Hugo Chavez has died

[Boggit]

His people seem to be deeply divided. Last year's election was widely regarded as largely honest. Chavez won 55% of the vote. Apparently the other 45% didn't like him much at all. (Hmmm. Sounds vaguely familiar.)

Interesting point. If I recall Tony Blair was returned second time around with a huge majority in terms of seats in Parliament, yet only attained 26% of the popular vote, which raises all sorts of questions about the representiveness of the UK model of democracy.  Personally, I wish we operated more like Israel's model, which incidentally IIRC is the voting model used by the Law Society of England and Wales - apparently good enough for our lawyers, but not our citizens... :o Tony Blair was widely despised at home by many people and you certainly didn't see the outpouring of devotion that you see in the news clips coming out of Venezuela when he left.

[bob48]

Mind you, when was the last time we had a PM that anyone felt that attached to?

[steve58]

On the one hand, he can be criticised for his latter day human rights infringements and economic (mis?) management. On the other hand he seems to be hugely popular and missed by many ordinary Venezuelans. I wonder how we will look at his "reign" 10 years from now?

I suspect his "popularity" was somewhat a result of the huge amounts of bolivars he spent on social programs.  Too bad he didn't invest in the infrastructure as well...

[LongBlade]

His people seem to be deeply divided. Last year's election was widely regarded as largely honest. Chavez won 55% of the vote. Apparently the other 45% didn't like him much at all. (Hmmm. Sounds vaguely familiar.)

Interesting point. If I recall Tony Blair was returned second time around with a huge majority in terms of seats in Parliament, yet only attained 26% of the popular vote, which raises all sorts of questions about the representiveness of the UK model of democracy.  Personally, I wish we operated more like Israel's model, which incidentally IIRC is the voting model used by the Law Society of England and Wales - apparently good enough for our lawyers, but not our citizens... :o Tony Blair was widely despised at home by many people and you certainly didn't see the outpouring of devotion that you see in the news clips coming out of Venezuela when he left.

I'm not sold on the Italian/Israeli models of a democratic republic. Their chief trait - aside from be democratic republics - is their ability to have a government formed about every six months. Stability is not a hallmark.

On the opposite side seems to be our American system. Having only two parties is highly stable, but generic. I'm not complaining. It has taken extraordinary effort for Obama to attempt to socialize our economy and he's been largely unsuccessful. But at the same time, it's also difficult to elect to national office representatives of the opposite polarity, libertarians. Still, hope springs eternal.

[Boggit]

On the one hand, he can be criticised for his latter day human rights infringements and economic (mis?) management. On the other hand he seems to be hugely popular and missed by many ordinary Venezuelans. I wonder how we will look at his "reign" 10 years from now?

Adolf Hitler was pretty popular in his day too.  I think the significance of this is obvious.  Domestic popularity is not always an accurate indicator of good/benevolent leadership.

Hugo Chavez is not Adolf Hitler. To a large degree, he did not espouse the same policies either. I condemn the gagging of the press and the undue pressure/influence placed on the judiciary, but this is not just a problem for the Venezuelans. This is a major problem for many other countries too. India for one immediately springs to mind - I refer you here to Fareed Zakaria's book "The Future of Freedom"  http://www.amazon.com/Future-Freedom-Illiberal-Democracy-Revised/dp/0393331520 which looks at this in quite some depth. I don't see the Hitler analogy, as appropriate to Chavez. His human rights record is not good, but he's not that different from the political leaders of many other contemporary countries which you don't condemn.

I agree with your assertion that "Domestic popularity is not always an accurate indicator of good/benevolent leadership", but domenstic popularity is not inconsistent with good/benevolent leadership either. For these reasons I reject your analogy.

I can understand as a American patriot you naturally oppose him for his adoption of a number of anti-American policies. I'm not offering a defence for him nor his policies, merely observing from a variety of news clips that he appears to be very well regarded by many ordinary Venezuelans. I'm not suggesting that he is popular with the people whose wealth he chose to redistribute, or those whose human rights his government has abused. As I pointed out there are at least two sides of the story.

[Boggit]

Mind you, when was the last time we had a PM that anyone felt that attached to?

ROFL! ;D I quite agree. The stats on the popular vote for Blair bears that out. 76% of people either didn't want him or were not otherwise motivated to vote for him, yet he was returned with a towering majority due to the way our voting system operates. Cameron is the Prime Minister for a coalition since he could'nt even form a majority government. Your comment hits the nail on the head.

[Jarhead0331]

I never said he was Adolf Hitler, nor did I compare their policies.  I'm only replying to the point you seemed to be making about popularity as a reflection on good leadership.  There is not always a correlation.

[Windigo]

I never said he was Adolf Hitler, nor did I compare their policies.  I'm only replying to the point you seemed to be making about popularity as a reflection on good leadership.  There is not always a correlation.

absolutely.... look at how unpopular Jimmy was despite his leadership.....      :D

[LongBlade]

I never said he was Adolf Hitler, nor did I compare their policies.  I'm only replying to the point you seemed to be making about popularity as a reflection on good leadership.  There is not always a correlation.

Like GrogHeads!


....wait....

[Boggit]

His people seem to be deeply divided. Last year's election was widely regarded as largely honest. Chavez won 55% of the vote. Apparently the other 45% didn't like him much at all. (Hmmm. Sounds vaguely familiar.)

Interesting point. If I recall Tony Blair was returned second time around with a huge majority in terms of seats in Parliament, yet only attained 26% of the popular vote, which raises all sorts of questions about the representiveness of the UK model of democracy.  Personally, I wish we operated more like Israel's model, which incidentally IIRC is the voting model used by the Law Society of England and Wales - apparently good enough for our lawyers, but not our citizens... :o Tony Blair was widely despised at home by many people and you certainly didn't see the outpouring of devotion that you see in the news clips coming out of Venezuela when he left.

I'm not sold on the Italian/Israeli models of a democratic republic. Their chief trait - aside from be democratic republics - is their ability to have a government formed about every six months. Stability is not a hallmark.

On the opposite side seems to be our American system. Having only two parties is highly stable, but generic. I'm not complaining. It has taken extraordinary effort for Obama to attempt to socialize our economy and he's been largely unsuccessful. But at the same time, it's also difficult to elect to national office representatives of the opposite polarity, libertarians. Still, hope springs eternal.

I think you make a very interesting point about voting models.

One extreme tends to a closer correlation to the popular representation, but because of the number of parties tends to instability, whilst the other towards greater stability at the price of popular representation. I agree with you that both have something to be said for them. Perhaps the ideal is somewhere in the middle? I must admit that I think coalition politics in the UK seems better than operating under a single party that can effectively ignore public opinion for five years - Hailsham's elective dictatorship... :-\ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_dictatorship

[Boggit]

I never said he was Adolf Hitler, nor did I compare their policies.  I'm only replying to the point you seemed to be making about popularity as a reflection on good leadership.  There is not always a correlation.

I respectfully suggest that you re-read what I wrote and what you wrote in reply.

On the one hand, he can be criticised for his latter day human rights infringements and economic (mis?) management. On the other hand he seems to be hugely popular and missed by many ordinary Venezuelans. I wonder how we will look at his "reign" 10 years from now?

Adolf Hitler was pretty popular in his day too.  I think the significance of this is obvious.  Domestic popularity is not always an accurate indicator of good/benevolent leadership.

At no point did I say or imply that popularity and good leadership were linked. I didn't even mention "leadership". I said only that Hugo Chavez "seems to be hugely popular and missed by many ordinary Venezuelans", which is not an endorsement of leadership qualities, but is an indicator of popularity - or even the positive sentimentality of many Venezuelans. The only times I have seen a public outpouring of grief like that seen on the news for Hugo Chavez, was for people like Princess Diana or Pope John Paul II, and that is why I wrote what I did.

I agree you didn't say Chavez was Adolf Hitler, and my comment "Hugo Chavez is not Adolf Hitler" is said to dismiss the analogy rather than suggest any reincarnation. I agree you also did not compare Hitler's and Chavez' actual policies. However, you wrote at the outset of your reply without any prompting from me "Adolf Hitler was pretty popular in his day too.  I think the significance of this is obvious." The very statement begs comparison between the two, and your second sentence supports the implication of your analogy, even if you weren't explicit in making the comparison. Whilst your intention seems clear to me, perhaps there is some other conclusion I should have drawn from what appears to me be an obviously comparative statement?

I replied to you on my impression of what you had written. If I am mistaken as to your intention to draw comparison, and I'm not convinced that I am - based on what was actually written - then I apologise to you.

[bayonetbrant]

Mind you, when was the last time we had a PM that anyone felt that attached to?

Disraeli?
or further back than that?
;D

[Jarhead0331]

I never said he was Adolf Hitler, nor did I compare their policies.  I'm only replying to the point you seemed to be making about popularity as a reflection on good leadership.  There is not always a correlation.

I respectfully suggest that you re-read what I wrote and what you wrote in reply.

On the one hand, he can be criticised for his latter day human rights infringements and economic (mis?) management. On the other hand he seems to be hugely popular and missed by many ordinary Venezuelans. I wonder how we will look at his "reign" 10 years from now?

Adolf Hitler was pretty popular in his day too.  I think the significance of this is obvious.  Domestic popularity is not always an accurate indicator of good/benevolent leadership.

At no point did I say or imply that popularity and good leadership were linked. I didn't even mention "leadership". I said only that Hugo Chavez "seems to be hugely popular and missed by many ordinary Venezuelans", which is not an endorsement of leadership qualities, but is an indicator of popularity - or even the positive sentimentality of many Venezuelans. The only times I have seen a public outpouring of grief like that seen on the news for Hugo Chavez, was for people like Princess Diana or Pope John Paul II, and that is why I wrote what I did.

I agree you didn't say Chavez was Adolf Hitler, and my comment "Hugo Chavez is not Adolf Hitler" is said to dismiss the analogy rather than suggest any reincarnation. I agree you also did not compare Hitler's and Chavez' actual policies. However, you wrote at the outset of your reply without any prompting from me "Adolf Hitler was pretty popular in his day too.  I think the significance of this is obvious." The very statement begs comparison between the two, and your second sentence supports the implication of your analogy, even if you weren't explicit in making the comparison. Whilst your intention seems clear to me, perhaps there is some other conclusion I should have drawn from what appears to me be an obviously comparative statement?

I replied to you on my impression of what you had written. If I am mistaken as to your intention to draw comparison, and I'm not convinced that I am - based on what was actually written - then I apologise to you.

I'm, not going to argue with you in circles Boggit. I think what you said is clear, and I think my replies have been clear.  Let's leave it at that.

[pawelj]

Day 3 - Hugo Chavez is still dead.

[LongBlade]

Day 3 - Hugo Chavez is still dead.

Yay!

Though I must confess my the joy is starting to fade.

It might be time to start daydreaming about the fall of another dictator. I'm thinking Assad.