Hugo Chavez just died

[Imran Siddiqui]

As far as commies go, he seems to have been relatively harmless.

This. Not exactly sure why he gets all this hate. He just liked to talk big, but it wasn't like he was mass executing his people or anything.

[snoopy369]

Dogmatic conservatives have to reflexively hate communists or socialists. It's like a religious thing; if you're a good Baptist you have to hate Catholics or whatever, no matter how bad of a Papist they are. Stalin, Chavez, Obama, all the same.

Actual intelligent people (conservative or liberal) who aren't in Latin America or working in intelligence or state affairs largely don't care about Chavez. He was an unimportant petty dictator who probably helped his people more than he hurt them in the short term, although not helping in the long term.

[Kidlicious]

It's like a religious thing; if you're a good Baptist you have to hate Catholics or whatever, no matter how bad of a Papist they are.

Actually you are supose to hate your own family.

[Hauldren Collider]

This. Not exactly sure why he gets all this hate. He just liked to talk big, but it wasn't like he was mass executing his people or anything.

Maybe not on a wide scale, sure, but he definitely had a lot of political opponents locked up on trumped up charges and some people disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

[Hauldren Collider]

Dogmatic conservatives have to reflexively hate communists or socialists. It's like a religious thing; if you're a good Baptist you have to hate Catholics or whatever, no matter how bad of a Papist they are. Stalin, Chavez, Obama, all the same

Actual intelligent people (conservative or liberal) who aren't in Latin America or working in intelligence or state affairs largely don't care about Chavez. He was an unimportant petty dictator who probably helped his people more than he hurt them in the short term, although not helping in the long term.

Now that's just false. He left his country in shambles. He absolutely didn't help venezuela. Any help was just a side effect of riding oil prices.

[Kidlicious]

Now that's just false. He left his country in shambles. He absolutely didn't help venezuela. Any help was just a side effect of riding oil prices.

I assume you got that from FOX News.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Now that's just false. He left his country in shambles. He absolutely didn't help venezuela. Any help was just a side effect of riding oil prices.

Most oil countries "ride oil prices". How do you think Norway got so rich, or, heck, Texas (why is it no one looks at rising oil prices when talking about well Texas is doing economically)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Chavez

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) reported that the Venezuelan economy grew on average by 11.85% in the period 2004–2007.[253] According to The Washington Post, citing statistics from the United Nations, poverty in Venezuela stood at 28% in 2008,[254] down from 55.44% in 1998 before Chávez got into office.[255] Economist Mark Weisbrot found that, "During the ... economic expansion, the poverty rate [was] cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty fell by 72 percent. These poverty rates measured only cash income, and did take into account increased access to health care or education."[242][256] Under his presidency, the Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, dropped from nearly .5 in 1998 to .39 in 2011, putting Venezuela behind only Canada in the Western Hemisphere.[257] Nicholas Kozloff, Chávez's biographer, stated of Chávez's economic policies: "Chávez has not overturned capitalism, he has done much to challenge the more extreme, neo-liberal model of development."[213]

[Imran Siddiqui]

Maybe not on a wide scale, sure, but he definitely had a lot of political opponents locked up on trumped up charges and some people disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Which happens in every dictatorship, really. Part of the territory. But Chavez was fairly benign on the scale of dictatorships. I mean Putin has likely jailed more political opponents, no?

[snoopy369]

Exactly. While he didn't exactly set up Venezuela for the future, he did some not-bad things with that oil money. Plenty of countries just sit on the oil money and give it to the six guys who run the oil company. Using it to actually alleviate poverty in a country with massive poverty is a _good thing_ ...perhaps he ought to have invested it slightly differently, but when you had a country where half the people were starving, giving them something to eat is probably as effective a long term strategy as building roads or whatnot.

[kentonio]

Maybe not on a wide scale, sure, but he definitely had a lot of political opponents locked up on trumped up charges and some people disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

America has the highest prison population in the world, so talking about other countries unnecessarily jailing people is a bit rich. Does it make it better when it's only targetting blacks and poor folk rather than specific individuals?

[Barnabas]

I agree on Bush being worse than Chávez. He wrecked the USA's economy more than Chavez did to Venezuela's, and he invaded a country based on lies, something that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

If the military man who succeeds Chavez stops gifting oil to Cuba and Nicaragua, starts investing more of the oil revenue in infraestructure, and liberalized slightly the economy Venezuela can be in a much better health within 5 years, and something like that is possible now Chavez is dead.

[Kidlicious]

starts investing more of the oil revenue in infraestructure, and liberalized slightly the economy Venezuela can be in a much better health within 5 years, and something like that is possible now Chavez is dead.

Yeah, let the right wing dictators invest in infrastructure. Less money will go into their pockets.

[snoopy369]

I agree on Bush being worse than Chávez. He wrecked the USA's economy more than Chavez did to Venezuela's, and he invaded a country based on lies, something that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

If the military man who succeeds Chavez stops gifting oil to Cuba and Nicaragua, starts investing more of the oil revenue in infraestructure, and liberalized slightly the economy Venezuela can be in a much better health within 5 years, and something like that is possible now Chavez is dead.

Ehh, now you're heading into crazyville. Bush didn't do anything particularly harmful to the economy. The housing crisis was largely a combination of nobody specific's fault, and Clinton/House Republicans in the 90s overturning some of the regulations that might've helped limit its fallout (although it might not have helped). Bush spent a ****load of money on defense, but that wasn't really a problem now; perhaps in a few decades or a century it might be a problem, but we're not talking long term now are we?

[kentonio]

Ehh, now you're heading into crazyville. Bush didn't do anything particularly harmful to the economy.

He started several wars that a couple of years back were estimated to have cost around $3.7 TRILLION without arranging a way to actually pay for them, and introduced huge tax cuts which further added to your massive deficit problem. How exactly is that not harmful to the economy?

[snoopy369]

Because it wasn't harmful to the economy. The tax cuts might have helped or might have had little effect depending on who you ask.

Clue: Economy != federal budget.