Venezuela Societal Collapse Thread

[Averageman]

This is a very good fifteen minutes of your time. One Man explaining what went wrong on a very basic level. If you can relate what is going on in Venezuela to what is going on in this Country, well, it's rather chilling.

Interview with Androcles, Venezuelan dissident against socialist regime.

[SteyrAUG]

So how many thousands of refugee's has Obama pledged to accept?

[mack7.62]

Sean Penn and Danny Glover hardest hit. This has been coming since Chavez took over in 1999 and started turning Venezuela into a socialist utopia. After he died in 2013 and his boy Maduro took over things went from bad to worse, how is putting the military in charge of production and distribution of food and basic goods when there is nothing to distribute.

[WillBrink]

This has been an on-going thing for quite some time now, ever since Chavez took ill. The people of Venezuela started starving, but nobody cared, their eyes fixed on Syria and Iraq.

The rolling blackouts and shortages aren't limited to the government, they've also impacted healthcare. Infant mortality is through the roof, hospital infection rates are high, and doctors are writing prescriptions that pharmacists are having to find creative ways of filling (including providing drugs that are similar to those prescribed, but not the exact drug).

Inflation is so bad that people have to use cards to pay for things because they cannot safely carry around the amount of cash needed to pay for necessities. Farmer's markets - which are illegal - practically cannot function if the farmer's do not bring a card reader.

According to the Venezuelan government, nothing's wrong, though. Even though foreign relief agencies and NGOs are chomping at the bit to bring antibiotics, food, and other basic needs, the Venezuelans are turning them away at the border: Nothing to see here, let them eat cake.

What's most impressive to me is that the Venezuelan people have not yet decided to start hanging the ruling class. It will be interesting to see how bad things get there before they decide to burn shit down.

Many Venezuelans with any $ have left. Many are in Panama were I am now and each year things get worse a new wave of Venezuelan's come to Panama. They are buying homes and opening businesses. The police/mil are well armed and the people have nadda, so unless a true resistance was to arise where they are armed by someone, they would be slaughtered. Some Venezuelan's buy the government line all their problems are due to the US, mostly older Venezuelan's. Per usual, it's complicated. The US is in the "damned if we do damned if we don't situation" here. I'd take Venezuelan refugees over middle eastern any day. All the Venezuelan's I have met are smart hard working people.

[Averageman]

There is a parallel here, between a failing Socialist Progressive government in Venezuela and how that happened and what we currently face.
That interview is very telling. Watch it and listen closely.

[TomMcC]

I was listening to a Dennis Prager program a week or so ago. He had this Libertarian free-market lady from El Salador (can't remember her name). She was talking about the socialist problem in general, but she asserted something that perked my ears. She said that the vast majority of those south of our border don't consider socialism to be the problem, but corruption. People in droves down there think socialism is just peachy. She pointed out that the jailed opposition to Maduro are all socialists themselves. It bodes ill for our country, as all these people immigrating to our country, whether legally or not, are firm socialists.

[Averageman]

This reminds me of that scene in the Godfather where everyone sits around the table in Cuba and passes the Golden Telephone around to admire it.
The "Pay to Play" aspect, I am sure was alive and well in Venezuela. They cut up and entire Country like it was slices of pie to be handed out to those who had made it to sit with the power elite.
That we sit by and have clear evidence that the Clinton Foundation is doing the same thing, but in the here and now and all while Obama's healthcare unravels.

We may be Venezuela sooner than we think. The FSA isn't going to let go of any of the Bennies, they will likely cut your throat before the give it up to save the economy and the Country.

[WillBrink]

I was listening to a Dennis Prager program a week or so ago. He had this Libertarian free-market lady from El Salador (can't remember her name). She was talking about the socialist problem in general, but she asserted something that perked my ears. She said that the vast majority of those south of our border don't consider socialism to be the problem, but corruption. People in droves down there think socialism is just peachy. She pointed out that the jailed opposition to Maduro are all socialists themselves. It bodes ill for our country, as all these people immigrating to our country, whether legally or not, are firm socialists.

On "paper" socialism is just peachy. So is communism. Add in what really happens with any of them when real humans with human nature is involved, they suck. They're not wrong per se, they just don't understand those forms of government never work and lead directly to corruption. Two, culturally, they have no real concept of Liberty and Individual Rights and or think they can have those things with those forms of government when that aint the case. As the man said:

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" - Winston Churchill

[Averageman]

I guess the perfect metaphor would be "The Camels nose under the Tent".
Once you let the first elements of Socialism creep in there is no way to stop it from going slowly full tilt.
I don't think I've seen a major Government Bureau get shut down in my Lifetime. I don't think I've seen a benefit to the FSA get shut off. This stuff just increases.
The little pig men at their desks inside these bureau's just keep coming to the trough for more money and then they go back to their desks to think up more ways to pass more de facto Laws through regulations. None of them are elected, all of them have their jobs for life and we cannot hold them accountable.
Yup, we're screwed.

[TomMcC]

I think Will's comment about human nature was about right. I see socialism as a system driven by the lust for lording it over people, a lust for power with really no check on it. At least with our system, a democratic republic, the founders were very concerned about limiting this lust for power and it's abuse.