Does the Cato Institute still have General Pinochet's bootlicker on their payroll? You know, the guy who hindsteined Chile's privatized pension system, and now wants to do the same with our social security system. Personally, as far as I'm concerned the guy is an undesirable alien and should be deported.
Maybe, you don't know that prior to the Pinochet coup, Chile had the longest and most stable democratic tradition in this hemisphere except for our own peaceful transitions. If you count our civil war as not being a peaceful transition, then the gap really narrows.
Libertine, rather than libertarian, would be a good way to describe their attitude to social policy and when you really get down to it anarchistic behavior is the outcome of their policies. If you boil it down, what you have left, is a philosophy that says let's carry guns, do drugs and not pay taxes. This appeals to the dim-witted and the immature.
Getting back to Chile, you can read about what happened in Newsweek, The Nation or any other periodical published at the time of the coup. You can read about how the criminal element led by Pinochet confined all of the democratic leaders of the country in a soccer stadium while they decided who they were going to murder.
President Allende could have taken a page out of George Washington's book, and, put the rebellion down with loyal troops, the way Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Only Allende was to much of a democrat for that, from what I've read and been told.
Respectfully, Tom Lehman Max Sawicky wrote:
> >>
> >> A really un-American group is this anarchist Cato Institute; they are a
> real bunch of crazed potential terrorists. I wonder if they have any
> connections in Africa.
> > . . .
>
> I've had numerous dealings with a number
> of Cato folks. I've yet to meet one that
> would hurt a fly.
>
> Their philosophy is libertarian. They
> oppose most any sort of state incursion
> on individual life. Now you could say
> the harm to people resulting from the
> lack of a public sector is violence,
> but that's a far cry from 'terrorism.'
>
> Cato caught a lot of flack from some
> of their backers by taking a principled
> stand against any U.S. military action
> in the Gulf, before during and after.
> In the same vein, they take a jaundiced
> view of the "war on drugs" and the
> standard cliches about law enforcement.
> They consistently propose to eviscerate
> the military budget far beyond the
> proposals of most liberals.
>
> The more hard-right outfit is the Heritage
> Foundation, but even there are some people
> who are really closet libertarians and don't
> buy a lot of Heritage theocratic crap.
>
> Unlike some 'spin' artists, they are
> pretty forthright about their views.
>
> Moral of the story: save your condemnations
> of personal character for people you really
> know. Newt is a good place to start.
>
> Cheers,
>
> MBS