Liberty Alone

Hugo Chavez is following in Mugabe’s footsteps and seizing land to ‘redistribute’ and install collective farming.

This policy has recently been tried in Zimbabwe and has been a spectacular failure, taking the country from being the breadbasket of Africa to being a country of rampant inflation and massive food shortages.

Of course, Zimbabwe isn’t the only country to have tried this. China tried it during the ‘great leap forward’. What were the results? Famine and death.
It was even tried by some early settlers in the Americas. They tried collective farming and almost starved, it was only when private farming and the ability to trade was introduced that they prospered.

Collectivisation and nationalisation is a recipe for disaster. The disaster may be staved off due to Venezuela’s oil wealth, but that will only serve to prop up a rich, corrupt elite and prevent the liberal reform which would disperse wealth more and provide opportunity for the masses.

I’m sure the left in the west will continue lauding Chavez, even as his errors become manifest, if only because he’s anti-American and claims to be standing up for the poor against the exploitative capitalist.

New blogger Chrisco at A Yellow Guard has quickly established himself as a blogger whose writing I always read.

In this post he comments on the large anti-American sentiment expressed by many LibDem members and people in general.

I have a confession to make, as a naive teenager I bought into much of the anti-American rhetoric along with anti-capitalist rhetoric. Its easy to do, requires little thinking and means we can sit back and blame others for all the ills of the world.
Since then I’ve grown up and have developed a more mature view of the USA and the world, the US is not bad, in fact its a wonderful place, its still a relative bastion of freedom and an important ally. We can’t just look at Bush and his friends or Blair’s supine relationship with Bush.

Being engaged to a US citizen has now made me even more aware of the high level of anti-Americanism which pervades this country.
Its not only the little remarks, which are frequent, or reading anti-American diatribe in the papers, some people are offensive about the US to Carrie when they find out she’s American.
This level of anti-Americanism could be described as institutional. It is deeply unpleasant, upsetting and if it were about black people it would be racism.

The US Government has made mistakes, but remember more people didn’t vote for Bush than did, he hardly represents the the people of the US. Criticism of US policy is fine, but it seems to have crossed the line into general anti-Americanism for many many people.

This antipathy is certainly not reflected back at us by the US, I’ve found people there to be like people everywhere, some idiots, but by and large they’ve been friendly and welcoming (even if they do like to ask me to speak so they can hear my accent). The only rudeness I’ve had was airport security guards (who’re rude to everyone) and the waiters at Ed Debevics and its their job to be rude (if you’re ever in Chicago, go there, you’ll be treated to wonderfully rude service and dancing on the bar, its great fun).

The US seems to get the blame for so much which it should not be blamed for. It is an easy target, but look at who leads the anti-American rhetoric, authoritarians and communists like Chavez and Galloway, fundamentalists and extremists and those who would dominate us and remove our liberties and freedoms.