Um, I'll freely and gladly take this back if I'm mistaken, but aren't you a Pinochet fan?
I'm not saying that particular bit of whataboutery excuses Chavez's human rights violations, mind - I thought it was self-evident that my post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
I don't love Pinochet, but I'm fully willing to acknowledge him the least bad of several evils in the time period when he took power, though by the time he stepped down, he no longer carried that honor.
"Least bad of several evils" is not something that describes Chavez. Obviously, Pinochet isn't a model for governance, but if we look on it from a consequentialist and counterfactual angle, we can say that for all his personal failings (which are too long to be described here), Pinochet's coup had better outcomes than the alternatives, making the world somewhat better than it otherwise would have been. Chavez has been bad for both Venezuela, the United States, and the world. If an analogy is necessary - one can prefer the Soviet Union defeat Nazi Germany without being a strong supporter of Stalinist Communism.
Also, this is probably the 8th time I've had to explained this stance. Is the forum's version of "I can see Russia from my house."?
Oh, no, please. Not this, again...
