Topic: Why America is Great
Time: Jul 2, 2020 05:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Location: Zoom Meeting

Ligia’s speech:

Good afternoon,

Thank you for the opportunity to share my experience. It’s truly an honor to be here.

I was born in the Socialist Republic of Romania, during the peak of Ceausescu’s tyranny, in 1984.

I lived in a country where if you didn’t rock a haircut that has been sanctioned by the state, the police will literally immobilize you and shave you on the street.

I lived in a city the size of Seattle, and water, power, heating, utilities were rationed. Food was rationed, labor was rationed, my parents careers have been decided by the state, our family holidays (as far as timing, location and budget) were decided by the state.  We couldn’t choose when to take a shower or what clothes to wear or where to live or what to eat or when to eat! All these choices were made for us.

Growing up, it was illegal to leave the country for any reason. But starvation and fear became so intense, that when I was 5 y.o., my parents decided to risk their and their kids’ lives and try to cross at any cost. My dad was caught and we were sentenced as a family to a forced labor camp. We didn’t make it there because the revolution came and all files were erased.

Romania has endured 48 years of the hardest, most brutally reinforced socialist system in Modern Europe’s History and I believe the American people need to hear what was happening behind our closed doors.

So how did we get there? How does any country end in tyranny?

There are only two ways of doing politics in a country:  POLITICAL RISK REDUCTION OR POLITICAL RISK AVOIDANCE.
Romania practiced Political Risk Reduction.
What Political Risk Reduction means is that a position of unchecked, unhindered, unlimited power is created in the leadership of the state, and the person who proves to be trustworthy is elected in that position.

Now, history has proven over and over again that whenever that position of unlimited power is created, someone who is thirsty for power WILL crawl into that seat – sooner or later – and WILL become a tyrant. There has literally never been, in the history of the world, one position of unhindered political power that had not been abused sooner or later.

If America turns from the POLITICAL RISK AVOIDANCE strategy, which it is currently built on, towards the POLITICAL RISK REDUCTION strategy, which the rest of the world is built on, sooner or later, America will become a totalitarian regime. Anyone who had studied history even briefly has no doubt about that.

Now, what I love about America is that the Constitution was written in the spirit of POLITICAL RISK AVOIDANCE, which says: “What if we DON’T create a position of unchecked power, but we allow people to govern the country and govern themselves?”

All countries that are built on a political risk reduction strategy first ASSUME the risk of tyranny by creating that position of power, and then try to REDUCE the risk by filling the position with someone who they believes has the best interest of the society at heart.

America, by the Constitution, is AVOIDING THE RISK ENTIRELY by not giving the opportunity for that position of unchecked power to be created, to begin with.

All the perks that I love here in America, like freedom of speech, freedom of travel, freedom of assembly, freedom to protect myself, freedom to pursue my happiness, freedom to grow and develop, equality of opportunity, all these are all THE OUTCOME OF LIVING IN A POLITICAL RISK AVOIDANCE ENVIRONMENT, and the Founding Fathers knew that, which is why they came up with the Constitution as it is and not different.

ALL THESE PERKS ARE A DIRECT CONSEQUENCE OF THE CONSTITUTION.
And that is what I love about America, the fact that it is built in the spirit of POLITICAL RISK AVOIDANCE.