The American dream is anchored in individual freedom, the God-given ability to work hard, take risks and reap the rewards of personal effort. Socialism, by contrast, smothers motivation and extinguishes the hope of gain by replacing individual initiative with collective dependency. For freedom to flourish, there must be the hope of gain. When that hope dies, the human spirit withers.
From a conservative, constitutionalist, Judeo-Christian vantage, our founders believed that liberty, free enterprise, and the right of each person to rise were God-endowed, not government-granted. Socialism inevitably concentrates power in the hands of an elect few, a pathway that history tells us leads quickly toward communism, and why it has never worked anywhere it’s been tried.
Consider today’s landscape. In the 2025 New York City mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic-socialist, was elected on promises of rent freezes, free public transit, city-owned grocery stores, and steep tax hikes on “the rich.” This is not an isolated event. Here in Nevada, candidates like Tyler Cavey, running for Assembly District 35, openly align with democratic-socialist platforms. Across the nation, similar movements are spreading, seeking expanded government control over housing, transportation, labor and family decisions. These trends must sound an unmistakable alarm for every citizen who values the liberty America was founded upon.
When the future of a nation is placed in the hands of political elites wielding ever-expanding government mandates, the notions of equal citizenship, self-determination, and enterprise begin to evaporate. Socialism has always promised fairness, but it consistently delivers control, and leaves behind a larger, poorer and permanently dependent class of citizens. Its roots trace through Marx, Engels and Lenin – theorists who sought to abolish class distinctions through collective ownership. Even they recognized the inherent danger: eliminate personal gain and you extinguish the engine that drives human creativity, responsibility and purpose. When reward is severed from effort, power does not spread; it centralizes. Technocrats, party officials, and bureaucratic elites become power brokers of who receives what and when. The individual becomes secondary, expendable even, to the demands of the collective.
In chasing equality of outcome, socialism destroys equality of opportunity. The hope of gain, the desire to build, grow and provide, is foundational to human flourishing. Remove that hope, and you suffocate the very spirit that advances families, communities, and nations.
History presents its verdict clearly. Socialist regimes that nationalized industries, fixed prices, and planned economies from above left behind economic decay, empty shelves, and authoritarian rule. Nations that promised utopia consistently produced coercion, scarcity, and the suppression of dissent. Even milder forms of socialism lead to dependency, weakened local communities, and a slow erosion of liberty. It’s a lose – lose!
Despite new packaging and softer rhetoric, the math remains the same. More government control always means fewer free choices. When the state becomes primary, the citizen becomes dependent, or disposable.
Call to Action: Now is the hour for decisive action. We must: Reaffirm our commitment to individual dignity, personal incentive, and the freedom to rise. Educate families, churches and communities that human flourishing requires the freedom to work, build, and steward. Hold leaders accountable. When officials push rent freezes, state-run stores, or redistribution, ask, “Who gains power… and who loses their voice?” Champion decentralization – school choice, local control, private enterprise and community-driven solutions. Mobilize faith-based communities to defend liberty and remind the nation that government exists to protect freedom, not replace it.
Let us not wait until the chains are fastened. Let us act while there is still time to move, speak, work, worship God and build. May we guard the torch of liberty, the hope of gain, the dignity of work, the freedom to worship and the right to flourish, for our children and grandchildren.
By Whose Authority?
For more information on my Commentary and to see some of my backup research, or if you wonder why I take the position I take, go to www.LyleBrennan.com.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV) “If my people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”