Posted on 06/10/2016 4:17:30 AM PDT by lowbridge
The force that is driving Venezuela into the ground is socialism.
I've had a front-row seat to the consequences of socialism, watching the hardships of my friends and family in Venezuela.
I read the messages telling me they had to go to five different markets that day to find bread. Even basic staples like Harina-Pan are missing from the shelves or skyrocketing in price.
I've heard them break down crying because they lack basic needs like toilet paper. And I hear the fear of not knowing what's next or when these struggles will end.
In the midst of this chaos, I see people in the United States – most of whom have never known a life outside of the abundance available to them as a result of our market economy – gravitating toward socialism like it's some natural force for good. As reported in these pages, a recent survey shows that nearly 60 percent of 18 to 26 year-olds believe socialism is the "most compassionate system."
But socialism is not compassionate. Whether a socialist government owns the means of production via nationalized industries, or enforces central planning via price controls and stringent regulatory structures, socialism operates under the assumption that an insulated leader and his legion of bureaucrats are the best judges of what people are worth.
No matter how politicians try to spin it, the House bill to bailout Puerto Rico will rip off bondholders and poison financial markets.
Socialism assumes that government officials are more qualified than individuals to decide how much a person should earn, which products and services are necessary for that person to live and how much that person should have to pay for them. The government makes all of these decisions and more, but only after taking a huge piece of the pie
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
Socialism is a virus without either a preventative or a cure that isn’t fatal. I fear we are running headlong into this illness.
If there is no food one does not need toilet paper. Problem solved! Socialist Utopia!
I see........more economic refugees streaming into the US from Venezuela.
Socialists seek a king, though they would not admit it.
And socialism delivers an oligarchy, though they think that’s what they are against.
And the only way socialism works is with the aid of institutionalized corruption. Corruption is necessary or the whole system grinds to a halt. Except in this case, where even the corruption is so centralized that there is not enough to go around to keep the machinery lubricated.
Has that started yet? I’ve been expecting it. They voted it in, they need to stop it now and turn their country around. Instead, they’ll come here and immediately get on the dole. Unless they show up at Sean Penn’s house. Undoubtedly, he’ll take one of the pistols he brandished in Madonna’s face and chase them off his front porch.
Weston Florida has been known as “little Bernezuela” going on 15 years now. That’s where the majority of the wealth settled.
Bttt.
5.56mm
Socialism has never worked, yet here we are seeing two totally economic numbskulls trying to sell the snake oil of a free lunch to an electorate who are stupid enough to buy it. Even worse, they are using my tax dollars to do it with such brilliant programs like free cell phones for deadbeats. Fortunately, I don’t have that many years left and will likely not see the devastation these voting, freeloading, idiots have on my children and grandchildren.
I wonder what would happen if we passed a law that says: If you don’t pay Federal Income Taxes, you don’t get to vote in Federal elections. Same for state and local elections. After all, nothing in the game, why should you set the rules?
The real problem is Venezuela is run by criminals. They used socialism as a means to obtain power and as a vehicle for theft.
I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Eberhard and Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make the pencil. And everything else.
The correct word for all the support which surrounds the total production of the pencil - or anything else - is society. Not government, note well, society Back in the day, a Civics teacher gave a homework assignment intended to teach - as the teacher smugly said the next day - that “society” meant nothing other than “government.” At the time, I did not accept the teacher’s notion, but I did not then know that the very start of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense puts paid to that idea:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Socialists love to use euphemisms - “society” when they mean government,“liberal” or “progressive" when they mean socialist, and so on.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . .
Socialism is a sweet-sounding lie, used to gain power.
The power is then used to commit the biggest crime imaginable - steal everything, and enslave everyone.
Criminal organizations would be much nicer if they got rid of all those thugs and became friendly, sort of like Robin and his Merry Band.
“The real problem is Venezuela is run by criminals. They used socialism as a means to obtain power and as a vehicle for theft.”
?????
"Hey, you're the ugliest woman (or the least masculine man) alive, and you have no personality, go out with me 'cause you'll never do better."
It's a strategy doomed to fail because it is shockingly stupid in every way and ignores human nature.
It bears repeating:
THE TROUBLE WITH SOCIALISM IS YOU EVENTUALLY RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.
—Margaret Thatcher
Winston Churchill famously said that “You can always count on the American People to do the right thing. Once they have exhausted all of the alternatives.”
We’re going to try it here. Get ready.
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