We received the following email from a new petition signer for the Convention of States team in South Carolina, Tibi Czentye. He shares his amazing story of escaping a dictatorial socialist country and coming to the United States. It was so inspiring--and challenging--we wanted to share it with everyone. It has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
If you don't know what socialism is, it's good to read my story.
I want to share my experience because, 31 years after I escaped from a socialist dictatorial regime, many people are starting to talk about socialism here in USA. I can't believe it. I risked my life to escape socialism and "free stuff."
I’m a legal emigrant and a proud US citizen. I escaped from the socialist-dictatorship Romania on April 4th, 1989. Back then, I had two little kids and a wife, and I realized Romania's ideology wasn't good for my family.
What is Socialism?
What is socialism? I’ll try to give you a short description.
In the beginning, the government promises free stuff by stealing from the rich and sharing everything with the people who like free stuff. This works for a while, but then the government begins to have trouble keeping its promises.
But they don't step back from their power once this happens--they create a repressive society. They closed down the borders, nationalized the banks and private companies, took people’s houses and everything from the wealthy farmers. Everything came under government control, and they decided for every person what and where to work and how much to get paid. They paid the people minimum "living wages;" therefore, people worked at minimum capacity.
If you were unhappy with the government or with this socialist ideology, or with the president or any other leaders, they put you in jail forever with no rights to a lawyer. They created a security army to protect the president and the socialist ideology. Everybody who voiced opposition to this ideology was automatically thrown in jail.
With so much power, the government started to tighten the knot more and more. They started to give 4-5 hours of electricity and heating per day and weekly food cards for cooking oil, sugar, bread, and milk. The hospitals were full with sick people – many of them didn’t make it because they didn’t have any medication.
At the same time, they tried to brainwash the people into supporting the socialist ideology. They took over all media: TV, newspaper and the school system, from kindergarten to high school and college. They brainwashed everybody. If you didn’t agree with what the government was doing, you disappeared forever.
Tibi Escapes!
I was a young, proud man with many goals, and I tried to fight and be the best. What options did I have?
- Work hard, more than others, but without expecting any more reward.
- Step back and work less, like others, and just be happy with the basic living.
- Risk my life and escape to a free society where the capitalist ideology creates conditions to work, allows the freedom of speech, and keeps the government out of my life.
Of course, I chose the third option. I decided to escape first and leave my wife and two kids behind in the hopes of reuniting with them later. I decided to escape by myself because, during that time, the soldiers at the border killed people who tried to escape. My goal was to give my family a better life, not to get them killed at the border.
It took me two days and two nights to walk from my city to the border. There were soldiers everywhere: buses, trains, and check points on the road. At the border, they had towers with lights and guns and soldiers patrolling on horses.
God helped me and blinded those criminal soldiers so they didn’t see me. I had to crawl the last mile to the border and the light stopped on me twice, but God helped me to go unnoticed.
When I arrived in Yugoslavia, I was so tired and so sick that the authorities there caught me and put me in jail. I worked like a slave for 12 hours per day. After three months of this, I had the chance to escape. I walked all the way Europe, to the Netherlands, where I asked for political asylum in U.S.A.
In the meantime, I was able to reunite with my family (after 1.5 years of separation). It took them two years to vet us, but in July 11, 1991, we were accepted into the U.S.
We were sent to Portland, Maine, where we received government sponsorship for political asylum, which is same as being refugees. After three weeks there, we were among the few who gave up our government sponsorship and, with our own money, bought four Greyhound tickets to San Francisco.
Back then, that was our dream. After four days and four nights on the road, we arrived in San Francisco, and I started to work the same day.
Getting Ahead
For us, it was clear that we had to integrate in this wonderful country, and from that moment, we decided to stop speaking Romanian. My wife and kids learned English, and I went to work to make money and provide for my family.
We knew we had to know English, but we had to make money, too. I worked for five years as an assembler from 8 to 5, as a dishwasher and dessert maker at Strizzis Restaurant in the evening, and as a security officer in different locations on Saturday and Sunday nights.
After five years of work without any vacation or sick days, we opened our own company, became US citizens, bought our own house and sent our kids to good colleges: Menlo College (which was in the top-10 private business schools in the country) and UCLA.
So, we accomplished the American Dream, and we were happy, but we began to notice that California was changing more and more to become like Romania.
Declining family values, the sub-par school system, and high taxation worried us, and after 18 years there, we decided to escape again, this time from California, and come to one of the best conservative states, South Carolina.
We just celebrated out 11th year as South Carolinians, and we’re very happy and proud Southerners now. We bought our dream house on the lake, our kids married Southern girls and we are the proud grandparents of three beautiful little girls – the first Czentyes born in USA.
America is not perfect but it is the BEST country in the world. God bless us and God bless the USA.
Incredible. Tibi signed the Convention of States Petition because he believes an Article V Convention can stop our country's decline into socialism. To join him and other like-minded patriots around the country, sign the petition below!
