Chavez to rule by decree
 

I think he did bring about some positive changes/reforms for his country, but what he's doing there is going over the line. The balance between the poor and rich in latin america is very great, there virtually is no middle class, but I don't think having almost dictatorial powers is the way to go about solving things either. :shifty:

Well, Chavez is always following Castro´s advices (and Castro is not a democrat, for sure)

Sadly, this is the beginning of the end of another fragile South American democracy...

I believe we have just witnessed the very means by which a democratic government will be dismantled and replaced with a dictatorship, namely ours.

i support venezuela , cuba and north korea(a little bit i dont like their nuke policy) i support socialism because capitalism is pathetic IMHO , socialism everything is paid for esp university in america u pay thousands of dollars for a few pills :nope::nope: or a few hundred thou for a simple operation:nope::nope: luckily i live in canada and im proud of canada that our health care system is free and 2nd best in world only being beaten by american private health care

(almost) free education:rock::rock::rock:
free health care:rock::rock::rock:
high taxes:rock::rock:(rather have high taxes then to have low taxes and pay for every little thing)

anyone else agree here that free education and health care is THE #1 MOST IMPORTANT thing a country HAS to HAVE no matter what?

Just wait until you have no freedoms and are unable to make enough money to feed yourself, see how proud you'll be of socialism then.

typical [snip] Yugoslavia before they broke up i lived there and everything was good there was very little crime lots of jobs and people were satisfied, health and education were as good as american health system (Not better or same obviously) then stupid NATO comes in with dumb UN and tears apart the entire country now my country is nothing but a shame with corrupt democrats and crime and drugs and poverty.

While I would question Mr. Chavez' course of action, I do agree in part: when people are in a desperate situation economically, many freedoms that a middle-class-centred society considers crucial matter little to them. Someone who promises them an even marginally better living is seen as a saviour then. This is true of my native Russia.

You can yell about it as much as you like, but I don't think a more democratic regime can even promise so much as stability in this case. In this case I'm not surprised that many poorer countries are turning to socialism; in some cases it certainly ends up a human rights wreck, but I don't think it's a fantastic deal to be democratic and with a hopelessly empoverished population, either.

North Korea? :nope: Nothing in common with the other two...plus they are dirt poor and have a nutty leader. Anyway, let me remind you folks Chavez WAS elected....second I HATE this opposing of "abstract" vs. "concrete" human rights, while I agree with CCIP I don't think in the long term it is a good thing to deny freedom for the human sprit even if the body is cared for (which is a necessary factor) .

The problem is that socialist leaders are little more than dictators in training.
Show us where a country with many poor people have been elevated to middle class standards under a socialist system. I don't see many Cubans, Bolivians, Venezualians, or anyone from a socialist country on the internet. I cannot think of a better sign that that nation has a thriving middle class.

You won't find it. Socialism is a con job. It promises everything and delivers nothing. The one thing that promoters of socialism can't seem to get is that there is this thing called "human nature". Incentive is a part of human nature. When you operate with a system that virtually kills incentive to produce, you ultimately end up with less for everyone. And when you end up with less, your system looks crappy. That's when the political oppression begins in these little crackpot socialist dictatorships. The big problem is Socialists think that people are either robots or can be made to function like an ant colony. I'm actually hoping the "enlightened" :roll: ones will finally see Socialism as the con job that it is. Karl Marx was a bum who was not a net producer in his own society. So of course he would write about the wonders of "collectivism". Geesh. It ain't so hard to see the con job.

So what you are saying is the only people who want socialism are those who either can't or won't give back, by productivity, to that society?

This is going slightly OT but why is it when ever anyone says that having a free National Health Care system is a good idea they are suddenly a socialist or communist. Geez even your most committed Tory in Britain likes the fact we have an NHS no matter how imperfect. It's one of those things once you have lost it it is impossible to get back.

Health care free in Canada? I heard you still have to pay up front but you get it back later.

Going slightly OT, but didn't Yugoslavia tear itself up and NATO and the UN picked up the pieces? And while I don't necessarily agree with Yahoshua that socialism = restrictions on freedoms per se the examples we have did impose restrictions however I think he simplifies it too much.

Absolutely not. There are a couple people I've worked with who believe in this stuff like it's a religion. Both net producers of society. I think they had a general "fear of envy" thing going on though. But if you look at the life of Karl Marx, he was not a net producer at all. He was a "philosopher" "poet" "essayist" "political economist". Don't get me wrong. I think poets and essayists are important parts of a nation's culture. However it's not a field that produces much in terms of a nation's capital. I'm just saying it's so easy to see the fraud perpetrated by Marx. It's unfortunate that it has endured and the pursuit of it has destroyed so many lives.