BRONX TIMES REPORTER,46 FEBRUARY 14-20, 2020 BTR
Action
Association
BY FRANK VERNUCCIO
Americans have a long and
unique spirit of anti-elitism,
but leading Leftists reject that
tradition.
Recently, presidential candidate
Mike Bloomberg proclaimed
that “We just can’t let
the average American have
guns in a crowded place…gun
control saves lives…” Rather
ironically, he was responding
to a statement about how
armed church attendees protected
themselves from an assailant,
saving, according to
some estimates, up to 200 lives.
Similar to other anti-Second
Amendment activists, he has
failed to explain how keeping
guns out of the hands of lawabiding
citizens will make
them safer, considering that
those who seek to rob, rape, or
kill have no compunction in
defying gun control laws, and
have no diffi culty in obtaining
weapons.
While seeking to deprive
New Yorkers of their Second
Amendment rights,
Bloomberg cut the size of his
city’s police force. The elites
have their own protection, in
guarded buildings and offi ces.
Who cares about the average
citizen? It wasn’t a surprising
remark from the former NYC
mayor. During his tenure in
offi ce, he sought to regulate
the diets of his constituents.
In terms of defi ning elitism,
even Bloomberg’s comments
pale in comparison
with Joe Biden, who, as Vice
President, served in an administration
that had no compunction
about using the IRS
and the Department of Justice
to harass and intimidate
those who disagreed with its
policies. Biden, whose son fl ew
with him on Air Force Two to
China and returned with a billion
dollar deal in pocket in a
business area he had no expertise
in, and whom, quite notoriously,
gained another highly
lucrative deal in Ukraine
which his father was dealing
with, wants to put blue-collar
workers, specifi cally miners,
out of work, telling them to
just learn coding instead.
Bloomberg and Biden are
continuing the elitist inclination
of Hillary Clinton, who
described her opponents as ‘
A basket of deplorables’
and Barack Obama, who referred
to small town residents
as people who “cling to guns
or religion.”
It’s not just politicians.
Hollywood’s elites travel from
their mansions on private
planes, yachts, and limos to
conferences where they chastise
those who live in a small
homes and travel in their cars,
buses, and trains to work in
the morning for not being environmentally
conscious.
These are, of course,
merely a few examples in a
much larger move towards
elitism, not just on actions but
on thought as well.
In 2018, National Review
described one example: “At
Evergreen State College, leftwing
students formed an impromptu,
baseball-bat-wielding
militia to hunt down
suspected wrongthinkers.
The college administration
delicately referred to them as
a ‘community patrol’dedicated
to protecting the Evergreen
campus from ‘external entities
as well as those community
members they distrust’…
George Bridges, the president
of Evergreen State, repeatedly
told the campus police to stand
down as left-wing protesters
disrupted university events
and menaced dissenters. The
campus police chief told dissenting
faculty member Bret
Weinstein to stay away from
the campus because her department
could not guarantee
his physical safety. As one
administrator put it, under
George Bridges, ‘reedom of
speech is only for speech with
which you agree and aggressively
silencing those with
whom you disagree is fair
game.’
It is logical that elitism rises
simultaneous with the growth
of support for socialism. The
very concept of that approach
to governance is based on the
idea that a selected group can
somehow make better decisions
about how to run your
family, your business, indeed,
your life, than you.
Socialism, the bedrock of
elitism, is portrayed by much
of academia and the media as a
bit avant-garde, something appealing
to the younger crowd.
In reality, its an ancient and
anti-freedom model.
The assertion of individual
rights doesn’t have a particularly
lengthy record in a history
mainly fi lled with monarchs,
dictators, oligarchs,
and other elites. The age of
gilded kings, queens, emperors
and empresses isn’t
as dead as it seems; only the
names and excuses to stay in
power keep changing. Russia
lost its czar, but gained Communist
Party rulers who held
even greater control. Similar
non-substantive changes have
occurred in many locales.
Indeed, in Russia, the transition
happened again. When
the Communist regime collapsed,
essentially the same
group rather quickly reclaimed
power. Putin, an old
KGB hand, has, after only an
unfortunately brief period, restored
the same absolute power
to his leadership that czars and
commissars once held.
For centuries, Europe’s intermarried
royal families controlled
the lives of the continent’s
residents. That began to
diminish as nationalism, often
maligned but in reality a necessary
step in European democratization,
took hold. But as socialism
gained acceptance, the
concept of an elite class of selfdefi
ned intellectuals and leftist
politicians took hold.
In the United States, there
is a mistaken tendency to link
elitism with specifi c causes.
That is a mistake. In practice,
elitism is a wholescale
rejection of the individualism
that is the very essence of the
American tradition.
Illustration: Pixabay
BY ANNIE BOLLER
It is with sadness
and heavy hearts
we learned of the
passing of Carmen
Velazquez who had
been a loyal member
of the Pelham
Bay Taxpayers Association
for over 30 years. Carmen
never missed a meeting and
enjoyed participating when guest
speakers gave presentations. A
true Bronxite, she never failed to
vote. A profound reader and deep
thinker, she loved mystery books
and always kept up to date on all
current events. Carmen retired
from the Hospital of Special Surgery.
She was 87 years old. Our
sympathy to her
extended family in
Florida and Arizona.
Meetings are
suspended during
the months of January
and February,
2020. Updates will
be posted in the Bronx Times Reporter
during that period. Our
next meeting back will be Tuesday,
March 17 at 7:30 p.m. start
time and will be held in the St.
Theresa cafeteria.
Membership dues are due.
Please send to 1720 Mayfl ower Avenue,
#9H, Bronx, NY 10461.
Our email is pbta1965@gmail.
com
Letters to the editor are welcome from all readers. They
should be addressed care of this newspaper to Laura Guerriero,
Publisher, the Bronx Times Reporter, 3604 E. Tremont
Ave., Bronx, NY 10465, or e-mail to bronxtimes@cnglocal.
com. All letters, including those submitted via e-mail, MUST
be signed and with a verifi able address and telephone number
included. Note that the address and telephone number
will NOT be published and the name will be published or
withheld upon request. No unsigned letters can be accepted
for publication. The editor reserves the right to edit all submissions.
LET US HEAR FROM YOU
WOMAN ROBS AMALGAMATED BANK
A woman, 39-year old Deziree Diaz, allegedly robbed the Amalgamated Bank on 3770
E. Tremont Avenue at gunpoint, armed with a pistol. She took off with an undetermined
amount of money and a dye pack. Bank employees then looked up the
paperwork she left behind and alerted the police, The NYPD went to her home on
Dewey Avenue and found the money along with the dye pack. Diaz was charged with
robbery, criminal possession of a weapon and menacing. She will also face federal
robbery charges. Photo by Edwin Soto
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