Liberals and leftists are absolutely apoplectic about Tucker Carlson’s week-long visit to Hungary. His shows featured views of the border as well-fenced (built after the 2015 attempted invasion) and peaceful, with migrants from Serbia being turned back—a far cry from Biden’s unofficial policy of welcoming migrants and putting them on planes and buses to be... Read More

I'm happy to see that Hungary is in the news. Longtime readers and listeners know that I am a Hungarophile from way back. A quick scan of the Derb archives shows fond mentions of Hungary all the way back to April 2002. One of the longest reviews I've written in recent years was about a... Read More

In college, I admired the photos of Robert Capa and learnt that he had died in Thai Binh, not far from my father’s home village. Of Capa’s 31 photos of Vietnam, I particularly like two of children crossing a Hanoi Street, with French soldiers in the background. The small details of daily life reveal a... Read More

Only a few years ago, motherhood was something seen as so self-evidently good that praising it was an unnecessary banality. Yet, like the Boy Scouts, supporting motherhood has now gone from uncontroversial to “far-right� in Western countries, akin even to Nazism. Thus Sweden’s “Social Security Minister� Annika Strandhäll blasted policies by the Hungarian government to... Read More

I do not believe that GDP growth – or the pursuit of wealth in general – ought to be an end in itself. Nonetheless, the fact is that virtually all countries today do consider the production and redistribution of wealth to be a fundamental goal. In this context, GDP per capita (minus wealth from national... Read More

Anyone with an understanding of the realities of heredity and ethnicity knows, as the saying goes, that “demography is destiny.� To understand this is easy, to actually act upon these demographic trends is, however, quite difficult. It is very hard to get your citizens to make more babies and even hard to get the “right�... Read More

CNN recently discovered a paradox. How was it possible, they asked, that in 1989, Viktor Orban, at the time a Western-acclaimed liberal opposition leader, was calling for Soviet troops to leave Hungary, and now that he is Prime Minister, he is cozying up to Vladimir Putin? For the same reason, dummy. Orban wanted his country... Read More

There have been many attempted invasions of Europe by barbarian hordes. Each one has brought forth heroes to lead the fight for civilization. The Spartans held the pass at Thermopylae. Aetius fought the Huns to a standstillat Châlons (although to judge from the character sketch in Gibbon, Aetius might just as happily have fought on... Read More

I was surprised by how grimy and sooty Budapest was. So many of its buildings, once gorgeous, were in an advanced state of decay. This city looked better before World War II, for sure, and certainly a century ago. Since escaping Communism, Budapest is regaining its glories, though not at the same pace as Prague.... Read More