The standard of living in Hungary has been constantly declining since orbán has been in power. His voter base is still going strong nonetheless, especially among the poorest. These people have no future, but also no present either - they’ll vote for the name they hear the most often, or the one their employer tells them to. They being mostly jobless, that employer being the village mayor via the public works programme, and usually a puppet of orbán as well. Checkmate, liberal democracy.

Wait, what?

Thanks for the non-dismissive reply and for the additional context. Just to clarify, I have only voiced my view on the “avoid killing innocents when others are in danger” situation - I admittedly lack the knowledge regarding the big picture to be able to pass judgement or offer solutions. But it seems the answer to your last question is pretty clear: everybody involved in this situation in any way is bad for some degree.

Imagine a comic strip where the Joker is holding a kid hostage at gunpoint. With his other gun he repeatedly shoots random people on the street. Batman shows up but does nothing, for he doesn’t want the boy to die. Bam, another passerby dead. And another. Bam-bam, this time it’s a twofer. Then Superman shows up and eye-lasers the Joker cleanly in half along with the kid.

Whose action resulted in fewer deaths?

This. In a modern society there’s no natural right (or even a need) to own firearms.

And it’s hard to imagine that Hamas could smuggle weapons, build rockets in basements, set up launchers between apartment blocks, fire missiles and return to step one - if the people of Palestine actually opposed them. But since they are able to do all of this, at least a significant portion of the people must actively support them and basically everyone else needs to tolerate their presence and activities.

The source is in the lower right corner. Population was in the high one-digit million scale. But none of this matters when one can clearly see how the economy skyrocketed after the soviets left.

What relevance does it have? A country in Europe that was under soviet oppression between WW2 and the fall of the soviet union. There are several like it and it matters little which one did I happen to born in - all suffered a similar fate.

You said yourself that a penny is too much. What’s lower than a penny and not free?

Then the problem is not that the practice of renting exists, but wealth inequality. Which we fully agree on, especially since several mechanisms are at work that further the gap between the rich and the poor. These all should be addressed.

What’s holding you back from taking a loan and paying mortgage instead of rent? Risk aversion?

I don’t see what I could do to increase the chances of you believing me - thankfully nothing at all depends on it happening.

Oh wait, for the last one I can actually cite some sources:

Now you got me interested: how exactly could this be anything but serious?

Fuck the soviet union - harder than how the soviet troops fucked both my grandmothers when they “liberated” my birth country, and harder than how the soviet rule fucked the economy afterwards.

To use it later when his children would need it.

None of these points have applied to them. I get the feeling it might be a case of culture differences, maybe the toxic landlording mentioned in the meme is more prevalent in the US?

Sure he did, but he provided me with a place to live at, which otherwise I couldn’t have afforded. Just like any other service or goods provider.

I’d say it depends on the scale and the intentions.

My previous one hasn’t raised rent for five years, and even then he asked if it would be okay with us. Which it was, for even the raised rent was significantly below the market rate and he always responded quickly to any issues we have raised. He was a blue-collar worker who inherited a flat he didn’t want to sell, so rented it out to those who couldn’t afford to buy a property on their own.

I’m sorry for your negative experiences, but please be mindful that not only your subjective world exists. I might have been extremely lucky, but all my previous rental places were maintained by nice folks.

I think it’s more like they don’t and can’t care. It’s probably the same situation as in Hungary, where Orbán basically micromanages 90% of the news sources the average citizen gets to access, so they of course overwhelmingly approve him and “his valiant fight against the evils surrounding the noble Hungarian nation”.