Hey, waddaya know, a good rejoinder to Pinochet's friends on the right in The Weekly Standard. Via Nick Gillespie.
« Someone's Ridiculous | Main | Denver's Answer »
Another Look
19 Dec 2006 02:18 pm
Comments (11)
Yeah, reading a Chile news aggregator has been totally infuriating for the last weeks. That WaPo editorial has been cropping up, in edited form, in smaller papers. And with a more idiot-proof headline: Did Pinochet's reign benefit Chile? YES
(Guest editorial by Pokey the Penguin?)
How can anyone look at Chile's massive government bailout in the early 80s and see a free market? And oppression of trades unionists has a name: Big Government labor market regulation.
This article is no different than the WaPo editorial or all of the discussions of Pinochet on the right that I've seen: Pinochet was a murderous dictator, but he got his economic policies mostly right. As an overall evaluation of his life, you need to take both into account. Nobody I've seen has said that we ought to ignore the murder and torture because he got the economic policies right - that's a complete strawman.
Fuck politics.
This is flashing siren Drudge time.
Bubbachuck to Denver!!!
Bubbachuck to Denver!!!
Bubbachuck to Denver!!!
Matthew and I now share a favorite team.
"Pinochet was a murderous dictator, but he got his economic policies mostly right. As an overall evaluation of his life, you need to take both into account."
Oh, come on, Al, its 2006! That "but at least he made the trains run on time" argument is so 1946-post-Mussolini. Can't you at least be wingnutty in a MODERN way?
In the day or so after Pinochet's death, there were many articles that pointed out the fallacy of attributing economic success to Pinochet, i.e. Chile's economy was basically in the crapper.
Now, apparently, if you write acknowledge that Pinochet was a stinker you're permitted to write that Chile's economy done good because of him.
Sounds like a little rhetorical finesse to me.
AL,
It's been widely reported that Kissinger said the following about the election of Allende:
1. "the issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves"
2. "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people."
Is Kissinger made of straw?
Pinochet's secret police committed acts of terrorism in Washington, DC, Buenos Aires and Rome.
Why do you love terrorists, Al?
Why do you hate America, Al?
Jonah Lucianne just soiled his pink panties. Someone please help the boy.
He successfully appropriated the utilitarian fallacy to which many on the left fall prey: that murder and torture are acceptable if they hasten the advent of the utopia implied by one's ideological model.
Wow. We'll turn Iraq into a Democracy, by cracky
But I guess both the left and the right fell for that one.
Comments closed January 02, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
Excellent and a fine on-target corrective to the revisionism that continues to spew forth from the right regarding Pinochet.
Posted by Randy Paul | December 19, 2006 2:29 PM