The Objective Eye

"Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen."
- Ayn Rand, "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business" (1961)

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Thursday, November 08, 2007

Venezuela: Pro-Chavez Thugs Open Fire on Student Demonstrators

Now Playing: "Sojourn" by Billy Currie with Steve Howe, also from Keys and the Fiddle

Breaking news from Venezuela: Masked gunmen opened fire on university students today as they returned from a massive but peaceful demonstration march against dictator Chavez' impending alteration of the Venezuelan constitution to keep himself in power indefinitely. There are conflicting reports about deaths, but eight confirmed injuries. Note that the Associated Press report initially tries to make it appear as though this attack was caused by its victims, not by Chavez' thugs. Oh, excuse me, by the pro-Chavez thugs - there is no evidence available to link them with Chavez himself. A-ahem...

Today's events serve as an object lesson on what leftwing ideology ultimately means in practice, what it must of necessity mean: Rule by iron fist by a self-appointed deity, over a population reduced to the status of rightless serfs.

Why "of necessity?"

Logically, every form of collectivism, from Chavez' budding totalitarianism down to Gore's budding eco-fascism or the Clintons' recidivistic Marxism, is characterized by an assertion of the "rights" of a group at the expense of the valid rights of individuals (if indeed the latter are even acknowledged.)

Yet in reality a "group" is only a figure of speech we use to denote two or more...individuals. To assert the supremacy of a concept while simultaneously denying the validity of the constituent referents of that concept, is to engage in a gross logical contradiction, the fallacy of the stolen concept. The entire edifice of collectivist philosophy is built upon this logical contradiction.

To attempt in real-world practice to invert that logical relationship, to ascribe rights to a concept at the expense of the valid rights of the very entities that compose it, requires the violation of individual rights by force. Keep in mind that rights can only be violated by force or some indirect species of force (such as fraud.)

That is the insignia of collectivism in any variant: It literally cannot be implemented without the violation of rights.

My condolences to the victims of this particular attack, and to the people of Venezuela in general for the descent of their once-free nation into the cesspool of collectivism. May Chavez and his cancerous regime be overthrown by the good people he's currently stepping on and liberty be restored to Venezuela quickly.

Though she has not yet posted on today's shootings, I recommend bookmarking The end of Venezuela as I know it - an insightful blog published from the belly of the beast by a student in Caracas who has a simple thirst for liberty one dearly wishes more of her American counterparts shared.

Essential reading:
George Reisman's Blog on Economics, Politics, Society, and Culture: Hugo Chavez: Collectivist Throwback
 

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