The litany of central planning failures never ends, and neither, apparently, does the need to remind Liberal doofuses chasing Utopia of the litany of central planning failures. Today’s installment comes amidst a nice piece on the “White Nights” of St. Petersburg in Russia:
In St. Petersburg, the grand city of the czars, they call them the “White Nights”: those 80 or so evenings, running from May to the end of July, when the city emerges from long months of cold and darkness and celebrates the brief return of nearly round-the-clock daylight.
These days, celebrations are allowed and the city enjoys a basic level of wealth. But mainly because Ronald Reagan defeated the USSR and liberated everything east of the Iron Curtain; before that, things were a bit…utopian? Uh, no, unless you are a naive Liberal or a fascist communist dictator who enslave and starves whole populations while in pursuit of your personal self-aggrandizement.
Even after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, St. Petersburg’s summer remained subdued: the economy had deteriorated so sharply after decades of misrule that many people became dependent on food rationing. For a time, St. Petersburg, which regained its original name in 1991, was even forced to accept humanitarian food aid from foreign donors — hardly the economic environment in which to stage all-night, citywide revelries.
And hardly the environment to enjoy life at all. And there’s that word again: “Rationing”. It sounds so benign, doesn’t it (Liberals)? Until you see people actually starving to death (see also: Mao’s Great Leap Forward).
But the cycle of central planning ended, and people are smiling again in St. Petersburg.
In which direction is America headed under the corrupt leadership of Barack Hussein Obama?
One more thing: Liberals often mistake natural beauty and resources with wealth and good times, not realizing that their collectivist fantasies (i.e., destructive politics) can destroy even the most beautiful of places. I have not been there, but it sounds breathtaking:
No other city in Russia enjoys such a breathtaking location. St. Petersburg was constructed on what originally were more than 100 islands formed by a latticework of rivers, creeks, streams and natural canals that flow into the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the Neva River. The Neva, the main artery through the city, snakes an east-west path across St. Petersburg, basically dividing it in half. The southern half, the part most reminiscent of Venice or Amsterdam, is cut by a grid of canals and includes many of the city’s most familiar landmarks.
Just think of that beauty marred by poverty, starvation, and government restrictions on celebrations.
Misguided and/or cruel people can destroy everything in their path, and have done so again and again throughout history. But I know, the wealth in America will never run out, and central planning can somehow work here, especially in the hands of a benign leader like Hussein Obama. I believe.
