Congresswoman: “I Hope We Will Also See House GOP Leadership Bring Bills to the Floor That Focus on Lowering Prices, Addressing Inflation, & Keeping Our Communities Safe”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger today released the following statement after voting with a bipartisan majority of the U.S. House to condemn socialist policies that led to famine and mass murders — including those committed by Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, and others.

“I’m glad we got that out of the way, because Virginians know that I will always vote to condemn atrocities committed by the most brutal dictators in world history.

“For those who seek to escape the grip of communism and totalitarianism, the United States of America has always been a beacon of hope, opportunity, and freedom. That’s why I have been proud to serve my country, defend its values, and protect our homeland from its enemies.

“Going forward, I hope we will also see House GOP leadership bring bills to the floor that focus on lowering prices, addressing inflation, and keeping our communities safe. We should be looking to build bipartisan agreement around the pressing issues facing the American people in the here and now — not just condemning the violence and terrors of the past.”

Click here for the text of the resolution, and the full text is also below.

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Whereas socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into Communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships;

Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide; Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicola´s Maduro;

Whereas tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution, at least 10,000,000 people were sent to the gulags in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and millions more starved in the Terror-Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine;

Whereas between 15,000,000 and 55,000,000 people starved to death in the wake of famine and devastation caused by the Great Leap Forward in China;

Whereas the socialist experiment in Cambodia led to the killing fields in which over a million people were gruesomely murdered;

Whereas up to 3,500,000 people have starved in North Korea, dividing a land of freedom from a land of destitution;

Whereas the Castro regime in Cuba expropriated the land of Cuban farmers and the businesses of Cuban entrepreneurs, stealing their possessions and their livelihoods, and exiling millions with nothing but the clothes on their backs;

Whereas the implementation of socialism in Venezuela has turned a once-prosperous nation into a failed State with the world’s highest rate of inflation;

Whereas the author of the Declaration of Independence, President Thomas Jefferson, wrote, ‘‘To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’’;

Whereas the ‘‘Father of the Constitution’’, President James Madison, wrote that it ‘‘is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest’’;

and Whereas the United States of America was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America.

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