On Tuesday, Democrats celebrated the victories of women in primaries across the state of Pennsylvania. Four such left-wing women reveal just how far that party has gone into the anti-freedom spiral of trusting big government to solve every problem.
The Democratic Socialists of America only backed four candidates for the Pennsylvania House, and all four of them press for ballooning government in many sectors of life, in the name of equality. Worse, three of them do not even have a Republican challenger in November.
A Wake-Up Call for Dems? 4 Women Running on Socialist Platforms Unseat Male Incumbents in PA Primary https://t.co/l3E1SmpQ4f pic.twitter.com/5QKnvLvUgJ
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) May 16, 2018
Sara Innamorato defeated five-term incumbent Dominic Costa in the 21st State House District, and she is running unopposed by a Republican. She supports universal single-payer health care, housing as a “human right,” a $15/hour minimum wage, and government-funded abortion.
Summer Lee defeated incumbent Paul Costa in the 34th District, and she also faces no opposition in November. After graduating law school, Lee became a field organizer for the Democratic Party. She supports universal single-payer health care, government-funded education from pre-K through college, a $15/hour minimum wage, a “millionaire’s tax,” a moratorium on fracking, and government-enforced 100 percent renewable energy.
Elizabeth Fiedler won an open primary for the 184th District and also faces no Republican opposition in November. She supports universal single-payer health care, government-funded education from pre-K to college, a moratorium on new charter schools, a $15/hour minimum wage, and a small-donor matching system which forces tax dollars to support political candidates (surely, government can be trusted to fund every candidate equally, right?).
Alone among these Democratic Socialist candidates, Kristin Seale faces a Republican for the 168th District in November. That Republican, Christopher Quinn, won in 2016 with 56 percent of the vote. Seale identifies as “queer” and supports universal single-payer health care, government-funded college for all, a $15/hour minimum wage, and gun control.
These candidates echo Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the self-identified socialist who lost the Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton in 2016 (although there is strong evidence that contest was “rigged” against him). Sanders may have lost the nomination, but his far-left ideology seems to have captured more and more of the party.
The Democratic Socialists even aim to “restructure gender and cultural relationships,” ostensibly through the power of the state. This cultural Marxism, using government to redefine the backbone of society, is the ultimate Big Brother tactic, and LGBT activists have shown they brook no dissent.
Innamorato, Lee, Fiedler, and Seale earned the endorsement of the Democratic Socialists because of their Big Brother policies. They want government to completely take over health care and education, and to eliminate employment for anyone whose work is worth less than $15/hour. Some of them want tax dollars to go directly to subsidize abortions and some political candidates, and nearly all of them support increasing taxes, especially for top earners.
Free market economist Ludwig Von Mises argued that socialism and anti-liberty views trace back to a “pathological mental attitude” born of resentment and “envious malevolence.”
“Resentment is at work when one so hates somebody for his more favorable circumstances that one is prepared to bear heavy losses if only the hated one might also come to harm,” Mises explained. “Many of those who attack capitalism know very well that their situation under any other economic system will be less favorable. Nevertheless, with full knowledge of this fact, they advocate a reform, e.g., socialism, because they hope that the rich, whom they envy, will also suffer under it.”
Socialists value equality over liberty, but it is not the equality of lifting the poor up to the level of the wealthy, but the kind of leveling that brings everyone down. As Mises noted, “Time and again one hears socialists say that even material want will be easier to bear in a socialist society because people will realize that no one is better off than his neighbor.”
Innamorato, Lee, Fiedler, and Seale describe themselves as “progressives,” but they truly advocate a regression. The birth of modern democracy and the unprecedented wealth of free market capitalism represented a defeat of the overbearing leviathan of the state. A large and overbearing government is the norm, not the aberration, in world history.
Even many who live below the poverty line in America today enjoy a level of knowledge and prosperity unimaginable to their ancestors even two hundred years ago. Running water, electricity, heating and cooling systems, refrigerators and microwaves, washers and smartphones define a standard of living enabled by free markets — the competition of businesses in a market limited by a consumer’s ability to expect and demand amazing products. This is a new and fragile state, and overburdening government represents a risk to it.
Furthermore, the oppressive Communist regimes of Soviet Russia, Maoist China, and Khmer Rouge Cambodia stand as an eternal testament to the terrifying destruction of leveling equality. Venezuela today represents the tragic destructive force of socialism, and it is destabilizing South America. (Venezuela’s socialist president endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016.)
The Democratic Socialists who won on Tuesday are not Soviets, Maoists, or the Khmer Rouge, but they are making the same mistake the early advocates of Communism did. Government is a flawed human institution, good at achieving a few things but not to be trusted with complete power over society. A government monopoly on health care, education, and employment is still a monopoly.
Even so, the Democratic Socialists of America have ballooned after the 2016 election. By the end of 2017, the group’s membership had risen from just over 6,000 to over 32,000 — with a large influx of young people. As of April 2018, membership stood at 37,000, and the number of local chapters increased from 40 to 181. Last November, 15 candidates who were DSA members won election in 13 states. There are 35 avowedly Democratic Socialist legislators across the country.
While the socialists who just won in Pennsylvania represent local districts in the state House, they demonstrate that a young crop of far-left Democrats are rising across the country. These victories, small as they are, form a launching pad for radical socialists to represent one of America’s two parties, and push their agenda ultimately into the U.S. Congress and perhaps to the presidency.
One might expect members of the #Resistance, who take to the streets in protest of the “fascist” President Donald Trump, to realize the virtues of limited government. Unfettered government power means that when their side loses an election, people they may not trust will suddenly exercise the very power they worked so hard to construct.
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