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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

I spent some time in Poland three years ago and have not stopped talking about it ever since. It stood out from the other Eastern European countries that I visited on that trip.

Had a lunch in Warsaw with a German friend who had relocated there. He said it was more Conservative than Germany and there was more freedom of expression.

Over forty years of Communist rule and they were never able to pull them away from their commitment to the Catholic church. Also lots of excellent museums and large parks.

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Wouldn’t „more freedom of expression“ imply less conservative?

Or what aspects of conservatism, and what aspects of freedom of expression, are you referring to here?

Not if your tradition is to have freedom. Then to be a conservative means to conserve freedom. Think about the UK & US. The conservatives don't want to change what it means to be American/British, but the far left want to change it all. They want to change: ownership, innovation, free market, property, freedom of speech/expression, freedom of thought/opinion, employment, government, you name it.

Conservatives = resist change Progressive = encourage change

and change goes both ways -/+ right? We know this.

In Poland, they want to have a place to call home that feels European, feels Western. In the UK if you say that, straight-to-jail.gif or less flippantly, threatened and shunned by either people who don't want you to have an opinion or people afraid of them.

It's a sorry state of affairs.

But why the did Poland introduce a de-facto abortion ban in early 2021, with terminations only permitted in cases of rape, incest or if there is a threat to the mother's health or life?

And abortions due to fetal abnormalities are no longer permitted in Poland.

Isn’t that at odds with „conserve freedom“?

If you believe a fetus is a human then banning abortion is conserving freedom of the fetus. This is no different than saying banning murder of a person who is born is a way of conserving freedom. Obviously you disagree that a fetus is human or has human rights, but for somebody who does it makes perfect sense.

So they’re happy to remove the rights of the woman carrying the fetus

I assume that continues when the baby is born and people have to sacrifice their rights to feed the baby. Not in as extreme a way as bodily servitude, perhaps just taxation of the work they do to provide food, shelter, healthcare.

I am not really sure what you are getting at. I can't imagine you don't understand that some people think that a fetus, being a creature that is alive and has human DNA is considered a human. You may disagree with such an opinion but it is held by huge amounts of the population. Once you understand that you should be able to understand that some people would continue along the logical conclusion that all humans should have equal rights including the right to not be killed.

Protecting humans from being killed is protecting rights of individuals, not removing the rights of the would be murderer.

There is a clear way you can say banning abortion in about protecting rights. It is fine if you disagree, but I don't think there is any point in this conversation since you cannot even understand where people are coming from and just assume the worst in others.

Right. So the same people protect people from being killed by providing them with healthcare, food and shelter?

After all to do that doesn’t require involuntary servitude to carry a fetus for 9 months

The Polish government provides that for its citizens along with foreigners.

https://www.gov.pl/web/family/social-assistance-principles

The Catholic Church also provides additional services that includes food, healthcare and shelter.

https://caritas.pl/

So yes, it seems like the people who support abortion bans do provide them with healthcare, food and shelter.

No, think of the US founders who were freedom of speech champions.

Yet conservative in sense that they... declared independence? I'm trying to follow the second half of that logic train.

When first put to a vote, every single constitution delegate all originally voted against the bill of rights and John Adams didn't want to include a bill of rights at all (nor did he want to write one, Patrick Henry scared the hell out of him into including it). It wasn't until the threat of a commoner revolt (Shays' Rebellion aftermath (where private bankers hired a militia to kill American farmers, who were getting foreclosed on)).

Please remember that the US constitution is a slaver's document written to enable minority rule of slaver states at the expense of everyone else hence why it took nearly 80 years for the first republic to utterly fail and make way for the better second founding.

Ah, yes, when I think 'conservative', I think... revolutionaries?

Many examples of “liberal” governments being extremely illiberal WRT freedom of expression. More people are locked up in the UK for speech than in many more conservative countries.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

More conservative if you understand how the term is used. In my experience and observing Poland today, "freedom of expression" is the term favoured by the right wing, denoting that it is OK to spew racist / nationalist nonsense somewhere because a) "FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION" and b) a lot of the public is sadly quite accepting of it. This is what I typically see when people mention Poland and freedom of expression. Because if people call out hatred for what it is, it's censorship.

> Wouldn’t „more freedom of expression“ imply less conservative?

Depends on the status quo, I suppose.

Yeah, they may be defining 'freedom of expression'... interestingly. For instance, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT-free_zone - such freedom of expression!

It would be good to have real insights into how Poland is doing well just now, but (gestures at thread) it seems to be a lot of people bringing out their pet solutions.

Is the boom related to the removal of PiS in 2023? Is it linked to Ukraine (businesses and people relocating across the border? Arms sales?)

No it’s not related to removal of PiS at all. Poland’s economy was booming under PiS

Did it stop booming afterwards?

I am really happy for Poland getting rich (they deserved it!), but with little knowledge about Polish politics you just have to shack your head.

" Warsaw with a German friend who had relocated there. He said it was more Conservative than Germany and there was more freedom of expression." In Poland the constitutional court isnt working very good because of the former authoritarian Orban like PiS government. In case of a next Pis government only the European courts might help in case of a freedom of speech matter.

In Germany the constitutional court does work.

"they were never able to pull them away from their commitment to the Catholic church. " They do. Poland and especially the younger generation is securalising and also becomes more open to queer people. Also you can ask catholic officials how much they are willing to do for freedom of expression of atheism ("crazy") and gay men ("perverts").

There’s a reason the solidarity movement arose in Poland

Remarkable culture

Did you also talk about this:

> “Throughout OECD countries, men are much more likely to die from suicide, acute alcohol abuse or a drug overdose – on average, almost 4 men for every woman. This gender gap is largest in Poland, at 8.2.”

See figure 5.8 at https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2020/03/how-s-life-2020...

What do you think might be the reason behind this?

> It stood out from the other Eastern European countries that I visited on that trip.

Just note for the other readers, don't call people in Poland, Czechia, Slovakia or Hungary Eastern Europeans unless you want to irritate them and look like pretentious tourist.

While you were in Poland, did you call it "Eastern Europe" to people's faces? How did they react?

That commitment probably won't change anytime soon but more and more people are dissatisfied of the church here - how it interferes with politics, tries to dictate what is morally right and of course covers up pedophilia cases.

During pandemic (which also happen during the right-wing coalition govt) public TVP2 channel ran breakfast TV segment where one of questions was if audience should kneel at homes during the broadcast of the Mass if they decided to "participate".

https://natemat.pl/303229,czy-klekac-przed-telewizorem-w-cza... (in Polish obv)

Still, this isn't as easy to digest as it may seem - you'd of course have to study our history to understand that connection to faith.

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