Miguel Octavio writes a post about the unbelievable hassle of getting a passport out of Venezuela. He studiously describes the incredible shenanigans citizens must go through (something the FARC, which gets its Venezuelan passports handed to them never worries about) including high bribery rates, unfathomable delays, government blacklists, and now a particularly slimey government official saying that there wouldn’t be passport delays if so many irresponsible Venezuelans who have no good reason to travel abroad in the first place wouldn’t ask for them!

Can you believe that?

Miguel left out commentary on one thing that he probably didn’t realize (or didn’t dare write) was noteworthy. When the Chavista government announced it had gotten more paper supplies to print passports, 400,000 – that’s right, four hundred thousand – Venezuelans immediately applied to get their passports at once.

Venezuela’s population is 25 million. That means about 2% of the entire population was at the government’s door on the first day.

What does that say? It says that People Want Out. And this people exodus is a sure sign of a brutal leftist tyranny about to take root. It never happens any other way than this. People are getting ready to flee.

Read Miguel’s superb essay about passports in Venezuela here.