Venezuela’s New Firing Squad

We’ve watched Venezuela’s big-​daddy socialism descend into dystopia:

• Arbitrary arrests of political opponents;
• An economy managed by government decree, in which inflation “may top 700 percent this year” and toilet paper, food and medicine are in terribly short supply;
• The once oil-​rich country has become “the worst performing economy in the world,” with hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans clogging border crossings with Colombia;
• Meanwhile government workers “enjoy” a two-​day work-​week to save electricity, avoiding the wasted hours caused by daily blackouts;
• And President Maduro has decreed that citizens can be conscripted — drafted into service — for 60 days, forced to pick crops.

“Venezuela brings back fedual [sic] serfdom to try to alleviate food shortages,” read one online headline. (Don’t laugh, that may be how we spell “feudal” someday.)

Still believing in magic … “Maduro ordered a 50 percent increase in the minimum wage last month,” informed the National Post, “but the latest studies show that salaries still fall far short of the amount needed to obtain basic household goods and food.”

Socialism has failed, again, and in doing so demonstrates something more than economic shortcomings. As the late President Ford warned, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take everything you have.”

The Venezuelan people have the right to recall the president enshrined in their constitution, a particularly popular right at present … but the Maduro dictatorship refuses to take prompt, lawful action to facilitate the recall.

Not to mention unjustly arresting citizens circulating the recall petition or telling high government ministers to fire any government worker who signs.

So much for the socialist revolution … now tyrannically blocking a real revolution.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.     

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