Venezuela Needs a Military Coup

Selwyn Duke

With Venezuela spinning toward chaos, it’s said that U.S. officials fear a military coup. We ought to ask “Why?”  Democracy on the brain can be a dangerous condition. George W. Bush pursued his unwise “nation-building” policies under the assumption that, as he put it, “democracies don’t go to war with each other.” (Note: technically we’re speaking of “republics,” not democracies.) So WWI was the “war to end all wars,” and now there’s the political system to end all wars; hey, if a military solution didn’t change man’s nature, maybe a political solution will? .......

And there have been relatively good military governments. After Chilean strongman General Augusto Pinochet steered his nation toward domestic tranquility and prosperity, he agreed to a restoration of representative government and peacefully stepped down in 1990. Of course, Pinochet was not a saint, and the Left despises him because he emerged from a coup that vanquished a devout socialist, Salvador Allende. But he was wise enough to consult with famed economist Milton Friedman when devising policy, and Milton beats Marx every time.

Admittedly, one big difference between Pinochet’s ascendancy (1973) and today is that the U.S. would aid such men decades ago; we understood that a pro-American, anti-communist dictator was preferable to a democratically elected Marxist or jihadist, that a decent zookeeper is better than a democracy of two lions and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Now Western leaders are content to create democratically made sheep as long as they’re fleeced by socialist shears....... To Read More