By DEXTER DUGGAN
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The young Polish man said that people in his homeland, still struggling with the effects of being in a post-Communist society, “look at you like a weirdo” if you just try to talk to them on the street.
Adding that people in the United States are much more open, Krzysztof Moszynski told an evening gathering which applauded and laughed that he wants to “learn about this culture, then go back to Poland and spread it all over.”
Almost as if to confirm that anyone might be out and about here, none other than former California member of Congress Barry Goldwater Jr. walked into the March 27 fund-raiser in this Phoenix suburb for Project Arizona, a private, Europe-based initiative that brings other nations’ young citizens to the Grand Canyon State, to learn to advocate for constitutionalism, liberty, enterprise, and small government.
At an upscale apartment development’s clubhouse here, Project Arizona hosted an evening to chat for people interested in the program founded by Poland’s Jacek Spendel to inspire “freedom fighters” to return to their native lands with insights gained from three months here studying the U.S.’s successful founding ideals and practices.
The evening began with a buffet of student-prepared foods from their homelands of Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nepal. Goldwater, modestly mixing with others, put some of the victuals on a plate and sat down to listen to speakers.
Spendel had decided that Arizona’s image as a home to dynamism and self-confident individualism was the right setting for the program’s university classes, internships with liberty-minded organizations, field trips, and networking.
Goldwater, the son of the late Arizona U.S. senator and 1964 GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, struck out on his own, moving to California and being elected to seven consecutive terms, from 1969 through 1983, as a Republican congressman representing a district that included Burbank and Malibu.
He compiled a conservative, pro-life voting record, and later returned to take up residence in Arizona again.
The younger Goldwater, himself 80 years of age now and strongly resembling his father in appearance, seemed to enjoy recalling his political service as he chatted with The Wanderer. Asked where he had lived in the Los Angeles area, he replied Toluca Lake — which also was the home of famed comedian Bob Hope.
Goldwater said he got to know Project Arizona Director Spendel back when the younger man was himself an intern at the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute free-market think tank named for the late senator.
Project Arizona shows that “one person can make a big difference,” Goldwater said, adding, “I just want to see it expand. It’s a meaningful program.”
A piece of Project Arizona literature handed out at this event quoted the former congressman: “Ideas of freedom are particularly strong in the state of Arizona, and Project Arizona recognizes that. They are doing a great job in bringing these ideas back home” to their own countries.
Spendel told the evening’s gathering that Arizona “is the best place…to charge our batteries” for spreading the message of liberty and enterprise internationally.
This is the third year of Project Arizona bringing six young people here to study.
He said that when the program selects participants, “we look at different qualities. High intelligence. Perfect English is very important.” Also, he said, applicants need to show they’ve already participated in pro-freedom activity and aren’t simply looking for an opportunity to visit Arizona.
Jorge Galicia, a young attorney, told listeners that socialism in his native Venezuela has brought such a collapse that “people fight for food on a daily basis,” but there’s hope for freedom because of strong opposition arising among the people against the political dictatorship.
Asked by an audience member if older Venezuelans who remember pre-socialist times are listening to people like him, Galicia replied that they want to return to normal lives, not ones destroyed by government-caused hyperinflation. People “want to buy again, they want to save again.”
Andrea Hernandez, from Mexico City, told listeners that her studies here include working with Arizona Supreme Court Associate Justice Clint Bolick, who previously served at the Goldwater Institute.
She wants to go back to Mexico to implement what she’s learning, she said. “I’m real happy to be here.”
Moszynski, the Polish native, said he wants to learn more about the rules “that make people wealthy, that make people happy.”
Mariya Kapinos, from Ukraine, and Kaamala Neupane, from Nepal, both expressed their gratitude for being chosen to study here.
Spendel told listeners, “We will light the light of liberty in Venezuela, I hope very soon. . . . Arizona can be this beautiful example. . . . Keep it the torch of liberty. . . . Please work to keep Arizona the shining torch of liberty like it is right now. . . . I love this job and I love you guys. . . . Please celebrate liberty.”
Yury Terekhov, from Moscow, told The Wanderer that Russia’s “government is a police state. . . . Russia is more like a Mafia state,” with most newspapers being government-owned or government-affiliated, and only one television channel being free.
Terekhov said President Trump and the United States are “not the central topic of discussion in Russia,” but there’s no prominent anti-American spirit.
Expressing hope for a good relationship with the U.S., Terekhov dismissed the idea the Russian government worked to help Trump win the presidency.
He said he thought that Moscow expected Hillary Clinton to win in 2016. “I think it was a surprise for the Russian government” when Trump won.
“The idea they would help Trump — ridiculous,” Terekhov said concerning assertions about 2016 election “collusion.”
Two days earlier, at a separate event, four young U.S. Republican conservatives were on a panel at the Arizona Project Tea Party’s weekly meeting, in north Phoenix.
The Arizona Project’s name is a mirror image of the European-directed Project Arizona. They share similar goals of constitutionalism, liberty, and free enterprise.
Ron Ludders, chairman of the Arizona Project, told its March 25 meeting that the four millennial panelists were invited to explore whether different generations of Republicans are on the same page. “Are we speaking the same language . . . and working towards the same causes?”
The panelists seemed less concerned that punishment be meted out to those promoting Russian collusion tales that special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report had just said lacked proof.
Ludders asked, “Should there be punishment for this activity” against Trump?
Derrik Rochwalik, 26, chairman of Maricopa County Young Republicans, said, “I think, without a doubt, it was a waste of taxpayer dollars” that Mueller’s investigation proceeded.
Kenneth Klein, 23, a recent graduate of Arizona State University, who belonged to College Republicans his entire time there, said Mueller was a respected figure who “did his job well, and I think we’re all happy with the outcome.” Now, Klein said, Trump and Congress “need to move on.”
Ludders countered, “I think they should be punished. . . . That’s my opinion.”
Rochwalik replied, “If they’re an elected official, then they should be held responsible,” but that should happen at the ballot box. “Don’t waste more taxpayer dollars” pursuing a new investigation.
Lynndy Smith, 24, secretary of the Maricopa County Young Republicans, said there’s a need to get working on other issues, like border security.
Brandon Urness, with intern experience at the Arizona Supreme Court, who was about to depart for Ukraine to be an observer for the elections there, said that Trump has “total credibility today” due to Mueller’s report.
A distressed member of the audience spoke up to say the attempt to get Trump “was the greatest political scandal in the history of the republic. . . . Liars and traitors have to be put on trial. . . . This was Sedition-gate. . . . We’re turning into a banana republic.”
Klein replied that he agreed the attack against Trump was a great scandal, worse than Richard Nixon’s Watergate. “I’m not saying brush it under the rug and move on.” But “we cannot focus our entire energy on this issue” when there’s still no effective border wall, he said.
Ludders said the question is whether laws had been broken trying to get Trump. “I say they have . . . Sedition. . . . Taking action to bring down the government.”
Rochwalik said, “Our generation should be focusing on candidates, and rebuilding our bench” of people who can run for congressional seats.
“My biggest fear is that we spend eight years doing nothing, whereas (Barack) Obama spent eight years destroying the country,” Rochwalik said.
“She’s Nuts”
Smith said Democrats “have done a good job of painting Republicans as gun-toting racists” in young people’s minds. Smith said she attended Amherst College, in Massachusetts, “and I saw a whole different world back there.”
She later added that left-wing New York Democratic Cong. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually is good for the Republican Party because she’s so extreme. “This woman is all over the media, and she’s nuts. . . . She’s great for the Republican Party, in my opinion,” Smith said.
Congress isn’t running the country now, Rochwalik said, but the courts are. “Even when Republicans have a majority on both sides (of Congress), we don’t get anything done. . . .The Supreme Court basically gave themselves the ability to create law.”
On a different topic, Klein expressed empathy for immigrants but added, “I am very, very conservative. You have to wait your turn” to enter the U.S. legally. “These sob stories, these caravans who are infiltrating our border, this has to stop.”
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