In this episode, I talk about the time I was arrested for hosting a right-wing political event in Hungary, and the experience I had with the police. I also tell the story of how I got into trouble with the authorities.
00:00:20.120Well, for hosting a right-wing identitarian event in Hungary.
00:00:26.880And I guess I should say I was in jail, technically, not prison, not that that matters, that I was not abused in prison or anything like that by the guards. They were all very nice. I actually have some funny stories to tell about this, but I'll just recount the story.
00:00:42.360So it was back in 2014. And with Arctos Publishing, we decided to collaborate on an event in Budapest. And it was in many ways inspired by Orban.
00:00:58.960There was also a party, a bit of a dubious party, if I'm being honest, called Jobbik that was sort of, at the time, Victor Orban's right-wing opposition, although, as I said, they were a bit dubious.
00:01:15.100But anyway, we were there. Guests included myself, Jared Taylor and Alexander Dugan. And it was it got on the front page of the paper and it was very it made a splash. And I remember.
00:01:34.520Did you play Heil Hitler by Kanye West?
00:01:36.380it had not been released yet um oh and and remember this was pre-trump so the a lot of
00:01:46.460everything was in a nascent fledgling stage at that point um but it the the idea was that
00:01:56.180these crazy there were multiple ideas it was like crazy russians because dugan was involved
00:02:02.940crazy racist americans and they're all working together to destroy hungary or something like
00:02:10.120this and victor orban ordered the nixing of the conference but he did this like a day or two days
00:02:19.600before so we just went anyway and we were being surveilled and we all met up on a friday before
00:02:27.240the event so the event location got canceled and all that kind of stuff we met up at a bar
00:02:32.180pub sort of place um before the event and we were obviously being surveilled because
00:02:39.020i'm not even i'm not exaggerating there were like 60 year old men with shaved heads and black
00:02:48.020leather trench coats like just hollywood casting for like communist or or or kremlin enforcer or
00:02:59.140something were outside of the pub and they locked us in the pub and they were questioning everyone0.52
00:03:05.760asking for papers and uh i said you know i'm the organizer and to the credit of the hungarians they
00:03:14.960decided to decapitate the event and uh and just arrest me and so i never i don't i guess i was
00:03:24.100never put on trial i was declared a national security threat so it was sort of done by
00:03:29.080diktat um i it was a hard thing to some degree i i didn't sleep for about a day and a half and
00:03:37.820uh i was thrown into you know rooms and wasn't i wasn't interrogated they never ask any questions
00:03:45.340uh but the police were sort of funny because i was being shuttled around different prisons and
00:03:52.160or jails i don't even know what was happening you never learn anything it is a bit Kafka-esque
00:03:57.660if i'm being honest like not knowing what they're doing with you they never asked me
00:04:01.760any questions um it was pretty pretty funny but uh at one point the police officers learned who i
00:04:11.280was so i saw one of them on on his phone and then he started passing his phone around and i think
00:04:18.640they thought that i was someone else and then they're like oh you know he is right-wing extremist
00:04:23.940like this and so while they were driving me to the prison there was a gypsy family on the side
00:04:30.140of the road. The police were like, we run her over for you. We run her over. I was like, wow,1.00
00:04:40.800this is, this is something. Um, but they didn't, it was a joke of course, but, um, I w I was put
00:04:50.100in prison for the weekend and people who were coming to the event, they sort of met up and,
00:04:54.700you know had lunch and toured hungry so no one was really disappointed it was it was pretty wild
00:05:01.680and um the prison was filled it was sort of like the last week of being in prison for people so
00:05:10.000uh everyone there they they were like drug runners or something i i don't know they all
00:05:16.180claimed innocence which i had never been to prison before it is funny everyone claims like oh i'm
00:05:21.280totally innocent you know i don't know what they're talking about um but they were bringing
00:05:25.800drugs in and they got caught at the border or whatever but everyone was ready to be released
00:05:30.700so there was no like fights i didn't have to join a prison gang or anything like that i basically
00:05:36.580just hung out for a little while but i i did get a little maybe ethno state in the hungarian prison
00:05:42.980it's true there are a lot of activists will get arrested um and then again they they came and got
00:05:51.700me and they're like all right you're you're going and i was like all right um and uh they
00:05:58.040took me to the airport and they put they they gave me the i guess it's called a perp march
00:06:04.640so i was there in a suit that i had been wearing in prisons so it was like dirty you know
00:06:12.800i i had i probably showered or something but i anyway i i was no doubt rough around the edges
00:06:20.860you know unkempt and i was i had handcuffs and they marched me through the airport and1.00
00:06:28.300that was something and i just want to say um every single woman was just hot and bothered
00:06:38.720I mean, every woman was like, who is this, like, international drug dealer?0.71
00:06:45.440You know, I got a lot of eye, you know, like, it was interesting.
00:06:55.180But they put me on a plane and then they just sent me to Paris, which is also kind of funny.
00:07:01.040So they just I was in Charles de Gaulle Airport in a few hours.
00:07:05.160And, you know, it's just a funny story. Now, to bring it back again, amusing anecdote, but to try to bring some meaning here to this, I have a sort of theory that Victor Orban's the lesson that he learned from that hilarious episode was if you can't beat them, join them or something like that.
00:07:30.000In the sense that there are all of these institutes that he has been founding in Hungary that are conservative institutes and actually have a strong whiff of Americanism.
00:07:45.520And this includes apparently funding CPAC events in Budapest.
00:07:50.360CPAC is a longtime American political action.