Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (courtesy breitbart.com)

“On Sunday Mr Maduro said his government ‘continued to pursue the dream, the utopia of a Venezuela in peace,’ and promised to build ‘peace with love, justice and a will to work.'” Venezuela’s Maduro launches civilian disarmament plan [via bbc.com] [h/t B Adams]

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89 COMMENTS

  2. I guess the next question would be, did the words Hail Victory occur in any of this speech? Maybe its just a convenient cap of him waving, just caught at the wrong moment 🙂

  3. Ahhh, the socialist states of latin america. Where the liberal agenda is already in the 9th inning. Gun control doesn’t work at all!? TRIPLE DOWN, take the rest of them. Taxes too high for your economy to thrive? DOUBLE THEM, take the rest of the money. Your people are bled dry and living in misery? CALLING ALL NARCO TERRORISTS!!!

    • That is the overriding problem with communists, progressives, socialists, statists, whatever you want to call them … they claim that their philosophy would work if only they could go farther.

      Imagine applying their philosophy to healthcare:

      EMT: the patient lost blood and their blood pressure is low.
      doctor: increase blood loss because I am sure that will increase blood pressure.

      EMT: the patient is losing blood now and blood pressure is dropping.
      doctor: hmm, I was sure that blood loss would increase blood pressure. Increase blood loss even more.

      EMT: blood pressure is dropping really fast now.
      doctor: increase blood loss!

      EMT: the patient is dead
      doctor: dammit, if YOU would have maximized blood loss immediately, the patient would have survived. It is YOUR fault.

      In any SANE setting, when you increase a policy and results deteriorate, you decrease the policy and look for results to improve. Somehow, that doesn’t fly in the world of communists, progressives, socialists, and statists.

    • Your seeing one issue in the yarn-ball of issues.

      Latin America’s issues, although socialist in many areas, isn’t a product purely of the left. An authoritarian right wing government (Fulgencio Batista, Juan Peron, Pinochet) is about as people-friendly as a left wing government. Instead of a “great leap forward”, it’s cronyism and using communism as a boogey man to root out anyone who opposes.

      It’s the authoritarianism that’s the problem, not the politics. You can thank Spain 🙂

      • Left = communist; Right = Facist is, I believe; an inaccurate picture of the governmental tyranny spectrum.

        A better representation I have seen is government control/tyranny on the left; facism, communism, socialism, statism, authoritarianism, etc; all flavors of governmental control and then the other spectrum of smaller and smaller government all the way to anarchy on the right.

        On that scale, our original representative republic would be somewhere on the right of the mid point of the Left/right scale and anarchy.

        At this point of our countries scale of governmental tyranny; I would say we are now on the left side of the mid-point with a fight between republican statists and democrat socialists fighting to pull our country further left towards greater government tyranny and those of us that want to return more to the right of smaller government and greater personal freedom.

        • Yea, you’re pretty far off on the fascism thing… It doesn’t follow the American left/right paradigm at all.

      • “But the people need a good man, a Strong Man, who will rid them of the shackles of the imperialist dogs, and lead them to prosperity…” Much of Latin America has been subject to absolutist rule since…always, if you think about it.

      • Last time I checked, it’s the left-wing Socialists Statists that are turning the Latin American countries into failed experiments at the cost of the individuals, not the perceived right-wing authoritarians.

  4. What? No euphemisms? No ‘sensible gun safety’ BS? What’s going on over at the BBC?

  5. Statist utopias always include this proud drive to labor until death. Even the politicians in the US are all about the people laboring their lives away. I just saw a Chevy commercial and the whole thing was like “look how awesome it is to bust your ass hauling bricks until you die crippled and early!”

    A solid work ethic is a great thing to have but the statist and corporatists celebrating the uneducated man breaking his back to die twenty years before his wife strikes me as a little sick. Like celebrating the warrior culture ala samurai, police or military. It’s all there to encourage subservience to the state. Celebrate your subservience. The state saying: “You’re role is to catch bullets in the face for me and to build pyramids for me. Embrace it. Love it. Celebrate it.”

    • I wonder if maybe you misunderstand. I feel that in the USA, work is celebrated because we are given a chance to break out of our “class”, and improve our status. There are no guarantees, but the chance is real, and that is rare among other countries. It worked for me. Hard work, planning, and a will to succeed helped me improve my life, for myself, and my family. I think that’s the essence of the Chevy commercial you referenced.

      • David,

        I think there is a lot of truth in what both of you say. Shire-man has an extremely valid point that the State and big business tend to want organic robots (humans) who work to the point of failure with no regard to the robots (humans) or their families. And yet opportunities are often available for people to work their way to a better situation in life. I have no opinion on the specific commercial that Shire-man referenced.

        • Hard work will get you into the middle class (up to about $80,000 a year range). Above that requires education, a little innovation, and other things like that, and that will take you into the upper middle class ($100-150,000 per year range). To get into the upper class ($150-300,000 per year) requires all of that, plus leadership skills and a few other things. (I never made it that far, so I don’t know the secret to getting there.) And etc. for the higher classes…

          MY POINT IS that hard work will only take you so far. After that, other skills and talents are required. To advance into the upper range of incomes (very wealthy), your family and political connections become more of a factor. Most people will never and can never become wealthy, because they were not born into the right family.

  9. You go ahead and give peace a chance, Maduro. I’ll be buy providing over-watch for the refugees of your government’s state-lead and state-sponsored narco terrorism, you Marxist piece of shit.

  10. how do you say Molon Labe in Spanish??

    Chavez is dead and this will start the revolution. again. People there are sick of the administration and they will revolt to end Marxism.

    actually, a better question is – does Shannon have a valid passport? can we trade her for someone or rights to a future draft pick?

    • Applied to latin-american spanish it would be something as “Vengan y quítenoslas”. I would add some other colorful and very profane expletives right after to go with the culture. Venezuela has been systematically eradicating their middle class for close to 20 years now. By expropriating their businesses, taxing, stealing and blackmailing them out of existence. Even engaging into class warfare by calling them the bourgeoise class and brainwashing the ever expanding poor into thinking that it is the middle and high classes the reason for the country’s maladies. Socialism in a vaccum might sound like a beautiful ideal. But in latin-america it is nothing more than state organized crime.

      • The literal translation of Molon Labe is actually “After coming, take them.”

        It’s not a construction we use in English, so we have to be less literal in our translation if we’re going to get the full meaning and flavor of the Spartan defiance. If Spanish lends itself to that construction, you may be able to get a pretty exact equivalent.

        Finally, my four years of studying ancient Greek pays off! (Now if only I knew Spanish…) 🙂

  12. Also, Maduro seems to have an uncanny resemblance to Prof, Tyson of the “We’ve got a badass” meme.

      • No, I’ve also seen him in an interesting scientific documentary he hosted and provided narration for. Quite interesting. A lot more interesting than whatever Mr. Maduro’s trying to sell…

  13. Going for broke in commieland. At least its on the table for everyone to see. I think gun grabbers of all stripes should speak their true minds as often and as loudly as possible.

    What have you got to hide?

  14. Fidel Castro confiscated all privately held weapons once his communist revolution was in power. Over the next decades under Raoul Castro (now president of Cuba) the government held the Cuban people under an iron fist. If anyone spoke out against the government, the communist party, or the revolution, they “disappeared.” Well over 100K Cuban men became “the disappeared ones.” The remaining people cower in fear.

    Lose your weapons, lose your liberty. Have no weapons, cannot regain your freedom.

  15. Let me get this straight. A nation is plagued with discord and fighting. How is a national agenda to ban firearms going to stop the discord and fighting? How does banning firearms eliminate the underlying mind set that led people to their discord and fighting in the first place?

    And even if that nation could somehow make all firearms disappear, how is that going to stop all of the people from acting on their frustrations that led to all of the discord and fighting in the first place?

  21. Oh, It’s the classic person who want all gun to be taken away standing less then two feet from another person that is there to protect them with what?………. A GUN.

  22. “On Sunday Mr Maduro said his government ‘continued to pursue the utopia of a Venezuela in peace,’ to build ‘peace with love, justice and a will to work.’” .. So is this guy from The Ministry Of Truth And Love?

  24. Brazil tried to do exactly the same thing in the early 2000s. It did not end well. Their already ridiculously high amount of violent crime and homicides doubled after they disarmed their law abiding citizens.

  25. Ultimately a nation is responsible for their own government. I seem to recall Chavez and this clown being “democratically” elected by the ignorant peasants coveting what they don’t have. And is there ANYWHERE in South America that wo

  26. If after the last 10 years, the people of Venezuela have not been arming, organizing and stockpiling, then that is unfortunate. I hope they have, and someone has the sense to go on the offensive. That is a nice way of saying I hope there is at least 1 person in VE who will put a bullet in his head because it sure isn’t going to get better all by itself. It is a geographically beautiful country with a vibrant culture, ruined by the dictator in charge.

  27. That works. Sorry my android key board has been extremely glitchy since TTAG was “monotized”. But I know you have to pay bills so ok by me. It is also a big reason I don’t post book-length responses. That and I’m a crappy typist.

  28. Looking up the gun laws in Venezuela, citizens are banned from owning anything other than shotguns and .22 rifles. They have to apply to own these, provide a specific need, and register them.

    So gun control laws Michael Bloomberg would drool over and a murder rate 12 times higher than the US.

    Yep. Gun control works.

  29. I’m all in favor of this. It’s called a controlled experiment. Afterwards they will be ahead of Honduras in the murder rate. Kind of like a polar opposite of Kennesaw, GA

  34. Societies in Latin America and other third world countries world-wide are very different from North America and western Europe. The countries and their economies are ran by the rich and powerful, or they are ran by strong, socialist governments.

    When the rich and powerful are running the country, they own all the businesses, both factory/industrial type businesses and large agricultural interests (huge banana, pineapple, rice, tobacco, etc. farms and packing plants). The people are paid very low wages for long, hard work , and the rich owners sell their production at huge profits. The rich live a life of high-fashion leisure while making a fortune. The poor get to buy all the necessities of life and an occasional minor luxury (for example, a radio, a cellphone, a small TV). “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

    Eventually the poor majority gets tired of the rich ultra-minority profiting from their labors, and a Socialist government takes control of the country.

    The Socialist government reins in the ultra wealthy business owners, and forces them to give more of their profits to their workers as wages and as taxes that the government uses for social improvements. The poor people are better off with a Socialist government, because their way of life is greatly improved. The big problem with a Socialist government is that the rich business owners can take their businesses somewhere else where they can continue raking in huge profits. Then the overall economy suffers, unemployment goes way up, and the people are only a little better off than they were before.

    I am an American who has been living in Nicaragua (in Central America) for about 2 years now. Nicaragua has a Socialist government, but the current president of Nicaragua is a very pragmatic man. The government is helping the people get a bigger share of business profits and providing numerous social improvements, but President Ortega is also doing everything he can to attract businesses and investors to Nicaragua. He is compromising between socialism and capitalism, in that the people are getting enough of the profits from their labors, without taking so much that businesses are driven away. The majority of people are still very poor, but not as poor as they used to be, and new businesses are coming into the county all the time. Nicaragua’s kind of pragmatic Socialism is working. The economy and the way of life for the poor majority are improving in Nicaragua, slowly but surely.

    In Venezuela, Madera’s (and Chavez’s) type of socialism has not been working as well, and their economy is declining rapidly, because their policies are driving business owners out of the country. Their communist ideology is so strong. They are so sure they are right. They can’t see that they are the cause of their problems. So they keep “doubling down” with the same failing policies. The Venezuelan people need to replace the Chavez/Madera idealists with a more pragmatic, moderate form of government.

    • When Chavez went in front of the UN and called the President of the USA “the great Satan”, that was just stupid. The USA contains most of the large investors in the world. A country like Venezuela should be trying to attract investors, not frighten them away. Their new President Maduro is equally dogmatic, but slightly less charismatic. Nothing has changed since Chavez died and Maduro took office; Venezuela is still declining.

    • The hard truth is that no nation who’s economy is based on agriculture, natural resource exportation, and a sprinkling of tourism, will ever be successful in the modern era. Whether kleptocrats hoarde the meager earnings for themselves, or a socialist government follows through on its promises for the first time in history and equitably redistributes them (in the process dividing them into tiny pittances), there is simply not much money to be made. A strong argument could be made that, in the face of such miniscule resources, if the small wealth is concentrated as much as can be afforded into the hands of those most capable, it can be utilized/invested to increase its value in ways that benefit the whole society. Like, when your evil pineapple corporation opens a new farm or canning plant, instead of having their profits diverted to paying the electric bills of their workers (which yields no new capital, despite making the worker’s standard of living slightly higher for a time)

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