quote:Your post could be read and construed as if it was something that "just happened" [Dont Know] as something "people were uncomfortable with" [Dont Know] for quite sometime and was changed to reflect a proper order of things rather than being described as the purely political calculation it was.
That is how it came off to me.
I'm more confused than before. I never said it just happened for no reason. I said a man was elected to four terms and that unnerved people because Roosevelt had actually broken the precedent, something nobody else had successfully managed, though three had tried in the past.
Also, calling it a Republican machination is just wrong, the Democrats were riding the euphoria of WWII having been won. It was the precise thing that worried people. That a president during war time could seize emergency powers and overstay his welcome indefinitely. God forbid it ever happen in the UK or Canada, but you guys are basically wide open for it.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I feel like this is a low stakes version of the gun rights debate in the US. On one hand, there's the theory that a higher concentration of guns will be better at preventing tyranny. But there's the practical reality that it hasn't worked out that way, the US government is if anything, more tyrannical than Canada's.
Same with term limits, I feel like in theory, maybe it could work. But in practice, when you look at the list of prime ministers that served more than two terms, we're looking at the very best Prime Ministers. Mackenzie King, Macdonald, Trudeau, Laurier, and Chretien. There's no doubt in my mind that we'd be much much worse off were these Prime Ministers cut-off in the middle of their work. The practical upside of having these skilled individuals continue their work outweighs the theoretical concern. Also, it isn't as if the UK hasn't faced challenges. Between Irish terrorism, the London bombings, and Hitler himself, British leaders have in fact restrained their powers much better than the US has in the face of 9/11.
Honestly, if we're looking at powers that define dictators, I would say post 9/11 powers like "having the ability to detain people indefinitely without charge and torture them" or "having the ability to assassinate people without any oversight" would be much much more obvious candidates for abuse in my view than "existing in a system without term limits."
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: ...and yet never ever, under any circumstances for as long as I have been a poster here seen you, or others actually contribute to said threads?
You are either misremembering, or lying. Because everyone here, at one time or another, usually many times, have contributed discussion to threads you have started.
Maybe not contributions you *liked*, and maybe not always directly in line with what *you* wanted to talk about. But this is simply not the case Blayne. You must know this. You would not be here for 8 years if this was not the case.
I contributed to a thread you started not a month ago. Something about aircraft carriers. That doesn't count? Or you just don't remember it because it didn't set you off, because I wasn't criticizing you? One difficulty of your self-centeredness in all things is that you rarely pay attention to anyone when they aren't speaking directly *to* you, and usually if they are not giving you negative attention as well.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Chavez was a bad man. His policies were bad. Sorry, Venezuela. You lost.
*significantly reduces poverty*
*improves living conditions for the poor*
*free education, healthcare*
Yup, real loss.
Again, and this ought not even bear repeatedly pointing out: many very violent, and very bad people have given their people these things.
And please, everyone, this is not "Godwin's Law," because I am not comparing any argument you are making to on Hitler would make. This is a valid reference to history:
Hitler gave his people marked improvements in almost all areas of their daily lives. And then came genocide, devastation, massive death, and the denigration of his nation, and the dominance of the Soviet Union over central and Eastern Europe for half a century.
This is not to say that Chavez was as bad as Hitler. Certainly he didn't have the opportunity to be so, nor do I think, the will or desire. But the point is: we do not necessarily judge people according to their list of successes- just as we do not entirely judge people according to their "righteousness."
Take Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for example: both wildly successful business men- both receive public adulation and are idealized as pillars of society. Gates not for his products, but for his charitable works. Jobs for his products, and his effect on society and consumer culture, but *despite* the fact that the man never gave a cent, of his Billions, to charity. My point being that people recognize success in different ways, but we take the person as a whole and decide if their lives were good for the world, or bad.
Chavez, with little strong argument, was the type who was bad for the world. Now, you could argue that he was a product of his circumstances, and you'd be right about that. But great men and women do not do what is expected of them. They do what is right.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Ahahahaha. Scrimmage time? I don't like to see people lionizing a petty thug that put a country on a real quick trip to opaque, corrupt autocracy. I especially don't like to see this lionization happening because of a school of bias ever so friendly to people who jangle tasty socialist treats and sucker people with anti-imperialist bombast.
He has, in essence, utterly destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and made official what was only before tacit cronyism. He restructured the entirety of political life around his individual decision making.
He put into place a constitution, and then wantonly disregarded it at every turn (even a court appointed by him, loyal to him, occasionally called him out on this and then were reprimanded).
Chavez has dismantled Venezuela's economy and public life. He has squandered oil money with 0 transparency. He promised the world, and has delivered very, very, very little.
It's actually rather depressing how much they could have done with all the resources they have wasted (a ton of which has literally disappeared into thin air), and yet there is practically nothing to show for the vast majority of the influx of what should have been a great deal of prosperity.
He blames everything on media conspiracies (hey by the way! His government recently closed down the last independently run news channel!), on western conspiracies, evil america, whatever, and has completely screwed discourse in the country.
Violence is already spiraling out of control, and the sort of people who have learned to succeed in the new Venezuela are people like in this article. These are the people who will try to consolidate their power now that a vacuum popped up at the top, and I can guarantee that a lot of the cronyism that was going on around oil money is going to dry up a bit as people consolidate power, waiting to see how things play out. I can't wait to watch you guys be totally surprised when austerity-style measures happen there.
Chavez' opaque, corrupt government is one that has completely squandered what rising oil prices could have done for the people. Venezuela has seen a gigantic rise in the price of oil since Chavez originally took power, and yet public debt has also skyrocketed.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Chavez absolutely did his part to make things go nuts after he lost power; setting the precedent to flout one's own law, consolidate power, redistribute wantonly to party insiders, etc.
A civil war? Can't rule it out but it doesn't seem likely. Most likely there will just be a crony shuffle and an even more outright spoils autocracy with the next head of state.
Well, at least until such time as a hypothetical venezuelan economic crash.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
According to Fox News there was also many incidents of voter fraud in the [2012] elections hrrrmmmm....
Posts: 12931 | Registered: Aug 2005
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