be repressed they want Polish society to be made up of powerful oppressors and a valiant doomed resistance (they certainly want PiS to fail). It's all about clinging to identity-forming myths and the rejection of modernity (and I'm not crazy about a lot of modernity but they carry it to and beyond extremes).

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]

Of course he is, he can't stand the idea of Polish people not being oppressed. For many pseudo Poles their whole identity is built around being oppressed and they wont' give that up easily.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


Give it up, a member accused me of a crime repeatedly (before retracting the accusations) and that thread is still here despite my repeated requests for it to be deleted.

As the starter of this thread, you should keep it on topic. At the moment it doesn't seem like you care.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


Thinking... wouldn't that overturn the idea that the TK is just doing POs bidding?

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


That would be disgraceful on their part, and I would condemn that in very strnog terms. I look forward to seeing a link to the article.


It has no chance of ever existing unless it's followed, even when inconvenient or frustrating.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


Says the foreigner.

I'd like to here a defense of what PiS is doing vis a vis the TK that is not based on "the ends justify the means" Will I ever actually get that?

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


That ain't an answer to what I'm a' askin'


There is no such thing as a perfect non-biased institution.


And what point of law were they basing that on?

I'm in favor of rule of law and not rule of party.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


You're not answering the question.


Is that an insinuation?

Answer the question, would you be comfortable if a party you don't like that was doing what PiS is doing now?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Because that affects the country I have chosen to call home.

Have you chosen to call Poland home? Why worry about what happens there?

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]

I would have no issue whatsoever with PiS had the party followed the TK (Duda swore in the three who's selection was ruled to be constitutionally sound) and then the first two of the PiS selected candidates that Duda swore in.

That's called rule of law.

The iron test: Would you support what PiS is doing (now) if PO (or any other party) were doing it?

That is, are you supporting what PiS is doing because they're PiS or because of legitimate rule of law considerations? Everything else is irrelevant.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


There's nothing wrong with protesting a "legtimiate government" if people disagree with their policies.


From my point of view, the ones actively working to subvert the rule of law are the enemies.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Almost all political parties in Poland are vehicles to power for a single leader, even ones that start off as more or less normal parties turn into that pretty quickly. SLD and PSL are the exceptions and they're not doing well.

Does anyone expect that Duda or Szydło will survive their first disagreement with JK or that would survive if they develop a base of power in the party?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


I reckon he might could at that. What is this "write like a hillbilly day"?

I'm really not invested in the longterm survival of PO (I'm glad they were able to stop the madness of the first PiS government but no, as my dear grandmother would say they're as useless as t|ts on a boar hog. If it's Nowoczesna's turn then I'm fine with that, as I keep saying I'm fiscally more conservative, socially more liberal (realistically given the makeup of Polish society) and against further European integration (without dumping the baby out with the bath). If any Polish party is on board with that then I'm on board with them, if not I'll go with the lesser of various evils.

An interesting question is will this PiS government actively energize younger voters against them the way the first did? Unless they turn their attention to job creation and have some success my answer is no.

Work / Poland Work Permit / Study Visa Processing Times [191]


I doubt if you can get a work permit for part time work and finding work in Poland (without extremely fluen tPolish) is very, very hard.

So, effectively .... nothing.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


In my experience most Polish women want one of those two. The full time homemaker option just doesn't ... appeal much here. Admittedly my sample is biased (I can't think of any stay at home housewives by choice I've known in Poland).

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


Hey, that's one more option than you want to give them....

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


You really don't understand Poland at ground level, do you? Most women want to work even if their husbands could make enough to support them.

"Housewife" is almost an insult (and it has nothing to do with communism or modernity). It's just the way it is.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


Define "foreign"

This is primarily a class issue not a national one. There is a ruling elite class that has no allegiance to any country (no matter where they happen to be located at any given time). They're in charge of most of the media and it's interesting how little that is working.

At present, it's essentially a low level conflict between those who want to do away with the nation state (most of the elite) and those who want to keep it (most everyone else who's aware of the issue).

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


It will be interesting to see what comes next and how people react to it. I would say election fraud but that's already probably happened.

Interestingly the first stage of the Houellebecq book "Submission" just happened in real life. If the book, ultimately power is given to an Islamic leader by the traditional right and left working together to keep a nationalist out of power.

I wonder what will be done to keep Le Pen out of an office that the elite clearly don't want her in.

The one thing I tend to agree with PiS about is the need to slow down the whole EU thing (though I'm not as anti-EU as they are). It would be nice to keep open borders and free movement of labor and not much else (maybe a limited federal structure for things like disaster relief).


It's not the worst idea in the world, but the promises were dumb, trying to make it into an entitlement program.

Such a program would have to be means-tested, possibly linked to tax returns.

The real clue is supporting working (married) mothers. Lots of young Polish women want to get married and have kids but they know that's death to their job prospects and Poland remains a country where generally two-wage-earners are necessary to keep a household going. The idea of being a stay at home housewife has never had much appeal in Poland as far as I can tell so trying to promote that won't work.

Mandating employers give maternal leave and pay just makes employers not want to hire women.

The iron law of the workplace is that the more restrictions are placed on employment (including attempts to give people job security) the less employment there will be.

No one has beat that law yet.

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


It's not a conspiracy, it's an _agenda_ that the economic and political elite have that is in direct conflict with the wishes of the majority of every EU country.

Now that opposition to the agenda is becoming mainstream it will be interesting to see if they back off or double down and just how repressive they'll get in pursuit of their aims (roughly: no restrictions on capital liquidity).

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


I broadly agree, Merkel's Folly and subsequent clumsy efforts to force other countries to help her save face at home made her previously okay relationship with PO leaders absolutely toxic.

PO's campaigns (presidential and parliamentary) were sluggish and not very .... good. They did a horrible job of running on their accomplishments (no love for almost entirely avoiding the economic crisis still paralysing half the continent? No love for major infrastructural improvements?)

Established parties sometimes don't mind a few years out of power as a way to clean house and refocus on their message and I sort of think that's what was going on this year (especially after Bronisław "I will concentrate deeply and try to contact the living" Komorowski's boring effort). The question is is PO established enough to be able to afford the downtime or will younger hungrier parties (like Nowoczesna) take their place (I wouldn't mind).

My preference would be for a moderate to conservative fiscal policy (lotsa luck with socialists like PiS) and a moderately liberal social policy (while not trying to push Poles in directions they don't want to go socially).

The problem is that PiS is no better than PO in terms of what most voters care about (roughly, in order 1. job creation, 2. job creation, 3. job creation). They haven't lifted one finger to do anything that will increase employment so far (nor do I expect them to). Some voters had hoped that by putting younger faces forward PiS was changing but no such luck. I was talking with one younger person who now bitterly regrets voting for PiS (he said he was voting more against PO than for PiS and had hoped D/S wouldn't be completely dominated by JK).

They've already thrown the Frankowicze under the bus and are backtracking with the ridiculous 500 zl per baby pledge.

PiS can still turn this around but unless they double down on job creation (which means adopting policies that will alienate many of their core supporters) then this term in office won't be any more successful than the last.

I'll add: "Deeper European intergration" is a loser at the polls in almost every EU country now. But idiots like Merkel and the out-of-touch EU elite don't realize this. I don't know anyone who wants Poland to leave the EU (yet) but if they don't back off and give member states more room they're going to wreck it (and if they don't back off then wrecking it is probably the best option).

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


Having a politician with a trust rating in the high 30's completely under the thumb of one with a trust ranking in the low 20's is not a recipe for success.

He'll always have a place at the perpetually angry table of those who are incapable of being happy about anything going on in Poland (like Polonius, Ironside etc) but he's rapidly working himself out of the mainstream.


the thing is that most Poles are not very religious (common stereotypes to the contrary). The church has lost a huge amount of support for its political actions in recent years.

I'm assuming that soon PiS will start working its destructive magic on higher education (in which case Poland is finished as a prospective first world country).

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]

So you just wrote crap. Quelle surprise!

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


Which three flunkies would that be?

News / Throwing away the constitution in Poland? [626]


How many Polish people do you want to kill to make a better Poland?