As IF Times

Source: Venezuela seizes bakeries amid bread shortage | Miami Herald

In 1957, Ayn Rand published what would become her most famous, (if gratuitously overwritten) work of literature depicting a dystopian scenario in which productive people are stripped of their ability to control the product of their industriousness.  Instead, the state decides what levels of production are appropriate, by whom and even to the detriment of the producer because  the “public good” trumped the needs of the productive individual.  As time goes on, innovative and productive endeavours stop, industries fail and the country spirals into poverty.

The cautionary message conveyed by this fictitious scenario in Atlas Shrugged has been lost on many societies since the appearance  of the now 70 year old classic novel.  The situation in Venezuela with the commandeering of bakers….bakers, could be lifted directly from the pages of the book.  Venezuela is blessed with an abundance of economic potential by virtue of ample oil resources.  Oil prices soared from under $20 dollars a barrel to over $120 at their peak before declining to the present $50 a barrel level.  This bounty of revenue should have created a windfall of wealth for the nation.  Yet, thanks largely to the ill advised adventures of their socialist ex-president Hugo Chavez,  the nation is barely solvent, with a crushing national debt while poverty and shortages plague the people there.  The government is restricting goods and services of all kinds and have now taken to policing bakers on their production.  It’s as if they were lottery winners that blew the windfall on booze and trinkets.

By comparison, we may observe that a couple of other nation states have managed to not just survive, but thrive economically with virtually no benefit of available commercial natural resources.  In the case of Israel, they have somehow turned  a few acres of arid sand, surrounded by permanently hostile neighbors, into an oasis of economic activity.  In the case of Japan, a bunch of islands bereft of natural resources, they are nevertheless among the world’s pre-eminent industrial nations.  In neither one of these two examples are the poor, the elderly and the sick, pushed into lives of desperation and poverty.  Oddly, we only see this type of poverty and desperation in nations that subscribe to centralized control and planning as the form of government.  Think Cuba.

In fact, throughout history, there are no examples of successful, centrally controlled, collective societies. None. Think of that.  We never hear of people risking their lives to get into nations such as Cuba, or Venezuela. Yet somehow, the notion that a benign and altruistic central authority represents the ideal form of government continues to be pushed to this day.  The historical failure of this mindset hasn’t quelled the ambitions of those that push for this dystopian oppression on an even larger scale.  Frighteningly, we see this impetus for  ‘world government’ coming from today’s ‘globalists’.  And therein lies the entire problem with people who have no sense of history and too much faith in unicorn theory.  They are like the slow kid in school that still answers 5, when asked the sum of  2 plus 2, despite having been told the correct answer 14 times.  In the absence of any successful precedent for their visions of a theoretical central bureaucracy manipulating the affairs of a nation-state, they cling to the idea that this time, it’s different.

link Occupy Wall Street veteran gears up for Occupy Sacramento – KansasCity.com.

Nobody wants to miss out on a good street event.  At any given time, there is always some issue to protest somewhere in the world.  Sometimes it’s legitimate bread and butter issues, ie: they don’t have any, or it’s social issues such as gay or animal rights concerns.  In some parts of the world, it can even be about losing a hockey or soccer game.  Some are professional rioters who go from town to town looking to participate at the behest of organizers.  I’m sure there’s a Facebook page for protesters whereby participants can pick the ones that sound amusing.  Some just love a good riot and want to be part of the scene.  The clue is when some people bring their kids like it was the Macy’s parade.

The recent so called “Wall Street Occupation” is a prime example of a protest about nothing.  While ostensibly, it’s about lack of jobs and opportunity and the increasing gulf between regular people and the Wall Street fat cats, the actual message is lost on the majority of the participants.  They incoherently try to frame the issue as some kind of righteous entitlement protest, when in reality, they are a mob with nothing better to do.

When asked what they want, they essentially want those ‘fat cats’ at the top to share their wealth with them.  In other words, they want what someone else has.  How original.  Sometimes they claim that they want jobs.  That’s rather unlikely since if they needed jobs, they’d be out looking for them rather than standing around waving signs and causing public disruption.  Where are they staying?  How do they pay for lunch?  More importantly, where do they wash and pee?  There’s no denying that for years, “Wall Street” financial heads have reaped out-sized rewards for their dubious roles as captains of finance.  There’s no doubt that much of that stemmed from political influence bought and paid for, from both sides of the political fence.  Therefore the roots of the current malaise lie as much with politicians as with greedy bankers.

Unfortunately, the mob have no real endgame solutions other than just to cause disruption.  When you have an avowed communist like Van Jones exhorting the “people” to revolt and stand up for America, we know it’s a complete farce.  The kind of policies people like Jones are pushing are in fact blatantly anti-American.  They are completely at odds with the founding principles of the nation.  There is nothing in the founding tenets of the constitution that refer to any kind of statism, collectivism and certainly not socialism.  Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is clearly mentioned.  Nothing about being owed a job.  Or a minimum wage.  Or 4 paid weeks off every year.

In the old days, when people felt oppressed and deprived of opportunities, they left a country for greener pastures.  This factor is likely high on the list of reasons for why people emigrate.  How do you think America got started in the first place? Immigrants from all parts of the world converged on the U.S. precisely because its policies were diametrically opposite to the countries they were leaving.  From this immigrant pool was built indisputably, the greatest nation the world has ever seen.  Now, it seems, many don’t like the way things are.

If you go to a football game and you don’t like the product, is it logical to change the rules to more closely resemble those of soccer?  Why not just go to a soccer game?  This is the curious circumstance we see today.  “Thousands of protesters”, which actually means hundreds when you discount the media hyperbole, are protesting that the U.S. does not embrace policies that are essentially… socialist!  Breaking news, the U.S. is not a socialist nation, at least not by origin even though the neo socialists want to make it so.  There are plenty of high tax, socialist nations in existence today.   Think Sweden, or Denmark or Great Britain or France, although in France, the winds are a-changing.  These are nations that have embraced the socialist philosophy in their governing policies.  Why wouldn’t these nations be beacons of attraction for the oppressed masses here who are tired of that damn capitalism?

It’s one thing if the ‘mob’ were coherent about inequitable government policies; it’s another to say that the entire system of government sucks.  Strangely there aren’t long conga lines of people heading for Cuba or Venezuela.   These places have widely advertised their socialist/Marxist charms.  Plus, the weather is generally nicer than New York or Michigan.  Somebody should post that on Facebook.