[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 94 (Wednesday, July 15, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1303]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BALINT VAZSONYI: TRUE AMERICAN
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HON. GEORGE P. RADANOVICH
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, July 15, 1998
Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend Dr. Balint Vazsonyi as
a true American. Balint Vazsonyi knows first-hand what it means to live
in fear, as he has done so under Nazi occupation then under Communist
oppression in his native Hungary.
Overcoming the barriers to human expression put up by authoritarian
states, Dr. Vazsonyi has since become a world-renowned concert pianist,
and a well-respected historian and ultimately a United States citizen.
Dr. Vazsonyi, or just plain ``Balint'', is a regular op-ed
contributor to the Washington Times as well as several other newspapers
around the country. He sits on the boards of many community groups and
is the Director of the Center for the American Founding. As a child he
lived under Nazi terror and as an adolescent he participated in the
Hungarian uprising against the Soviet occupiers.
Balint's musical career is well known. He received his Artist Diploma
at Budapest's famed Liszt Academy. Just recently, the Hungarian Embassy
in Washington, DC presented him a gala piano recital in celebration of
the 50th anniversary of his first concert appearance in Hungary. Balint
also has a Ph.D. in history.
I highly recommend to my colleagues, and all Americans, his new book,
``America's 30 Years War: Who is Winning?'' Drawing on his own life
experiences he describes how our hard-won freedoms are gradually being
eroded. Vazsonyi traces the essence of what makes America unique, from
the Founding until today, and exposes how ideas imported from European
socialist states are undermining America's distinct political and moral
culture.
In a witty and personal style, Balint documents how the founding
principles of the rule of law, individual rights, secure ownership of
property and common American identity are being deliberately supplanted
by the alien notions of group rights, forced redistribution of private
possessions, and multiculturalism.
In ``America's 30 Years War: Who is Winning?'' Dr. Vazsonyi shows,
with unmistakably clarity, how every time we move away from America's
founding principles we move toward the failed model of European
socialism.
Please take time to read this seminal and through-provoking book.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Dr. Balint Vazsonyi on his many
accomplishments and I ask my colleagues to join me in wishing him many
more years of success.
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