Reblogged:There's Nothing Quite Like Socialism ...

[Gus Van Horn blog]

... to Make Beggars of the Elderly

Upon hearing of a recent protest by starving pensioners in Venezuela, the phrases "widows and orphans" and "throw them out into the streets" came to my mind from some time in my very early adulthood. I no longer recall the exact context, but someone bandied about such phrases in a show of horror after I'd expressed an admiration of Ayn Rand. I might have also admitted both my atheism and my admiration for capitalism. (I still am and still do to this day, only more so.)

There are many sad things to comment on about the following story, but I will limit myself to an excerpt and one short comment:

I fibbed: Socialism eventually throws everyone out on the streets. Hooray for equality! (Image via Wikipedia.)

Perched on plastic lawn chairs and leaning on canes, scores of retirees protested Wednesday to demand payment of their retirement benefits in crisis-hit Venezuela.

About 200 senior citizens blocked traffic on Urdaneta Avenue, a stone's throw from the presidential palace.

"They are not paying people's whole pension. We are just getting two million" bolivars, worth 60 US cents at black market rates, said Basilio Octo, 68.

There's nothing quite like socialism to throw the elderly out into the streets en masse. For starters: How many of these poor souls might have planned better for their later years absent the laughable guarantee of a government pension?

Well, okay. Here's another: The whole idea that conservatives can't muster a response to insinuations that more freedom (or even the same amount we have now) would result in similar problems here is troubling, to say the very least.

-- CAV

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