Back to the USSR

NRO ^ | 5 Mar 2020 | David Harsanyi

[Rummyfan]

It is in no way to disparage the child-rearing efforts of my beloved parents to note that the greatest gift they ever got me was obtained two years before I was even born. In the summer of 1968, my parents—both in their 20s, both with secure jobs, both beneficiaries of “free” health care, both graduates of top-flight Communist literacy programs—packed one bag each, left the small apartment they shared with relatives in Budapest, and boarded a train headed for Rome. They wouldn’t return to visit Hungary until 1990, by which time they were fully Americanized.

The summer my mom and dad defected to the United States, the Soviet Union was busy crushing the aspirations of Czechoslovakian reformers by sending 600,000 Warsaw Pact troops and tanks to Prague to end a student uprising. The scene was, no doubt, familiar to anyone who’d witnessed the Soviet crushing of Hungary’s democratic aspirations in 1956 or the crushing of East Germany’s democratic aspirations in 1953. If there was one thing If there was one thing Commies were able to do with ruthless efficiency, it was crush dissent.

[Rummyfan]

Dangerous old fool who would gladly enthusiastically destroy our country to follow his crackpot ideas.

[BipolarBob]

Sanders is not that original. He borrowed Maduros plans that helped Valenzuela become the economic powerhouse that it is today.

[xp38]

As half Hungarian.....this resonates with me

[higgmeister]

Up against the wall as far as I'm concerned. The way we treat Bernie, as a crank or well-meaning left-winger, is itself a way to normalize Marxism—“democratic socialism,” in this iteration.

On the side street that runs beside the courthouse. No cigarette and não faz mal.

[Verginius Rufus]

I don’t know about eoncomic powerhouse, but Fernando Valenzuela was a pitching powerhouse for the Dodgers in 1981. He was rookie of the year and won the Cy Young award, and the Dodgers won the World Series. He also led the major leagues in strikeouts that year.