You’d think by now that defined insanity would dictate that socialism is a failed adventure and that we’d have more productive use of our limited time on this earth if we simply focused on refining the liberties we know work. If you think this way however you’d be wrong because there appears to be a gene in man that seems to want to be oppressed by a demagogic dictator, whether through communism, Islam or any other myriad ways of totalitarianism.

Venezuela might be in utter social collapse, with the people facing a dictate from Nicolás Maduro requiring all citizens to work 60 days in the fields [see here], but Europe’s various population experiments will just take a little longer to implode. The idea that no state just hasn’t confiscated money off Person A to launder and redistribute to Person B correctly enough, and that if we’d just try harder, this time, oh yes! – this time, it might just work.

With the United States having two crony capitalists this election from whom to choose, with Canada embarking on its social experimentation with taxes on air (euphemistically called carbon trading), with Venezuela literally enslaving its own people, with Europe welcoming sharia punishments with eager alacrity, it appears 168 years of failure matters little to the overseers of the next brave new world. And as for the people – well, more than ever it seems, just enough social masochists are around to ensure their chains are worn through choice.