More serious answer now Trilarion. :)

First, as usual nice to see your good humored curiosity about serious stuff. Always good to understand and know your neighbors right?

I won't speculate a lot on future, just want to comment what I left quoted from the bottom. I already mentioned little will change, PiS is rather a conservative party, and economically I expect very little will actually change other than posturing. As for deeper political changes, as mentioned they don't have enough power for constitutional changes and rearranging power, despite also holding the presidency.

The end of liberal attitudes now... well I expect conservative attitudes will be empowered, but the country was already divided in those regards - mainly a generational thing I think, because consider '89 was less than 30 years ago so another 30 years will make a huge difference. Anyway obviously some rather extremist voices will feel encouraged, but the majority of PiS voters are just traditional catholics of some sort - so abortion and homosexuality will be the hot button topics.

As to the Hungarian path, that requires expanding on. In some ways the Hungarian nationalist path will be pursued, and the fact that former PO PM Tusk is in the EU leadership is going to facilitate anti-EU rhetoric to no end, as well some distancing from German positions is likely to continue. Notice I said continue, because despite the PO having had a conciliatory and friendly approach to Polish-German relations they were always the minority in that regard. Distrust of Germany runs very deep in Poland, despite the economic affluence having camouflaged that.

So in those aspects you could say PiS will follow Orban, but really it isn't following, it's convergence and Orban deserves zero credit for it. Anti-EU, anti immigration, nationalist voices are everywhere in Europe and gaining strength, from France to Finland and the UK to Greece. As for the Hungarian positions of friendliness to Russia, which might have been far from your mind, if anything PiS will consciously distance themselves from Orban in those regards.

Finally... Kaczynski. Well, I am curious about foreign press treatment because calling him a mastermind and implying the polish population has been fooled somehow or is blinded is... odd certainly, and bordering on misrepresentation. The kind of elitism that only helps reinforce the populist streak of PiS voter appeal. Now I don't like the guy, but he's at least as much a clown as a mastermind. A kind of true believer of sorts which therefore is more analogous to Lenin than to Stalin - and this is a point that I'd make forcefully to actual Poles so they keep a close eye on whoever is coming behind Kaczynski, because there the real danger lies.

I'll leave it there but happy to talk more if you want further elaboration.

Determinism vs free will. Interesting debate topic. Much prefer the philosophy to the staunch passion of politics. Politics gets people wearing Kevlar and lobbing grenades at one another for the 'greater good,'. Or was that never a goal of slave revolts? The underclass usually always becomes the overclass once revolution succeeds. Revolution becomes repetition. I've read that script before.

The Romans learned one lesson very well... slaves don't pay taxes. Profiteering through liberation theology. What better way to enslave man then to convince him that he is free?

This is way irritating, but I kinda get your point. An optimistic look at things never hurts.

I've read quite a deal of historical stuff, and I came to the conclusion that the problems in the so-called communist bloc were not from any kind of structural problem with the economic system but simply because one side had less resources and wealth than the other after WWII. The USSR came out of WWII barely alive, losing approx 20 million of it's people and countless towns and cities in ruins. On the other hand the US came out of the war in massive prosperity, having barely lost any of it's population and the war never having touched their homeland. It had the resources to start the Marshall Plan, while the USSR had barely anything to spend on itself, let alone the Eastern European states it was in occupation of.

It's not surprising that exhaustive process of rebuilding after WWII, alongside the fact that the Cold War started at the same time and required incredible military spending (including a nuclear program) to keep up with the West, caused

Literally every country that had a socialist system had zero resources when it started, in China the Civil War and the war with Japan ruined the country by the time the communists assumed power. Same thing with Russia and the USSR, they had a Civil War and World War I.

Ahem, ahem :P

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa

Yes, being conservative or right-wing is not the same thing as being a racist, you can be a nationalist and not wish harm, death and destruction on all other people.

When Europeans visit other countries like Thailand they don't want to see McDonalds and Wallmart stores on every corner, they want to see and experience traditional Thailand. In this case nationalism in regards to Thailand is a positive thing, but why should nationalism become a negative thing once they return to their home countries ?!.

In the West its only a hate crime if white people do the harm, never when its the other way around.
It is this discrepancy in logic that many people don't like today.
Simply because X is done towards a majority group does not make it less of a hate crime.
It should be valued and judged equally.

People sayin' that nowadays there are slaves in here and there, slavish 9 to 5 bullcrap, slave this and that... these folks don't really know what slavery was all about. China is filled with "modern day slaves" and etc... tsc tsc. Nonsense.
I come from a terrible country who was doomed from its conception. Both colonial "invaders" and nowadays dictators/devilish companies/congolese - and african- elites and some big banks helped the once great DRC turn into the seventh circle of Dante's Inferno.

I mean, we'll never know what real slavery was, like the belgian colonial atrocities in Leopold's Congo, for instance. Don't worry modern belgians, I mean colonial belgians :)
By far, the most disgusting deal in the past two centuries. And no one really cares. Heck, not even 1 million brutally murdered in Rwanda shook the 90s, why would the DRC do any less?

Slavery (to say the least): extinguishing your culture and replacing it for something quite alien, I'd say/murdering your family in front of you/cuttin' people's hands in pieces (just for "fun")/whipping your back for hours, even crucifixion, impalation... two sided coins, yep, but nonetheless terrifying.

Totally OT (sorry) but Americans do.

Human nature.
Simple as that my young idealist Gog-er

:(
Know that (and I mean it) your post made me cry a little on the inside.
Communism never again!

There are different interpretations of nationalism.
I follow this particular dictionary definition:[url=]http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nationalism[/url]
This definition basically says that you put your own country's needs before that of others.

Merriam-Webster 's definition is similar to your definition: [url=]http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationalism[/url]
However that is not the definition I am using.

The definition I'm using suits the term Patriotism as well, since one of the definitions of Patriotism is 'the devotion and support of your own country'... i.e. something that is relative.

Also, left-wing media has its own very extreme definition of nationalism. When many people think of nationalism today it is this particular definition they are thinking about.

You said it bro!

Also I guess in Congo you don't actually have free market, you have a weird mix of controlled state capitalism, plutocracy and gung-ho "cowboy capitalism"??? But it's marketed as free?