Prostitution of the pen and the dark side of the free market

[fpb]

Four years ago, the government of the French Republic took the lead in refusing to support the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. The French, who had taken a very active and successful part in the first Iraq war, simply did not think that an invasion followed by the occupation of an Arab country was a good idea. That was their prerogative (see

Comments

[jordan179]

I suggest you ask a few Latin Americans about the responsibility of American intervention in Latin America over the decades.

Latin Americans are of course willing to blame the failure of their countries to rise to Great Powers on America: it's easier and feels better than addressing their institutional problems. It won't produce any progress, however.

I'm not saying that we haven't interefered in Latin American countries' internal politics. So have the Russians, so have the British, so have the French.

I'm saying that the real problem is the aspects of those countries' internal politics that make them attractive -- and in some cases necessary -- to interfere in.

Even when they eventually converted to imposing democracy instead of brutal military tyranny, their bullying ways and imposition of inappropriate free marketeering managed to make democracy itself look odious.

Oh my, how cruel of us, forcing countries to govern themselves! By the way, what is "inappropriate free marketeering?" When is "slave marketeering" preferable?

The results you can see right now in places such as Bolivia and Ecuador, where the anti-American backlash is entirely local in origin, let alone in Venezuela.

They are welcome to gut their own economies on the altars of socialism, if they prefer. If they ally with the Terrorists, though, we will hopefully oust their leaders so fast it will make their heads spin.

They can have the cell next to Manuel Noriega, with whom they can discuss their respective "dignities" :)

[fpb]

Free marketeering, imposed from outside, certainly does make a mockery of democracy. You are allowed to elect your own leaders so long as they do what we tell them. Does it even occur to you that self-government includes letting people make their own mistakes? If indeed they are mistakes. I regard extreme liberism as a disastrous doctrine, so I am not even willing to concede that.