While there are many who, apparently, seem to have
been caught by surprise at the level of economic and social degradation
occurring today in Venezuela under chavismo, the movement founded by the late
leftist dictator Hugo Chávez, who, praise God, died of cancer three years ago,
after seeing what has been the result of every other attempt at socialism,
there’s really nothing surprising about it. What began as a war against the
“squalid” oligarchy in order to build what he called “21st-century socialism” —
cheered on as he was by many leftists from abroad — has collapsed into an
unprecedented heap of misery and conflict.
As has always been the case wherever the implementation of this twisted ideology
has been attempted.
Unsurprisingly, Chávez was incapable of reinventing
socialism as anything other than a prescription for abject failure. Ultimately,
all he wound up bequeathing to his people is this century’s longest national
train wreck. The distressing stories
that continue to flow from Venezuela only continue to worsen. From stories about the simple necessities
like being unable to buy toilet paper to horror stories about the spiraling
public-health emergency there due to shortages of medicine, doctors, and, among
other things, electricity to keep hospitals and medical equipment functioning. Stories of babies dying in maternity wards,
lack of water to wash blood from operating tables, surgeons forced to wash
their hands with bottles of seltzer water.
The easily preventable deaths of innocents is
tragic, but it is only one more ghastly layer atop Venezuelans’ increasingly
brutish quality of life. Added to this are levels of street crime among the
world’s highest; shortages of the most basic goods, leading to hours-long
queues and looting; triple-digit inflation, which has resulted in more than 70
percent of the population’s living in poverty; and the collapse of government
services exacerbated by the two-day work week, ordered by Chávez’s hapless
successor, Nicolás Maduro, to save energy. This explains why, for three years running,
Venezuela has been ranked No. 1 in the world in the Cato Institute’s annual
Misery Index. All this in a country with the largest oil reserves in the world.
So you may ask, how could it all have come to this? While it may be true that international oil
prices have dropped to less than half of what they were at the height of Chávez’s
power, anyone who has been watching Venezuela closely knows that the downward
glide path predated by years the oil-market collapse. It also doesn’t explain
how other countries heavily dependent on energy exports have weathered the
storm without such catastrophic consequences. No, what has brought on
Venezuela’s nightmare is the systematic destruction of economic freedom through
politicized rule of law, the wanton confiscations of private property, and an
orgy of price and currency controls, which have led to rampant distortions and
dislocations.
Still, it wasn’t so long ago that legions of leftist
admirers of Venezuela were falling all over themselves singing the praises of
Chávez. In 2012, Mark Weisbrot, wrote in the New York Times: “Since the Chávez
government got control over the national oil industry, poverty has been cut in
half, and extreme poverty by 70 percent. College enrollment has more than
doubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time and
the number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled.” And it was in a Salon article titled “Hugo
Chávez’s Economic Miracle” (2013) that we read: “As shown by some of the most
significant indicators, Chávez racked up an economic record that a
legacy-obsessed American president could only dream of achieving.”
But perhaps the most shameless of the Chavez apologists
was the hardy perennial Oliver Stone, who, unable to limit himself to one
hagiographic documentary on Chávez, felt compelled to make two. On Chávez’s
death in 2013, Stone issued this statement: “I mourn a great hero to the
majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place.
Hated by the entrenched classes, Hugo Chavez will live forever in history.” But it’s not enough to simply point out the
enduring folly of socialism’s apologists, of which there are many. Now I suppose will always have our Useful Idiots. But the point is to prevent
yet another generation of Americans from being led astray by the siren song of
socialism.
In other words, those Millennials currently enamored
by the quixotic campaign of “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders for the U.S.
presidency. They seem to have an idea of socialism as a sort of imaginary
Scandinavian bliss rather than as a pernicious deal with the devil whereby you
relinquish more of your rights to government on the faulty promise of improving
your security and well-being. All you are left with is poverty, less dignity,
and no hope. Every new generation must be made to understand that ideas will
always have consequences. And, if you
have any doubts about that, a visit to Venezuela, just a few hours’ flight time
from Miami, will likely convince you of that essential fact. Government is NOT the solution!
We have in Venezuela that which was once a thriving
country and it was the leadership of a madman that proceeded to drive it
straight into the ground. Those Hollywood elite royalty that so many worship,
the likes of Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Michael Moore and Danny Glover, probably
push the radio station button or quickly turn the page of a newspaper when they
now read of the destruction that Hugo Chavez has wrought. It’s amusing to see the spin put on this by
places like National Public Radio (NPR), your tax dollars at work, when they
actually mention it, that is. It’s not the socialism's fault, it’s solely the
fault of falling oil prices. Otherwise Venezuela would be a little socialistic
heaven.
We do not appreciate enough the fact that socialism
doesn't start by asking you to give up your rights. It begins by demanding that
others give up their rights for the sake of the public good. It is popular to
demand that the 1% pay their workers more, and pay more taxes. All this is done
by centrally applied force, and the persons applying the force are incompetent,
and soon enough we all suffer consequences. The problem is that young America,
courtesy of our public school system and out institutions of ‘higher learning’,
has now so propagandized that using another's money to make your life a little
more comfortable is a good idea. So the realistic question we are faced with is
how can we now introduce them to reality?
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