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Where Can You Find Freedom Today?

Territory in central Europe, ruled since 1989 by the Magyarország

Hungary (Hungarian: Magyarország) is a country in Central Europe that covers an area of 93,030 square kilometers in the Carpathian Basin, bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Austria to the northwest, Romania to the east, Serbia to the south, Croatia to the southwest and Slovenia to the west. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a medium-sized member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken Uralic language in the world. Hungary's capital and its largest city and metropolis is Budapest, a significant economic hub, classified as a leading global city. Major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Győr.

Geographical type: Territory

Latitude: 47° N — Longitude: 20° E

Area: 93,030 km²

ISO 3166-2 code: HU

Birthplace of

Peter Thomas Bauer, Péter Tamás Bauer, in Budapest, on 1915
Tibor Machan, Tibor Richard Machan, in Budapest, on 18 Mar 1939
Thomas Szasz, Thomas Stephen Szasz, in Budapest, on 15 Apr 1920

Measures of Freedom

Human Freedom Index [PDF], The Human Freedom Index 2021
2019: 7.73, Rank: 59, Personal Freedom: 7.88, Economic Freedom: 7.53
Hungary | Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2022
2016: Status: Free, Aggregate Score: 79, Political Rights: 2, Civil Liberties: 2
Support for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Alliance of Young Democrats–Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) party declined steeply at the end of 2014 and in the first months of 2015. Together with its junior coalition partner, the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP), it lost two parliamentary by-elections in 2015, the first of which went to a leftist candidate and cost the coalition its two-thirds parliamentary supermajority.
Level of Economic Freedom, Economic Freedom of the World
2014: 7.30, Rank: 57

Articles

Along Pennsylvania Avenue, by Murray N. Rothbard, Faith and Freedom, Nov 1956
Discusses the Hungarian Revolution of late October-early November 1956 and the "disappointing" reactions by the U.S. government and the "shocking comment" of Walter Lippmann
The Communists seemed invincible. ... But now, after a decade of Communist rule, little Hungary rose up as one man and smashed the evil regime to bits. We know that without Soviet troops, the Communist regime would have been swept away in a couple of days. In the fight of the Hungarian people vs. the Hungarian Communists, the rebels won hands down. ... But few words or deeds come from America to give the anti-communist Hungarians a spark of hope ... Instead, we rose to the challenge by considering how to refer the "Soviet intervention" to the United Nations, as if the Soviets had not been occupying Hungary during the last ten years.
Related Topic: Communism
"Every Day is 1956": The Hungarian Revolution Today, by James Bovard, 27 Oct 2006
Describes events in Hungary in 1956, 1986 (when Bovard visited), 1989 (when the Iron Curtain fell) and in 2006 (when government lying was in the news) and ties it back to lying by U.S. officials
Fifty years ago, the Hungarian people bravely expelled Soviet tanks from Budapest and proclaimed their intention to create a democracy ... I was in Hungary shortly after the 30th anniversary ... Two and a half years later, it was the Hungarians who, more than any other Eastern Europeans, brought the Iron Curtain crashing down. In May 1989, Hungarian government officials cut the barbed wire on the border with Austria ... The celebrations ... of the 50th anniversary ... have been riotous ... Hungary again reminds us that we do not need to bow down to whomever manages to capture political power.
Related Topics: George W. Bush, Socialism
Give Me Liberty [PDF], by Rose Wilder Lane, 1936
Originally published as an article titled "Credo" in the Saturday Evening Post; describes her experiences in and history of Soviet Russia and Europe, contrasting them with the history of the United States, emphasizing the individualist themes
In 1922, as a foreign correspondent in Budapest, I accompanied ... a police raid ... We appeared suddenly in ... workingmen's cafes, dingy places with sawdust on earthen floors where one musician forlornly tried to make music on a cheap fiddle and men and women in the gray rags of poverty sat at bare tables and economically sipped beer or coffee ... The policemen grinned with that peculiar enjoyment of human beings in possessing such power. They went through the men's pockets ... They found the Labor cards, inspected them ... In every place, a few cards failed to pass the examination.

The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hungary" as of 24 Sep 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.