Nick Shirley, the independent journalist who exposed widespread welfare fraud at Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota, recently took to the streets of New York City to ask Americans about the rise of socialism in the United States.

And some of the answers he received were downright jaw-dropping.

'The idea of a criminal is like a little bit funny to me.'

While walking through Manhattan's Greenwich Village, Shirley approached a young woman sitting on a park bench. During their conversation, she described herself as "pretty pro-communism" and said she was "not certain what prisons are actually doing for our society."

“I’m pretty pro getting rid of prisons,” she added.

When Shirley asked where criminals would go if prisons did not exist, the woman replied, "Well, do I want criminals out in the open? Sure. I'm fine with that because the idea of a criminal is, like, a little bit funny to me."

Shirley then raised a more specific question, asking whether someone convicted of raping a woman should be free to walk the streets.

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"I think my answer is yes," she responded.

"I'm not sure, like, them going to jail is a solution to, like, whatever's going on inside their heart."

The woman added that she had been “raped,” explaining that she wouldn’t want the man to whom she referred to as her "rapist” behind bars either.

Another young woman whom Shirley interviewed leaned into the argument that communism has never truly been implemented.

"Communism as it is in the Marx-Engels ‘Communist Manifesto’ has never been implemented in society," she said, adding that China, the Soviet Union, Cuba and Venezuela "aren't real forms of communism" but rather, in part, the "byproduct of American interventionism."

Shirley also spoke with a man working on his laptop, which displayed a sticker reading, "This machine kills fascists."

The man expressed his support for the rise of communism and socialist ideas in the United States, pointing to Greenwich Village's long history of embracing the ideology.

"I think it's a good thing," he said. "You're in the home of democratic socialists in Greenwich Village. This is where it began and where it's thrived ... and I hope it spreads through the country."

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Finn Gomez/Getty Images

When Shirley suggested that eliminating government fraud could free up resources without raising taxes, the man rejected the idea.

"Just because some thieves are stealing some stuff doesn't mean that we should stop the system and stop taxing people and stop helping people," he said. "Just because some people cheat doesn't mean you should wipe out the system."

Shirley cited a recent study by the Citizens Budget Commission that found New York lost nearly $11 billion in tax revenue over the past year as millionaires and billionaires relocated. But the man was unpersuaded.

"I don't believe those numbers. Everybody wants to be here, so there's no reason for them to leave."

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