cant squack until he refuses to hold the next elections

This is not a stable democracy. It can't survive this sort of thing. This is more like the Weimar Republic. Or maybe Chile.

We managed to survive eight years of a president who could only manage about 44% of the vote. The good old separation of powers contained a lot of things. Some damage was done, but even at that we're no Venezuela - except maybe in some parallel moral-equivalent universe.

The Clinton era strengthened my admittedly weak faith in our government. Not any branch of government. The thing as a whole. After all the things Clinton and friends tried to get away with and couldn't, I find it hard to get overly worried about all that Ashcroft crap. It's just not going to happen. And then there's Lincoln's messing with habeas corpus, and FDR's trying to pack the Supreme Court, and LBJ's lies, and Nixon's lies, and Iran-Contra, and Clinton's lies, and his auctioning our foreign policy, and Waco, and that budget shell game, etc etc. This republic has survived all that. We know for a fact it can't happen here, from past experience. (Hi Ash! Time to trot out Sinclair Lewis again! Fiction trumps history!)

But [link|http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ve0015)|Venezuela]'s a whole different case.

Post #87,815 by boxley 3/12/03 8:29:19 PM Reply	cant squack until he refuses to hold the next elections then we can go dig him out. thanx, bill will work for cash and other incentives [link\|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html\|skill set] questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]</br> "If you want to meet a group of people who have a profound distrust of, and hostility toward, our legal system, don't waste your time on political radicals; interview a random selection of crime victims, and you will probably find that they make the former group look like utopian idealists by comparison." Dave Robicheaux
Post #87,841 by Simon_Jester 3/12/03 9:08:37 PM Reply	Sure they can! Hell, they ARE! They're squaking, right now, that a SPECIAL ELECTION needs to be held to see if Chavez should stay in power (because, you know...if someone wants to break the law to get rid of you...you should obviously be out of power). According to their Constitution - I don't think he's up for another election until 2007 (iirc).
Post #88,280 by marlowe 3/14/03 9:03:14 AM Reply	By which time the damage may be done. This is not a stable democracy. It can't survive this sort of thing. This is more like the Weimar Republic. Or maybe Chile. We managed to survive eight years of a president who could only manage about 44% of the vote. The good old separation of powers contained a lot of things. Some damage was done, but even at that we're no Venezuela - except maybe in some parallel moral-equivalent universe. The Clinton era strengthened my admittedly weak faith in our government. Not any branch of government. The thing as a whole. After all the things Clinton and friends tried to get away with and couldn't, I find it hard to get overly worried about all that Ashcroft crap. It's just not going to happen. And then there's Lincoln's messing with habeas corpus, and FDR's trying to pack the Supreme Court, and LBJ's lies, and Nixon's lies, and Iran-Contra, and Clinton's lies, and his auctioning our foreign policy, and Waco, and that budget shell game, etc etc. This republic has survived all that. We know for a fact it can't happen here, from past experience. (Hi Ash! Time to trot out Sinclair Lewis again! Fiction trumps history!) But [link\|http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ve0015)\|Venezuela]'s a whole different case. The future is leaving the station, the US is at the throttle, and the Left isn't on board. No oil for TotalFinaElf! CHICKENHAWK! Scourge of clucking hens everywhere! Victory is the answer. There are no alternatives. [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]

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