There’s an expression that I won’t use in a title to a piece, but I’ll use it in the body. The expression is, “You get a socialist with an election, you get rid of them with a gun.”

Socialists have a pattern. They won’t go away. It’s a one-way ratchet. They get elected, and then they refuse to get un-elected. So, we get more and more of them. They’re like houseflies – just as parasitic, just as bothersome, and just as unhealthy.

Bernie Sanders is a good example. He has been in politics for most of his 84-year life. Since 1981, he has been the mayor of Burlington, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and then a U.S. Senator since 2007.

Politics has been very good to Senator Sanders. He now owns multiple houses and has a seven-figure net worth. Not bad money, especially for a public servant who preaches the evil of the stuff.

Bernie reminds me of a bootlegging whiskey runner, which is perhaps appropriate since he represents a state that borders Canada. He opposes the legalization of alcohol because he doesn’t want the competition.  (BTW, can we trade Vermont for Alberta?)

Now, we have five more socialists. Three have won their Democratic primaries in New York and are shoo-ins to win the general election since New Yorkers are not allowed to vote for Republicans.

Two won their primaries in Colorado this week – one against a 15-term Congresswoman who herself was hard-left, and one in a contest for the governorship. Both will win their general elections in November because, alas, my formerly great State of Colorado has gone to the dogs (or, more precisely, to the wolves, but that’s a different column).

Of course, socialism will work no better this time than it has worked since Karl Marx dreamed it up a couple of centuries ago. Giving to each according to his needs and taking from each according to his abilities will produce a very needy society with very little ability. When it comes to free stuff, people like to be on the receiving end more than on the giving end.

Who would have thought?

So, we’ll eventually vote the socialists out, as societies always do once they re-learn the fact that the Elon Musks of the world may or may not be likable but they do make the trains run on time, and the spaceships, too.

But what do we do when they don’t go away after we vote them out? When they plead “voter suppression” or some such nonsense? When they pull a Bernie Sanders by hanging around for 45 years? When they pretend to be Nicolus Maduro or Nicolae Ceaușescu or Czar Nicholas?

It will be interesting.