During the Cold War (kids, ask your parents) the communist government of East Germany built a multilayer barbed wire fence, backed with minefields, along the entire border with the free world, watched over by armed troops in watch towers and aggressive patrols. And in 1961, in Berlin, they built a tall, fortified wall through the middle of the city, separating the communist zones from the free ones.
The purpose of the wall wasn't to keep NATO out. Alarmed by the flight of brains and talent from East Germany and other communist countries (New Yorkers, ask your Cuban and Venezuelan neighbors), the barriers were to keep subjects in.
It underscores a lesson about communism: eventually and inevitably, it turns into more of a prison than a society.
I think about those historical examples when I listen to what the modern-day Marxists' agenda is.
It's a truism of civilization that conservatives embrace, which sane liberals try to finesse, and which the radical progressives scoff at and deny; a free society can't exist without a balance between order and freedom:
- Without order, prosperity is impossible. Why bring your products to market when you'll only get robbed on the way, or swindled and strong-armed when you get there?
- Without prosperity, freedom is academic: hunter-gatherers were too busy surviving to think big thoughts (and shut up about Voltaire; he was wrong); to the impoverished, liberty can seem like a luxury item.
- Without freedom, order is onerous.
It's a cycle that exists imperfectly and only with more tending than a prize-winning garden of fragile annual flowers under the best of circumstances. And if you break one part of the circle, the whole thing unravels.
Mamdani, like the wave of Soros-backed prosecutors around the country, wants to break the first part of that cycle, inverting the idea of order. As Damon Jones, New York rep of Blacks in Law Enforcement of America, puts it (with me adding a bit of emphasis):
In Queens, small business owners continue to report weekly incidents of organized shoplifting, often involving the same individuals who face little to no consequence. Nationally, the National Retail Federation estimates retail theft losses at over $112 billion annually, with much of that driven by coordinated theft rings operating in urban commercial corridors. When repeat offenders are released without supervision, intervention, or accountability, the justice system doesn’t just fail victims—it creates a revolving door of harm that destabilizes the very communities reformers claim to protect.
We are already seeing this play out under New York State’s bail reform, where the absence of structured accountability has led to measurable increases in crime and repeat offenses, particularly in the very communities these reforms claim to protect.
When Mamdani calls for releasing more people from jail without a scalable system of supervision, intervention, or reentry, he’s not solving injustice. He’s shifting the burden of risk onto communities—particularly working-class Black and Brown neighborhoods that already bear the weight of public policy failure.
Removing a disincentive to take other people's stuff for free is an incentive (New Yorkers, ask San Franciscans). Why do business in a place where there's no disincentive to robbing you blind?
I emphasized the bit about "shifting the burden of risk onto communities"; Mamdani would shunt the responsibility for de-align with the bad effects of crime onto the citizen.
In a free society, citizens have responsibilities - and the right to carry those responsibilities out.
Mamdani isn't even coy about his desire to deny citizens even the hypothetical ability to deter criminals:
According to @ZohranKMamdani:
— Mike Lawler (@lawler4ny) October 15, 2025
Lawful gun owners should not have guns.
Criminals who use guns in the commission of a crime should be released from prison.
Hamas terrorists should keep their guns and stay in power. pic.twitter.com/jjeeBQ6ZRa
Now, the lawless? The criminals? Terrorists, even? Another matter altogether:
MacCallum: "Should Hamas give up their weapons?"
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 15, 2025
Zohran: "I believe that a future here in New York City is affordable for all."
MacCallum: "You won't say that Hamas should lay down their arms?"
Zohran: "I don't have any opinions on the future of Hamas." pic.twitter.com/5leKLPrdIt
What do you call a society where order is inverted, prosperity exists at the pleasure of the criminals, and the government that is their benefactor?
One where freedom is academic.
And the next step down from that is watching everyone that can flee, fleeing, or building a wall to keep them in.
