But a democracy’s only good if the voters are smart enough to make the right choice. When they do something foolish like electing a Marxist, us 'Merkins have to step in and help them see the light. And if a couple thousand people get murdered or disappeared in the process, well, you can’t make a Chilean omelet without breaking a few eggs.
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected
Until somebody we like can be elected.
– T. Lehrer
And Castro’s been in power for forty years. Most of America’s right-wing governments are now democracies-in Latin America and East Asia. And most so-called right-wing dictatorships right now are Islamist or simply military ones in Africa (neither of which is supported by the US).
Castro took over in a coup – he was never elected. Allende was. What’s your point?
Like it or not, the people elected Allende of their own free will. It was all legit. You may not like it, or agree with it, but that’s how a democracy works.
It was not the place of the US to decide what was right for Chile.
Left, right, what’s the difference. A dictator is a dictator.
Curtis, you’re missing the point. Chile already had a democratic government in 1973 - they had been a democracy since 1932.
It’s like Venezuela or Bolivia now a left-wing populist was using the mobs to strong-arm socialist policies and gradually form a dictatorship.
Well, even the TV network that was closed by Chavez, was closed by going to court first, never mind that it was a TV network that incited and guided the coup against Chavez. And never mind that the closing was only for using the public airways, that network **still **remains and continues to go against Chavez on Cable TV.
Another example was that many right wingers told us that Chavez was going to send tanks to remove any newly elected governor that was not from his party, Chavez’s party lost the big one in Caracas, and I’m still waiting for almost a year for those tanks so then I could join many in condemning Chavez, but that *bastard is so unfair, he is not sending them.
*I do think he is a bastard for many reasons but he is still not a dictator, as **Brainglutton **mentioned, that could change; OTOH I see the right wing ruler of Colombia as gradually becoming a dictator, but that is ok, he is on the side of the USA. :rolleyes:
So we installed a dictator to prevent the possibility that Chile might have become a dictatorship.