Is Venezuela really a security threat to the U.S.?

[elucidator]

When we get to Hell, it will always be Pledge Week.

[Martin_Hyde]

@BrainGlutton

Ravenman, and Martin Hyde, you will, I hope, agree, at least in principle, that any nation should have socialism if socialism is what the majority of its people really want? That that is a legitimate choice that the voters should get to make, and should get to have realized, and that any non-electoral opposition or interference in that decision is illegitimate?

I’m fine with people choosing socialist governments, but not so okay with corrupt governments whose idea of socialism is to make some people really rich and then buy off the poor with a disastrous subsidy regime that bankrupts the country. I’m also not okay with any government that starts doing things to change the playing field itself to ensure they never lose election again. All political parties jockey for advantage, but some things I think are outside the bounds of valid democratic jockeying. In the United States I dislike and oppose deliberate political gerrymandering. In Venezuela I dislike that most opposition newspapers have been shut down, and that each election appears to be less free than the last, to the point there’s a decent debate that Maduro may have lost the last election and if he actually wins the next one given current opinion it’s all but certain he has illegally altered the results.

Elections have consequences, during most of the Chavez era I was more or less fine with Venezuelans suffering the consequences of their actions. Chavez was not promoting a sustainable type of socialism akin to what is seen in some European socialist governments, but a sort of bread and circus populism that was based on simple, mathematically unsustainable practices. But at least in the beginning this is what the people of Venezuela wanted, but at least for the last 6-8 years it’s been highly debatable how free elections are in Venezuela and the last election was the worst by far, so in that case it’s now debatable what Venezuelans “want” and whether or not they even live in a democratic country any longer that allows them to make that free choice.

[BrainGlutton]

@Martin_Hyde

I’m fine with people choosing socialist governments, but not so okay with corrupt governments whose idea of socialism is to make some people really rich and then buy off the poor with a disastrous subsidy regime that bankrupts the country. I’m also not okay with any government that starts doing things to change the playing field itself to ensure they never lose election again.

Me neither, but all of that is routine in the developing world. How does it rise to a level warranting international sanctions?

[Martin_Hyde]

@BrainGlutton

Me neither, but all of that is routine in the developing world. How does it rise to a level warranting international sanctions?

The sanctions are on seven people. It’s pretty much nothing. It’s expression of disapproval.

[Ravenman]

And the sanctions aren’t because we don’t like the economic policies of seven people. It’s because the US believes they ordered murder, torture and beatings of political opponents. Let’s not get issues confused here.