DICTATORSHIP’S ONLY SOLUTION

In the spring of 2000, I was the keynote speaker at a conference of business leaders from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, held in Cartagena, Colombia. The fellows from Venezuela all had the same question: What can we do about Hugo Chavez?

I told them they had to face reality. As an admirer and protégé of Fidel Castro, there is one way and one way only he will leave office: in a coffin. This was not what they wanted to hear.

A few months earlier, I spoke at another business conference held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. There were business leaders from all over the world and we talked about global events. Several of them were from Zimbabwe who asked me privately – not publicly: What can we do about Robert Mugabe? I gave them the same answer as I gave about Chavez.

Democracy’s greatest virtue is that it is the most inherently peaceful form of government ever devised. Perhaps the most arresting geopolitical fact of the last 100 years is that if you drew up a list of all the wars fought in the past ten decades, you would not find one waged between two actual democracies.

Democracy is not only the best guarantor of peace between countries, but the best guarantor of peace within a country as well. When people can choose their government with ballots they do not have to – nor have any moral right to – resort to bullets.

Here’s the flip side: When people cannot choose their government with ballots, then they do have to resort to bullets – and they have a moral right to.

Democracy is institutionalized peace. Dictatorship is institutionalized violence. So let’s state it clearly: A dictator has no right to life. By his violent and murderous suppression of freedom, the people so suppressed have the moral right to terminate his existence.

Just as any German had the moral right to kill Adolf Hitler and any Russian had the moral right to kill Joseph Stalin, so any Cuban has the moral right to kill Fidel Castro, any Zimbabwean the moral right to kill Robert Mugabe, any Korean the moral right to kill Kim Jong-il, and any Venezuelan the moral right to kill Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelans have been deluding themselves that they still had a democratic government under Chavez, and thus deluded themselves that Chavez would actually allow an honest referendum, that he would actually leave office voluntarily if defeated. The farce of the fraudulent referendum last Sunday (August 15) is the death knell for that illusion. The evidence that the voting machines were rigged with numerical caps on Yes votes (Yes meant throw Chavez out), so that all the voting machines in a given precinct had exactly the same number of Yes votes, but varying and much higher numbers of No votes (No meaning keep Chavez), is becoming massive.

Venezuelans now must face two bitter facts. The first is that Chavez is their Castro. He will never relinquish power until the day he dies. Castro has ruled Cuba denying political freedom and economic prosperity to the Cuban people for over 45 years (since January 1959) and will continue doing so to his death. Chavez is 50, born in 1954. He could live and rule for two or three more decades.

The second is that America has deserted them and they are on their own. It is no surprise to see spineless Jimmy Carter give his imprimatur to the referendum fraud, and the New York Times pronouncing it a decisive victory for Chavez. But it is disgraceful to see the Powell State Department and the Bush White House breathing a sigh of relief that Chavez “won,” so that oil supplies won’t be interrupted in the months before the November election, and not uttering a peep of protest about voter fraud.

This leaves Venezuelans with two choices. Either they condemn themselves, their children, and their grandchildren to decades of poverty and ruthless dictatorship, or they take their fate in their own hands and flatline their dictator. No suggestions from me as to how, except hire the best and do it right. And please, my Venezuelan friends, no cop-outs like, “We don’t want to make a martyr of him.” A dead martyr is always better than a live dictator.

Venezuelans may try to live in Egypt on the river Denial, but the cold reality is that they have no other choices but the two above – none.

So before reading Thor Halvorssen’s Hugo Chavez’s Thugs Celebrate Their Victory By Shooting My Mother accompanying this article, take the time to appreciate the democracy we Americans enjoy and put the current vitriolic presidential campaign in perspective.

Yes, voter fraud and ballot-stuffing is a time-honored tradition in American politics, at which the Democrats are especially skilled. John Kennedy’s election was indeed illegitimate, with Chicago’s Mayor Daley stuffing ballots to give him Illinois and Lyndon Johnson doing the same for Texas. Other examples are legion, as detailed in Hugh Hewitt’s wonderful book, If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat (see Seth Cooper’s review in the current TTP Weekly Report).

Nonetheless, any voter fraud in a real democracy like America is on the margin. It works in a tight race where a thumb on the scale can tip the balance. It’s never completely rigged and massive, with the “winner” going on to establish a tyranny. No matter who is elected President in November, America will remain a free and peaceful democracy. You and I may be revolted by the idea of a Kerry Presidency – but we both know that if he is elected, he will not become President For Life and establish a Cuban/Venezuelan-style thugocracy.

All Americans should be grateful for that no matter who they are voting for. All Americans should be grateful they do not face the terrible choice of Venezuelans, who today have one and terrible option left, that of the only solution to dictatorship.