Venezuelans Now On A Forced Starvation Diet — Thanks, Socialism!
People talk a lot about socialism without understanding the difference between socialist practices and full socialism. Full socialism means the government controls.... EVERYTHING. The people really only have whatever rights and benefits the government sees fit to give them, and have very little to say about what the government does in how it controls society, industry, education, health care, etc. It always winds up with a tiny elite really running things, as we can see in China, Cuba, Viet Nam today, and as it was during the heyday of the Soviet Empire throughout all the satellite nations. And it doesn't work well, there's waste, corruption, environmental damage, injustice galore, and erosion of ethics on a large scale. Oddly enough, we have here in the USA very substantial socialist practices, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Title 8 housing, etc. But we remain a capitalist system and a democracy, with individual freedoms, opportunities, and ultimately control of the government to at least a large extent through the voting booth. Even though people refer to Sweden as a socialist nation, they are not full socialist, they too are democratic and capitalist, but with a much larger set of socialist practices than we have. It's an important difference from real socialism. (I still like it better here.) Venezuela should be an example that everyone looks at and understands, along with all the other failed socialist experiments dating back a century by now. But some intellectuals don't let mere facts, logic, and history bother them, they are in love with the ideal they believe can be made into reality. The actual reality of so much history is something they cannot, will not, acknowledge. (And so many of them are college professors.) --Del
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