The horrors of socialism shouldn’t be difficult to condemn. Earlier this month, in fact, a resolution doing just that passed overwhelmingly with 328 votes by Members of Congress.
Every Republican supported the resolution and over 100 Democratic members supported the resolution too. Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Hakeem Jeffries, and Ro Khanna – not exactly blue dogs.
The resolution included statements like: “socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide;” “tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution, at least 10,000,000 people were sent to the gulags in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and millions more starved in the Terror-Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine;” and the USA “was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed.”
As the OC Register reported, the resolution also quotes Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to underscore the idea that socialist policies are fundamentally inconsistent with the sort of nation America is supposed to be.
Who could object?
Our local Congresswoman Katie Porter did. Why? She claimed that the resolution was a “distraction” and “hypocritically uplifted what President Jefferson, a slaveowner, had to say about freedom, during Black History Month.
[Editor’s note: Porter was the only member of the Orange County congressional delegation to oppose the resolution condemning the horrors of socialism.]
So, she would have voted for the resolution if it had been held in January? Or March? Or if a quote had been removed? Of course not, it’s sophistry.
But what’s pretty entertaining is the claim that her fellow Democrats were voting to “uplift” a “slaveowner.” That might be news to Pelosi, et al.
You know who loves Porter’s stance? An actual Democratic Socialist serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors named Dean Preston (of course San Francisco has a socialist Supervisor). Preston has introduced his own resolution to condemn Congress’s vote.
With half a dozen people running to replace Porter, I wonder how they would have voted. Perhaps we should ask them….
Will O’Neill is serving his second term representing District 7 on the Newport Beach City Council.
