Leftists have a shaky relationship with the American Constitution.
They pay lip service to it, but also claim it’s a “living document.”
But New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wasn’t shy about his problem with property rights.
Bill de Blasio’s leftist roots run deep.
Born in 1961, de Blasio was a “red diaper baby.”
His parents were steeped in the far left.
According to the left-wing magazine The Nation, de Blasio’s parents fell prey to Harry Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program.
The executive order was enacted to root out communist influence in the American government.
So it’s clear where de Blasio’s sympathies lie.
During the Cold War, de Blasio toured the Soviet Union.
He organized for the far-left group Physicians for Social Responsibility.
He also supported the communist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
Bill de Blasio was also the New York branch executive director of the pro-socialism New Party.
It should come as no surprise when de Blasio’s authoritarian crops up.
In a 2017 interview with New York Magazine, de Blasio lay bare his socialist ideal for the city.
He said, “What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property.”
It’s startling that de Blasio sees private property as a roadblock.
“I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. And I would, too,” he continued.
Mayor de Blasio and other leftists of his stripe view themselves as the benevolent king…if only those pesky individual rights weren’t in the way.
In perhaps his most striking comment, de Blasio said, “Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed.”
That is literally the death of property rights.
Without property rights, citizens are wards of the state.
de Blasio continued, “And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents. That’s a world I’d love to see.”
That world of price controls exists.
It’s been tried in every communist hellscape that leftists excuse.
Bill de Blasio also wants to see his values spread.
“They’d love to have a very, very powerful government, including a federal government, involved in directly addressing their day-to-day reality.”
Mayor de Blasio’s rhetoric is downright despotic.
America was founded on the idea of limited government.
People and capital always flow toward freedom.
That’s why America has been a beacon for so many people around the globe.
Before a group gathered outside City Hall, de Blasio said he wanted to usher in “a new progressive era in this city’s history…felt beyond our borders.”
According to the Cato Institute, New York state ranks dead last in freedom.
That’s why over 100,000 people leave New York each year.
They’re going to states like North Carolina and Florida.
But if de Blasio and others get their way, there will be nowhere to flee.