[The European Conservative] Shining Cities and Sovereign Nations

This year’s CPAC Hungary will showcase the country’s promise as a testing ground of conservative policies.

At only 38 years of age, donning a Mitteleuropean moustache, a pair of bright-colored socks, newsman suspenders, and a gallant waistcoat, Miklós Szánthó has mastered the art of the Reaganite schtick. Speaking to an exuberant crowd at this March’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington D.C., the legal analyst and executive director of the Budapest-based Center for Fundamental Rights (CFR) pitched his native country as the new Mecca of conservative thought and activism. He did it with a storied phrase the audience immediately cheered to. “When it comes to conservative governance,” intoned Szánthó, “Hungary is the shining city on a hill.” He went on about Hungary’s 2011 constitution approved a year after Viktor Orbán took office in his second stint as prime minister: “Our fundamental law protects our Judeo-Christian heritage, our national identity, our state sovereignty, and the family as the fundamental unit of society.”

Continue reading the entire piece at The European Conservative here.