It was a real loss to me when Mr. Vazsonyi passed away. I had just started paying attention to his columns a couple years or so prior.

One that really got me was his account of the cancellation of his apartment’s Christmas party in favor of a ‘holiday’ party, thanks to anonymous complainer.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/596679/posts

A read through that article will make clear how Mr. Vazsonyi’s works were very helpful in leading me to the VFR zone, and I’m grateful to him for taking this kind of stand.

Joel wrote something with which I couldn’t agree more:

“It was a real loss to me when Mr. Vazsonyi passed away. I had just started paying attention to his columns a couple years or so prior.”

I was very glad to see this blog entry which talks about the ideas of the late Balint Vazsonyi, a great American and wonderful writer, thinker, and columnist and absolutely one of the major voices in non-left-wing U.S. punditry, though I don’t know that he got the full measure of recognition he deserved in this regard, perhaps because he came to punditry late in life, after retiring from a career in classical music. The quality he gave us as a political commentator more than made up for the briefness of the span available to him for that second career — way, way more than made up for it!

I loved the man and every word he wrote. Learning of his passing was a heartfelt sadness to me. 

I used to read his pieces regularly at NewsMax.com.  As with Alexis de Toqueville, Vazsonyi’s precious value as a commentator flowed partly from being able to describe America from the point of view of someone approaching it from the outside.  In his case, “the outside” was two-fold:  Hungary, a foreign country, and Communism, a wholly alien economic and social system.  This two-fold outsider perspective of his, combined with his intelligence, his ample knowledge of history and sure sense of late-twentieth-century Euro-American politics, and a certain kind of warm, optimistic gentlemanliness which shone through all his writings and charmed the reader, made him one of the absolute best political and social commentators, always thoroughly a delight to read. 

I was very sorry indeed when I learned of the passing of this great, truly good, patriotic American, one of the sincerest friends this country ever had. He taught us so much about what we as Americans ought to be thankful for.

These Four Principles of America which he enunciated show what a major thinker he was in regard to the deep political and social foundations of nations and how those both reflect and influence the systems their people live under.

Had this man not devoted his life to his (extremely successful) career as a world-renowned concert pianist, he had the potential, I believe, to be an academic political scientist of the first rank.

He was granted too short a time, after retiring from his music career, to be with us, instructing us with his wisdom, cheering us with his optimism, fortifying strength, and setting us a high example with his simple goodness.

“fortifying us with his strength,” that last line should have read.