Is 'Socialism' No Longer a Dirty Word?

(Editor's Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party, or candidate, on the part of Newsmax.) 

Who could possibly have imagined a decade ago that half of American citizens would consider electing a federal government headed by socialists?

Whereas Vice President Kamala Harris doesn't use the word, she has nevertheless consistently supported policies that are far to the left of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who for decades has described himself as a democratic socialist.

Leaving no doubt whatsoever, presidential candidate Harris picked a running mate who makes no bones about his Marxist ideology, having said during an August "White Dudes for Harris" Zoom call that "one person's socialism is another person's neighborliness."

But, no, socialism isn't a benign system where neighbors freely help neighbors.

Socialism is something very different from that. 

Marxist Equity Versus Equality

Harris pushed an "equity" over "equality" message during her first 2020 bid for the presidency when she posted an animated video unsuccessfully trying to explain the difference between equality of opportunity and equity of outcomes.

Harris, who narrates the video, says, "Equality suggests, 'Oh, everyone should get the same amount.' The problem with that is not everyone is starting out at the same place."

This view represents a huge departure from bedrock principles enunciated in America's Declaration of Independence: ''We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.''

'You Didn't Build That'

Although suggesting that former President Barack Obama was a socialist would have been political suicide, his remarks at a 2012 Roanoke, Virginia, reelection campaign event should have sounded a warning.

Attributing American free enterprise achievements to government, Obama said, "Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the internet so that all the companies could make money off the internet.”

Fast-forward just 12 years to 2024, when the Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency issued a de facto electric vehicle mandate via a tailpipe emission rule to coerce a 70% phaseout of all gasoline-powered cars by 2032.

Rule by Executive Fiat

President Joe Biden openly defied a landmark 2023 Supreme Court ruling that determined his $400 billion student debt forgiveness plan was unconstitutional without congressional authority, boasting "but that didn't stop me."

He then just went ahead and canceled $138 billion under the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan for those who have been making payments for 10 years and had total original debt of less than $12,000.

As a U.S. senator from California, Harris was among the co-sponsors of the Medicare for All Act of 2017 introduced by Sen. Sanders of Vermont. The legislation would have instituted a federal government single-payer system that eliminated private health insurance for more than half of the U.S. population.

National Sovereignty Is Racist

Then take the foundational precept of national sovereignty — for example, a presidential oath, above all, to "faithfully execute the pffice of president of the United States" and, to the best of his or her ability, "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

This failure of duty and trust is exemplified by Biden-Harris administration invitations that have already welcomed as many as 20 million or more unvetted migrants across the U.S. southern border.

Presidential candidate Harris has proposed to decriminalize these illegal crossers and make them all eligible to receive free medical care and childhood education at taxpayer expense.

Add to this massive rewards to criminal sex slave and narcotic trafficking cartels who are enriched by these lawless policies.

Suspension of Free Speech

The First Amendment bars government from engaging in viewpoint-based censorship.

Nevertheless, emails made public through Freedom of Information Act requests and Elon Musk's release of the "Twitter Files" have exposed a sprawling censorship regime involving a collusion of Big Tech with the White House along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other agencies.

Consequentially, Americans have been given the false impression of a scientific "consensus" on critically important issues, including COVID-19 and climate change attributions to carbon dioxide.

Politicalization of America's Justice System

Denouncing "conspiracy theories" and "dangerous falsehoods," Attorney General Merrick Garland recently said he won't allow the Justice Department "to be used as a political weapon."

Sure, but try to explain that to K-12 public school board meeting-attending Loudoun County, Virginia, parents, whom you instructed your agency to investigate as "white supremacist terrorists" for objecting to divisive critical race theory indoctrination of their young children.

And what about authorizing and actively engaging in lawfare to indict, convict, bankrupt, and disqualify his presidential boss' political reelection opponent while his FBI worked to cover up and then discredit alleged hard evidence on Hunter Biden's laptop of family foreign influence peddling and tax evasion ahead of an election?

Shudder to imagine the Democrat outrage if it had been former President Obama's Martha's Vinyard mansion or one purchased by the Bidens that Garland had ordered raided for retention of classified documents by armed agents rather than former President Donald Trump's private Mar- a-Lago residence.

Then perhaps consider why honest, concerned citizens might wonder and worry why the same socialist ideologues might wish to disarm patriotic citizens who value precious freedoms.

Think Cuba and Venezuela, for example.

Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.