Socialism: Venezuela offers U.S. harsh lesson

Re: “Fleeing Venezuelans now Latin America’s underclass,” (TNT, 7/29).

Due to a lack of political and economical education, as well as liberal misinformation, many Americans now long for a socialist democracy.

As a result, New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to Congress, and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders almost was the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

However, this Washington Post article reveals grim, left-wing, political and economic realities. Venezuela, for example, “adapted a form of socialism that resulted in many businesses collapsing or being nationalized.”

This formerly wealthy nation now “buckles under the weight of a failed socialist experiment.”

The results? A projected two million financially desperate Venezuelans will flee their homes this year. This doubles the 1.8 million who have already escaped.

True, any political or economic system has its flaws. But democratic socialism has too many of them.

In spite of its shortcomings, democratic free enterprise (aka, capitalism) helped make America the world’s most prosperous nation.

We dare not repeat the tragic mistakes of socialism’s victims such as poor Venezuela.