Socialism: We all know it’s a bad thing – bad for the people, bad for the country, and just bad in general. And yet, it would seem that a whopping 100 members of the House of Representatives aren’t willing to condemn it.
We know this because a resolution was brought to the House Floor on Wednesday seeking to condemn the ideology of basic socialism as it has knowingly caused massive and untold amounts of destruction both throughout history and the world.
At the end of the vote, all 219 Republicans voted for the resolution, according to the Washington Examiner. As for the Democrats, 109 joined the Republicans. But 86 Democrats voted against the measure. And another 14 Dems couldn’t commit either way, simply voting “present” – a coward’s vote if you ask me.
Unsurprisingly, the idea was put forward by a GOP member. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida noted that socialism might seem great at times, but really, it’s all about power. And she herself has seen firsthand what that power does to the people.
Salazar’s parents are originally from Cuba, where socialist dictator Fidel Castro ruled the nation with an iron fist, causing many to flee.
Similarly, others in Congress have their own socialist horror stories.
Members like Young Kim from California. Kim spent some of her most formative years living in what is now South Korea during the aftermath of the Korean War. What she can describe of the loss, destruction, violence, and “evil” that her family went through under the early stages of the Kim dynasty can all be laid at the feet of socialism.
As she said, “Socialism divided my family and friends between North and South.”
As the Examiner reports, the resolution focuses on similar atrocities caused by socialism and historical figures who have perpetrated them. You know, people like Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks who ruled Soviet Russia, men like Mao Zedong of China, and leaders like Cambodia’s Pol Pot.
They are why this resolution exists and why it demands that socialism be condemned and never allowed to exist in the United States.
Of course, for those 86 Democrats who condemned the resolution and pretty much voted in favor of socialism, they don’t think this is what it’s really about.
Naturally, they think it’s all about them, as more than a few of these individuals have begun to label themselves as “democratic socialists.” Having a resolution that literally condemns their political views isn’t a good look for them or their caucuses. And so they’ve labeled the move as they would anything that goes against them, a ploy to push the GOP narrative.
As Democrat California Representative Maxine Waters says, this is just a way for them to begin making cuts to social assistance services such as Social Security and Medicare.
Nydia Velazquez of New York says this shouldn’t surprise anyone, as “Republicans have tried to label as socialist any Democratic actions that improve the lives of Americans.”
Of course, that’s not what the resolution is saying at all.
As North Carolina’s Patrick McHenry noted, there is nothing in the measure about cutting back social services or programs that help out the American people. Democrats who refuse to condemn socialism are essentially overthinking things and, as usual, making it all about themselves.
But that’s not what Republicans want out of this. Like the 109 Democrats who do agree with it, they understand that its resolution is and should be a simple yes or no to being in favor of socialism in its most basic form. Hell, the resolution doesn’t even begin to discuss the several different forms of socialism that exist.
Either you agree that ruling over the people for the sake of money and power is ok, or you don’t. And apparently, 100 members of our Congress say yes to that. At least we know who they are now.
