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July 16, 2007
Venezuelans Escaping Chavez Head For USA
Posted by Dave Blount at July 16, 2007 6:12 PM
Liberals are fond of denouncing life in America, while praising conditions under our communist enemies, whose regimes serve as beacons for progressives who want to pull our country ever farther from its founding principles of freedom and dignity in the direction of authoritarian socialism. Yet despite the many intellectuals who have devoted their sophisticated minds to slandering our country, none has come up with an explanation for the eagerness of people to escape socialist regimes, or the fact that so many escapees head straight for the USA.
The latest example: Venezuela, which is degenerating into a Cuba-style communist state under the iron-fisted rule of liberal heartthrob Hugo Chavez.
Only 14 Venezuelans were granted asylum in 1998, the year Chavez took power. Now we're letting in over 1,000 per year legally. In no mood to wait on the bureaucracy, many take advantage of our resolutely unguarded borders; 160,000 are claimed to live here illegally.
According to Riordan Roett, director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University:
I have no doubt that the middle class and those with some stake in the old Venezuela have legitimate concerns regarding their future livelihood and in some cases safety as the regime hardens and the state moves into every sphere of economic and social activity.
If you have young children, you want out. If you have assets that have been seized, or may be seized, you want out as quickly as possible. If you have land that will be expropriated, leave sooner than later.
Fortunately Chavez hasn't followed Castro's lead in killing people for trying to escape — yet.
Now try to imagine anyone, even the moonbattiest college professor, escaping the USA to live under a socialist thug like Chavez.
On a tip from Wiggins.
