Latin America Sinking Into the Same Pit As Before

Latin americans are nothing if not repetitive. After brief symbolic flings with democracy and rule of law, they almost inevitably go back to strong-arm dictatorships.

Latin American Idiots have traditionally identified themselves with caudillos, those larger-than-life authoritarian figures who have dominated the region’s politics, ranting against foreign influence and republican institutions. Two leaders in particular inspire today’s Idiot: President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and President Evo Morales of Bolivia. Chávez is seen as the perfect successor to Cuba’s Fidel Castro (whom the Idiot also admires): He came to power through the ballot box, which exonerates him from the need to justify armed struggle, and he has abundant oil, which means he can put his money where his mouth is when it comes to championing social causes. The Idiot also credits Chávez with the most progressive policy of all—putting the military, that paradigm of oligarchic rule, to work on social programs.

For his part, Bolivia’s Evo Morales has indigenista appeal. In the eyes of the Idiot, the former coca farmer is the reincarnation of Túpac Katari, an 18th-century Aymara rebel who, before his execution by Spanish colonial authorities, vowed, “I shall return and I shall be millions.” They believe Morales when he professes to speak for the indigenous masses, from southern Mexico to the Andes, who seek redress of the exploitation inflicted on them by 300 years of colonial rule and 200 more of oligarchic republican rule.

The Idiot’s worldview, in turn, finds an echo among distinguished intellectuals in Europe and the United States. These pontificators assuage their troubled consciences by espousing exotic causes in developing nations. Their opinions attract fans among First-World youngsters for whom globalization phobia provides the perfect opportunity to find spiritual satisfaction in the populist jeremiad of the Latin American Idiot against the wicked West.

....The current revival of the Latin American Idiot has precipitated the return of his counterparts: the patronizing American and European Idiots. Once again, important academics and writers are projecting their idealism, guilty consciences, or grievances against their own societies onto the Latin American scene, lending their names to nefarious populist causes. Nobel Prizewinners, including British playwright Harold Pinter, Portuguese novelist José Saramago, and American economist Joseph Stiglitz; American linguists such as Noam Chomsky and sociologists like James Petras; European journalists like Ignacio Ramonet and some foreign correspondents for outlets such as Le Nouvel Observateur in France, Die Zeit in Germany, and the Washington Post in the United States, are once again propagating absurdities that shape the opinions of millions of readers and sanctify the Latin American Idiot. This intellectual lapse would be quite innocuous if it didn’t have consequences. But, to the extent that it legitimizes the type of government that is actually at the heart of Latin America’s political and economic underdevelopment, it constitutes a form of intellectual treason.

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When the average IQ of a voting population drops so low as to allow shameless and irrational pandering to a voter's bigotry--as in Venezuela and Bolivia--the voters will elect populist tyrants. These tyrants go on to change their constitutions and governments to allow themselves to continue in office for life--like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, or Fidel Castro in Cuba. Hugo Chavez is 90% down that road, and Evo Morales appears likely to follow in the identical path downward.

Dysgenic immigration trends and differential birthrates suggest that the same fate awaits every developed western nation eventually, if current trends continue. If a government that enacts egalitarian policies fails to understand the need for investment in innovation, and the need for economic freedom and private ownership and profits, the die is set. Nothing can save such a government that chooses the downward path.

Moronic westerners schedule vacations to Caracas or Havana to witness their pet ideas in action. The smarter ones of those catch on pretty quickly when actually exposed to the strangling atmosphere of such a place. The majority of pseudo-intellectual idiots will never catch on. They will continue eating the vomit of morons such as Marx and Marcuse until they are dead.