What's Mine Is Mine and What's Yours Is Mine

Sponsored by: Patriot Home Funding

On Monday, New York City Mayor Mamdani laid out a plan straight from the philosophy of Marx and Engels that should make every American's skin crawl and every New Yorker flee. The plan is simple. Mamdani is proposing the enactment of strict rent controls, which will make owning rental real estate non-viable for the majority of real estate investors. As lower rents are received, the landlords face a lower class of tenant whose ability to make timely payments and maintain a property will be at best questionable, which is exactly what Mamdani wants.

Because of additional wear and tear, maintenance costs will rise. Because the properties now are rent controlled, their values will drop which makes financing much more difficult due to the maintenance costs and insurance, which will also rise, and make the asset less desirable. When the cash flow turns negative, which is bound to happen, the property owner now has an asset that is losing value and losing money monthly. Negative cash flow on a declining asset in a devolving neighborhood- every investor's worst nightmare.

The next step is for the Mayor, his cabinet, and his preferred activist groups to blame the investors/landlords for the resulting deterioration and declining values, using the propaganda that such a media firestorm will create to impose even stricter property maintenance guidelines, which increase the negative cash flow and depreciation even more.

There will be a PR propaganda campaign to demonize the landlords as evil and taking advantage of the poor, which is red meat to the Mamdani voter. The government then declares the properties and area distressed because of rapid deterioration, and forces either forfeiture of the property or distress sales to Mamdani's political allies, NGO's, community land trusts, or tenancy organizations. And it will work because at that point the government is the good guys and the investors are the bad guys.

This is what Democrats, socialists, and Marxists mean when they promote "equity," which is the seizure and redistribution of wealth based on the government's favor to those who the government favors.

Of course this is nothing new. This is right out of the communist manifesto and the exact gambit that the Bolsheviks used in 1918 in Russia. Apartment buildings in Moscow and St. Petersburg-known then as Petrograd- were seized by the government in the same manner. The government accused the owners of any residential real estate that had multiple bedrooms- not just apartment buildings but single-family residences too- of "burgeois excess," and that the "underuse" of properties (meaning multiple bedrooms and living space) was theft from the proletariat. The properties were seized by the government and either given to or rented out to favored constituencies under the guise of communal apartments.

Mao Zedong's Land Reform movement from 1947-1953 did the same thing. Mao staged "speak bitterness" meetings and "people's courts" to first demonize then rationalize the seizure and redistribution of private property in order to consolidate the power of the Chinese Communist Party.

Combine Mamdani's policy with the proposed billionaire's taxes and wealth taxes by the Democrat Socialists in our major cities, blue states, and democrats in DC, and you can see where this is going, the seizure of the means of production and transfer to the collective.... right out of chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto.

Now contrast that to the Free State of Florida.

Governor DeSantis this week called for a special session of the legislature to convene Monday to dramatically reduce and eventually phase out property taxes on homestead property. Imagine that, a government that promotes and protects the rights of the individual to own and accumulate assets as opposed to a government that seeks to seize and redistribute those assets.

Florida State Senate president Ben Albritton warmed my heart when he said that, "Private property rights are fundamental to the American way of life. Respect for private property and protecting private property from the government has been a cornerstone of our democracy from its inception.” He went on. "I can’t think of a more meaningful way to celebrate America’s 250 than the passage of $250,000 in tax relief for every Florida homeowner. I believe this amendment will provide meaningful relief for Florida families, while protecting businesses from extreme tax increases and safeguarding local funding for public safety, education and our clean water infrastructure.”

There is a philosophical fight going on in America right now and the sides are clearly drawn. On one side you have blue state and blue city politicians, academia, media, and most of popular culture. On the other side you have red states, small and medium sized city conservative leaders, the church, entrepreneurs, and freedom loving people. The fight is over freedom to live, speak, and worship as you see fit as the individual, freedom to own and accumulate property, the freedom to pass it down to your heirs, and the freedom to raise your children in your image with your values.

This is what is on the ballot not just this November but in every election there is a democrat on the ballot going forward. President Reagan articulated it accurately when he said that you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out. We're in the voting stage right now but make no mistake, socialism is growing in America and it is a threat to the foundations of our nation and way of life.

It is a struggle as old as recorded history, and as you ponder how much you're willing to sacrifice to keep your freedom, consider what Plato wrote in his work The Republic, "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.