Last Friday, America commemorated the 249th anniversary of an immensely historic act on July 4, 1776, by its fledgling Second Continental Congress declaring independence from subordination to tyrannical taxation without representation dictates of Britain's reigning monarch, King George III.
The event occurred after tensions over the Stamp Act, Townshend Act and Tea Act had exploded in April 1775 in fierce battles with British forces in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, which commenced the American Revolutionary War.
In addition to establishing sovereignty from foreign control based upon natural rights, the Declaration of Independence enunciates another bedrock principle that guarantees American citizens freedom from domestic government tyranny as well.
Its second paragraph states: ''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.''
It's important to note a distinction here between assuring that all citizens shall be treated equally in pursuit of personal goals versus guaranteeing everyone equal outcomes.
Differences between equality and equity are fundamental and crucial: differences between equal treatment under the law and fingers on scales of justice; between unbiasedly judging people's behaviors and achievements as individuals — or stereotypically as members of groups; between rewarding those who strive for achievements and those who don't.
America's remarkable social, economic and technical achievements owe in large part to a capitalist system organized around private enterprise incentives, including ownership of rewards where people are motivated to invest, be productive and pursue family and personal well-being.
These advancements stand in stark contrast to Marxist-Leninist communist and socialist variant state-controlled means of production and collectivist distribution of compensation as witnessed in China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, the Soviet Union, Venezuela and Vietnam, which have universally failed with tragic consequences.
What cautionary comparisons do these contrasting visions of government presiding over the people versus government subordinate to the people afford us today so long after 13 independent colony states united to become a sovereign nation?
Returning to first principles, the recent patriotic July 4th Independence Day pageantry has occurred against a backdrop of the previous presidential administration having de facto ignored sovereign nation status altogether.
Instead, it allowed an estimated 21 million unvetted migrants flooding through an intentionally open border to claim citizenship rights and free taxpayer-funded benefits including housing, medical care, educational, and other services.
We are simultaneously — and not coincidentally — witnessing the former president's political party providing sanctuary communities to protect illegal migrants, including violent gang members, from apprehension by Homeland Security officials and resisting requirements that voters show identity evidence of U.S. citizenship.
One might wonder — or not — how many of these illegal migrants are even aware that America has a Constitution.
Now enter 33-year-old state assemblyman and New York mayoral candidate Zohan Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist whose laundry list campaign promises include freezing rent, starting city-owned grocery stores, free buses, free childcare, raising corporate taxes, and increasing the minimum wage all subsidized with huge federal, state and city tax increases.
Ugandan-born Mamdani's economic policy ideas appear to mirror influences dating to socialist-era India from which his mother, film-maker Mira Nair, emigrated in the 1970s.
India's disastrous rent-control laws, first introduced during colonial rule, became even more draconian after the country gained independence, forbidding landlords in Bombay and Calcutta to raise rents while allowing tenants to squat on property and pass it on to their heirs.
Once recognized among the most advanced societies in the East, India became known for widespread poverty and squalor under the administration of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who held office for most of the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s presided over a financial crisis that pushed talented Indians such as Mamdani's parents to emigrate.
During that period, India's marginal rate of income tax reached 97.5%. This, coupled with reckless spending, forced the government to turn to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.
As Margaret Thatcher famously observed, socialist governments always have a tendency to run out of other people's money.
Nevertheless, Mamdani opposes the rich who pay most of those taxes, telling Kristen Welker on NBC's Meet the Press, "I don't think we should have billionaires."
In keeping with the socialist creed of collective control over production and commerce, Mamdani champions publicly owned grocery stores.
This was already done by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba who nationalized their food distribution systems in the name of "equity" and "access," leading to rationing and hunger where grocery store shelves were stripped bare and people stood in lines for hours for a loaf of bread or bag of rice if lucky.
I witnessed the same thing in Moscow when invited to visit their space program soon following the implosion of the Soviet Union.
Mamdani also wants the government to build and control communal housing units while discouraging private home ownership in the name of equity.
On the international front, he's no apparent friend of America's strong ally Israel, pledging if elected mayor to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York, and refusing to condemn the chant "Globalize the Intifada."
During the Second Intifada between 2000 and 2005, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad killed more than 1,000 Israelis.
Even before becoming a U.S. citizen in 2017, Mamdani rapped about his love for the "Holy Land Five," leaders of a U.S.-based charity who were convicted for providing material support for terrorism to Hamas.
Yes, America's battle for independence from authoritarian tyranny continues here in our homefront ballot boxes.
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.
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