From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Are you familiar with The Guardian? The Guardian that wrote, only a few > days after September 11th, that if you've always hated Americans, the > attack was no reason to stop hating them? Maybe you feel that way, but it > tends to make me consider them a less than credible source. >
A good newspaper carries a wide variety of opinions. The Guardian does that, so does Melbourne's The Age, so does the NYTimes. We the readers can decide whether an article is credible or not. Not all articles are good. I thought that one was. Me: A good newspaper does not carry _all_ opinions. That is what editors are for. The Guardian thought that was an opinion that was an acceptable part of discourse. I don't. Screw the Guardian. It isn't reliable. > And, in fact, even what it wrote there is not what you were saying. OK. Think of the word that means "without giving an explicit go ahead or promise of support nevertheless included some form of encouragement towards an action or a hint of pleasure at a possible outcome". That's the word I'm trying to use, OK? Me: Yeah, it's just not what you said. Brett: How can you champion democracy and then say or imply or whatever that there is a case of any sort for a non democratic transfer of power? Is that like being a little bit pregnant? Again, democracy means that it is the right of the voters to make whatever bloody choice of government they want to make. Are we talking at cross purposes here? I just do not get how you can think that any US government can "suggest" a non democratic method of changing government while still claiming to be the bastion of democracy it does. If you think otherwise then we just have to agree to disagree. It is one thing to voice your disapproval publicly, it is a conspiracy to voice it privately with people who later undertake such a coup. It is political stupidity to get yourself into the position where you are perceived to have given any sort of encouragement, rather than outright disapproval, of any form of non democratic transfer of power. Me: By living in the real world, not an intellectually perfect one that seems largely created to give people without responsibility score debating points. John brought up Hitler, something I'm averse to do, but in this situation it seems appropriate. More later. Brett: But here is yet another case of the US seeming to say one thing (democracy is right) and yet doing (congratulating) a non democratic solution. And then owning up to having spoken about the likelihood of a coup - oh, and we don't much like your president but don't you dare stage a coup, oh no don't stage a coup to get rid of him even if neither of us likes him - with the conspirators. Me: During the 2000 elections, a fair number of foreign governments made their preference for Al Gore known. A smaller but significant number made their preference for Bush known as well. Oddly enough, when you're a real government, you talk with the opposition. If you are also opposed to the government they're opposing, one of the things you say is "Hey, we don't like him either." Again, that's different from the accusation you keep making. As, again, despite your repeated spurious accusations, we didn't congratulate a non-democratic solution. We consistently called for the preservation of Venezuelan democracy. No conspiracy here, no matter how much you want to see one. Brett: If democracy is the greatest of virtues then you should automatically abhor and decry any attack on democracy. That was not done. Fleischer and co looked like the cat that had the canary and their christmas cake at the same time. About a coup. Had it been about an election result, no problem. Had it been for a constitutional resolution of a troublesome regime, no problem. Of a transfer of power by military coup - big problem. Perceptions matter. Without them, government and society doesn't work. Brett Me: I see. So, after the Second World War, by your statements you would have re-established the democratically elected Nazi government? That is the logical conclusion of your statements above. I don't like Hitler comparisons, but since you keep speaking in absolutes, it's worthwhile to use an absolute example. Democracy _isn't_ the greatest of virtues. If I had to pick one it would be "liberalism", but in fact all government is the balancing of conflicting virtues. Democracy is one of the most important of those. But order, liberalism, economic well-being, and any number of others are in there too. Chavez failed on all the others and was well on his way to failing on the democracy one as well. He did, after all, have his thugs fire on peaceful protesters. Maybe it's okay when left-wingers do that, but I tend to oppose it across the board. Chavez was an illiberal democrat. As was Hitler, for that matter, although of an entirely different sort, of course. When an illiberal quasi-democrat is overthrown by people who claim to want to establish a _liberal_ democracy, it isn't out of line to not be particularly upset about it. Now, when they didn't try to do that, we rapidly became much less hospitable to the change. There is no evidence for your contention that we supported the coup. It's not that it's questionable or ambiguous. None. It is a true statement that we were not unhappy about the coup. This is not a shock. Chavez was a remarkably bad President who showed every sign of attempting to establish himself as a Venezuelan dictator. As I posted when it first happened, I wasn't broken up about his apparent overthrow. But that isn't the same thing. No matter how much you want it to be or claim that it is, it's not the same thing. And it tells me something that when you can cast the US as at fault, you loudly proclaim that it is. Now, as I have stated on several occasions, I differ with the Administration's handling of this. At least in part because those hostile to the US will take it as an opportunity to attack us once again. But that will happen anyways. But there are no grounds for the charges you are making. Gautam
