Venezuela's Elected Dictatorship

If a majority says the Earth is flat, is the Earth flat?

Tyranny: Sunday's referendum in Venezuela was hailed as a "victory" for the Chavez regime and extolled as participatory democracy. In reality, it was a farce undermining a multiparty state. So why does the U.S. praise it?

Really good commentary by the IBD editorial page today. After the U.S. State Department praised Hugo Chavez's rigged election win this week, my guess is the USA has given up on championing freedom and democracy worldwide. Our founders called this the "Tyranny of the Majority". This was a major concern with the writers of the Constitution. John Adams believed in a strong executive that can preserve basic rights in the face of the tyranny of the majority. Thomas Jefferson believed in the power of the people, expressed ideally through an all-powerful, all-responsive legislature.

"Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots." – John Adams

It is a mistake to suppose that the majority is necessarily right. The motives that push majorities are not always pure, and are most often self interest in the outcome of one form or the other. In the case of recent elections in Venezuela, the poeple who voted for the continuance of a dictatorship, were guided by the promise of free stuff from the dictator. Same thing Obama is now doing, promising the lower income people he will make their lives better.

In reality, Sunday's referendum, Venezuela's 14th since 1998, wasn't about voice and choice. It was a manipulative maneuver using voters' fear, exhaustion and capacity to be bought to make Chavez president for life in an elected dictatorship.

That's why the Obama administration's praise for this phony facade of democracy was dispiriting: "We congratulate the civic and participatory spirit of the millions of Venezuelans who exercised their democratic right to vote," a State Department spokesman said, breaking past policy of not commenting on Venezuela's referenda.

Although he noted "troubling reports of intimidation" of voters, he called the referendum "fully consistent with the democratic process" and high-mindedly urged Venezuelan officials to "focus on governing democratically."

The trouble with these courtesies is that the "governing-democratically" horse left the barn long ago, and the current praise gives Chavez legitimacy. After being driven bonkers by the silent treatment of the Bush administration, this was what he wanted. But not if he had to govern democratically to get it.

It's an important detail. Chavez longs to exercise the power and have the longevity of his mentor, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. But he's savvy enough to know that losing the designation of democracy would reduce Venezuela to being a pariah state with little global influence, like Cuba.

Obama seems headed off the cliff of getting people to do the right thing, by bribing them. A concept foreign to Americans, but the way it is with Kenyans. It's more like a bribe, than a payoff, since if you read his program's details, you find the bribes continue in perpetuity, and it requires the bribed to vote for the briber.

Americans are being set up for the same fate as Venezuela -- An elected dictatorship.

Will America's Constitution and it's people resist this assault, only if Americans stand in opposition to what is happening, only time will answer that question.

Something to ponder: Hitler took dictatorial control of Germany in 1933 after being elected to the parliament and appointed as Chancellor. At what point could the German people have stopped Hitler, and didn't?

Truth should not be determined by majority vote, nor by who wins elections.