Tag: socialism

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ideological culture too much government

Memo to Mamdani Voters

Zohran Mamdani, New York City, socialism, communism

New York City is expensive. Housing is expensive, often prohibitively so. The city has crime problems. Other problems.

Answers: Unshackle the housing market? Slash regulations and taxes? Make it easier to catch and punish bad guys? No. Prevent builders from supplying more and cheaper housing. Further hobble the police. Etc. Pro-Hamas socialist Zohran Mamdani has a slew of such pseudo-solutions. 

And has a large following.

In New York’s mayoral race, decided Tuesday, the Republican candidate was excluded by the city’s heavily Democratic tilt. The incumbent mayor was also nonviable. Scandal-plagued former Governor Cuomo was the main alternative to a reputedly charming Mamdani now claiming a mandate to rob the rich.

Song Ying is a 72-year-old New Yorker who escaped the Chinese communists in 1976. She “swam for eight hours from Shenzhen, then a small fishing village, to Hong Kong,” explains  The New York Times in a report on the growing generational divide among Chinese immigrants regarding the prospect of a socialist city. Song is dismayed by the strong support among young New Yorkers for Mamdani. She says — and knows — that socialism doesn’t work.

The Times belittles her concerns, stressing that Mao’s China is not the vision that Mamdani is selling. Yet upon winning, the mayor-elect asserted that his administration would prove that “no problem [is] too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.” Sounds like a government without limits.

Mamdani will not fix things. He offers as solutions more of the policies that caused current problems: more regulations; more taxes; more spending; more government in power and scope.

If a boulder is tumbling right toward you, demanding more and heavier boulders won’t stop you from being crushed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly too much government

How Socialists Learn

Zohran Mamdani, New York City, socialism, communism

Not all socialists in mayoral runs won on Tuesday.

Sure, socialist/communist Zohran Mamdani is now Mayor Elect of New York, but Omar Fateh lost to the incumbent mayor of Minneapolis on a second counting of the city’s ranked choice vote system. The latter is a victory for old-fashioned city politics, but what is the former?

Mamdani obviously wants to take from the rich and give to the poor, with a lot of government workers shuffling the money in between rich benefactors and poor dependents. Running grocery stores, of all things: Mamdani seeks to bring the efficiency of the DMV to the food industry. 

But just how much harm can he do? 

He still has to balance city budgets, and if he wants to spend billions, he has to “raise” billions in revenue. He cannot simply spend money he’s created — Mamdani doesn’t control the money supply. After all, socialism doesn’t create wealth ex nihilo.

Further, he will face opposition on his many pipe dreams. Since he has almost no work experience, and none managing anything, he may also prove to be way over his head.

Worst case? If he pushes his dream earnestly and effectually in the Big Apple, the rich and industrious will flee. (A possibility so likely that it is worth stating multiple times: when fools vote socialist, the wise vote with their feet.) Mamdani may usher in Atlas Shrugged faster than any pro-capitalist political party ever could.

Which, though disastrous for the poor, might prove educational.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Escape from New York

New York City, Zohran Mamdani, socialism, business, middle class

People in New York City with any money and property are unhappy about the prospect of a communist mayor. They apparently see the potential of the government taking much more of their money less a politician’s promise and more a revolutionary threat.

While Zohran Mamdani might lose, it’s not looking that way. (Note the standing of his chief competitor.) Therefore, many homeowners are fleeing, without waiting for Election Day.

One destination is next-door Connecticut, site of a failed revolt in 1991 against the enactment of a state income tax. New Yorkers reasonably suppose that the taxes imposed by a Mayor Mamdani would prove worse than that — and worse than New Yorkers’ already-heavy tax burden.

Escapees are also worried about crime.

Mamdani could do much unilaterally but would need the cooperation of the state legislature and governor or the city council to impose the tax hikes he’s dreaming about. Still, these entities hardly serve as bulwarks of limited government.

We know that New Yorkers are lurching to Connecticut because, as the New York Post reports, a “bidding war frenzy and soaring prices” have hit the state’s housing market.

According to real-estate agents there, the frenzy resembles that of early pandemic times. Properties are being scooped up within days. Deals are cash on the barrelhead, even for multi-million-dollar homes. Sale prices are much higher than expected.

And the bidders are coming “out of New York City,” the agents say. Prospective buyers have been “mentioning concerns about the mayoral election. . . .”

Good news, for a while, for Connecticut home sellers and their real-estate agents. Bad news for everybody else, soon enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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budgets & spending cuts ideological culture national politics & policies

Pleistocene Politics

socialism, resolve, soldiers, America, freedom

Back in the Eocene — I mean the 1990s — Senator Chuck Schumer and President Bill Clinton and most other Democrats insisted that “healthcare” benefits not be distributed to “those who’ve entered the country illegally.” Now, the party is united behind the opposite notion, in which benefits — paid for by resident taxpayers — must be delivered generously to all comers. 

This was most clearly demonstrated in 2019, during one of those huge panels of presidential hopefuls on the Democratic side, all raising their hands on whether they supported giving tax-funded medical assistance to illegal aliens. 

Yesterday I quoted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on how Democrats want to “save people.” 

What I didn’t quote was the question she was asked — “Do Democrats want to prioritize the healthcare for illegal aliens over a government shutdown?” — or how she initially responded: “Excuse me; stop it right there. We’re not prioritizing; what we’re doing is saying, simply, we wanna keep the government open and we wanna work with the Republicans and have a bipartisan agreement to keep this government open and healthcare is at the top of our agenda.”

Whew. While denying she’s prioritizing what’s at “the top” of her “agenda” — what prioritization means — her desire for a “bipartisan agreement” is just as fake, for what she and her fellow Democrats demand is that the Republicans completely agree with their most extreme agendum: subsidized medical assistance for all comers.

 That’s not “bipartisan.” There’s no compromise. It’s a tactic of intransigence.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote about this in terms of an “intransigent minority rule,” positing that in complex systems — such as societies, markets, or Congress — a small, highly committed minority (as little as 3-4 percent) can impose its preferences on a flexible majority due to an asymmetry of choice.

Meaning that the opponents of “limitless” subsidies (socialism) must become intransigent themselves to win.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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subsidy too much government

Free Transit Isn’t Free

Mamdani, New York City, homeless, socialism, communism

If Zohran Mamdani, the Big Apple’s openly democratic-socialist, covertly communist mayoral candidate makes it into Gracie Mansion, he will try to enact many plans to improve — i.e., worsen — things.

The candidate wants to increase taxes and government spending, reduce freedom and individual responsibility. The standard Democratic agenda, but foisted bigger and faster.

One announced plan is to scrap mass transit fees.

Taxpayers would then suffer new costs. But so would riders who travel “free.” Greater crowding is one. Another is the kind of people who would be more often riding, no longer discouraged by having to pay fares or having to risk arrest for jumping a turnstile. Riders would be plagued by more bums and more criminals.

Beggars already being a common sight on NYC subways, it’s easy to project that ending financial and physical barriers to entry would only encourage more. Criminals would also be encouraged.

We might consider what happened elsewhere when this has been tried. Kansas City, Boston, Philadelphia — a “scientific socialist” would insist on a thorough study of all those cases, but Mamdani’s merely mentioned Bogotá’s, and is not pushing a study, maybe because he’s seen the mess Albuquerque’s in, after eliminating its one-dollar bus fare in 2023. Buses were soon being used as “rolling homeless shelters.” Local media also reported that they were “being used as getaway vehicles for shoplifters. . . .  The addition of security guards on buses has undoubtedly caused criminals to think twice, but it has not solved the problem.”

The author of these words, Paul Gessing, is hoping that recounting Albuquerque’s experience will convince Mamdani to scrap his free-transit proposal. Should Mamdani become mayor, he may eventually be forced do so, but probably only after first making everybody suffer.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people national politics & policies subsidy

Propaganda Shoved Where?

PBS, NPR, public broadcasting, socialism, Democratic Party, propaganda, censorship

The continued existence of “public radio” and “public television” is out of place in these United States. Not because it’s partisan — all news vendors tend to toe some partisan line — but because it’s partisan and taxpayer subsidized.

Though NPR aficionados tend to downplay the subsidies to NPR and PBS, what public media boosters have more consistently done is deny the partisanship. 

They have no standing any longer — if the evidence of our senses weren’t enough. 

In “The Bell Finally Tolls for National Public Radio,” Matt Taibbi explains how the media behemoth’s CEO Katherine Maher admitted NPR’s and PBS’s partisanship in her defense of it.

That won’t help her case in Congress, though, notes Mr. Taibbi. 

While the New York Times insists that tax-funded “public” media “improves the lives of millions of Americans” and “strengthens American interests” (presumably by being relentlessly progressive), it has no defense to Taibbi’s indictment: the branches of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have taken “the country’s signature public news shows into an endless partisan therapy session, a Nine Perfect Strangers retreat for high-income audiences micro-dosing on Marx and Kendi.”

Taibbi makes clear just how annoying the dish served by CPB/NPR/PBS is, the entities seeing no “problem with taking funds from a huge plurality or even a majority of citizens and pursuing a nakedly politicized, ear-splitting propaganda project in opposition to the views of those people. NPR is the vegetables we refuse to eat, administered up a different entrance for our own good.”

I was thinking about the blight upon our eyes and ears and reason, but point taken.

De-fund National Public Propaganda immediately.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Bad, Worse & Communist

Zohran Mamdani, New York City, corruption, socialism, communism

After four recent commentaries showing, without hyperbole, that Democratic Party mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is a flat-out seize-the-means-of-production communist, you might wonder why anyone could possibly vote for him. 

Well, elections are a choice. And New Yorkers have a plethora of lousy choices — especially the best-known politicians running against Mamdani. 

Take former Governor Andrew Cuomo — puh-leez! He finished second to Mamdani in last month’s Democratic mayoral primary but has vowed to stay in the race on the ballot line of his recently formed Fight & Deliver Party.

The key reason for Mamdani’s victory? Voter revulsion with Mr. Cuomo. After serving ten years as governor and announcing he would seek a fourth four-year term, Cuomo was rocked by sexual harassment allegations (including “attempts to silence victims”). Facing “almost certain removal from office” by the state legislature, he resigned in 2021. 

“To Mr. Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace,” responded Mamdani to Cuomo in a televised debate. “I have never cut Medicaid. I have never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority]. I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment. I have never sued for their gynecological records. And I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo.” 

Mamdani’s other major opponent is the incumbent, Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last year on five felony counts, including conspiracy to receive campaign contributions from foreign nationals, soliciting and accepting a bribe, and wire fraud. Though Trump’s Department of Justice dropped the prosecution, or maybe partly because of that, Adams is a pariah among the city’s supermajority of Democratic voters.

The problem is staring us in the face: When the choice is between communism and corruption, communism stands a better chance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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public opinion too much government

Vote Communist!

communism, communist, socialism, New York City

The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived!

Maybe, just sometimes, we let fools dig themselves deeper into their folly.

Take New Yorkers. The city’s government has been dysfunctional for ages. But now it’s potentially taking the starkest left turn yet, towards . . . communism.

Mayoral candidate Rep. Zorhan Mamdani may call himself a “democratic socialist” and quote Martin Luther King piously, but he also admits that seizing the means of production is the ultimate goal . . . just not politically acceptable. 

Yet.

That’s communism. Will New Yorkers vote for a commie?

Maybe running under the Democratic banner is cover enough for many voters. Seems safe. Seeking to help “the poor” by attacking “the rich” and “the whites” (as I wrote last Monday) is certainly not unfamiliar.

And neither is his reaction to rising food prices: blame something called “capitalism.” 

Then set up government-run grocery stores!

While our first instinct is to oppose him with everything we’ve got, comedian Steven Crowder counsels otherwise. “Maybe he’s exactly what New York City deserves,” says Crowder. Let Mamdani make New York an object lesson in what not to do. 

New Yorkers can vote in this “teachable moment” for the whole nation: pop the corn and watch the Big Apple rot under Mamdani — with food cheaper everywhere else, under Trump.

Or so Crowder argues.

Embrace the old motto, “mundus vult decipi” (the world wants to be deceived), and let one city run further down the length of rope . . . until they’ve done enough damage.

To learn. Finally.

If one city wants communism, let it have it. 

Good and hard.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Previously on This Is Common Sense:

July 3 — The Big Decommodification — a communist housing plan for socialist NYC.
July 1 — If Mamdani Wins — the likely results of electing a socialist mayor.
June 30 — Socialist Intifada — the problematic philosophy of NYC’s political phenom.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture property rights too much government

The Big Decommodification

Mamdani, New York City, public housing, socialism, communism

Tired of that rundown shack you live in — for which each month you must cough up the rent money or a mortgage payment? No doubt, you’re chomping at the bit for the chance to move into clean, spectacular, state-of-the-art government housing.

Well, you’re in luck! That is, if you live in New York City.

You see, on Tuesday evening, Sean Hannity informed his Fox News audience that Zohran Mamdani, the Democrats’ mayoral nominee, has a “plan to slowly eliminate home ownership in New York City.”

“If we want to end the housing crisis, the solution has to be moving toward the full decommodification of housing,” Mamdani declares in a 2021 video for the Gravel Institute. “In other words, moving away from the status quo, in which most people access housing by purchasing it on the market.”

He says, “We’ll have to go beyond the market.”

That “has to be” the solution? Why? Because Mamdani’s socialist/communist dogma dictates that government should be the provider of all shelter? The “decommodification” must be “full” and complete. No private home can be permitted to be bought or sold . . . or lived in anymore.

Surely that would solve our problems.

The democratic socialist suggests that the government “gradually buy up housing on the private market and convert it to community ownership,” urging the city to “fully commit to a new era of social housing . . . using our wealth to build beautiful, high-quality social housing projects that offer good homes and strong communities to everyone.”

Yes, taxpayers, get ready to invest in the sparkling future of public housing. Cabrini-Green here we all come! 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture

If Mamdani Wins

New York City, socialism, communism, authoritarianism

The civil war between sane New Yorkers and the other kind has reached its next phase. 

The victory of Zohran Mamdani in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary has some high-profile Democrats, like Sen. John Fetterman, expressing chagrin over the success of this openly commie slash-and-burn, soak-the-(white)-rich, pro-Hamas guy. Others, like former President Bill Clinton, who once posed as a moderate, are cheering him on.

Mamdani is also anti-policing. He has said: “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD . . . NO to fake cuts — defund the police.”

Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels and former and current GOP nominee for NYC mayor, says that Mamdani “has a weird notion of how policing is, as if it should be people like Mahatma Gandhi walking around, you know, functioning as a social worker. That does not work.”

Some police officers say they’ll quit if someone so openly hostile to law and order — not to abuse of police power, but to reasonable policing when it’s obviously necessary — also wins the general election and becomes the next mayor. 

Top brass fear an exodus.

But would only police officers quit? Everyone in NYC who prefers civilization to annihilation should then quit. 

And it would be natural for many of the more successful New Yorkers to leave if Mamdani gets in on the strength of the NYC’s apparently huge and growing ressentiment vote and starts robbing and pillaging in earnest.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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