Things can change. And they can change quickly. I remember the rock musician Billy Squier from the 1980s. He rose from total obscurity to international stardom, and then somehow went right back to obscurity.
David Mamet made a great little movie a while ago called Things Change (you should be seeing all of his movies, regardless). It captures this “variability of fortune” ethic very well. And I’ve talked about it before, in books and articles here and there.
The point can apply to nations as well as people. Take Columbia and Venezuela, for example. The two sisterly countries are economically and socially now polar opposites. Venezuela is literally a failed state. The country is currently run by Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor. Maybe “run” is the wrong word, unless that word means “run into the ground.”
Maduro: Mr. Useless
By any measure, Venezuela is a disaster zone. Inflation has been about 500% so far this year, and is likely to exceed an incredible 1000% within the next year or so. Nothing is in the stores, and nothing is on the shelves. The few hotel visitors that do show up in the country are advised to bring their own toilet paper.
Crime is exploding, even in rural areas. Police hardly even bother to investigate crime any more, leaving vigilante groups to do the work of “law enforcement,” which can mean lynchings and murder.
Years of corruption, mismanagement, greed, graft, and stupidity are to blame. No one can blame this one on the United States. Hugo Chavez embedded himself in the seat of power a few years back and, proclaiming Fidel Castro as his “mentor,” propelled the nation right over the brink. What makes this all so gut-wrenchingly tragic is that Venezuela is one of the richest nations in the hemisphere. It is sitting on oil and gas reserves second to none. Its leaders essentially created OPEC many decades ago. There is enough mineral wealth in the country to literally do everything.
Everything, that is, except run the country.
Things change.
But let’s now take a look at Colombia. Columbia in the 1980s and early 1990s was crazy. Violence was off the charts. Narco-trafficers, cartels, and rebel groups turned the country into a tropical version of Afghanistan, with rival warlords and bosses battling each other for the biggest share of the spoils. In 1985, for example, the rebel group M-19 laid siege to the Colombian Supreme Court building itself. Incredibly, eleven of the twenty-five Supreme Court justices were killed in the battle.
Medellin was the murder capital of the world in the early 1990s. Everybody shuddered and joked about how dangerous Colombia’s cities were. But good tactics, discipline, and not a little law enforcement and intelligence assistance from abroad helped turn things around. The cartels were decapitated. Rebel groups were hunted down and liquidated. Slowly, order began to take the place of disorder. Medellin’s crime rate is about 95% lower than what it was in the early 1990s. Tourists are pouring in, attracted by the country’s scenic beauty, stability, and strong infrastructure.
Things change.
How could this have happened? How could things have just fallen apart so rapidly for Venezuela, and gotten so much better for Colombia? Well, lots of reasons. Most of them have to do with three things: leadership, leadership, and leadership.
Good leaders set the tone, provide the guidance, the vision, and the motivating spirit. When you have good people in the right places, things work well. Even countries with relatively few resources can do a lot with good leadership. And conversely, countries with abundant resources will get nothing done with corrupt or venal leaders. This something we should keep in mind, always.
Venezuela may have to go through its own dark night of its soul. Even though more than two-thirds of the population want corrupt, useless flunky Nicolas Maduro and his United Socialist Party out of power, he seems unlikely to give up without a fight. Of course, in his delusional world, it’s everyone else’s fault but his: the United States, monetary fluctuations, the collapse of the petroleum market, voodoo spells, maybe even radio waves bouncing off the clouds.
Colombia is doing very well.
But at the end of the day, he’s the leader. His party’s and his predecessor’s policies made it so. And if he had any amount of integrity or love for his country, he’d step down and make way for someone else who can reverse a decade of useless, failed “socialist” policies. How this will all play out remains to be seen.
Change is the natural order of things, as Lucretius tells us. The world changes rapidly every day, even every hour. We need to be aware of, and responsive to, these changes. When things are great, we should be grateful. And enjoy it while it lasts. Because it never does. And when things have run their course, we should know when it is time to move on.
We are all nomads, selling our wares door-to-door.
It is well for us to reflect on the fact that things can change so quickly, and so completely. Forward progress is not inevitable. It is not irreversible. The demons of ignorance, greed, and vanity are always lurking just below the basement trap-door, calling out to us in muffled voices, pushing for a way up and out.
And if bad leadership lets them loose, they can cause untold harm.
Read More: In The Crosshairs Of Our Masters: Do What We Say, Or Else
aka Socialism destroys countries
“And conversely, countries with abundant resources will get nothing done with corrupt or venal leaders”. <—Africa is more likely doing badly because of it’s low IQ population. Africa isn’t doing well with good leadership either. In any situation it’s the average IQ of the population that matters most, good leadership is useless if you are the leader of low IQ people.
How come the Europeans modernized the continent in a few decades? After all the workers were still African, especially when it came to manual labor…
You underestimate leadership and overestimate the importance of collective IQ. Argentina, a white country has been run into the ground even though they have the highest IQ of the region, thanks to a feckless and corrupt leadership that implanted socialism. The same can be said for EE where the people are highly educated and intelligent, however their countries were (and it some cases still being) run into the ground…
A hundred years of bad leadership in Argentina took it from a First World country to a borderline Third World country.
Economists jokingly say there are three types of countries in the world: Developed nations, developing nations … and Argentina.
There has been research done that has led some to think that there is a limit of average IQ under which a modern/western style nation cannot be sustained. The estimated limit is around 90. Under this limit the only stable form of governance is authoritarianism. Democracy etc depends on a certain amount of smart enough people. The bell curve distribution means that at average 90 half of the population is below and a fair bit far below 90. They create instability due to not being able to think constructively or plan anything ahead.
The order in Africa fell apart as soon as the European nations let go of their grip. Some countries managed for a while like Kenya but look at it now.
Still you haven’t refuted my main argument. I haven’t read The research you cited, however just the colonization of Africa or the impoverishment of Argentina and the EE seem to disprove it (I may be wrong I need to google it) since you have a minority that modernized a whole continent and whose efforts were undone as soon as they left and you have one region and two countries with high IQ people whose leadership has practically run to the ground and turned their respective countries in 3rd world shitholes
Hell EE is even more corrupt than many countries in Latin America even to this day, despite the fact that EE countries score higher values in IQ measurements so something is not adding up…
Interesting. We associate that higher IQ with ability to reach the middle class, which is why we’ve always said a democracy can’t thrive without one.
He’s right about IQ IMO….BUT….socialism never works over the long term. In the end it always fails. Sometimes it destroys a country slowly (Europe) sometimes quickly (Africa). The lower the IQ the faster the destruction maybe? I would think this also depends on how socialist the policies are. The more socialist the faster and more devastating the destruction is.
It is down to what you consider to be modern I suppose. Most people equate modern society with things like democracy etc. Eastern Europe for the record isn’t that bad, at least not compared to a lot of the rest of the world. Some of the countries have big issues with corruption but not all.
When Africa was working well it was being ruled in authoritarian ways, that’s what kept it together.
Eastern Europe is doing better now relatively than in most periods of the past.
Modern transportation infrastructure, sanitation infrastructure, modern bureaucracy, technology, the Weltanschauung and the ethos that makes it possible. Regrettably the colonization of Africa never included a serious programme to Christianize the natives (any serious attempt would have included the creation of an inquisition and probably forced conversions and slaughter of the stauncher elements of the old religion, otherwise it would be futile).
Hence one sees atrocities being committed daily in that wretched place that defy imagination. The neglected Christianization of the Continent is the reason why, once the whites left, they reverted to the extreme tribalism and socialism that characterized their societies before the arrival of the Europeans. Even the thinking classes of those nations (who had the capability to become competent doctors and engineers in a time without affirmative action BS) would revert to their tribal identities and undermine the nation with unbridled corruption and later civil war.
My point was no matter how high the average IQ of a population is, culture and bad leadership can nullify the efforts of the nation to improve their lot and all the populations work will be for naught. Examples of this abound (Argentina, China, Japan and East Asia who before the 20th century chose navel gazing before looking towards the future, EE during most of its history etc.)
I never said I supported democracy. Even for societies with high IQ. One example of this is Switzerland where after the women suffrage was approved, the slippery slope of centralization, big brother government and feminism got started and the nation has been undermined not by immigrants but by a voting block whose sole focus is to feel safer…at the expense of everyone else.
Just a few months ago, a proposal to set harsher sentences and faster deportation procedures for foreign criminals was rejected, mostly due to the female vote. Let alone Austria where females voted en masse for a socialist who hates his own country (yeah I am aware there was a possible fraud but it doesn’t change the female voters trend).
Food for thought indeed.
African countries as we know them were arbitrarily created by Europeans at Belrin conference 1885. To have a better anaylsis u wod have to have info on the existing kingdoms prior to date.
Relevance level to what I’m saying is damn close to zero. You do realize I don’t count African kingdoms as advanced societies?
I’m not talking about right or wrong or peace or war, I’m specifically talking about the usually referred to seen level of advancement of a society in yes Western European terms. It’s a limited topic that has fuck all to do with African kingdoms.
“After all the workers were still African, especially when it came to manual labor…” <—Only when it came to manual labour? You show me the modernizing efforts of colonial powers using African engineers etc, I don’t think that happened (due to populations being mostly illiterate when colonial powers arrived in Africa). And since I have read history, I also know that huge amounts of Indians etc were imported to do manual labour, which is why so many African countries have Asian minorities until today.
If you want a country only run by Africans today, were there is hardly any whites, and only some Asian people, look at Zimbabwe.
What is EE btw? Eastern Europe? Let’s not forget that in the short span since the Soviet Union dissolved these states have seen enormous growth, something we haven’t seen in other places that abandoned socialism. (But let’s face it, abandoning socialism always helps).
The manual labor was performed mostly by blacks. Asians were brought in (mostly Indians) in certain regions where blacks were not enough to complete the task, however they were never the majority of laborers. Why do you think South Africa had such an increment in its Black population? Thousands of blacks were brought in by the Whites to work in the fields and mines. Hence the problems they had later…
I never said those countries were well run. My argument is that no matter how high the native IQ of the population is, if the culture and the leadership are bad, the efforts of the nation to improve its lot will be for naught and viceversa, with a high IQ leadership interested in advancing the country, miracles can happen. Examples of this are many (Argentina-the history of nation that went from 1st to 3rd world thanks to socialism, East Asia a region that chose navel gazing over looking for the future for centuries, Russia that was a backward shithole until Peter the great and his henchmen dragged it out of the Ancient ages into modernity, how Africa with a white minority was modernized and how once the rule of this minority ended, so did Africa’s thin veneer of civilization…).
You said it, only after the dissolution of the soviet union and the adoption of Western economic systems (and one might argue, partial change of mentality). However those countries (including Russia) were backward shitholes worse than many nations of Latinamerica or Asia for many centuries. Even though their populations score higher IQs than the former. So what gives?
“However those countries (including Russia) were backward shitholes worse
than many nations of Latinamerica or Asia for many centuries. Even
though their populations score higher IQs than the former. So what
gives?”
Yeah, the Soviet Union was such a backward shithole it had it’s own space program and put the first man in space…..
Yeah, the same country sitting on prime arable land where millions died due to regular starvation cycles, relying on imports from the west to feed its population for decades, so bereft of modern infrastructure the Wehrmacht was forced to use carts and horses due to the lack of even rudimentary pathways let alone paved highways (don’t forget the logistics nightmare of hauling heavy equipment and supplies across the land) and where everyone able and willing (and able to think for itself) tried to escape. Are you gonna argue that USSR was a success?
Dude, the only great starvation of USSR history happened in the first decade of it’s existance, though Lysenkoism also caused some trouble. I’ve never claimed the USSR was a success, but with it’s high IQ white population it was a success compared to the states in Latin America and Africa. By every measurement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_Soviet_Union
And wikipedia is not a right wing media outlet…
If you read the article there could have been several reasons for why that grain was imported, to still hunger is just one of them. Let’s not forget that the Soviet Union was a huge exporter of things like vodka, and that to my knowledge takes grain to produce.
Yes. Fucking bad allocation of resources. Market considerations were not in the equation but the necessities of the “proletariat” aka whatever the Junta decided was needed. Look, I am not saying that USSR was Africa completely, however shortages were common in the great cities and in many far away places hunger was the normal due to the high rate of spoilage of foods, due to the bad practices widespread in collectivized agriculture and a demoralized workforce.
Add in the fairy tale statistics of production fed to the Central Planners into the mix (under Stalin and Lenin bad statistics/news=punishment) and you get a recipe for disaster. As far as I know things got better after Stalin but still Centrally planned agriculture and economy was a failure. No matter how many high IQ you put in charge, if they are delusional and operate under false premises or despise the people they rule (or are under the command of a deranged madman) you will get the usual result: failure.
Edit: or they (high IQ people) are restrained by a retrograde and degenerate culture..
You miss my point though, obviously the Soviet Union still had enormous manufacturing, sure some of it was misplaced, like towards the military. Africa has never been able to create any sort of great manufacturing, and the existing one right now is run by whites and asians.
The two go hand and hand. Im not sure if you can have a decadent intelligent society just look how dumbed down we’be (America ) gotten since the 60’s.
Leftists have DELIBERATELY been dumbing down the population for decades. In schools they don’t teach kinds anything anymore other than to become obedient PC-touchy-feely bots.
Part of that dumbing down is most likely due to dysgenics though. But I mean, we shouldn’t mistake knowledge for intelligence.
Africans invented the notion of civilization.
Whites were not a historical people until 1500BC at which point Nile Valley Civilization had already been in existence for 3 thousand years at least.
Sorry try again.
Egypt was a white civilization.
Egyptian people was mostly non-white however they were not Sub-saharan Africans, they were a subset of the Semitic Peoples so sorry try again.
Yeap, things change.
US should take note of it, since it will be the new Venezuela in a couple of decades.
If you think that US cannot go down that way, check Zimbabwe only four decades ago (it was called Rhodesia back then) and check it now.
http://ozziesaffa.blogspot.com.es/2015/02/rhodesia-vs-zimbabwe.html
“Things have changed”? Colombia was the #1 exporter of coke and H to the US 30 yrs ago, what is it now?
Still #1, but they keep it under wraps. They dont bother the tourists.
No, production has dropped immensely. I lived there for a while. The DEA actually taught Colombian farmers how to grow pineapples instead, and many of them have switched over.
Indeed. A dimebag of pineapple juice has a higher street value than a dimebag of blow these days
Bullshit
Plus I believe the drug market has diversified. Why bother with imported cocaine when you can have home made meth?
Much much safer place now
I think regionalism has to do with Colombian success. I don’t know much about how things are run there, but I suspect that given how big and diverse the country is, the region’s themselves have to figure it out. After all, I suppose Bogota has problems distinct from Medellin or Cartagena.
Americans: It’s all about leadership.
Colombia elected Alvaro Uribe, who can be seen as the man who broke a few eggs to make an omelette. He crushed the political leftist groups such as FARC that were terrorizing the peasants in the countryside. (They’d murdered his father in 1983.) This stabilized the country and increased security, allowing tourism to reboot, which sped up the virtuous economic circle. He also eradicated much of the coca farming, reducing cocaine production. (Peru now produces more than Colombia.) The cartels were crippled because of this. The homicide rate dropped 66%. I’ve visited pueblos in Colombia that were inaccessible just ten years ago. It’s fucking gorgeous there.
Venezuela, meanwhile, elected Hugo Chavez, Donald Trump’s role model. He made goofy ten-hour broadcasts on state television (read: The Apprentice). He rewrote the federal constitution to fit his own needs, then violated it endlessly anyways. He attacked any media outlet that dared to reveal his corruption (read: Trump University scandal) and personally closed 30 television stations and newspapers. He personally selected all candidates for every office in his political party. He personally fired 20,000 public servants for signing a recall petition. He even personally fired a Supreme Court justice from his deathbed because he didn’t agree with her stances (read: Curiel). He personally criticized America for its violence but nonetheless funded and armed violent illegal groups like Tupamaros. He pulled down his pants for Putin and allowed Russia to build a fucking Kalashnikov factory in his country. Wealthy people saw the way all this was going and got the fuck out as soon as they could. Now everyone’s trying to leave before it transforms totally into Zimbabwe.
America, we have a choice. Do we want to be like Colombia or Venezuela?
There is no such choice this cycle. The Dems offer nothing but more destruction and nihilism. The GOP offers Trump. I’m not particularly of a mind that I really have any decision to make at all this election cycle, it’s all bad.
The choice is pretty clear: A vote for Trump is a vote for Chavez and the accelerated eradication of our civil rights. He’s so ignorant that he literally doesn’t understand what the 14th amendment guarantees — or else he wouldn’t be casting aspersions on federal judges.
Yes, you could sit out this election, but hundreds of thousands of our forerunners died for your right to make a choice to preserve our political institutions.
So that means that there is no choice. Which I already noted. I’m not voting for the socialist pig Sanders nor the cackling Leftist witch Hillary. I guess third party it is.
Voting is not a right, btw. The Founders never claimed it was. It was a heavily restricted privilege, and rightly so. No good has come from making it a universal “right” out of whole cloth.
And I was out there fighting for that privilege in uniform myself, so save the sanctimonious appeal to jingoism, if you don’t mind.
Third party it is. Let me know if you find a good candidate. I’ve been looking too.
The only third party I’ll generally pull a lever for is the Libertarian Party, but honestly their “open borders” policy is utterly and tragically wrong, bullheadedly wrong even, suicidal levels of wrong. Everything else they basically get right though, and since I know that they won’t win, a symbolic vote for them sends a message to the powers that be (if enough of us do it) that has been known to affect future campaigns of “major” parties.
Even if they don’t have a third party candidate listed, write it in.
The “Libertarian Party” has been taken over by Leftists. These fucking Leftists are like parasites. They’re the worst infection a doctor can’t cure.
I know man. It used to be actually “libertarian”. It’s morphed into “the pot party”. I suspect that I’m out of date.
“A vote for Trump is a vote for Chavez and the accelerated eradication of our civil rights. He’s so ignorant that he literally doesn’t understand what the 14th amendment guarantees — or else he wouldn’t be casting aspersions on federal judges.”
The 14 amendment “guarantees” that Lincoln’s federal government replaced the voluntary union of sovereign states that was intended by the Founders. The 14th also “guarantees” that the Lincoln’s new federalized nation will collapse: anchor babies, women’s rights, loss of freedom of association (creating “white flight” and an affirmative action caste system with white males at the bottom), baby murder, sodomite marriage, etc. This website exists and you’re posting here because females are so corrupt because of the 14th amendment.
Sorry but I think you are being disingenious. The only thing Chavez and Trump share is the populist rhetoric, but Trump is not socialist (as far as I have seen) and is a real nationalist (no marxist has ever been guilty of loving his country of birth).
I don’t see what’s the problem with this. Is one of the few good things the bastard did in his life (from the perspective of Venezuelans) in order to promote industry. It’s a pity he was socialist unable to see reality. Otherwise he would have promoted investment and entrepreneurship in the country.
leadership is everything. America is full of “leaders” that are just lining their own pockets and sending us on the path of third world status. An example is any liberal run city Detroit, Flint, Oakland Ca. etc.
Leadership AND Political Philosophy. Stalin was a ‘strong leader’ who ground Russians into grist on his mill of Communism. He was a horror story, but technically he was a “good leader” because ultimately the USSR was on the “winning team”.
An apolitical pragmatic “leader” can be hit or miss, depending on the form of government he governs under. Pure Pragmatists worry me almost as much as Pure Idealists (Obama, Bernie Sanders types), both are impervious to any voice but the one in their heads directing them.
A leader such as Æfred the Great, on the other hand, or even Charlemagne or Marcus Aurelius, brought great achievements and cultural advancement with their time in office, and greatly benefited not just their own societies, but most of the world that came afterward. They were neither entirely pragmatic, nor entirely idealistic, but struck a nice balance I think and worked the best they could towards the common interests of all of the people they reigned over.
All three men you mention, also love their people in a sense. Stalin was monster to his people, but he ensure they become a superpower to rival the US. Hence the moment of his death, everyone that hated him shed a tear for him.
The Russian mind has always confused me, like that. I’m not saying that they’re wrong or right, just that they see the world in an entirely different framework than I do, so I just can’t grok their sentimentality for that monster. I am well aware of Russia’s history btw, I mean at a deep gut level it still doesn’t sound like anything other than alien to me.
Agree that the three royalty I mention (for lack of a better term, or perhaps, two emperors and one king) deeply loved their people and land.
I always thought the Russians had masochistic tendencies, just my 2cts.
That why I put ‘in a sense’ in comment. Stalin use people as means to end for power, but was smart enough to instill a sense of pride in his people. You don’t see that in the elites of the Western World or Chaverz.
when i lived in the former USSR, someone, can’t remember who, told me to remember that the russians are essentially the white chinese, in the sense that it’s easy to expect them to by similar to us because the look similar, but in reality, they are about as different culturally as any asians.
That’s why the West always viciously hated mother Russia, and started numerous campaigns to conquer it – because Russians were always different and frightening for that matter.
I rather agree
When the land you love is being constantly attacked by the people that were never invited (Teutonic Knights, Napoleon, Persians, Mongols, Poles, Hitler) – you do develop some pain tolerance as a nation
More like White Mongalians in my opinion..,
“The most western of the Easteners, not the most Eastern of the West”.
Stalin saw his people as a means to his end, hence he disregarded the death of his comrades or compatriots or the utter destruction of Russian culture. He was the same man who coined “one death is a tragedy, a million is just statistics” so what would you expect. That’s point of view completely different from the other two men who genuinely loved their people.
Immagine if the communists had not have succeded, imagine if they had not been bankrolled by Western Bankers such as Jakob Schiff.
No holdamoor, no WW2 I suspect, free Baltic states, no cold war. Merely aggressive commercial competition.
He was a monster to Anglo-Zionists, for the Soviet people he was a light bearer. What you of of him is a one big lie.
Stalin murdered millions of his own people. Don’t people read Solzhenitsyn any more?
Yes, everything Anglo-Zionist MSM wrote about Stalin must be true, right? They also write that Islam is a religions of peace and that gender is a social constract, must be true too
Solzhenitsyn was famous – some might even say notorious – for being a thorough Russian Nationalist and devout Orthodox Christian. His findings and reports have been repeatedly confirmed from many sources. For a similar critique from ta libertarian left/anarchist perspective, I suggest Emma Goldman’s ‘My Disillusion with Russia”, Written even before Stalin, back in the days of Lenin, she identified the emerging totalitarian state.
Interesting enough – Anglo Zionists were very quick to publish “Archipelago Gulag” about the “horrors” of the USSR., but the never published his books on Zionists (such as “500 years together”)
I know this thread is a bit old, but this piece (apparently written by a countrman of yours) is good. I’m a russophile myself and I’ve always understood why some Russians admire Stalin while also feeling that there’s something “off” about that.
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/tribal-stalinism/
Random thought for the day:
Oh God. I feel like I need to punch you for that. heh.
There are no good send ups of the Beach Boys, except this one.
(Ah, GenX when we were young. What a happy time…)
You can punch me if you like, but that would require you to come down to TN and we have the Eye of Sauron guarding us.
Don’t make me bring Sponge Bob here to flip you off, hoss.
Eye of Sauron?
aka – The Batman Tower in Nashville, TN.
Serious question, why is it called the Batman Tower? I’ve not seen a lot of the recent Batman movies, except the one with Bane in it (excellent btw), was it in one of those flicks? Or does it come from something else?
It’s from the two points on the side; kind looks like Batman’s ears.
Ah, I thought it might be due to something more than simple appearance. But that works too.
We’re simple, hardworking people down here in the South.
it is that…and the fact that bat man lives there.
And there’s also state of the art motion tracking software that allows the eye to follow any moving objects within its line of sight. Very unnerving if you get selected.
Alfred?
Algorithmic Laser Focused Retinal Electronic Device
Oh man, just brilliant.
Does this put me in the running against GoingSane’s earlier comment for today’s winner?
Day is still young.
Oh no Unabashed, that’s not how we do random:
Sanders: Pure idealist.
Obama: Half realist/half idealist. Nobody can really tell.
Clinton: Pure realist.
Oh, I think Obama is a pure idealist, but people generally aren’t aware of his actual ideals, thinking he’s there strictly as a Progressive. By that test, yes, he looks half baked.
You really ought to learn more about Obama’s worldview and foreign policy. If you have an hour, read through this series of interviews that Jeffrey Goldberg did with Obama. Everybody in the world of foreign policy was discussing it when it came out a couple months back.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/
One choice quote: “Obama, unlike liberal interventionists, is an admirer of the foreign-policy realism of President George H. W. Bush and, in particular, of Bush’s national-security adviser, Brent Scowcroft (“I love that guy,” Obama once told me).”
I’m well aware of his worldview, and I’m well aware of his take on foreign policy, thanks. That’s why I know he’s not half and half. Pre-emptive strikes and militarism are prime traits of Leftists, and George Dubya was at heart a neoconservative, which is basically a Leftist who defected to the GOP.
funny…he looks half and half.
I see what you did there…
In what fantasy world would you call Obama a militarist? He caught huge flak for NOT using our military in Syria, even when he promised to do so. He purposefully kept us out of more wars, preferring to wrap up the two we already had going. Read that article, my friend.
Dats raycis!
only half racist.
Dude is taking out more people with drones, nameless faceless cowardly drones, than Dubya could ever have hoped for.
Yes, and those drones are keeping our soldiers out of harm’s way. That’s the opposite of militarism.
Using military equipment to kill lots of people, the opposite of militarism. Got it. Thanks.
Next time we nuke a country from afar I’m going to be cheering our actions of Love, Peace and Tranquility.
We define militarism differently.
From Websters: Militarism is the glorification or prevalence of a military spirit, attitudes, etc. in a nation.
Jammy, Obama is just Bush, light version. Obama has been in the business of destabilizing countries since his first term. Just ask Libyans, Syrians, Tunisians, Ukrainians and many others if they like their subversion. In terms of human cost in those nations, an outright invasion would have been the same.
So just random murdering of tons of people is okey dokey, as long as you’re not out giving righteous speeches about it?
And the distinction here is…what, precisely, from a war standpoint? The speeches? We’re arguing about giving jingoistic speeches, while glossing over the whole “let’s kill tons of people” part?
Yep.
Frank marshall davis
The Tea Party and the British Parliment kept us out of Syria. Obama wanted to go into Syria but lost the vote in Congress and got rejected by his British allies.
You … you you — look what you did to my sarcasm meter!
I don’t really get why people seperate idealism and realism. Most of the time the realist has a philosophy he is committed to as strong as the idealist. I feel people usually get called idealists when their ideas are terrible and do not work out in real life
I don’t think most kings, prior to the 17th century, were in any way shape or form “idealists” in any real way. Dieu et mon droit was about as close to idealism as they got. They seemed rather more along the line of practical rulers tasked with a specific job, more than anything else.
Exactly right.
Who would you say the first idealist with real power would have been. My vote off the top of my head is Peter the Great. That man did some spectacular things that were born in the mind of genius and not grounded in earthly reality.
The first king to have to work *under* idealism, without being idealistic, would be, I think, King John. He had the Magna Carta thrust into his face and was told in no unclear way “Sign, or off with you”. Magna Carta being a huge document o’idealism after its own fashion of course, although really it was basically a reinstatement of many traditional pre-Norman invasion Anglo Saxon rights (rights being, of course, born of idealism).
The first king though? Good question. If you consider Cromwell a king (well, a ruler by any definition anyway), perhaps he falls into line a bit before Peter the Great? He is certainly cited by a lot of idealists as either a God Hero for (liberty, socialism, whatever), so he seems rather to have self identified at least with those groups.
Socialists, if good at nothing else, re-appropriated history so well that I have a hard time believing it when anyone talks about great men being protosocialists.
Not sure how the time line works. Cromwell is an interesting case…question is, is it title or effective power that makes one king there I suppose.
by the way, King John would be one of the reasons I don’t vote.
There simply is no power. It has all fallen apart. John gets and reads the magna carta and has to make a decision that will be a starting gun either way to change the entire fucking world. That is power.
Can you even fucking imagine sitting there while different advisors blab on and on knowing you have to eventually give some answer that will literally change the course of all human history for the rest of time. ftw that is some real shit.
Power today doesn’t exist. It is the Kardashian sex video compared the the Godfather
Right, I know they do that. But so have others. And the man did seem to have some idealistic flair. Prior to his rising, he was on record as for the limitation of kings (more so) by Parliaments, as well as the extension of freedom of conscious/religion. His time was just a hair before Peter the Great. If you’re talking huge flaming idealist, you’re probably more on mark than I am though.
I would probably go with Justinian
Explain please? He struck me not as ideological, but more to the point, somebody who simply wanted to reunite the Roman empire (or resuscitate the Western half, if you will). That seems more practical oriented than rooted in some flowery rhetoric concerning rights and man’s place in the universe.
The Code of Justinian is quite flowery when compared to previous law codes. It really starts trend
Justinian was a revolutionary thinker and an idealist, but def not after 17th centry when he was just a 1000 year old corpse. Still, if we are going to make a most ideal oriented monarchs of all time he would def make the list.
Well he basically looked at Russia and said “lets stop being a kingdom of back water peasants and join western Europe and dragged them kicking and screaming in that direction.
Just remember it was written – or you might say edited – by one Trebonian, the last known major pagan scholar in what had been Rome and was becoming Byzantium.
Obama’s an idealist that hates America. My two cents.
Brilliant and incisive.
Proof ?
I have been telling people for quite some time that I would rather have a president with the correct philosophy, whom could surround himself with others with similar philosophy whom are smart, and have the president be relatively stupid, than I would have a brilliant president with the wrong philosophy. And the reason is exactly the same as what you stated. Mao, Hitler, Stalin, etc….
Pure pragmatists are often unheard of largely because their actions are conservative yet gradual. An example of a very pragmatic leader would be Henry II who, through marriage, military conquest and diplomatic ingenuity expanded the Angevin Empire fivefold. He couldn’t be described as an idealist because he himself was not a very idealistic person. He expanded the Angevin lands by first taking the English crown through diplomacy, marrying Eleanor of Aquiatine (by convincing her to divorce her beta schlub of a husband in the King of France), brought Ireland into English dominion by convincing the Pope to allow him “in the name of taking control of the Irish church”. He himself was an incredible warrior.
We often hear about Richard I, his son, because he was an idealist through and through. He was at war constantly during his time. Despite being a financial burden, his raw charisma and the fact he led from the front inspired people.
Agreed. Strong leaders with sound economic/social/political philosophy make the difference. Socialism with all its good intentions has never worked well in any setting regardless of the leader. It can be a slow burn or a shooting star but it all ends the same way.
Stalin was not a “horror story”, Russophobe Zionists like Trotsky, Lenin, Yezhov (all members of the tribe) and their entourage were a horror story. Stalin stopped them from turning what was left of Mother Russia into pits of Hell. What you know of him is the result of decades of Anglo-Zionist propaganda. He was a savior, just like Putin. Russia flourished under his leadership, it reached such heights it never had before in science, military, human capital and so on.
How’d all that flourishing work out for the Ukraine?
Which event you’re referring to specifically? When part of USSR – Ukraine was the most developed part of the country.
When Stalin starved everyone to death
Get a chair. The hamstering will be epic.
Looks like you have read Robert Conquest among others. Murder will out, it is certain.
Nationalism is a good thing, but trying to cover or diminish the crimes of a nasty piece of work like Stalin…please.
Were it not for Stalin, 20+ million men wouldn’t have died unnecessarily during WWII against Hitler.
Interesting logic you have. Germany attacked Russia, Russians fought the Nazi machine protecting their homeland. And you’re accusing Stalin in Nazis’ crimes?
Were it not for Stalin’s arrogance and utter disregard for the Russian citizenry of the Soviet empire, millions of lives would have been spared. His tactics (or lack thereof) led to the unnecessary deaths of millions of soldiers who became mere cannon fodder. It wasn’t because the Nazis were übermensch and the Russians untermensch that Russia lost so many of her sons, it was because Stalin (a Georgian) refused until later in the battle to heed the advice of his generals and organize defensive tactics, something he abhorred in his twisted mindset.
You can read more about it in Mosiers book Hitler vs Stalin. Even in Beevor’s Stalingrad, one can feel the utter disdain the Soviet junta felt for the common man in the tactics and the treatment of its own civilians.
“Interesting logic you have. Germany attacked Russia, Russians fought the Nazi machine protecting their homeland. And you’re accusing Stalin in Nazis’ crimes?”
Stalin is the one who enabled Hitler to get into a position to invade Russia in the first place with the neutrality pact and the division of Poland. Therefore, Stalin deserves zero credit for defeating Hitler, even if another Communist leader in theory would have done worse, because without Communism, Russia would have become far more powerful than the USSR ever was or ever could have been.
So according to your logic UK also is to blame since they also had a neutrality pact with Germany? USSR was dominating the planet along with US, and you’re saying they were not powerful enough? The truth is Stalin has been smeared for decades by the same Marxist Liberals whose ideas most of us on this forum reject flat out. Yet, some how you take their word on Stalin. I grew up in USSR, some people scream of “millions of killed” by him in Gulags, yet producing zero evidence of that.
“USSR was dominating the planet along with US, and you’re saying they were not powerful enough?”
Yes. The 20th century should have belonged entirely to the Russian empire. The USA after having been the primary beneficiary of two World Wars could barely contain a USSR crippled with Communism, wars, and purges.
Stalin’s purges also kill or remove much of the Soviet Millitary’s hierarchy also He did not expect Germany to invade so soon…
The USSR was an evil empire unable and unwilling to provide its citizens with enough beyond basics, that is when it wasn’t slaughtering them. For a nationalist Russian, you seem to love the black hole which Russia was turned into for many years thanks to Communism.
Even today Modern Russian culture is just a pale reflection of the high culture of the time of the Czars. Were it not for communism, Russians would be at least 300 million and a real world power, not the dwindling group they are today.
You’re a result of decades of Anglo-Zionist brainwashing through TV, newspapers, school system and so on. Just like those SJWs I come across everyday, they also believe everything MSM tell them
Russian future is coming, you better believe it
I don’t know what’s up in the East but here in the West Stalin is viewed almost as an antihero when not an straight hero. For God’s sake, in Germany there are streets under the name of the bastard of Karl Marx and Ilya Ehrenburg Stalin’s own rape (real rape) apologist and propagandista who advocated for the mass rape of German women . So no, if anything here in the West Stalin and his pals crimes (that exceed by many times what Hitler or any other tyrant in the West ever did) are whitewashed and glossed over when not outright ignored but Hitler’s (and western men “crimes” of colonization) are repeated over and over again.
As I said before nationalism is a good thing but it’s ironic a nationalist Russian defends one of the destroyers of his own nation’s culture and legacy. Nationalism shouldn’t equate moral blindness and negation of one’s history
And that future is bankruptcy.
So you lived in Stalin’s era? If not it’s certain you lived after him, in better times for the soviet Union when more rational leaders (still delusional but not outright psychopaths) ruled the country. Even Khrushchev denounced him as soon as he could for God’s sake.
I lived in a country whose technological basis was built under Stalin leadership. Khrushev was a bad leader. You base your opinions on Liberal MSM. Why do you think Solzhenitsyn got Nobel Price? It is a highly piliticized award. Kinda like Oscars today.
US – over 20 trillion $ in debt. Russia -50 billion give or take. Do you always post just whatever you feel like without thinking?
Rubble depreciates 50% in one year. GDP declines continually, oil price drop, no other exports other than arms. Russia’s economy is imploding. Its future is bankruptcy. Glad to get you more numbers if you like.
Dont take my word on it – research. Most of the crimes against Russians (and German citizen – women and children) were commited by Russian Jews. And Stalin punished all of them. He cleansed Russia of them. Did you hear of the “Doctors case” or “Jewish resettlment to the East”? Research more. I used to think just like you when my young brain was filled with the Liberal propaganda.
I think you didnt read what I wrore: US has $20+ trillion in debt, Russia – about $50 billion. Easily verified. I’ve been hearing about imminent Russian collapse from the Liberal minds like your ever since I learnt how to speak. They’ve been predicting Gates of Hell for Russia counless times. Where is it?
What US priduces? Only one fake commodity – US dollar. Nothing else.
“What US produces?”
One-third of the worlds GDP.
Russia has no doubt a lot of natural resources, but little diversified Investment (and maintenance) and alot of corruption. From what I see, Russia also has a “brain drain” and capital flight risks (oligarchs keeping their money offshore.)
Yes, as I feared. People do not read Solzhenitsyn any more, or they would not be tempted to praise the man who murdered millions of his own Russian people.
Even though Solzhenitsyn made some good points, Archipelago Gulag is full of lies and gross exaggeration
The major failure of leadership from men like Chavez, and lot of leadership in poltical and business leadership in the US is the lack of foresight. While focus on their riches, they lack intellectually ability to see the consequences of certain actions. They failure to prepare for any Black Swan events, as they live in perverse way of “Living in the Moment”. What we are seeing Venezuela is the failure of thinking ahead.
Chavez was able to consolidate power when the oil markets had high dollar per barrel were the norm. Thanks to the fracking and Saudis attempts to destroy the domestic oil production in the US with increase production, that revenue was gone. He squandered whatever money the country had to enrich himself and become a power broker of South America. He fail to ensure that maintenance of oil production is preserved and investment in infrastructure to ensure that all is well.
The difference is r/K selected species. Look it up. K’s – think Northern Euro’s – cooperate with the group, are more risk averse and think long term. The history of the world goes as such: High IQ racial superiors build shit, low IQ idiots take over (usually through majority vote by fellow idiots) and run it into the ground. They are literally too stupid to understand causality. Google: Cargo Cults. The Western IQ has dropped 13 points since the Victorian era because of the darkening of the planet. When the white race is finally extinct the Jews will have their slave colony of mudskins/slant eyes, but will themselves not have the capabilities to keep it going. Israel Cohen ‘A Racial Program for America’. The entire plant will be going the way of Rhodesia, S. Africa, Detroit and Venezuela, never to recover.
Besides Obama, no developed nation has chosen a candidate from African or any other non-white origin so what was your point again?
Miscegenation rates are insignificant. The West’s immigration policies are crazy and stupid (a dangerous combination) but I am more inclined to believe the IQ drop that has occurred in whites, not because of the presence of other races but due to more insidious factors…
Where does your alphabet come from ?
Hey man. I’m Colombian and currently live in the country. Sorry to burst your bubble but the country is being given over to the FARC in a left-wing backed false “Peace Process”. All the things that you mentioned improved due to Alvaro Uribe’s leadrship, yet his succesor, Juan Manuel Santos, betrayed those who voted for him and is literally selling the country out. The sad thing is that Maduro in Venezuela is in risk of falling, while the FARC in Colombia are soon to receive power. So basically things might change in Venezuela for the better and in Colombia for the worse. It’s a real pity.
Si, que pena. Your peso has dropped so much in the last year and a half. If only Uribe could’ve stayed in office.
If only…
Translation: there are cuckservatives in Colombia just as there are in the USA or Europe.
Yes exactly. Want to know the worst part? FARC are clever and are starting to use the social justice concepts to justify their future enslavement of the colombian people.
Hi Andres. I saw you were a Colombian guy. In that way, perhaps you would give me a hand. I wonder, if Colombia is far better now than fifteen years ago, why we in Chile are receiving such a lot of black Colombians. They are everywhere, they are arriving everywhere. It seems like a silent black invasion.
Hello Edu. 15 years ago, Colombia was at risk as failing as a state. The military commanders at the time were expecting to lose the country to the Farc guerrillas at any moment. Fortunately, Alvaro uribe Velez won the presidency and turned the situation around. He was so effective that a reelection law was passed only so he could be reelected. After he finished, his supposed succesor Santos betrayed Uribe and all who voted for him and breathed life back to the FARC by means of a secret “peace process”. Not only was he lying to the colombian people, his government has been ultra-corrupt and incompetent. For this reasons, the country has started to regress again. The economy is nearing more and more to a recession and the violence is back. Justice is non-existent and trust in the institutions is fading. All this is a perfect cocktail that is generating emmigration from the country. I didn´t know that black colombians were headed to Chile, although it makes perfect sense because the regions with the biggest black populations are in the pacific and are also the worst hit by the violence and poverty brought on by drugdealing and guerrillas. So I would basically tell you to expect even more in the future since things are turning darker by the day.
Es una verdadera pena que eso haya pasado, después de todo Uribe parecía haber destrozado a las FARC. Is there any source you can point where I can read more about the situation of the country (doesn’t matter if it’s in spanish, is even preferable in Spanish) as unbiased as possible. I have visited and worked in that country before and I am really curious.
Yeah, it’s a complete tragedy. One more year of Uribe and FARC go the same way as the Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka…The media in Colombia is VERY biased. They have literally been bought over via “Peace promotion” contracts. I suggest you combine different sources to get a picture of the situation. I recommend the following: https://twitter.com/AlvaroUribeVel (Uribe’s twitter), http://www.lahoradelaverdad.com.co, http://www.losirreverentes.com, http://www.las2orillas.co (a mixed bag, both left wing and right wing articles and columns), http://lasillavacia.com (biased towards the peace process, although you can kind of read between the lines). This last one is a piece of shit, paid-by-the government VICE magazine special on the peace process so you can see the official, politically correct script: https://www.vice.com/es_co/series/pacifista. Have fun.
Thank you Andrés. I’ll check them out.
Thank you, your reply has cleared a lot of questions. I heard about Mr Uribe, and I thought he was a good leader, but I didn’t know Santos was so atrocious. About the very black invasion, I got only what themselves could tell me: “alas, we are escaping poverty”. But they are bringing crime, insecurity as many of them are coming to “work” as drug dealers, muggers and whores. I’ve got a white Colombian friend -a nice dude, certainly a moderate-, and he is just an exception, as he came here to study at University.
My concern is the notorious lack of whites among the immigration we’re receiving. We are not seeing white Colombians, Venezuelans nor Argentines who are emigrating, but Colombians, Haitians and northern Peruvians. All of them are blacks and mulattoes.
Thanks again and hoping Colombia retake growing and crush drug lords and political criminals.
You’re welcome Edu. Although I wouldn’t recommend basing yourself on the race of Colombians. The worst ones have been very white.
I thought you already had deported the Colombians and other illegal immigrants that were arriving to your country. Haven’t you?
I wish we were. But nowadays we’ve got a female leftist president who (surprise!) has showed utterly incompetence. Also, we are seeing unprecedent efforts to push diversity agenda down our throat. “We are a nation of immigrants”, “we must welcome black people and show solidarity to our Latin brothers”, “Our country is the wealthiest in South America thus we are obliged to share some of our wealth with our neighbors”. Does it sound familiar…?
There is no comparison between Colombia and Venezuela. Venezuela has been hit by the double whammy of low oil prices and a severe drought which has removed it power generation capacity. This should not blind anyone to the huge amount of progress and development that Venezuela went through since the accession of Hugo Chavez. Throughout that period, the standard of living of the average man has increased significantly, with most people in better housing and employment.
By contrast, Colombia is today what it has always been, a narco state.
Venezuela has been coming under several coup attempts and endless global media vilification. What is happening now is just the latest chapter in that story. By contrast Colombia has kept the globalist wolves at bay by handing over its petro assets to BP and propping up the global banking system with it narco dollars.
Incidentally, whenever a nationalist leader who wishes to maintain his countries independence comes to power, the globalists will attack that person and his country ceaselessly. Do not think that things will be different when Donald Trump becomes the president. The globalists will throw their full armoury against him and the USA. Secretly, the Jewish financiers, the British elite at the City of London, various Europeans powers, the Gulf sheikdoms and the Chinese will seek to create financial havoc in the USA while unremitting media coverage will attempt to paint the entire blame on President Trump.
You have a clear understanding on how the international Luciferian banking mafia works with the exception that Trump is most likely part of it.
well they do have those barbarians running around demanding to know what is in peoples wallets. I think that is the most important part. Not sure if they are part of the trump group though.
Dammit lolknee, you can’t earn your own award for winning the internet!
Banking Elite
Holy shit, I got married in that room. No fucking joke. I descended the stairs on the right.
TRIGGERED
What’s on your finger
Nothing but a glorious tan
welcome home brother, welcome home
That would actually be a pretty cool banking enforcement system. Hire a bunch of Goth Vandals as your strong arm. Intimidating.
Ever notice how when socialism/communism/Marxism fail tragically, which is every time, that it’s always outside factors and forces at work and never the real fault of the socialists/communists/Marxists? Yet if you can find even a single accidental flaw in Capitalism, socialists go ape screaming about the horrors of the free market and capitalism is entirely to blame?
Huh.
They really do like the No True Scotsman argument and its variations, don’t they?
“They weren’t Socialist enough.”
“They weren’t the right type of Socialist.”
“The [insert nefarious mega powers lurking in the shadows] were aligned against us!”
With those arguments, they don’t realize they’re making the case FOR capitalism. Our economy has survived the worst poundings we can throw at it and it always bounces back.
“They weren’t the right type of socialist” I hear that shit a lot and the other day I watched a YouTube video of a former soviet citizen talking to American communist who said the same shit. They went on to say they were Mao revisionist I believe and told the Russian guy he didn’t actually experience real communism in Soviet Russia cause it disappeared sometime in the fifties while neglecting all the millions killed by communist.
You’re an intelligent man but here’s some recommended reading that may explain what happened to Venezuela and why.
CENTURY OF WAR
http://www.amazon.com/Century-War-Anglo-American-Politics-World/dp/1615774920?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top
The truth is stranger than fiction.
Hah. Yeh. Capitalism gets blamed for everything by those cunts and what is never mentioned is how much better the living standard is in most capitalist nations. They can argue amongst themselves about the difference between Maoism and Stalinism but the end result is the same: tyranny and mass poverty. The historical record of communism is shocking.
It annoys me how they try to blame wars on capitalism as well, when violent territorial conflict predates capitalism by centuries. The only difference is that the technology developed under capitalism speeds up the process and allows for a greater destructive capacity, but that’s not the fault of capitalism per se.
If Genghis Khan had access to machine guns, tanks, jets and bombs, he surely would have used them.
Please….Chavez (and Maduro’s btw)policies are so demential only oil prices kept the country afloat.
They singlehandedly destroyed the country’s industry and threw down the sewer a 2 decade time window to fix the country and prove they were better than the incompetent aristocrats that had mismanaged the country. The results speak for themselves and no it wasn’t US fault this time.
The same Hugo Chavez whose family is worth billions while people starve? Put down the crack pipe.
Exactly…
So it’s all the fault of “outside conspiracies” by “globalists”? Chavez, that pimp, and his corrupt cronies share no blame for the current situation? He was nothing but another corrupt dictator throwing money around.
Not buying your story, man. Sorry.
This is pure left-wing rhetoric. I know it well.
Venezuelan here, my advice to you is to NEVER in your life EVER vote for the political left, not even the “mild” left, not even the center, never fall in love with communist propaganda, charismatic leaders, never let yourselves be seduced by their speech full of resentment, they only care about the welfare of their pockets, not the welfare of the nation.
I know someone who originally immigrated to the USA from Venezuela and she is an avid leftist. Boggles the mind.
Makes you wonder why she ever left the socialist paradise of Venezuela to live in the decadent USA. My guess is she was trying to improve herself and there are no jobs in Venezuela.
Immigrants don’t change their political beliefs when they step onto the magic dirt of the United States.
Especially when immi-vagrants go socialism-shopping.
-“She”
It´s because the “ordinary people” don´t know about politics. They only know that “capitalism is good” and “socialism is bad”, obvious they choose capitalism because they can have good things but still have the leftist beliefs.
Look at the elections, they voted because they want food (who doesn´t?) but also want more things like these that Chavez and Maduro gave to them.
Att: A venezuelan in Venezuela.
Then she should have her ass deported back to Venezuela since she loves socialism so much.
Too late. We just had 8 years of Obama and it is a good chance a multiple felon who ignited the ME and North Africa with her incompetence, took millions in bribes from foreign donors to her private foundation while an acting head of state, not to mention a hovering indictment from the FBI, will most probably be the next POTUS.
The US won’t be just a “banana republic”, but the biggest banana republic in the history of man.
I like bananas. This could work out well.
🍌
🍌
🍌
Most young men I run into seem to be Bernie Sanders supporters. They’re too steeped in political correctness to consider supporting Trump. And that’s not even getting into the women, or the nonwhites…
My son, in college, is a huge Trump supporter. Hands out shit at college and is getting takers. The high school my daughter goes to has a huge Trump campaign button thing going on.
I don’t know. I know some hispanics back home who hate Trump and the latest kerfulfil he said about some hispanic judge. I pointed out that the judge in question is a member of La Raza and what that outfit is all about and they flipped out. Don was for amnesty before he was against it.
Good!!
That’s because your kids have a dynamite father. I’m sure you’ve informed them of how horrid the Left is.
Never thought I would have seen that. Good show!
Socialism is seductive. You notice if you watch these people that they claim to care about all these groups but never do anything concrete to help them. The lie is that they can use the struggles of others to get free political and social power without having to do anything. When nature’s law sets in and demonstrates that nothing is free, the leaders who took the power for themselves are nowhere to be found. Trotsky ruined russia, then serbia and then tried to ruin Mexico. It never crossed his mind that he was a terrible human being who brought death and suffering to the people he claimed to care about. All leftist power brokers are the same.
Of course (((Trotsky))) didn’t care about the suffering he caused. That goes without saying.
Who were the Colombian leaders that turned the country around?
The article mentions not a single name.
Uribe and Santos are both disasters.
Do you know anything about Uribe? Check out my comment somewhere above.
I keep wondering when Venezuelan refugees will show up at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, or wash up on the Gulf Coast as boat people.
That isn´t going to happen.
From what I know the only people who travel to U.S. from Venezuela are professionals not illegal “wall jumpers”.
Yea they aren’t, I worked down there a few years ago and two buddies married locals and couldn’t bring them back because of the Venezuelan government not granting them the paperwork. They’re stuck there to suffer.
According to them it is to prevent capital flight.
Did Venezuela ever have a sovereign wealth fund to bank some of its oil income, like Norway’s? If reasonable people ran that country, back during high oil prices they could have saved up enough to tide them over hard times, or provide investment capital to diversify its economy and make its electrical supplies more resilient.
Quintus, I like most of your articles…..but this one is a monumental misfire.
I was born and currently live in Colombia, and I can say that your information about this country is wrong. Of course, the situation has changed since the 80’s, we are not in the middle of an open drug war, but that does not mean the situation is better.
1. The racial population here is 10% white, and decreasing.
2. Culturally speaking, this country is a desert. No real arts of any sorts, no real literature (no, Garcia Marquez is not a good writer).
3. Corruption is endemic. From the traffic cop to the President of the Republic.
4. The economy is in a real bad situation. I.E. right now 1USD is 3.100 pesos, and climbing, that means constant devaluation.
5. Drug traffic: is the same, and even higher than in the 80’s, the only difference is that they are discreet now.
6. The famous “Peace Process” with the terrorist of the FARC-EP is going to transform this country in another Salvador/Guatemala, countries in which a bad “Peace Process” turn the terrorist in a bigger problem of common delinquency with the gangs (Maras).
And so forth and so on….
I suppose if you compare it to Venezuela, Colombia looks good. But both countries have similar people and will therefore have similar governments and infrastructures, which suggests that they’ll be tropical versions of Ukraine for the foreseeable future.
Come on, man. Are you telling me it’s worse now than in the 1980s? The stats don’t support that. From what I read Medellin’s crime has gone down 95%. The UN voted Medellin the world’s “most innovative city” in 2013. Tourists are flooding into the country. Even making allowances for public relations, the situation is a million times better than it was. Are you saying getting rid of M-19 was nothing? Come on, man.
Sure corruption is endemic. When has it not been in Latin America?
Agreed. In the big picture, Colombia’s taken ten steps forward, but Joseph can only see one step back. Colombians aren’t white anyways, so I don’t know what his problem with that is, and the arts are alive and well (check out Juanes, Shakira, Carlos Vives, Nicky Jam, J Balvin, Sofia Vergara, etc). #5 is a flatout lie; they’re making less drugs than before.
The only complaint with any weight is #4 — Colombia is getting hammered by the oil market right now, and the peso has dropped substantially.
You knowledge of the country is purely theoretical and based of stats.
Yeah, but the women are hot 🙂
If you are into mongrels, then yes, there is a lot.
Yes mongrels are better looking than ‘whites’ ….and certainly more fit genetically….hence the increased fertility.
It was sarcasm…..
“…mongrels are better looking than ‘whites’…”
Really?
Mongrel:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9149c766676010fcb2c4c3bdba5693d596e5ac3c8c8cc0f431f336c6629a495f.jpg
White:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/871e2f498ece2c077d6d5f7cbbc443e0d0860a15b68f978d4f783ad8b875039a.jpg
To be fair you are comparing a 40 year old Photoshopped whore with years worth of orgies, active nightlife as a singer, hangovers and children behind vs a well preserved (and Photoshopped as well) spinster who had no children and probably (I cannot vouch for that) has much less burden due to less heavy drinking, no singing tours and (i suppose, who knows) fewer orgies. That comparison is not so fair…
Increased fertility? Whites don’t have fertility problems, they just choose not to breed like rats…
Mestizo hotbed mongrels
Not really
Colombia is is 40% white, another 40% is mixed white/native, but depending on where you are that could range from mostly white with some native heritage to almost fully native with a bit of white heritage. It has way more whites than you think.
I disagree with you, based on my personal experience living here.
I would say that the racial makeup changes accordingly to the socioeconomic level, not the region. In higher socioeconomic levels are more whites (although they behave and think like your typical mongrel) and in lower levels are more mongrels, but as a whole colombia is 80% non white.
Are you here in Colombia?
“Are you here in Colombia?” No, but I actively study statistics, and your anecdote does have more power than actual statistics. I assume you must just live in a non white area, because Columbia is in fact a white country.
Excellent. Bookmarked.
how about you guys call columbia by its real name colombia?
Just came back from Colombia. Only good impressions. Quite safe too.
I am an American expat currently living in medellín. To all those thinking about coming down please don’t. There are a lot of kidnappings, murders, drugs in Colombia just like they show you on American media. The women aren’t pretty and attainable either, that is just American media urban legend. American women so much better, stay in America people.
so you must have strong ties to still be there as an expat.
How could this be? Only a few years ago Danny Glover and Sean Penn told us how the administration of Chavez was so great and the U.S. should emulate it. If I recall correctly Mr. Glover also thinks a great deal of Mr. Castro’s administration also, how could they be wrong? They are Movie Stars!
Useful idiots more like it.
Chavez did great things for Venezuela
This is all try he also helped out Katrina victims
J ews hated him however
Great things such as socializing the oil companies,squandering the money and running the place in the ground.
Venezuela only went to shit after Chavez died dipstick.
External debt went from 28 billion to over 90 billion during his administration.
Government spending drove inflation to a yearly average of 22% during his administration.
Inflow of foreign investment went from 2.9% of GDP in His first year to 1.7% in his last over a 50% drop.
Stock market capitalization of companies on the Caracas stock exchange went from 7.6 % in 1999 to 1.6% in 2013.
Government response to less productive capacity and high inflation? Price caps= shortages of food and basic necessities.
Homicide rate in 2013 73 per 100,000 double the rate of Columbia at the same time.
Go play in the road you commie moron.
“Go play in the road you commie moron.” Me? A communist? Oh no, I am a moderate Socialist, and I am not even a huge fan of Hugo Chavez, but he isn’t the lone reason why Venezuela is going so bad.
What is a moderate socialist? Is that like a democratic socialist where you get to vote on which one is going to take your stuff and redistribute it?
“What is a moderate socialist?” Someone who wants some state owned industry but still wants a predominantly capitalist system with private industry.
“Is that like a democratic socialist where you get to vote on which one is going to take your stuff and redistribute it?” That isn’t Socialism at all. That is called welfare/wealth redistribution, neither of which are Socialist. Here is an example of Socialism vs Welfare vs Straight up capitalism:
Capitalism: Let’s have completely privately run book stores and libraries and allow the free market to provide people with literature.
Capitalism+Welfare: Let’s take money from rich people and give it to poor people to help them buy books.
Socialism: Let’s create a government owned library where anyone can rent books for free.
This is the essential difference between these three that people don’t understand. And I would like to add, I only think we should have socialism for specific things, it does not work well with the general economy.
Interesting……… But, I don’t care for state owned industry because it would have an unfair advantage over private, such as the state could easily make laws to give itself advantage over private industry. Unacceptable.
Personally I would lump a state owned library in with education ( I don’t see why someone who wanted to check out books couldn’t pay to do that in other to help fund it)
Although I’m not really a fan of a large centralized government school system, it should be handled locally with perhaps some standards to keep everyone on the same page.
People not being ignorant peons is a benefit to everyone.
I’m not some sort of anti government anarchist, in order to have civilization one must have government. It should be limited to doing things which would not normally be done by the private sector though and not much else. Examples- upkeep and oversight of public roads, national defense, justice system etc.
Government run economy’s are always going to fail as they always have. Regulations and taxes need to be reduced along with the size and scope of the present federal system.
“I don’t care for state owned industry because it would have an unfair advantage over private, such as the state could easily make laws to give itself advantage over private industry.” State owned industry isn’t intending to compete with private industry. Government ownership of rail tracks for example is to give equal access to all rail service providers along all potential routes while preventing one rail operator from gaining a monopoly on (a) route(s) – it is not an attempt to compete with private rail services. Government healthcare isn’t intending to compete with private health care (though it should also exist in parallel to the government healthcare) – it’s simply there to provide people with free healthcare. A government resource industry (such as petroleum) isn’t there to compete on a free market, it’s purpose is extract and sell petroleum. And after all, shouldn’t the public be receiving the profits natural resources taken from that nations land?
“Personally I would lump a state owned library in with education” Yeah I get your point, but where do you draw the line? Why is one Social service (Education) public and another (healthcare) is private? Where do you draw the line, and what is the basis of certain social programs being public or private?
“it should be handled locally” But why? I see this touted around all the time, but no one seems to be able to cite a reason or evidence as to why it would work than a more centralized system.
“Examples- upkeep and oversight of public roads” But why have upkeep of roads vs railroads? Where do you draw the line and why?
“Government run economy’s are always going to fail as they always have.” agreed.
“Regulations and taxes need to be reduced along with the size and scope of the present federal system.” Why have a federal system at all? Why not just a unitary state?
Railroads are kept up by the private companies that use them for profit.
Government healthcare isn’t intending to compete with private health care (though it should also exist in parallel to the government healthcare) – it’s simply there to provide people with free healthcare.
To begin with its not “free” somebody’s gotta pay for it. If it was ” free” provider by the government, that would be competing against private.
Government doesn’t own the railroads they are private companies and they are responsible for upkeep.
A government resource industry (such as petroleum) isn’t there to compete on a free market, it’s purpose is extract and sell petroleum. And after all, shouldn’t the public be receiving the profits natural resources taken from that nations land?
Petro companies are private companies, not government resource industries. If they are taking oil from PRIVATE property they get to keep THEIR own profits with the exception of taxes they pay. Those same private company’s LEASE drilling rights on publicly owned land in exchange for the oil.
“Railroads are kept up by the private companies that use them for profit.” No shit, but the problem is that when one company builds the first line between two areas. Lets say Chicago and Omaha, then they basically have a monopoly with shipping between these two areas. Any new tracks laid down by another company wont be as direct, and so there wont be any real competition – and will thus just be waste of resources. This is why rail tracks should be owned by the government, it allows all companies to use the most efficient track, and prevents waste. Imagine if roads were owned by private trucking companies. Let what would happen in that scenario sink in for a while.
“To begin with its not “free” somebody’s gotta pay for it.” I mean it’s free as in there is no upfront cost, same way public school is free. Anyways, this system does overall save money. Currently with it’s private healthcare system, the US spends about nine thousand dollars per person on healthcare. For comparison, New Zealand which uses my model spends around three thousand dollars eight hundred dollars per person and a New Zealander has an extra 3 years life expectancy over an American counterpart. Think about that. Can you imagine you (and every other human residing in the US) having an extra 5200 dollars every year for your personal use?
“that would be competing against private.” Well here is the thing. We currently spend this much money on medicare and medicaid anyways. I am simply advocating restructuring the use of the funding. No one would be paying more taxes, the free market wouldn’t be damaged by that. Anyways, being that most hospitals are charity, they really wouldn’t care about losses, they only care about people getting access to health care, which this bill would do.
“Government doesn’t own the railroads they are private companies and they are responsible for upkeep.” No shit. You fail to give a dichotomy as to why roads should be public but rail tracks shouldn’t. They are both rights of way, what makes them fundamentally different in your view?
“Petro companies are private companies, not government resource industries.” NO! REALLY? That is true in the United States, I am advocating for the nationalization of these companies.
“If they are taking oil from PRIVATE property they get to keep THEIR own profits with the exception of taxes they pay. ” But most land isn’t privately owned. And the point I am making is that those aren’t just the resources you own, the public owns them.
“Those same private company’s LEASE drilling rights on publicly owned land in exchange for the oil.” But why? Why not just have the government do drilling on private land? I cannot understand how you wouldn’t support this, all the money the government would make by selling this oil would allow you to pay less taxes.
Simple: Back a few months ago, Petroleum was 150 a barrel, now it’s 30…
Can you blame Uncle Sugar for Chavez? Maybe not. You can certainly blame him for not intervening in a case where the Monroe Doctrine and common decency demand sending the Marines to Caracas to take out Maduro, because the thugs that pass for Venezuela’s armed forces won’t do it while they retain first dibs on any food left in the country.
The problem with socialism is that one day you run out of other people’s money, and the other people take everything you have, which is all they wanted in the first place. Maduro is Wall Street’s useful idiot in Caracas. He’ll stay in power for as long as it takes to completely ruin the Venezuelan people and allow Wall Street to swan off with their oil at a fraction of fair value.
Agree with most of your post, but Wall Street wouldn’t touch it as any assets they would buy would simpy be nationalized again. The world has a glut of oil– Russia and OPEC are suffering as well as the demand has dropped.
Wall Street is code for j ew vultures
How on earth can you write an article purporting to explain the historical trajectories of Venezuela and Colombia without mentioning the CIA? Do your homework, pal.
Indeed, the article is half baked.
Of course it is. Welcome to RoK.
Standard procedure should be,
you love socialism BUT live in a capitalist country,
one way ticket to the socialist/communist utopia of your choice,
no refunds, no appeals, just GTFO now.
Save the cost of airfare. I vote for large catapults!
Another concise and interesting article Quintus, thank you.
If stories like this, about how the fortunes of countries ebb and flow and why, interest other RoK readers, then I strongly recommend the book ‘Why Nations Fail’ by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. Brilliant geopolitical reading.
There’s a clear example of real world governing and free market economics vs cloud cuckoo land state socialism ‘run’ by a dictator. Its funny how idealistic communists, supporters of radical Islam and unhinged feminists never want to go and live in the very cultures they are so defensive and protective of.
It reminds of adolescence when you hate your parents and everything they stand for, despite the fact they provide you with all of life’s comforts and pay the bills. Just look at the amount of millennial females who go and read a gender studies degree so they can learn to hate their father who probably paid for it.
Well said.
Meh. It’s not “socialism” that has Venezuela in such a sorry state. It’s a non-diversified economy. Venezuela produces one valuable product for all intents and purposes. Petroleum. Life was great when oil was $150/bbl. Now that it’s less than $50/bbl the shelves are bare. Even Saudi Arabia’s economy is a mess right now, you just don’t hear about it as much.
Saudis diversified
Somewhat, but not much.
Nah…it’s socialism. That sh!t isn’t capable of working. Flawed from ground up.
Socialism is a very big word with lots of meaning. Saying Socialist gives you about as much information as saying Conservative.
“Socialism is a big word…”
Ok, lemme unpack that big word for you.
I reiterate: it is socialism that caused all this misery in Venezuela. V. is a culturally & natural resource-rich nation that once had a thriving economy. Then they went socialist and now…people are suffering. There is 1 root cause for it. Socialism is inherently built to fail. Socialists never do the right things because it is a fundamentally flawed system that ignores the basic nature & natural behaviour of people while condemning both those things under all other systems. Hence we get these 2 themes every time it fails: 1. “Real socialism hasn’t been tried” and 2. “The right people weren’t in charge.”
These are generally followed by blaming capitalism.
Is that “unpacked” enough for ya, Sparky?
“I reiterate: it is socialism that caused all this misery in Venezuela. V. is a culturally & natural resource-rich nation that once had a thriving economy. Then they went socialist and now…people are suffering. ” Venezuela adopted “Socialism” as a state policy since 1999. The economy of Venezuela has only been doing bad for the past year. Do you know what has also happened since one year ago? Petroleum prices have fallen dramatically, by 85%. Do you know what Venezuela’s economy is completely dependent on? Oh yeah, petroleum exports! Hmmmm, I wonder if there is possibly ANY CORRELATION? Well it is the cause, as almost every oil export dependent country is having a shitty economy right now.
“There is 1 root cause for it. Socialism is inherently built to fail. Socialists never do the right things because it is a fundamentally flawed system that ignores the basic nature & natural behaviour of people while condemning both those things under all other systems.” You still haven’t told me what you define as “Socialism”. Do you use the narrowest definition where only Stalinist style full ownership of industry is Socialism or do you use the broadest definition that any sort of government program is socialism or do you draw the line somewhere between?
Word game & dissembling all you want. Hope it brings you comfort when socialism crashes US economy & you dig through trash for food just like is happening in Venezuela. Good luck on that.
“Word game & dissembling all you want.” How can I argue with someone who can’t define what they are even talking about? What is your definition of Socialism?
“Hope it brings you comfort when socialism crashes US economy” What do you mean by Socia… Oh f*ck it.
There already is a definition of socialism. F*cking Google it. & different between little & big “s” Socialism? Body count.
Socialism is fatally flawed…deal with it.
Well so we are going to use the standard dictionary definition (which I use anyways). Well in that case, neither the New Deal policies OR world war 2 policies were Socialism.
Who brought that up? You did. In order to deflect. And New Deal was socialist.
Just stop now. You’re inept.
“And New Deal was socialist.” What in the new deal was Socialism? Explain…
False again fag.
False again about what? By the way, you forgot to put a comma after again…
Honestly I do like the investments Venezuela has made into Social and Health programs, but they really should have practiced a bit more fiscal conservatism and saved money, bought some Bonds from other countries, invested in non resource industries, etc. It would have saved them from a lot of economic trouble.
Don’t forget the curse of oil. There is something about having fabulous mineral wealth that ruins a country. Venezuela is probably more dangerous today than Colombia ever was.
By j ew design it is
Not really. USA has more oil than both of them.
And *slightly* more people and area.
You have to calculate population and consumption into that. When that is calculated in, Venezuela has way more oil – so much oil the economy becomes dependent of said oil being exported at high prices, and when the price of oil went from 180 dollars to 20 dollars in a matter of months, it wasn’t too great for the economy of Venezuela.
False again.
False about what?
South America has been raped of resources by foreign powers meddling in their politics and puppet governments for over a century.
Plenty of Latins making a mint themselves on minerals, I’ve met them. Africa on the other hand is another deal all together, the Economist a very well respected magazine estimates that 75% of the wealth has been stolen out of the country. The people of Venezuela were getting their gas subsidized at a price hovering around a penny a gallon(Although the country is so broke now, they might not be able to afford it anymore).
Jee whiz!
Another pro-Trump article!
😉
The cia and Mossad as well as the j ew imf Banksters played a huge role in the destabilization of both
Chavez was likely assassinated i.e. poisoned by them as well as it sits on the worlds largest oil reserves and he made great strides there but was not popular with Jewry
My family originally migrated from Nicaragua some 28 years because of socialism. Nicaragua is right behind Venezuela and for all intents and purposes it is a failed state. I foresee a revolution or straight economic collapse of the country much like Venezuela.
As it is written “It is an abomination for kings to commit unrighteousness, for the throne is based on righteousness”. You can only buck the natural order of things for so long, at some point the chickens WILL come home to roost.
No reason to get excited about Colombia’s near future. Current president Santos (10% of popularity) wants to impose changes to the constitution with the leftist guerrillas (2% of popularity), composed mainly of four dozens of men each one with up to 30 sentencies of more than 200 years of jail (who of course dont want to go to jail ever), and around five thousand teenagers recruited in their childhood and who are shot if they try to desert. Colombia may be a failed state too. Colombian here writing this.
Your views on FARC and such seem to be reflective of other Colombians on this site.
It boggles my mind that a clever fellow such as Quintus still believes “leaders” actually matter in this world. Book smart only gets you so far, before you have to take off the colored glasses and behold the truth and contend with the matrix.
Colombian here, living in Bogota, and been reading ROK articles for about two years, I can tell you that your view is truer than you think Quintus, change has come slowly for us thanks to Juan Manuel Santos (Obama´s little minion) and beginning to going down, lets see what´s left after five years of “peace” with the (drug cartel-socialist-terrorist) FARC.
and sorry for my english, is a little bit rusty, i know.
is it still peligroso in Medellin?
Only if you do dumb things, it’s one of the safest in Latin America right now.
If the leaders are selling you the notion of income inequality or some other communist crap and you’re buying it, expect your situation to get worse.
It’s not the leaders, it’s the ideology.
It hasn’t gotten worse in Europe (economically).
Which country?
Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, etc.
Venezuela is going to shit because of the low oil prices, it would be shitty under pretty much anyone’s leadership in this situation.
False.
Oh really, what is your amazing plan to get Venezuela back on it’s feet? Hmm?
It’s Colombia. Not Columbia. I stop reading once I notice it spelled incorrectly.
“Billy Squire?” He got outed as a butt-pirate shortly after his reaching the top. Hell, one of his album covers was done by Andy Warhol. Then he let a boyfreind or something take control of an MTV video. . .He was finished, everyone knew he was gay.
But about Venezuela. . .Jesus Christ. . .There’s no economy. That’s it! No one gets paid for doing basic things that keep the country together, like running utilities or farming food. And the government, well, everybody knows there IS one, but it’s got nothing to do with no money and no order.