This should be disqualifying

Photo by Adrian Fleur on Unsplash

I’ll be the first to admit that the United States is not perfect now, nor has it ever been. Nothing created by man ever will be. I can talk endlessly about some of those mistakes of the past and why they should have been considered wrong even at the time they happened.

But, I also recognize that our nation did something that no one else had ever done before when it was founded 250 years ago. It recognized the rights of the individual. It was the first time a country was created with the concept of people actually having natural rights that the government must respect.

Yes, the application was imperfect, to say the least, but it was there, and it laid the bedrock for not just what happened two and a half centuries ago, but what has happened since then.

So, when I see someone like this, I have to think this should be automatically disqualifying for office.

Pennsylvania state and socialist Chris Rabb, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, has joined the growing chorus of Democrats denouncing the founding documents and core institutions in the country on our 250th anniversary. The Democratic socialist is running unopposed for Congress and will almost certainly be a member of Congress after November.

Rabb spoke at an event billed as “America at 250 — Trump Fascism, Historical Erasure, and the Battle Over Truth” at People’s Plaza on Independence Mall in Philadelphia.

He denounced the country as based on “stolen land and stolen labor.” He lashed out at the Declaration of Independence:

“Those screeds that were very lofty but were notoriously catering to a performative aspect of collective genius that purposely erased indigenous and black peoples…It created distance from an empire to help very privileged people continue that privilege and ultimately institutionalize that through the U.S. Constitution many years later. But it certainly did not provide independence to indigenous and black peoples. And we cannot talk about anything today without acknowledging that this is a nation born on stolen land & stolen labor.”

Actually, I think the Declaration did provide independence to American Indians and black people. It just took way too long to be recognized.

Lincoln cites the concepts of the Declaration in the Gettysburg Address, and there’s little doubt that many of those who worked to end slavery did so because our nation was founded on the principle that all men were created equal.

It should have been a given, granted, and I have no problem with anyone taking issue with the imperfect application of that concept, because that’s legitimate. The thing is, we fought an entire war to end slavery once and for all. As many as 750,000 Americans lost their lives in that war, and it was ultimately worth it to end that particular scourge.

Yet I find it disgusting that while socialists like Rabb will cite that imperfect application of natural rights as an evil, they completely ignore the blood price this country paid to end that scourge.

But there’s more from Rabb:

He ignores how the Declaration laid the foundation for a more perfect union. Ours was the first major Enlightenment Revolution based on the belief that our rights came not from the government but from God. It embraced the principles that would ultimately prevail in ending this shameful stain on our nation.

“Fascism is not new. These systems of harm are built into the very fabric of this nation,..You cannot kill the beast until you name it. And that is difficult for many people who want to embrace certain tropes, certain narratives, whether it’s the American dream or American exceptionalism or the Protestant work ethic or so many other myths that do us no — they are a disservice.”

Rabb is not the first figure on the far left to denounce the “American dream” and “the Protestant work ethic” as harmful “myths.”

How is “the Protestant work ethic” a myth? It’s very much a real thing, and while Rabb might be within his rights to refute the idea that it’s a good thing, that doesn’t make it mythological.

The American Dream is also real. It’s not automatic, though; hence “dream.” People have to work for it. People have to strive for it. It’s not just handed to them, nor should it be, because things that are worth anything are never free.

As for American Exceptionalism, I find his outrage here hilarious. Socialism has been tried and failed in plenty of places, but America isn’t exceptional except that this will be the one place it actually works. Sure.

Rabb has a right to his opinions, but the truth of the matter is that he doesn’t have criticisms of the status quo. He literally hates this country, as do all his Democratic Socialist allies. They despite the Land of the Free. They hate it because they have to do something in order to exist, and they believe that makes them less free.

Socialists like to call people who work for a living “wage slaves.” The idea is that they’re slaves simply because they have to work for the necessities of life.

But that’s the norm. Throughout all of human history, people have had to work to survive. Socialism presupposes that those days are behind us, but they’re not. Even in the most socialist Utopia you can imagine, someone has to do the work, and not all of it will be work people want to do. You can’t exist without labor being performed.

The Protestant work ethic is just the idea of working hard to get ahead, and it’s an affront to a group that is ultimately too lazy to want to work. The American Dream isn’t handed out on a silver platter, and for them, that’s the problem because they think the universe revolves around them.

People like Rabb hate America not because of its past imperfections, some of which were glaringly bad, but because in the here and now, we still expect people to step up and do so in order to survive, as has been mankind’s default since well before we started walking upright.

How can someone like this want to serve a nation they despise? He’s not really looking to make it better; he’s looking to destroy the nation it is in favor of something it was never meant to be. It’s not about improving it. It’s about overturning it.

I’m still flabbergasted that “Democratic Socialism” is taking hold as strongly as it has, especially considering socialism’s track record in the 20th Century, and while I believe Rabb has the right to say whatever retarded thing he wants, I also believe the voters of this country should see that kind of rhetoric as disqualifying for public office.

Yes, that includes the Democrats.

Unfortunately, they nominated him, and he’s far from the only DSA nutball who has won their primary this election cycle.

Remember, boys and girls: You can vote yourself into socialism, but you’ll have to shoot your way out.

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