National shame

[fpb]

Nothing since the treacherous behaviour of our government at the time of the Falklands War has made me so ashamed of being Italian as the appalling hero's welcome delivered to Hugo Chavez in the most beautiful city in the world. He should have been arrested and thrown in the local jail.

Comments

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

Diplomatic immunity needs to remain sacrosanct, so jail isn't an option. That said, welcoming any soldier who has betrayed his oath by conducting a coup is both immoral and insane.

(Okay, I can see an exception for a coup after electoral fraud, to force new elections; but even that is duangerous and should only be done to enforce an order by the law courts. And there's no way that Chavez can claim any such justification, given that the Venezuelan supreme court and congress proved willing and cpable of removing Perez when he was found to be corrupt).

hear, hear

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

If it is any comfort, I am ashamed to be an American, because no one from the US of A went to the most beautiful city in the world, walked up to Hugo Chavez with a Bowie knife (that most typically American of knives), and rendered cruel frontier justice on him.

Members of our glittering Hollywood elite and our drab Washington elite alike fawn over this man, and kiss his bloodstained hands.

I don't understand the appeal--why do so many citizens of free and liberal republics, or subjects of free and liberal monarchies, adore mere despots, who have neither the legitimacy of a public mandate, nor the legitimacy of an ancient and constitutional dynasty?

Re: hear, hear

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Don't ask me. Fidel Castro at least used to look the part. But Chavez! It really is a case of "would you buy a used car from this man?"

Re: hear, hear

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Mind you, at least it is true that Italy's leading newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera, has treated the scenes with fierce contempt. One may hope that most of my fellow-citizens feel as I do.

Re: hear, hear

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

On a slightly related topic, David B. Hart (whose prose and thought I recommend to any intelligent reader) pens a meditation on the steadiness of the faith of certain Stalinists here http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/08/upward-and-onward.

I came across Mr. Hart quite by accident, and have been an admirer of his ever since.