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December 11, 2006
Pinochet Dead
Pinochet is dead and some on the Right have mixed feelings. This is because on one hand he saved the country from communism, but on the other... you know: Death Squads. So the Right is conflicted...
Here's the thing: Communism was represents an inadequate response to the scarcity problem. In order to glue together the house of communist cards, communist leaders would embrace terrible and destructive tactics. Like death squads...
I suppose it is a time saver, to skip past the land reforms, creation of the modern industrial apparatus, and go strait to the killing people. Perhaps Pinochet, like Harry Seldon, saw the real problem and decided to condense decades of dislocation into a decade of death. I don't believe it for a second...
Moreover, no one believes it. By having a US lead coup turn into Death Squads, America could no longer claim the moral high ground in the cold war. It became literally impossible say that we were different from the communists. By over turning a democratic election, we ceded the very concept of democracy to the communists. By embracing Pinochet we prolonged the cold war, paved way for Hugo Chavez, and gave bin Laden rhetorical ammunition. Nothing good came out of it. The name of America was sullied...
An evil man died yesterday. America was complicit in that evil. We ought to find some way of performing contrition. Being uncertain as to whether his evil was justified is not a good place to start...
Posted by Andrew at December 11, 2006 10:48 AM