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Seattle City Council Member Demands Socialist Society
“We are preparing the ground for a different kind of society… We are coming to dismantle racist, sexist, violent, utterly bankrupt system of capitalism, this police state. We cannot, and will not, stop until we overthrow it and replace it with a world based instead on solidarity, genuine democracy, and equality – a socialist world.” — Kshama Sawant
Sawant’s list of grievances — bankruptcy, racism, sexism, violence, and a police state — are all products of government, not of capitalism. Our government is not only bankrupt but, by some estimates, has well over $100 trillion in “unfunded liabilities” (i.e., debt).
Slavery and the Jim Crow laws could not have existed without government. Slave owners were able to socialize the costs of suppressing slave revolts and of recapturing runaway slaves by conscripting Southern men into militias and slave patrols. With the Fugitive Slave Acts, they were also able to conscript Northerners in their slave patrols as well. People who refused were subject to large fines and prison. So much for the South’s commitment to “states’ rights.”
Private bus and trolley companies in the South fought against Jim Crow laws requiring African Americans to sit in the back of vehicles. Presumably, the company owners were no less bigoted than was the “average” Southern white at the time. However, the laws cost them money. First, because they alienated black customers, and second because they meant that more seats were left empty than they would otherwise have been. If, for example, all the “black” seats were full, no more black passengers could get on the bus even if there were “white” seats available. Similarly, if all the “white” seats were full, no white person could (or, maybe, would) get on even if there were “black” seats available.
Women were denied equal rights and the vote by law, not by capitalists.
Government-condoned violence was common in the Jim Crow south, where police officers were, not uncommonly, also members of the KKK. Paternalistic government programs and policies generated more violence with welfare laws that encouraged family break up, bad public schools that failed to teach inner-city children the basics, minimum wage laws that denied young minority men and women employment opportunities, and a war on drugs that created jobs in illegal markets — jobs that often lead to death or imprisonment.
The police state of which Sawant complains is a product of an explosion of laws, revenue-hungry cities that use their police forces as profit centers, and the federal government’s War on Drugs.
Her solution to all these government-caused problems? More government. More laws, more regulations, more central control, more policing, mandated and enforced “solidarity,” and equality imposed at the point of a bayonet.
Published in General
The source of America’s worst disgraces – slavery, the mistreatment of Native Americans, Jim Crow, eugenics – was not difference of opinion, race, sex, class, talent, wealth, or religion. Rather, it was that people divided along such lines were able to subvert government’s coercive power to advance their own ideas and interests through force.
What a piece of work she is. There are some on the Left for which the idea of Revolution whatever form that may take and whatever the result might be is the end all and be all. She’s one of those. She lives in a fantasy world into which reality and facts can never enter.
Government should be smaller, but it should be the councilwoman’s pet projects, not the police.
“Politics consists of the power to prohibit, obstruct, and expropriate. Its field is marginal; but for this reason it always tends to encroach on the primary field of freedom, in such manner that the producer may be compelled to obtain permission before he can get to work. Where permission is required, or expropriation possible, a consideration may be extorted. Does the element of corruption inhere in business or in politics?”
― Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine
Sawant is the gem that is so far off the rails that Mayor Durkan is actively and publicly seeking her removal from the council. Of course, Durkan only started down that road after Sawant led CHAZ/CHOP rioters to her home. As an ex-US Attorney under Obama, Durkan rightly guards her address to avoid reprisals. And that address is…never mind. 😇
When I saw the post title, I knew it would be her. Does she not realize that a real police state happens only when Leftism is taken to its logical conclusion? Actually she probably does. And she thinks it won’t affect her because she intends to be in the Inner Circle.
And my college football eligibility is still intact.
What kind of person sics a mob on someone? Probably not the kind for whom “socialism” means Scandinavian-style social democracy.
Well, traditional Scandinavia roamed in longships looting and killing and raping monks. So maybe.
Ah, she’s a traditionalist. Well then, that’s okay, I guess. Just as long as she’s a conservative.
If only my knees were still intact.
Knees? knees? You still have knees? Luxury!
It is sometimes said that Leftists believe Conservatives are evil, but Conservatives believe Leftists are merely uninformed (ignorant), not evil.
I try not to assume evil intent when ignorance might just as well explain a Leftist’s position. But statements as Ms. Sawant’s really challenge that. It is so completely obvious that a massive police state would be required to realize her vision of perfect equality by suppressing or compensating for natural differences among individuals in physical size, strength, athletic capability, mental capability, mental agility, artistic ability, manual dexterity, etc. that it is hard to believe that it isn’t her actual intent to oppress her fellow humans. And yes, to be utterly convinced that in the coming oppression she will be in the privileged Inner Circle that is elevated above the equality of the masses.
Not to quibble, but Conservatives know everyone is evil and find it an absolute hoot that Leftists think they are not. She who says she is without sin is a liar, and the truth is not in her.
I think that you have to pronounce it “lookszhury” to get the fully Monty Python Yorkshire experience.
I am writing for Ricochet, obviously the subtext is not missed.
Good point.
Ignorance is addressable, but we can’t rule out stupid.
If Sawant really did direct the mob to the Mayor’s home, then evil is still a strong candidate.
Socialism depends upon a cow that can be milked forever. It collapses when the cow either dies or bolts.
Welcome to Venezuela.
Sawant is an example of an immigrant from an impoverished hellhole who comes here and proceeds to try to turn us into what she left behind.
Yeah. I know a New Yorker from church.
Kshama – purchase a one-way ticket to China or Russia. We’re good here.
In fact, let’s take up a collection!
Better yet, since she’s from India, let’s send her back there. After all, it’s an up-and-coming nation that thisclose to 1st world status (with the help of ever-admirable Silicon Valley), and they’ve done their fair share of de-emphasizing their British colonial days.
Evergreen:
Please allow all of Seattle to become a separate nation.
Seriously. If she’s naturalized she can have her citizenship revoked and be deported. (How’s that for cancel culture?) And the same for Ilhan Omar.
That woman is nuts. Even the people in Seattle think she’s nuts, and that’s sayin’ something!