It's Your Patriotic Doodie, Comrade

It is a fundamental human desire not to have poo on your skin. In fact, not having poo on ourselves is so wired into our sense of our humanity that even simple cavemen would use leaves to wipe the poo off their bottoms, and you know that can’t have felt very nice.

But still they did it, because poo.

Now witness what late-stage socialism does to help fulfill this basic and ancient human desire:

A Venezuelan state agency on Friday ordered the temporary takeover of a factory that produces toilet paper in what it called an effort to ensure consistent supplies after embarrassing shortages earlier this year.

Critics of President Nicolas Maduro say the nagging shortages of products ranging from bathroom tissue to milk are a sign his socialist government’s rigid price and currency controls are failing. They have also used the situation to poke fun at his administration on social media networks.

A national agency called Sundecop, which enforces price controls, said in a statement it would occupy one of the factories belonging to paper producer Manpa for 15 days, adding that National Guard troops would “safeguard” the facility.

Soldiers — armed men — have to guard the place where the toilet paper is made, because the state is so shitty, if you’ll pardon the language and the pun, at allocating resources that Venezuela can’t produce enough rolls of tissue meant for wiping off the poo. Progressivism, that forward-moving movement, has reduced Venezuelans to using cavemen methods for cleaning their bottoms.

Of course, the problem isn’t unique to Venezuela. The Soviet Union, a nuclear-armed superpower fer cryin’ out loud, was notorious for its short supplies of toilet paper. Notorious too was the stunning discomfort caused by the stuff when you could get some. And yet Soviet citizens would stand in line for hours, just to get a roll or two of toilet paper that wasn’t much softer than dry tree bark.

Because poo.

Venezuelans are learning what the Russians learned in the 20th Century, and what Americans are about to discover as ObamaCare rolls out: Collectivism is a crappy way to do anything.