photo #9388873

This cartoon is called The Socialist Cycle. It is six steps. It perfectly describes the lifecycle.Step one. Promise a new socialist utopia. Equality. Justice. A better world. The man on the balcony always sounds like a preacher. He never sounds like a bookkeeper.Step two. Punish or seize from the successful. Property seized. The people who built the shop, the farm, and the factory become the enemy. Their crime is that it worked.Step three. Force others to carry the load. The party drinks the wine. The workers pull the cart. The slogan is solidarity. The arrangement is a yoke.Step four. Run out of food. Empty shelves. No supplies. No food. No hope. Venezuela's living standards fell about 74 percent in a decade. More than 7 million people walked out of their own country. That is not a mystery. That is the inventory.Step five. People suffer and starve. Mothers and children in the rubble. The planners still eat. The people who believed the speech do not.Step six. Say it was not real socialism. That was corruption. We just need more time. We just need to do it right. They say it after Russia. After Cuba. After Venezuela. After every pile of empty shelves. The next man on the balcony uses the same six words.Why anyone would vote for this is beyond me. You can read the ending on the sign in panel six before the first speech is over.Fiscal accountability is the opposite of this cycle. You do not get prosperity by punishing the people who produce it. You do not get a republic by making the productive class pull a wagon for the people with the flags.This cartoon is not a joke. It is a warning label.After you look at all six boxes, why would anyone mark a ballot for this?