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Comment by eudox | Hacker News Reader

Venezuela has free, fair, open elections. Why shift blame?

Because they are not either free nor fair nor open. The list of reason about why is not the case is large but when violent pro-government groups start shooting at poll lines and the police won't do anything then you can't called open or free. When the campaign tv time is limited for anyone else but the president or when other candidates have to resign their positions (like governors or majors) but the president is allowed to keep it, then you can't call it fair either.

Chavez was elected in 1998 in a clean election[0].

He was re-elected in 2000, in an election the Carter Center found satisfactory[1].

He was once again elected in 2006, in an election EU observers found to be free and fair[2].

After three elections, I'd say the good people of Venezuela deserve to live in a filthy dump.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_presidential_electi...

[1]: http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/297.pdf

[2]: http://eeas.europa.eu/eueom/missions/2006/venezuela/index_en...

How can it be clean when opposition newspapers are censored and opposition politicians suffer from oppression? And nevermind nationalization of the media...

People vote for Communism, they get Communism. What's the problem here?

Ok, but how is that clean? Or do you mean clean relative to authoritarianism with Marxist values?

What I meant up there is they had three verified fair elections to bail out, they didn't, so now their country is in ruins.

Democracy has its failures, but people getting what they voted for isn't one of them.

They got communism? I don't see the classless, stateless society in Venezuela.

You never will, there or anywhere else. Communism can never be classless. It always turns out to be an oligarchy in practice or in the case of Stalin, a dictatorship.

More recently, things have been less than free and fair.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/venezuela

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/venezuela

So what? They sat on an ejection seat for eight years and did nothing.

Venezuela has free, fair, open elections. Why shift blame?

You are blaming the victims. They have seen the error and they're trying to correct it.

In the last elections for parlament, government party crashed and burned. They're trying to apply a constitutional procedure to revoke Maduro that's being sabotaged by executive power.

>You are blaming the victims.

I'm blaming the victims who welcomed their executioners.

>They have seen the error and they're trying to correct it.

A drunk driver might swerve before impacting a semi. What of it?

If you were Superman, would you rescue the drunk driver?

But I'm not Superman. And you can't save people from themselves forever.

I'm blaming the victims who welcomed their executioners.

They might not posses the clairvoyance that you were gifted with.

It truly is quite simple: if you try Communism, you'll get hurt.

Do you understand that only a part of the country voted chavism? Do you understand that they didn't present themselves as communists? Do you understand that the previous governments were as corrupt, just on the other side of political spectrum?

What if you had been born in Venezuela? Would you be so happy to see the disaster?

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