My visit to a Socialist Country

A few years back I spent three weeks vacation in a notoriously Socialist Country. The people were kind, the country was beautiful and I would have to say that the trip was a success.

Due to some minor occurrences and what I saw, I would have to say that I was very Grateful that I lived in the United States.

One day, while driving through the country side with a native citizen, I was admiring the surroundings and asked the person next to me, who owns these farms, His answer was, people who make a lot of money, but they do not have the choice to grow what ever they please. They have to get permission from the state to change their product or what ever it is they'd rather grow. If the owners took it open them selves to grow anything that was not permissible by the state, their operation would be shut down. The Government also Claims half of all their profits every year too. They are basically partners with the state.

When walking around one of the other cities we saw about twenty venders selling articles on blankets on one particular street. Items like Sun Glasses, purses, wallets, shoes etc. When returning to the same street forty minutes later we were shocked to find every vender standing at attention holding their goods bundled up in the blankets as the state police were arresting them. As the officer in charge was directing a truck for these men to be hauled away on, I notice that they were all hold their blanket of goods at chest level with a very frightened look on every one of their faces. What charges these men were being brought up on and what was going to happen to them? I do not know. But all I could think of was that if this were to take place in the United States, at least half of them would have dropped their goods and fled on foot. Those men knew that they were dealing with a law enforcement that was not to be reckoned with.

When I returned home my Father told me of what happened to him on a prior visit to the same country. While driving through heavy traffic of one of their major cities, he was able to find a parking space. He left the car, saw the sites and returned to the car to find that he had been illegally parked. Being that He didn't see a ticked placed on the windshield, he didn't think anything of it until I got home to the United State. On his next bank statement he noticed charge on his credit card to the equivalent of $70. It turned out that a summons was issued by the city police who ran the license plate number. With that, they were able to have access to his credit card number through the agency where the car was rented. He later found that there would not have been an optional court date to argue the summons any way. Not given the ultimatum of, pay or else, you just pay, period.

In this is a country I visited the message was clear that it is the Government has the upper hand and final say as to of what is allowed and what is not. This was a country where if one is so much as suspected of doing something illegal or disapproved of, the state has the right to enter your home, your villa or hotel room to search through all of your belongings with out warrant, or a court order. This was a Socialist country were the Government and law enforcement are not thought of as trusted servants nor did the people did not proudly hang their nations flag out side of their homes. I enjoyed my trip and thought of the country as a nice place to visit but I would not want to live there.