I can´t believe it.
I´m so sock.
how can a majority really miss the dictatorship instead of democracy?.
The worst democracy is much better than the best dictatorship (or they also miss the "AVOs"?)
Just this "hungarian nostalgia" of a un-real past can explain it, as the nostalgia of the "great Hungary", or the 56 revolution, or the opposite wich is Kadar.
to miss everything but the future, and never think on it.
came on¡¡, we can do it much better, and the future will be much greater than the greatest past, we just have to work on it and focus on the future, not on past.

You could also read this as "Hungarians happier with country
occupied by repressive foreign power, under the heel of a brutal
Communist dictatorship than with present government", Or it could
be that they are just extremely stupid, with short memories.

I guess Hungarians just long for a time when they were envied by their neighbours, and not the other way round.

"Hungarians happier with country
occupied by repressive foreign power, under the heel of a brutal
Communist dictatorship than with present government".

Is there any significant difference between the old and the current government? What is it?

@ Matt

Don't be an idiot. This government was democratically elected (and then re-elected), it doesn't torture or kill its political opponents, people are not afraid to speak their opinion on any subject, and if they are voted out of office in 2010, they will hand over power without and struggle or violence (which I'm not so sure I would expect of Fidesz's bedfellows, Jobbik and the Garda). The fact that you can go online and compare the current government to a totalitarian dictatorship demonstrates two things: 1. that you have many freedoms under this government that didn't exist under the communist government (freedom of speech, freedom of information, freedom of communication, etc., which the government won't take away from you), and 2. you're an idiot who needs to go back to school and learn about what life was really like under communism.

Bill, as an ex-pat paying a significant wedge to the gov't who cannot vote here, I'd say that it's got a lot of the hallmarks of some sort of gov't that ain't to purdy. Sure they don't shoot people (too often) anymore; instead, they use the ante-bellum former Confederate States of America model - and just put people into penury. Would write more, but looks like either the revenooers or da Klan, hell bent on a "kluxing" are heading up my road... will write again, if I survive.

@ Uncle Tom

Well, the whole taxation without representation issues isn't a problem just in Hungary, but in every European country (also with EU citizens living in other EU countries) - they can't vote if they don't have citizenship, but they can pay taxes. However, that is a completely unrelated issue to the topic I was trying to clarify for Matt (i.e. current government v. communist government). I bet that in 50-100 years, anyone living legally in any EU country will be able to vote in that country, but it will take a little while ....

Bill,
You have the illusion of democracy. You can choose between bad and worse, then you're stuck with your decision for 4 years.
Free speech is nice, but it no more then letting the steam off, no one cares, no one listens. It's no more useful than writing stuff on the mens room wall (popular in the Kadar era).
Instead of empty ideological slogans, get to the bottom of the issue. Look at it from the viewpoint of the average Hungarian working stiff.
Common folks usually prefer safety and security over freedom. This is becoming apparent in the USA, where people are easily scared into giving up personal freedom and privacy for the illusion of safety.
Back to Hungary and the poll, most people who say they were happier in the Kadar era are age 50 or older. They - just like myself - spent their best years (youth) in the "golden age" of socialism.
A lot of things were better then. Everyone had a job, a place to live, good food and health care.
People who worked hard could afford a car or two and even a weekend house at the lake. This was not the Rakosi era, if you didn't make too much trouble the AVO didn't bother you. That's pretty much most people will ever need.
Now half of the country is sold the rest is being stolen and wasted. No security of any kind, food is getting worse and health care is becoming a distant memory. Hungary used to be on the top of the Eastern Bloc, now it's on the bottom.
So if you're age 50 or older, what's so good about today?

dear Bill;
Democracy, Freedom, Human Rigths, are such important things that we never have to minus-value.
You describe us a Hungarian-kadar-era-pardise, that is just opposite to the facts and the data, since 1989 (the best year of the communism) the Hungarians have 70%, and middle class had improve their quality of live dramatically.
When you say "That's pretty much most people will ever need." is when you show your dictatorship-filia,please LET ME CHOOSE what i need, what i want, what i do, let us choose, please, do not decide for me, because i can not be "in the party", but i´m at least as smart as you are, and concerning my live much more.
For example for me Freedom of speech is something i need... and something i would not have under the communism.
Then you say: "...if you didn't make too much trouble...", what "too much trouble" means?, to say what you think?, beeing a religus person?, beeing homosexual?, wanted to travel abroad?, having your own business?, everything except accepting the communist rules of live seems to be "too much trouble".
So, please, let´s speak about real futures and not about false pasts; let´s value what has a value: freedom, prosperity, democracy, human rigths; and then let´s work for a better hungary.

dear Barak
Bill is not the dictator here. He's just pointing out that many (or most) Hungarians (BP Times article says the preference is more than 50%)felt better off before even if they didn't have what YOU preferred.Freedom of speech may be something you need, but food and health is something they feel is more important to them right now. Who are YOU to tell them what is more important.

dear Uncle Joe;
Thanks for your smart post.
The diference is that under democracy you have the chance to choose, under dictatorship not.
And this is not an election between freedom without food or food without freedom; because thanks to the freedom now there is more than in `89; and the quality of live of the middle class had improve dramatically.
And also the Kadar era economic development was built under un-real basis, just thanks to the public loans, so it was (as everything in communism) a false dream.
So i just say, the data say that now is more and better than under the communism... and with freedom and human rigths, isn´t it better?.

I always think it's funny when people from countries with no communist history think they know better what life was like in countries with such a history than the people who actually lived in them. They still haven't realized that a great deal of their image of what "communism" was like is fiction.

Guys, I know you would like to deny that, but the Hungarian uprising of 56 was a socialist uprising against Stalinism. They didn't want to get rid of a planned economy and a socialist structure in general, but they wanted more democracy and freedom *in* a socialist system, not a return to free-market capitalism

My Grandfather would cry if he say this. He fought in the 1956 revolution and he still remembers the horrors of AVO and people being shipped of to Siberia. I cannot see why anyone would want the communist government at all. The propaganda must have gotten to them. However he says that the current government is very corrupt but the freedoms promised now are greater than the communistic "freedoms" ever promised.

Matt
Tell that to the relatives of the 20 million he massacred in the Ukraine and elsewhere.You are right about Hungary been fucked over today but what you naively fail to acknowledge is that it is mostly those lovable commies of yours from the Kádár era that are now in power and so efficiently destroying this country.
God I hate Commies and liberals for their pathetic naivety and ignorance...