It's a troubling time to be an advocate of individual liberty.
A slate of political candidates, mostly but not exclusively in the New York metropolitan area, has been winning primary elections. These people call themselves "Democratic Socialists," borrowing the term from one of the most visible adherents to this nitwittery, the daffy old Bolshevik from Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Now, this very language - "Democratic Socialist - is an oxymoron. There's no such thing as a democratic socialist, no matter how often actual communist and socialist nations like North Korea throw around the terms "democratic" or "republic." Socialism, as properly defined, is inherently totalitarian. It always has been. It always will be. And socialism, at its heart, is defined as an economic system in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the government. Again, socialists and commies will complain that this means they are owned by "the people." Horse squeeze. When you own something, you have some say in how it is used. Citizens - excuse me, serfs, in a communist or socialist nation, have no say.
One of these New York commie candidates is a real piece of work. Darializa Avila Chevalier is now the Democrats' nominee for New York's 13th Congressional District, and since she is the nominee, in this district, it's a near-certainty that she will win that seat in November. The candidate, a protege of New York's commie Mayor Mamdani, has been busily cleaning up her social media profile in order to look more moderate. But the internet is forever.
Avila Chevalier, a sociology PhD student whose victory sent shockwaves throughout the Democratic establishment, has been under fire for a since-deleted Twitter account, previously reported by CNN, that included phrases such as “seize the means of production,” along with calls to abolish police, prisons and borders. Other controversial tweets include one that said Black and Arab men are both “Fetishizing ugly colonizer women” and another that described wiping her dirty hands on the American flag in lieu of a napkin.
As an undergraduate, Avila Chevalier attended Columbia University, where she organized with Students for Justice in Palestine, and after graduation became involved in pro-Palestinian campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza. She also attended a controversial October 8, 2023, pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square — one day after Hamas’ attack on Israel — that featured speeches and rhetoric praising the attack.
Yes, that's right; even CNN is calling her out. But among all that, one item really stands out: Seizing the means of production. What, ultimately, does that mean?
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Seizing the means of production, whether they admit to it or not, is the endgame here. It always was; that is, in reality, the actual definition of a socialist economy.
That means nationalizing every major industry. Now, some on the left will point to things like Social Security, the military, and even public transportation, and claim that's socialism. They may have a fraction of a point here, but Social Security and public transit do not produce anything; they are, like the military, funded as a distributed interest. This argument is a distraction, nothing more, and one that's been debunked many times.
Public services like roads and first responders take up only a fraction of a government’s budget, and they do not require the state to control an entire industry through a sprawling bureaucracy. Socialists, by contrast, preach single-payer healthcare, higher education, and housing as if they can be run without a private market. But the level of responsibility required to manage housing, education, and healthcare is exponentially greater than what is needed for police, fire, or roads. And that even ignores the government’s own half-measures on housing and its long track record running public education, neither of which has left many people praising how well government does the job.
No, what the "democratic socialists" will see at their ultimate goal is, as Avila Chevalier gave away in a moment of inadvertent honesty, is actually nationalizing major industries, from airlines to steelmaking. That means stealing them. That means taking them by force. The government can't buy them; there is no fair exchange for trillions of dollars of property, of capital equipment, of designs, of patented processes and equipment. No, these things will be taken by force.
That's the endgame.
This isn't the only outrage these people intend to levy on us. Socialism, communism, always arrive at the same end: Minimal freedom for the peasantry, maximum comfort and, yes, wealth to the rulers. Just look at any communist country, from the Soviet Union to Cuba to North Korea, and it's always the same. It's about taxing everything that moves, which is already happening in California. It's about "re-education" camps for anyone who dares speak in opposition; we see plenty of comments to that effect even in the American "mainstream" left.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton railed against supporters of former President Trump during a new CNN interview, comparing those who still support the former president after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to members of a cult.
“Maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members,” she said in a clip released late Thursday.
Reprogramming. That means a camp. That means a gulag. There's just no other way to interpret that. And when these people tell you what they want to do, you can take them at their word, because they mean it.
And, in the end, that's the real problem. We can vote our way into socialism. That's all too easy, as we have seen in these recent elections. It's getting back out of it again that's the hard part.
