How to engineer a new Sparta nation of morons

Chavez arms “the cadres” and wants to send half –a-million bodega revolutionaries to a re-education camp to maintain his grip. More reasoned still, is the conclusion that the guy is a freak, and is more of a danger to Venezuelans and whatever livestock that happen to be nearby than he is to the US or any other petroleum importer:

«Despite Chavez’s public hatred for the U.S., despite his claim that President Bush is about to invade Venezuela, despite his threats to stop exporting oil to the United States, some analysts claim the Venezuela situation isn’t really a problem at all. As long as Venezuelan oil continues to pump, they reason, the United States has everything it needs from Caracas. In turn, Venezuela needs U.S. dollars for its oil, a situation it cannot change. As long as that status quo remains—or so the logic goes—Washington is happy to ignore the anti-U.S. raving of Hugo Chavez.

The analysis is right—but also very wrong.

Venezuela’s heavy, highly sulfurous crude oil requires special refineries, which could act as a deterrent to other buyers; Chavez does rely on the United States as an oil purchaser. Also, the U.S. is relatively close to Venezuela—five days by tanker—which keeps the price of oil manageable. In contrast, the cost of doing business with energy-hungry China would be much greater because of its distance from Venezuela.»

One need only have a intellectual dead pool such as European leftism to create an audience for this budding poop-stain on history. While he’s indulged by six-figure earning dimwits who imagine themselves proletarian revolutionaries, he continues to centralize civil institutions for no reason other than to maintain his own power.

Needing such a praetorian guard says only one thing: he feels threatened by the ballot box. He feels threatened by a population that might speak freely against him. As a ‘lider’ he certainly is a socialist ideal.