For the Left, it was put-up or shut-up time...

Some simple good sense from Dr Weevil:

In deprecating the importance of the capture of Saddam Hussein, Max Sawicky writes:

U.S. political leaders in both parties are quick to laud imaginary progress towards democracy in other countries. It plays to the notion of an inexorable trend based on the shining U.S. example. Actual accountability, given the facts on the ground, is always sloughed off. Has anybody checked on the state of democracy in Panama? I'm not saying it's absent; I wouldn't know. But we invaded the place and a bunch of civilians died. My data here is the extent of utter disinterest in the fate of Panama in the U.S. I can't remember ever seeing a review of the consequences of U.S. intervention.

We call most Latin and South American countries democracies. What is meant is that they are not-Cuba (and lately, not-Venezuela). The fact is that genuine observance of democratic norms is notoriously spotty. The hurdle of democracy is low enough for most any country to jump over it.

I don't link to Sawicky, but this is from today's first post, and I have bold-faced the most interesting part. Just because he "wouldn't know" doesn't mean the rest of us don't. I'm surprised he didn't think to ask the same question about Grenada, which was also invaded by the U.S., just 20 years ago this past October. Both questions are easy enough to answer: it took me about 10 minutes, plus another hour and a half to write this up. This is not the first time Sawicky has depended on others to do his homework for him. Perhaps I should send him a bill....

The short answer is, yes, Panama and Grenada are democracies in good standing, according to Freedom House. But do take the time to read Dr Weevil's post, complete with cool graphs.

But for me, what's really intriguing is that Lefties like Sawicky are so oddly clueless on this subject, and that there seems to me to be a strong possibility that they don't know because they don't WANT to know!

There's a peculiar and widespread amnesia when the subject is democracy in Latin America. It's almost science-fictiony. There are a LOT of people who can discuss General Pinochet, or the Argentine Colonels, or Che, or Guatemalan death squads. But those are things that happened 3 or 4 DECADES ago. And the same people don't think it odd that their minds are totally blank concerning what's happening NOW in those same countries...

I suspect there is an intentional forgetfulness here, and I think it has a real connection with the odd state of the Left today. Many thoughtful people have expressed dismay that the Left, which was traditionally anti-fascist, now wants nothing to do with removing the worst fascist dictator of recent times.

I think the change dates to around the year 1980. That's when Ronald Reagan became President. And soon after he changed our long-standing Cold War policy of supporting Latin American strong-men and authoritarian governments in order to fight the spread of Communism. Reagan, unlike "Realists" such as Johnson or Nixon, did not believe that Socialism was even close to being competitive with free governments. (He was decisively vindicated in this when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Russia's real economy turned out to be equivalent in size to Holland's.)

More importantly, unlike the "Realists," he really believed that ordinary people around the globe longed for, and deserved, the God-given freedom that Americans enjoy. And that, given the chance, they would NOT vote for communists, but would embrace economic and political freedom. Reagan threw the prestige and influence of America behind democratic movements throughout the Western Hemisphere. The results were dramatic. There were other reasons why the time was ripe for this, but Reagan's efforts, spearheaded by Elliot Abrams, were probably the largest factor in the change to democracy. When Bush #1 left office, there was only one leader in this Hemisphere who had not been elected competitively!

But the new policy put the world's Leftists in a terrible dilemma. It was put-up or shut-up time. They had been bellyaching for ages about Latin American dictators, and now someone was doing something about it. But they didn't really want ordinary people to run the circus; that was supposed to be a job for Leftist bureaucrats and intellectuals.

And even worse, democracy was being championed by Ronald Reagan! The kind of berserk reaction that the Left has now to George W Bush was exactly how they reacted then to Reagan.

I think that was when the Left started to lose interest in anti-fascism. Not to mention democracy. If Reagan and the Republicans were for it, it was much too bourgeois. (They could still get some milage from the dictators of the Middle East�I recently read a Leftish rant about Saudi Arabia being the worst government in the world [which will come as a surprise to the people of North Korea.] But now Bush #2 is busy taking even that pleasure away.)

For Latin America, the only answer was AMNESIA. Chile doesn't exist. Argentina without the Colonels dropped off the globe. When did you last hear about El Salvador? Or Guatemala? And Elliot Abrams is known only for the mistakes of the Iran-Contra scandal....

Posted by John Weidner at December 15, 2003 4:49 PM