May 3, 2023

Moochers and Looters

Why don’t people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past?

There’s a socialist wave in Latin America. Mexico, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil recently elected leftists.

These politicians at least distance themselves from thugs like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, but all propose socialism-lite policies giving government more control over more people.

Why don’t people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past? Gloria Alvarez, a social media star from Guatemala, is running for president of her country to try to educate people about the damage socialism does.

People do need educating.

“It’s like Stockholm syndrome,” says Alvarez in my new video. “When you ask people, ‘Who should take care of health, education, football, arts, whatever?’ They always answer, ‘government.’ How are you going to not have corruption if you leave everything in the hands of the government?”

Alvarez’s campaign is based on social media. Her TikTok announcing her campaign garnered 1.5 million views.

I’d like to think I taught her how to do that. Alvarez was once a Stossel TV Fellow. I’m hiring another now.

We helped Alvarez make a video about socialism that got a remarkable 15 million views.

But she knew about socialism well before that. She went to a libertarian university, Francisco Marroquin. “One thing that they do is teach socialism and communism. They make you read Marx and Engels … This is lacking in most national universities. People push for socialism because they don’t study it.”

One survey found that most millennials support socialism. But “when they were asked to define or describe socialism, none of them could!” says Alvarez. “They don’t know socialism’s massive failures.”

How can they not? The collapse of the Soviet Union and misery in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba aren’t visible enough?

Apparently not. Socialists still win elections.

“We’re all part of that same mentality that the government has this magical power to control the economy, tell you how to live your life and definitely not let you be free because you’re too dumb or too poor to be responsible for your own life,” says Alverez.

“We have two different Latin Americas, the ‘moochers and looters’ that Ayn Rand defined in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’” and then the “60 million Latin Americans who voted with their feet and live in the United States. They work and send money back home. In some countries, like Guatemala, these remittances are the number one source of income. This proves that we don’t need governments to take care of our poor. If there is freedom, private property, rule of law, then Latin Americans thrive!”

But people keep failing to learn.

Chile once prospered by embracing capitalism. Their leader, Augusto Pinochet, met with Milton Friedman and other free market economists. They persuaded him to cut tariffs and taxes and to privatize state industries and Social Security. When Pinochet took over, Chile was poorer than the rest of Latin America. Adopting free markets soon made Chile the richest country.

Unfortunately, Pinochet was also a vicious dictator who murdered opponents. His cruelty has allowed leftists to smear economic freedom ever since. “You cannot enforce free markets through a dictatorship,” says Alvarez.

Recently Chile elected a leftist president, Gabriel Boric. He wants to abolish the private pension funds that helped make Chile richer! He wants free public transport, universal health care, higher taxes on the rich and to end student debt. A national vote to adopt a progressive constitution was defeated, but he’ll return with similar plans.

“If you don’t keep educating new generations in the philosophical aspect of why individual freedoms are sacred,” says Alvarez, “eventually you will have a generation with material wealth that forgets the importance of these values, and then they go out and say, ‘Let’s have socialism!’”

That’s why she keeps making videos.

Her presidential campaign is really just an education campaign, since at 38, she is two years too young to legally become president in Guatemala.

But I’m glad she’s spreading the word.

“Freedom implies … that nobody else makes decisions for you,” says Alvarez. “People don’t like freedom. They like their populist messiah promising them bull—.”

COPYRIGHT 2023 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.