Guest: Ovidiu Frusina was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1967 and grew up under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, in what was by the 1980s the hardest-line communist country in the Warsaw Pact. At 21 he was taken from work by the police and beaten for keeping in touch with a girlfriend who had defected to the United States; his university branded him a traitor in front of his classmates and a failing grade ended his path to engineering. He got a passport in the days after Ceausescu's execution, reached America in 1990, studied computer science at the University of St. Thomas and the University of Houston, ran his own consulting business and raised four children in Houston, Texas. His wife, the girl he wrote to, plays violin with the Houston Symphony. Key topics: • Why Romania was never part of the Soviet Union, and how a shoemaker with six years of school became its dictator• Four hours in line for bread, retirees up at 2 AM in a line of 500 for two pounds of meat, and hot water two hours a morning• Free education: the state decides it wants 60 doctors, 1,000 students compete, and the boys who lose go to the army• Free tuition, repaid with three years of assigned work in a village nobody wanted• Every engineer paid the same: why nobody worked harder, and why the factory bribed the man who counted the parts• Two million loaves of bread for Bucharest on paper, half that in the ovens• Free health care: no toilet paper, no pain medicine unless you paid the nurse, and a surgery that cost a month's salary• Taken from work at 21, slapped by a police captain, and told he knew what he had done• Stood up before 120 classmates and declared a traitor for writing to a girl who defected• How his wife and her sister, two of Romania's top violinists, reached Rice University on a tourist visa their parents bribed for• Priests turned informers, microphones in restaurant vases, and one informer apartment in every stairwell• Timisoara, December 1989: a revolution that started in a church, and a dictator executed on Christmas Day• The Kroger store he filmed for his mother, who never believed it was real• Mayor Mamdani's city-run grocery stores, answered by a man who watched Romania's state stores empty out• The $75,000 Dacia: eight years of saving, four years of waiting, and a left door that would not close• The one thing Americans must guard against right now, and what he would tell a 19-year-old today Timestamps: 00:00 — Cold open: Romania, the hardest-line communist state in the Warsaw Pact01:51 — Meet Ovidiu Frusina: born in Bucharest in 1967, and why Romania was never Soviet03:34 — A brutal dictator: how Ceausescu, a shoemaker, took power07:24 — A society with no street crime, because the police were everywhere10:03 — The uniform number, four hours in line for bread, and retirees at 2 AM for meat13:29 — Free education: the exam at 14, the state's quota of doctors, and the army for the boys who lose17:32 — You do not pay for university; you repay it with three years in a village19:15 — Every engineer paid the same: why would anyone work harder?20:59 — A thousand parts with no materials, and the bribe for the man who counts them25:17 — Free health care: no toilet paper, $10 at the door, lunch for every nurse29:50 — His own appendicitis at 21, and the free surgery that cost a month's pay31:44 — Four hours for bread: why young Americans have no idea32:43 — Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, China; and why France and Denmark are not the answer39:19 — Asking questions in Ceausescu's Romania: the pressure on a whole family39:43 — Taken from work at 21 and slapped by a police captain42:27 — "He is a traitor": stood up before 120 classmates; the failing grade44:25 — The regime goes after his mother's job and his brother46:12 — How his wife and her sister, two violinists, reached Rice University51:02 — America at 23: a Social Security card, two universities, and why church is hard54:46 — Microphones in the restaurant vase, an informer in every stairwell59:27 — December 1989: Timisoara, the coup, and Ceausescu executed on Christmas Day01:02:54 — Three days in the passport line; the visa the American embassy refused01:03:53 — The Kroger store he filmed for his mother in Romania01:04:49 — Mayor Mamdani's grocery stores: government has no money, it takes yours01:08:41 — Who sets the price: materials, labor and profit, or the state01:09:51 — The $75,000 Dacia: eight years of saving, four years of waiting01:12:39 — Jeff Bezos, envy, and the kids who want free stuff01:13:25 — The one thing to guard against: the ideology itself01:15:01 — What he would tell the 19-year-old he was, and a 19-year-old in America today01:23:01 — Close: share this episode, vote for liberty this November, iwillsaveamerica.com Links mentioned: iwillsaveamerica.comjennybethshow.comteapartypatriots.org
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