Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: The wild card in Venezuela: armed Chavistas [View all]Benton D Struckcheon
(2,347 posts)If there were truly disapproval of their conduct, this kind of thing wouldn't happen in such obviously flagrant numbers. And getting back to that atrocious picture, it is a sign of a bunch of truly sick people.
I don't speak in total ignorance here. Police who are not exactly lawful are a staple of Latin countries. In Mexico my wife (she's from there) would never allow herself to be alone on a road with a policeman. She would drive to the nearest police HQ if they wanted her to pull over and deal with the policeman there.
The point in all of this that you and your fellows are missing is this: Mexico, for instance, has made huge strides towards becoming a true multiparty republic, emerging out of the old Latin formula of authoritarian single party rule. Under Chavez, Venezuela went in exactly the opposite direction. Yes, not totally, but he was definitely headed towards making Venezuela not so much like Cuba, which is what the right over here thinks, but more like Mexico in the bad old days, when the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) ruled everything and you couldn't do anything without them, regardless of the fact regular elections were always held. They'd just buy as many votes as they needed and that ended that.
The lawlessness of the police and his followers thinking a pic of Jesus with a gun is a cool thing are both huge signposts of his way of thinking and of the kind of society he's left behind. Mexico in the days of the PRI is not a thing to aspire to, it's a thing to run from.