Homelessness is an intractable problem at the best of times, and politicians have long fought over how best to solve it. Conservatives tend to argue personal responsibility, private charities and a robust economy are the best solutions. Liberals, meanwhile, rely on government solutions such as subsidized housing, changes to zoning regulations and criminal justice reform.
One self-described socialist running as a Democrat for Congress
has a unique solution, however: good ol’ fashioned breaking-
and-entering.
In an ad first released last week, Rebecca Parson, a candidate in
Washington’s 6th Congressional District, proposed that a million
people breaking into empty houses would solve homelessness in
America by forcing Congress to pass a “Housing for All” bill,
according to Fox News.
(While this might be the most outrageous example of how
socialism is theft that we’ve seen recently, it’s hardly the only
example — and if America doesn’t quickly learn from the history
of Marxist thought put into practice, we could be doomed to
repeat it. Here at The Western Journal, we’ll keep reminding
readers about why socialism and communism are the most
deadly forms of government ever practiced in the modern
world.
Parson, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of
America, previously ran for the seat in the district, which
includes Tacoma, in 2020. She finished third with 14 percent
in a nonpartisan jungle primary that saw Democratic incumbent
Rep. Derek Kilmer finish first with 47 percent of the vote and
Republican Elizabeth Kreiselmaier second with 27 percent.
With a little bump and a lot of publicity, then, perhaps Parson
could make a race of it and force a showdown with Kilmer,
who’s more far more centrist than Parson. (Then again, so was
Mikhail Gorbachev.)
After she released a two-minute ad that called for a minimum
wage of $30 (not a typo) and for occupying empty houses, one
can safely predict this: Yes, she’s going to get some publicity.
A bump, though? See if you think those in the Seattle suburbs
have gone this far left:
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewersThe ad begins with Parson, apparently living out of her
Toyota Prius, flipping through radio stations, one of which
plays a bulletin about housing prices being “unhinged from
fundamentals.”
“You feel it, I feel it, we’re on the edge of collapse,” the
candidate declares. “The corporate elite tell us not to worry.
But what has doing what they told us ever gotten us?”
Parson then turns a stereo knob and “Killing in the Name
Of” by multi-platinum, multi-millionaire, multi-socialist
militant rock act Rage Against the Machine begins playing.
“I did what they told me. I went to college, I got a master’s
degree,” Parson says. “I ended up living in my car.”
At this point, she fetches a pair of bolt cutters and rehashes the
primary reason people know her name: In 2020, when she was
a spokeswoman for Tacoma Housing Now, the group occupied
empty buildings to force the government to increase spending.
(In at least one case, the building wasn’t quite so empty; on
Christmas Eve, 2020, the group paid for 16 rooms at a
Travelodge for one night, refused to pay and set up camp there.
“We paid for the first night and now we’re demanding that the
city and county pay for the other nights we’ve been here,”
Parson told local media at the time. Police ordered them out six
days later. But details, details.)
This time, she’s dreaming bigger than some measly empty
buildings or Travelodges, though. Instead of MAGA, call it
MATA: Make America Tacoma Already.
“Imagine I proposed a Housing for All bill in Congress,” she
says in the ad. “Then imagine you, me and a million of our
friends took action and occupied empty houses nationwide.
They couldn’t ignore us.”
Yes, and one might counter “they” — I’m assuming Parson
is here referring to that vague leftist construct oft referred to as
“The Man,” a sprawling regressive entity that encompasses any
person or institution not woke enough to get on board with an
idea like, say, breaking and entering a million unoccupied
homes — have something called “law enforcement” on
their side.
As Fox News noted, “On the surface, the strategy appears to
amount to trespass, a misdemeanor in Washington, although
state law does say that it is a defense if the property is
abandoned.” If it isn’t, however, trespassers can be removed,
which makes this approach somewhat problematic.
But Parson’s logic regarding why she’ll be able to stick it to
“The Man” this time is irrefutable: “No one has ever done
anything like this. That’s why it’s going to work.”
Imagine applying this reasoning to any other situation:
No one has ever attempted to reach Mars in a rocket that is
powered entirely by the reaction between Mentos and
Coca-Cola. That’s why mine is going to land on the surface.
No one has ever applied to Yale with an admissions essay that
is nothing more than the first two pages of “Fifty Shades of
Grey” translated into pig Latin. That’s why I’m going to be
valedictorian.
No one has ever tried to get a domesticated meerkat elected to
statewide office. That’s why Mr. Checkers is going to be the
Despite the fact I can see two of those three being more realistic
than what Parson is proposing (let’s face it: a rocket will never
achieve escape velocity using foodstuffs), Parson is doubling
down on her solution to homelessness.
While her campaign didn’t respond to Fox News when it inquired
about the details, the candidate on Monday posted a list of
vacant homes in each county in the district on Twitter, followed
by a list of homeless people in those counties — as if this
represented a prima facie argument that pairing a homeless
individual with a vacant home will automatically solve everything:
“In every corner of my district, there are more empty homes
than homeless people. Choosing empty property over their
lives is a policy choice. It’s a war on the poor — by
Republicans and Democrats,” she wrote.
What Parson isn’t proposing isn’t some kind of novel solution
to the “war on the poor,” however. It’s the same old war the
left has waged against individual property rights for well over
a century now.
It’s a dramatic escalation, to be sure, one that even the
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes or Bernie Sanderses of Congress
are unlikely to get behind. The bedrock principle is the same,
however: The government could somehow ensure that
property you own is better allocated, if only you’d just
let them have it.
Socialist theft has never worked before and it won’t work
now, no matter how many homeless people Parson induces to
fetch the bolt-cutters and join her.
Let’s hope that whatever remnant of “The Man” still exists in
the Tacoma area gives Parson a speedy ticket out of the 6th
Congressional District race when Washington votes in its
primary this August.
Dem Candidate for Congress Has Unique Solution to
Homeless Crisis: Break Into Homes and Occupy Them
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