Well, hey, I guess all that torture was worth it then. The price of greatness. I'm sure the Chilean people would have elected Pinochet and his torturers instead of Allende had they only known how high their standard of living ultimately would rise.

And Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Allende was elected President with only 36.6% of the vote. But anyway, he decided that was a mandate to turn Chile into a Socialist state. Inflation hit 1000% a year, the economy collapsed, and tax revenue dried up. Allende decided the only way to keep the government going was nationalizing the countrys industry. This was furthering deepening the crisis so he turned to the Soviet Block for Aid (which is exactly what happened to Cuba). Nixon was faced with the choice of potentially letting Chile turn into another Cuba or support the coup. He supported the Coup. Considering that Chile could have turned into another Cuba condemning the entire country to abject poverty for generations to come, I think the call was the right one. Nixon may have been a criminal, but when it came to foreign policy he knew exactly what he was doing. He had a much better grasp international politics and strategy than all of his political enemies.

Mussolini was a socialist. What most liberals hate to admit (or don't understand) is that fascism and socialism are closely related cousins. Pinochet was no fascist. Hell the Nazi's even called themselves National Socialists. Allende had more in common with Mussolini than Pinochet did.

In other words, we subverted the democratically elected government of another country because they were choosing the wrong economic policies, and helped install torturers whose dictatorial regime lasted for years.

We're all supposed to be pretending that the watchword for a conservative foreign policy is "democracy." Get with the program, Spanky.

As for Chile's strategic significance, it was Henry Kissinger who described Chile as a dagger pointed at the heart of Antartica.

What you are failing to grasp is that free markets and democracy are intertwined. One doesn't last very long without the other. Countries that head down the socialist path end up becoming dictatorships because that is the only way they can survive. Cuba is a perfect example. Burma is another. Venezuela is a perfect modern example. Countrys with growing economies either stay democracies, or if they are not, turn into democracys. If you want a foreign policy that focuses on turning countrys into democracy's you need to focus on economics.

By that logic, the earlier we eliminate the Cuban embargo the better. Or alternately, the embargo has hindered the development of democracy in Cuba.

Good. I hear they got world-class beaches there.

I would agree with that. However, the best way to help Cuba would be regime change.

Why? Shouldn't Fidel just switch to free-markets?

Please. Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

All of the deposed Nixon officials are coming out of the woodwork to tee off on him. Stein is no different. One might have hoped he was. For a guy who graduated first in his class from Yale Law School, and had a promising early career, he sure burned out.

This is sarcam. Right? Actually, if he would switch to free markets I would have no problem with him staying. The problem is he is just too stupid and arrogant to see that history has proven his economic theories wrong. The Chinese figured they made a mistake and are now rectifying it. The Chinese are pretty much following Pinochet's model right now, although much more gradually. It is just too bad Castro can't see the obvious.

Send him to Cuba - he's a proven winner!

At a convention I was standing next to Bo Derek (she hadn't been able to get away from me yet) and Ben Stein came up and told her that the Republican Party had no place for people that were Pro-Choice. I told Ben Stein that I was not aware that he was Log Cabin Republican. He asked me why I thought he was a Log Cabin Republican, and I said because only a homosexual Republican would tell Bo Derek to leave the party. In no time I was standing all by myself sipping my cheap cocktail.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

And what you are failing to grasp is that IT IS NOT OKAY TO FUCKING KILL, TORTURE, AND TERRORIZE PEOPLE INTO A "DEMOCRACY."

Was this in the 80's?

And so we turn back to morality...
 

tell that shit to sitting bull

It was the year that Ben Stein was in charge of the Ideology Purity Committee, whenever that was.

:D

Unfortunately, this story proves Bo Derek is humorless and has no style. Otherwise she would at least have gotten you another cheap cocktail.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

This is what I'm saying...

I know we've had this conversation before, and I'm not sure what I can add to what we said then, or to taxwonk's suggestion that it's not OK to torture and rape and murder people in the name of free markets.

This century has seen plenty of dictatorships that did not simply turn into democracies. Some obvious examples include Germany, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union, and China. Meanwhile, people may choose, in a democratic fashion, to abandon free markets. Take, for example, Venezuela, Chile, or -- according to many conservatives, Sweden and the rest of Europe, until this week at least, although coverage I've seen suggests that French voters want their markets to be less free, not more.

And then I return to the idea -- bizarre to a conservative these days, I'm sure -- that it's not OK to torture and rape and murder people in the name of free markets.

Stein went to Yale?!*


*lame crossover joke to the FB. Serious replies not necessary.

I've read quite a bit about Cambodia and never seen the argument that Pol Pot's government was supported by the North Vietnamese. Admittedly it's been a long time, but given that (1) the Khmer Rouge were Maoists and allied with China, a long-time enemy of Vietnam, and (2) that North Vietnam invaded Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge from power, I think my recollection is right.

But I'm just a liberal, so there ya' go. I'm just forgetting all the benefits inherent in installing a puppet military dictatorship.

Sure thing. So, in retrospect, the torture was all worthwhile. I deputize you to go to Chile and spead this news across the country through a hand-held loudspeaker.

That Mussolini dude got a bad rap too -- he kept the trains running on time.

I've never heard anything really positive about the economic policies of Stalin or Hussein -- but I'll try to keep an open mind.

Don't like the comparisons? Differences of degree rather than of substance.

S_A_M

Yeah, it's a terrible thing when a democratically elected leader interprets a narrow victory as a mandate for dramatic changes.


Really, the only solution to such a problem is violent overthrow, preferably sponsored by a foreign country, and the installation of a military dictatorship. Torturing a few thousand people is helpful too.

What do you mean by a "free market"?

Sweden. Norway. Denmark. Finland.

Germany. France. The U.K. in the 1960s and 1970s.

All markets much, much less "free" than in the U.S.
Dictatorships in the making? Who knew?

P.S. Nixon introduced wage and price controls.

S_A_M

Shortly after South Africa finally moved away from apartheid, there was a white conservative anti-government author -- often compared to Newt Gingrich -- who similarly opined that apartheid was socialism. His view was that, since both require massive government intervention in society, they are the same beast. He conveniently ignored the fact that it was conservative and pro-business parties who supported apartheid, while socialists and communists fought it, often at the cost of their lives.

Today, you remind me of that author. But hey -- I'm sure Chile could not have pursued progressive economic policies without torturing a few thousand people, and I guess they just weren't ready for democracy back in the 70s.

Again, you are missing the point.


In Spanky's opinion, it is perfectly okay.

See? You are proving Spanky's point. All of those countries are well on the way to becoming fascist dictatorships.


Well, you might have to grant Spanky his argument on that one.

Did you happen to hear this piece on NPR about the so-called "Chicago Boys" in Chile in the 70s?

Who cares? What's good for ITT, PepsiCo, and Anaconda Copper is good for the country. Free enterprise trumps all.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

You can't judge everything from hindsight. Politics is not that easy. Sometimes it is the lesser of two evils. We supplied Stalin with tons of ammunition and supplies during World War II, and lots of it was used to exterminate his own people. We sent all the Russian prisoners of war back to Stalin even though we knew that he would kill them to avoid a conflict. Pinochets actions were not forseable. Allende's were. At the time Nixon made the right call.

It was about eight months ago at a California Republican Party Convention.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

That's a nifty trick -- all the bad stuff Pinochet did was utterly unforeseeable, but all the bad stuff Allende might have done was utterly predictable. And it was necessary to overthrow the democratically elected government to make sure that eventually, after the junta finished torturing people, democracy might return.

eta: Here's a nifty thing about democracy: When the government is accountable to the people, it tends not to torture them so much.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

Indeed not.

• That still does not change the fact that Chile now has the strongest economy in Latin America, and has the highest standard of living (maybe number 2) in South America. When the coup occured, Chile was close to the bottom, its standard of living was declining rapidly, there was massive inflation, and incredible capital flight from the country. Pinochet may have been a nasty dude, but the country has kept his economic policies in place making Chile the economic miracle of Latin America.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

Sometimes it is necessary to destroy the village in order to save it. Especially from the Reds.

Actually, Jennifer Stockman was also standing with us. Jennifer Stockman is the head of the "Republican Majority for Choice" but more importantly she is David Stockman's wife. For those of you not old enough, David Stockman wrote a book called the Triumph of Politics, about his tenure as Reagan's budget director. He was eventually pushed out because he was not a team player. I read his book in college and it changed my life. I switched from Poly Sci to Economics and ended up writing my senior thesis on the Federal Budget Process because of his book. When I figured out she was David Stockman's wife I became a star struck babling idiot and was telling Jennifer how her husband changed my life and if she could get him to read my thesis etc., if I could meet him, and generally making a total fool of myself. Bo Derek had never even heard of David Stockman and I think she left because she was not used to being outshown by a person that was not even present, and that she had never heard of.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

Allende had already asked for soviet assistance, was clamping down on the press for criticising him and had declared a state of emergency because of all the riots over the economic mess. It was pretty clear where things were headed. You would have to be blind to see where it was heading. We had the choice of a Sociality dictatorship or a military junta, and the military junta clearly turned out to be the right choice. Are you saying Pinochet's record is worse than Castro's. If I had a choice between a Castro and a Pinochet, or even the chance of a Castro, I would pick Pinochert any day.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

Better dead than Red, pinko. Go back to Erie, comrade.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

On what planet are you talking about? Democratic governments start ignoring the people all the time and turn to torture etc. Chile was like Germany in the early 1930s, it was just a question of what sort of dictator was going to take over.

And so we turn back to morality...
 

Why would it necessarily have turned out like Cuba. You have no idea what it would have turned out like. No one could know what would have happened if Allende had stayed around. Maybe some other non-military-junta option would have materialized. This writing style is very creepy. How can you not feel the oozing creepiness while you are writing.

I don't recall that Castro has raped or murdered or tortured people. If he did, did he do it as much as Pinochet is the question. While we are talking about dictators, what political stripe were Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier is another question. Jesus christ I think I have to go cut off my fingers for typing sentences in this style. It is truly shocking.