Venezuelans are being arrested for posting Internet photos of
shortages in stores. So let's get this straight: Murder and mayhem are
de facto legal in that crime pit, but posting evidence of socialism's
failure merits jailing.
As socialism plays out to its logical conclusion in Venezuela, the
specters of long lines, rationing, troop enforcers, bizarre edicts and
desperate statements are now the order of the day.
Not only have more than a dozen Venezuelans been arrested for posting
photographs of empty store shelves on social media, three governors
have responded to long lines by — prohibiting them; ordering the arrest
of anyone who lines up for goods before sunrise.
Troops now supervise lines because so many fistfights and looting
incidents break out in these daily 12-hour ordeals for rice or toilet
paper. Warehouses full of diapers have been seized and their owners
accused of "hoarding." Strange arrangements have cropped up, too, with
the rich paying the poor to spend their days in line for them, securing
supplies so they don't have to.
And along with 80% food-price inflation, an economy premised on
importing 70% of its food supply, and a minimum wage that covers only
17% of a basic food basket, it's obvious that the poor are suffering the
most from 16 years of socialism.
Which is what Venezuela's bishops stated in a pastoral letter that
powerfully denounced the poverty and ruin brought to their country.
The government's decision to "impose a political-economic system"
that is "socialist, Marxist or communist," "totalitarian and centralist"
and "undermines the freedom and rights of individuals and associations"
is to blame, they wrote.
The system, they said, has failed wherever it's been tried and
"created growing poverty among large sectors of the population,
particularly among those with the fewest economic resources."
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
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