Let's hope there are a lot of traitors there:

Brandishing a little red book listing his desired 69 revisions to Venezuela's charter, Chavez exhorted his backers to redouble their efforts toward a victorious "yes" vote in the Dec. 2 ballot.

"He who says he supports Chavez but votes 'no' is a traitor, a true traitor," the president told an arena packed with red-clad supporters. "He's against me, against the revolution and against the people."

People here who support this budding despot, like Jimmy Carter, should be ashamed of themselves. But I think they have no shame.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here are some of the potential traitors standing in food lines, waiting for milk.

[Another update a couple minutes later]

I wonder if the leche lines are why he's lost his lead?

...the survey was the latest blow to Chavez. He has suffered a series of defections over his plan, including an ex-defense minister who had restored him to power after a brief 2002 putsch but who called Chavez's reforms a new "coup."

"The debate over voting 'yes' or 'no' has burst into the very heart of Chavez's support base," Leon said in an interview. "We can see moderate Chavez backers ready to vote 'no' even though they like him."

The question is, what will he do if he loses? Have the "traitors" shot?

The fact that peanut boy supports Chavez says more bout his political leanings and attitudes than even his lackluster Presidency revealed.

Not that I question his Christianity, but how sincere is Carter's belief, if he supports communists? Last I checked, communism calls for abolition of religion and replaces it with worship of the state. Unless Jesus is in the running for the leadership of the worldwide communist movement, Carter is confused. Again. Or still.

Carter has been confused for a very very long time.

I suspect Chavez would have his opponents water-boarded. It's not Torture.

"...what will he do if he loses? have the 'traitors' shot?" Or as Caligula said of the Roman people, "I wish you had one head so I could cut it off."

Apparently we have a new Anonymous Moron, or the old one with a new IP.

If anyone is waterboarded by country, AM, it is because we are attempting to extract information. It is not to punish them for voting against the president. That is illegal (though perhaps not under the Chavez government).

But then, what should we expect from an Anonymous Moron?

>>The question is, what will he do if he loses? Have the "traitors" shot?
You're not seriously expecting an honest vote count now are you? If Chavez wants this thing to go his way then it will go his way, whether by stuffing the ballot box or a false count or both, whatever it takes.

I'm sure Chavez will say he's just trying to collect information Too.

I'm shocked and saddened that anyone in this country is taking a Chavez election seriously.

Michael is right. Chavez will win, no matter what the people have to say. And Jimmuh Carter will be there to certify it.

No, Chavez wouldn't likely waterboard, but you'd wish he had. More typically, bad things would just happen, like family members or yourself losing jobs and being unable to find employment, or daughters being raped or sons beaten by anonymous assailants, the usual sweet hints and reminders that lefties like the anonymous poster like to leave those who choose to disagree with them.

For the record, I do not like Chavez.

However, I actually do believe his elections have been more or less fair and accurate. Sham elections are inevitably in the 85-98% range. Winning in the 60 some odd percent range is either legit, or else indicative of the most sophisticated and nuanced corrupt elections in history.

Again we'll see what happens next week, and I hope he loses.

My grandmother voted for Chavez in one of the referenda couple of years ago.

She passed away in 1984.

I'm sure this was the only irregularity, right?

I'm not sure I understand you, Kolohe. If you can win an election by 'turning' 1,000 votes why would you bother 'turning' a million? Carter's validation is worthless. Actually it's well beyond worthless because it gives the regime a cloak of respectability. I think it was two elections ago (or maybe the last) that Carter blessed a Venezualan election under questionable circumstances at best. I believe the Carter Foundation had negotiated a typical inspection 'package' but on the day of the election Venezuala essentially 'locked out' the inspectors. After a series of emergency meetings failed to resolve the dispute the inspectors completely disengaged (left polling places all together), though negotiations continued. After 72 hours a deal was reached and Carter dutifully blessed the election when pointed to a warehouse filled with voting machines. Carter's people had NO access to the voting machines for 72 hours and they blessed the election anyway.

What was most stunning, though, was I assumed that picture had to be flawed. But it wasn't (materially). A member of the Carter Foundation leadership that blessed that election provided a weak rebutal, acknowleding the general narative but providing mitigating information aka excuses. There may have been more substantive rebutal that I missed but my recollection is that it was pretty much: we got the best we could from Venezuala. Stunning.

Steve, you can't have checked very recently. Christianity has always had two components: worship of Christ as Lord, and following Christ's commandments.

Christ's commandments are, inconveniently, Communist and universalist. c.f., Luke's two-part Gospel in the New Testament; but all of that follows from Jesus's known teachings against "the rich" and for the "kingdom of God"'s immantenising here on Earth.

Our evangelists tend to Door #1, while endorsing capitalism in defiance of Christ. Communists have learnt that they don't need to worship Jesus in order to follow Jesus's commandments.

Carter is well within his rights as a Christian to support Communists.

(Jesus's Communism is, incidentally, the main reason I do not count myself as a follower of said Galilean.)

I should stop smoking pot before typing. For "immantenising' read "immanentising".

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton)

Rand appears to be endorsing waterboarding as a legitimate
method to collect information.

I'd really like to know if Rand thinks it's legitimate to do so?

I'd really like to know if Rand thinks it's legitimate to do so?

I don't know why you'd want to know that, Anonymous Coward, but it certainly seemed to work with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

well that's a start, rand

So for known bad guys, say Bin Laden's driver, or
KSM or zarwawi, you would endorse waterboarding
as a method of getting information from them?

it's a yes or no question.

Anonymous: let me ask you a question. If it were known that a nuclear device had been smuggled into the country and we had, in our custody, a person we knew had details of where and when the device would be used, would you insist he be read his Miranda rights, assigned counsel, and provided with meals that conformed to his religious requirements? Would you protest if his assigned quarters were too small, too hot or too cold, or if his pillows weren't fluffed at bedtime?

That's 6 yes or no questions, BTW.

I feel no obligation to answer questions posed by an anonymous coward, yes or no, or otherwise. Particularly given that they are completely off topic with regard to Hugo Chavez and Venezuela.

I don't know where I saw this suggested or who suggested it, but someone (smart, famous, and influential) suggested this:

Even for ticking nuclear time bomb situations, torture should never be legal. However, an individual such as law enforcement agent might be ethically correct to disobey the law and torture the suspect anyway. In that case, once the torture is over, whether or not information was obtained, the torturer should turn himself in, plead guilty, and a judge should sentence him appropriately (the mitigating circumstances could be considered, but there would be no get out of jail free card). That way, torture would be undertaken only when the circumstances were so dire that someone would be willing to give up their freedom so that others would live.

I'm just passing on this idea. I doubt it would work very well in reality, but I thought it was a clever stance to take.

bart says

"If it were known that a nuclear device had been smuggled into the country and we had, in our custody, a person we knew had details of where and when the device would be used, would you insist he be read his Miranda rights, assigned counsel, and provided with meals that conformed to his religious requirements?"

If i expected to use any of that information in court, yep.

Look we are a society of law. That means certain inconvenience.
Now if you want to hold people with the force of the state,
well, you have to give them due process. If that means
you torture somebody, well, then you can't hold them in jail
and use the information in court.

so, if oyu got a ticking nuclear bomb, well, then you
find yourself committing to letting a nuclear terrorist go.

and so far, we haven't been torturing nuclear bomb makers,
we seem to have been torturing IED makers and a whole
lot of people who had the bad luck to live in the AO of the
4th division.

Hillary-supporter I've heard that one before and I like it a lot. I'm not sure but I seem to remember it was one of the present Republican candidates that said it somewhere and I think it was Giuliani although it might have been Romney (or even McCain although that strikes me as unlikely).

The more I think about it the less certain I become, perhaps it even was Biden or someone else relatively sane (but usually wrong), or one of the truly smart ones over at NRO (that's at most a third of them), or even perhaps Christopher Hitchens. Bah, I give up, I can't remember.

I tried googling some of the sentences but didn't find anything. Anyone know for sure? (The uncertainty bugs me now ^_^).

Oh and by the way I think it would work just fine in reality, primarily because it would avoid both a institutionalization of, and a carte blanche for, torture (and that's the main problems one wants to avoid).

once again, thanks for proving americans are both uninformed idiots and contemptuous of democracy. despot? dictator? OMG the senate is full of TEH DICTATORZ! OMG MY MAYOR IS A DICTATOR!! MORE THAN 8 YEARS IN OFFICE = HITLER!

i seriously wish pussies like you would suit up and go to fallujah.