Mamdani proclaimed to the world the night of his victory that “there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.” In other words, Mamdani intends to insert government into every aspect of every New Yorker’s life. Of course such total penetration of people’s homes and lives has a name: it’s called totalitarianism. That’s when government power totally intrudes everywhere, and personal privacy occurs totally nowhere. Communism is the nice name for the sum total of this brutal intrusion of which Mamdani is now its most famous American manifestation.

Of course we don’t expect Mamdani to outlaw blinds and drapes in New York next year. That would be too obvious. Besides, with modern technology placed everywhere and with typical totalitarian disregard of constitutional safeguards, Mamdani will be able to look right through those drapes, literal and figurative, and know everything that is said and done by everyone. No drapes or even locks have ever been able to save humanity from dictators and their despotisms. Only the liberty of self-directing citizens can do that. And yet New Yorkers have just traded in their freedom for getting everything for free. But everything free always means nothing everywhere. And anyone who complains about the economic wreck gets a free set of chains.

ROBERT JACQUES

JAMES STUCHELL

Williamsport

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