Yes, ER, I would say that the entire global political arena is clown city. Only in the minds of philosophers is politics anything but double-speak, ulterior motives, cynical agendas. But let’s peak south of the border.

Vargas Llosa said, "Libertarian ideas are not going to be easy to install in Latin America, because for centuries the whole continent was molded with the philosophy of statism, socialism, corporatism, so we need a new revolution but with the purification of the meaning for us of blood, death and demagogy, and impregnated with ideas, creation, freedom, rationality, pluralism and legality." These might be the too-idealistic words of a literary person, but Llosa is a respected voice. The defeat of Neves in Brazil (the only real nation of substance in Latin America), was a good practical example of Llosa’s “not going to be easy”. And in that ridiculous farce of what is left of Venezuela, Lopez is jailed by the bus driver and his military toadies. A similar toadyism has kept Fidel in power; let’s not be naïve.

Winston Churchill said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” In societies such as in Europe, this stark estimation is mitigated by various virtues rooted in tradition. But in Latin America there are no such stabilizing virtues, and the stereotype is manifested as both tragedy and farce.

RE Cuba, the Teller Amendment (1898), authored by a Colorado Senator who wanted to make sure that Cuba's sugar would not compete with his state's crop of beet sugar, prohibited the president annexing Cuba. Too bad; Cuba would have flourished as a US territory. For that matter, in 1848 the US should have annexed what is now northern Mexico, setting our southern border at the Tropic of Cancer.