On Socialism, Slurs, and the Real People Behind the Pieds-à-Terre

I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union. I don’t want California to end up in the same place.1 Why do Americans think we can do socialism? We have none of that in our DNA, and we’re just going to screw it up.2 The progressive movement is the most dangerous thing for the upper-middle-class professional that’s ever happened in these big cities.3 The rich whom the politicians are targeting, starting with nothing, are the epitome of the American dream. . . .  They are at the top of the great American economic pyramid for a reason. They should be praised and thanked.4 I provide a lot of money to people who are blue-collar workers who work for me, servers in restaurants.5 To say that it’s impossible to legitimately earn a billion dollars is to put an arbitrary limit on human potential. And presuming that anyone who becomes too successful must be cheating shows a lack of imagination as to what humans are capable of accomplishing in a free society.6 I know what it is to not have money, I’m also a regular person who has had to work his way up. . . .  A lot of these people who have pied-à-terres are real people.7 I must say that I consider the phrase “Tax the rich” . . .  to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase “From the river to the sea.”8