And they were just as big a disaster in America in 1973 as they’re turning out to be in Venezuela in 2007. What’s your point?
If you’re trying to draw a direct human rights comparison, maybe you could show me where Nixon’s price controls had a penalty of complete nationalization any business which didn’t follow them.
In any event, I’m not going to defend U.S. price controls, because they were perhaps the stupidest things Nixon and Ford did while in office.
I’m making the point that there’s nothing odd about a Third World country making economic mistakes that America itself made not all that long ago.
The other thing is, I’m not exactly sure of the point of wingnut gloating over every Venezuelan misstep. There are well over a hundred Third World countries out there, and it doesn’t appear that Venezuela is the one most in need of Western intervention. Or even in the top twenty.
Maybe you can clarify this.
Two points -
[ul][li]It is hardly “wingnut gloating” to point out that, yet again, socialist policies are failiing and/or tending towards another Third World dictatorship, and why are you pulling “Western intervention” out of your ass?[/ul] Maybe you could clarify this.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
Having pointed that out, we can change that to “wingnut handwringing” if you like.
Maybe we should keep an overall scorecard of Third World dictatorships where policies directly favoring the people over the economic elite have been tried, and those where the policies have been the reverse of that, and see how well each set of approaches has served the people. We can start with d’Aubisson’s death squads in El Salvador, move on to Pinochet’s Chile, Somoza’s Nicaragua, and so forth.
Just looking at the track record of one side is, well, one-sided.
How about changing it to “junior modding” and ignoring it?
If the mods have a problem with what I posted, they better say so themselves. Until then, feel free to save it.
Actually, we were talking about Venezuela. I realize the urge to change the subject as the Venezuelan economy heads down the toilet, but try to stay on topic, won’t you? Thanks in advance.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. Nowhere is this more true than in socialism.
Regards,
Shodan
You know, the mods don’t read every word written on this board; they rely on posters to report breaches of the rules.
I figure it’s courteous, in a borderline case, to raise the point with the other poster directly. But if you indicate that you regard that as junior modding, and would prefer the courtesy of my calling it to the attention of the mods, I would be delighted to do so.
And I raised the question, “Why Venezuela?” I asked it of somebody else, but you jumped in and responded. It’s a bit late now for deciding you aren’t interested in my question.
RTFirefly and Shodan, I would rate the expression “pulling X out of one’s ass” to be more of a slang expression for “made it up” than a direct comment on the state of anyone’s colon. On the other hand, spending any amount of energy playing junior mod or accusing others of playing junior mod or commenting on another’s posting language to the detriment of the actual (purported) discussion is not going to move the discussion forward in any way.
Just knock it off and concentrate on the issue instead of each other.
[ /Moderating ]
I see that you have done so, and the response is more in line with my understanding than with yours.
Actually, the question you raised was in regards to “Western intervention”, and my response is to ask why you decided to throw up that particular strawman. And why you mentioned, not Venezuela, but El Salvador, Chile, and Nicaragua.
You seem determined not to respond to that, so…
Regards,
Shodan
Let’s roll tape:
I suppose you could insist that the key word in this post was ‘intervention,’ except that I retracted that when you initially made clear that that was your interpretation:
The rest of it stands as is, and the meaning is clear: why the focus on Venezuela, out of all the “well over a hundred Third World countries out there” given that there are many in far worse shape?
That was and is my point. If you don’t wish to discuss that question, that is fine. But playing silly games of insisting that (a) I really said something else, and (b) I shouldn’t change the topic from what you insist I said, is, well, silly.
“Why Venezuela, out of the 100+ 3rd world countries” is my question. You don’t want to discuss it. Excellent. Bye now.
Let me answer: We’re focused on Venezuela because the thread is about Venezuela. You want to talk about Chile, start a thread.
The whole point to this discussion is to examine the effect of socialist policies on the Venezuelan economy. To that end, I’m not really interested in a scorecard of every country in the world - it’s a non-sequitur and a distraction. Every country on the planet has its own special factors that affect economic policy, so there’s no point in constantly changing the subject.
The fact is, we are observing a shift to hard-core socialism in Venezuela. We are in a position to observe the effect of that shift, and hopefully draw some conclusions about how well socialism really works. So far, it’s sucking badly. Venezuela is heading into economic crisis territory with amazing speed. I understand how inconvenient this is for socialism apologists, but them’s the breaks.
If you really believe that Chavez’s policies are smart and will help the country in the long run, then you shouldn’t mind this discussion, because the Venezuelan economy will turn around and you’ll get to say “Ha ha!” to me. Instead, the ‘debate’ so far seems to be pretty much a discussion of my intentions, attempts to change the subject, or attempts to widen it so that specifics of what’s going on in Venezuela can be ignored.
Geez, I had no idea! :smack:
I guess I should open a separate thread to ask why you’re so concerned with Venezuela, of all the countries in the world? Dayum. Seems a thread about Venezuela would be the perfect place.
Then dump on Shodan:
If you want a more limited discussion, fine. I didn’t suggest a general scorecard of third-world dictatorships in response to anything you said; I raised it because it made perfect sense in response to what Shodan said. If he wants to consider Venezuela as part of a pattern of the failure of socialism in third-world countries, it does seem only fair to compare and contrast with other types of third-world dictatorships.
It’s like looking at someone’s batting average against Roger Clemens. Of course it’s going to be lousy; it would be a surprise if it weren’t. Without the context of how other players hit against Roger, it means little.
So Shodan wanted to look at the batting average of socialist dictatorships in the Third World. I wanted to look at the batting average of right-wing dictatorships in the Third World.
Boy, that’s stupid. You try to change the subject, and blame it on me.
Your point was always clear - socialism is failing (again), and thus you would prefer to change the subject to something else. No wonder - Chavez is an anti-American asshole, and as rabidly anti-Bush as any of the Usual Suspects could wish. Thus he must be above criticism.
No you didn’t.
Then you said -
You want to claim that changing “wingnut gloating” over Venezuelan missteps to “wingnut handwringing” over Venezuelan missteps is a retraction of your pulling “Western intervention” out of [del]your ass[/del] a hole in the ground, go ahead. Now you are going to swear up and down that it was me who changed the subject when I pointed out that you are trying to change the subject, and pull the same dishonest semantic bullshit that you always pull when you can’t debate a point honestly.
Gee whiz, RT has seen an argument he can’t debate honestly, so he is whining to the mods and attempting a hijack. Boy, that’s never happened before.
Regards,
Shodan
Anyone can go back and read post 145 to see which phrase “wingnut handwringing” was meant to replace.
As for the rest of it, whatever, dude. It’s clear you don’t want to actually debate “why Venezuela?” with me, which was the only question I raised here. You’d rather play semantic games.
You know what? Since this was a zombie thread to begin with and since it is currently being dominated by posters who are more interested in pointing fingers at each other and saying “Bad poster!” than actually discussing the points that Sam Stone raised when he re-opened the thread, this one is closed.
If anyone wants to open a thread about Chavez, feel free.
If anyone wants to open a thread about the failure or success of socialism, feel free.
If anyone wants to open a thread about the failure or success of socialism in Venezuela, feel free.
If anyone wants to discuss why Venezuela should be singled out for examination, feel free.
However, I strongly urge anyone posting to one of those (suggested) threads to stick with whatever topic appears in the OP and to not begin a hijack based on one of the other topics–we welcome separate threads to discuss separate topics.
[ /Moderating ]