The Venezuelan Election

I wanted to make an observation about the Venezuelan election but rather than try to work it into a longer post I’ll just make the observation

Was Hugo Chavez not democratically elected? His election was certified as free and fair by international observers including the Carter Center. I would submit that when you elect a military dictator to the presidency of your country, you should anticipate that it is likely to be the last free and fair election your country will hold. Complaining that Maduro cheated is about 25 years too late.

Let’s turn to the United States. What do Americans, particularly the U. S. press expect us to do? Our choices are to intervene presumably forcefully whenever any country makes what we consider a bad, undemocratic decision whether that decision is made by democratic means or not or accept that other countries will occasionally do stupid, undemocratic things.

If you choose the former, congratulations, you’re an imperialist. If you choose the latter, bad things will continue to happen. There’s a corollary to our acceptance that people in other countries sometimes make bad choices. We shouldn’t subsidize those bad choices. When you subsidize something you get more of it. Letting Venezuelans cut into the line for immigration is a subsidy.