My favorite dictator - The left loves Castro, the right loves Pinochet

would seem unusual, in a nation like ours that celebrates the tenants of democracy such as free speech, free association, free elections, and freedom to worship, that there should exist people who offer words of support if not downright love and admiration to anti-democratic leaders throughout the world.

We have a lot of dictator-lovers here in the U.S.

The recent death of former Chilean President Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte has once again brought out the woodwork his supporters on the ideological spectrum, along with his opponents as well. And as this debate erupts, inevitably Cuban President Fidel Castro’s name gets dragged in as well, given that both men are polar opposites of each other.

So here we have groups of U.S. citizens, supposedly those lovers of democracy and the Founding Fathers and of Locke and Burke and Jefferson and Adams, lining up on the barricades arguing who was better (or worse), Castro or Pinochet.

Why are we even having this discussion?

It’s amazing that either man would even have such stout supporters whether in the Nation or the National Review. Both men sanctioned the killing of their political opponents. Both men oppressed their populations and destroyed free societies during the tenure of their rule (although Chile is back to being democratic after Pinochet was forced to step down in 1988 after a referendum) while Cuba continues to suffer under the Castros, Fidel and Raul. Both men used torture and terror in setting up their police states. Both stole and looted their nation’s wealth.

Both men broke a lot of eggs to get their omelets.

So why such support given that we’ve just fought a war to bring down a tyrant like Saddam Hussein and given the U.S. history of fighting tyranny across the globe? Why would anyone support dictators?

The reason, of course, is all ideological. The dictator, given that he can bend the country to his will at the snap of his fingertips, can get things done through rubber stamp congresses and parliaments that cannot be done so easily or quickly in the U.S.

Take free health care in Cuba. The U.S. still does not have universal health care while Cuba does thanks to Castro’s efforts. It may very well be lousy care without the latest in medical technology or drugs but at least it’s there.

Or with Chile, take Social Security. Chilean economists serving under Pinochet introduced a privatization plan to its old-age pension program similar to privatization schemes offered by conservatives in the U.S. Although one wonders whether Pinochet was more interested in economics compared to eliminating Communism in Chile. I think it’s safe to safe to say one took priority over the other.

So implementing such programs free of any compromises that would be a part of any democratic system through the normal legislative process, appeals to the ideologue because it allows he or she to say “See, such and such a program works.”

But this of course begs the question whether such programs really need such brute force in order to be established. Was free health care worth repression and show trials and neighbor spying on neighbor? Were better Social Security benefits worth electric shock torture by DINA to suspected leftists and communists?

Do the ends justify the means?

Obviously Castro’s predecessor Fulgenico Batista wasn’t a lot better when it came to protecting political freedoms than Castro and Pinochet’s predecessor Salvador Allende presided over a collapsing Marxist government that was turning Chile into a communist satellite. Both men were seen as saviors when they took power. Yet like all dictators given absolute power, they abused it frequently and fragrantly.

Why these men are given places of honor on their respective side of the political spectrum is beyond me. And yet, it’s nothing new. Leftists were enamored of murders and despots like Lenin, Mao, Stalin and (if you’re a neoconservative) Trotsky while there were Hitler and Mussolini supporters here in the U.S. and Franco had his fans too (although he was more of a Catholic authoritarian than a true Fascist.) Right-wingers have backed the Somoza dynasty and the Shah of Iran and even the Argentine junta. In fact, if you read the history of the Falklands War, there were some in the Reagan Administration who came close to supporting Argentina over traditional ally Great Britain because of such blinding ideology.

This is really a pointless discussion. To see U.S. citizens lend support to those who would violate our own traditions speaks almost to lack of faith in our form of government and Constitution. To see people get killed, imprisoned without trial or tortured just to see free health care established in another place in the world says that tyranny is okay so long as it has a point. But as history has taught us from the Jacobins on down through their successors, even such tyrants with a mission become corrupted by the power they bring into their own hands, even if it’s in the name of “humanity.” And ultimately such tyrants show themselves for what they are. Castro has turned a once dynamic society into a backwards ruin and Pinochet turned out be nothing more than thief, a kleptocrat like Mobutu stashing millions looted from the country into the Riggs Bank in Washington D.C.

U.S. citizens should forget these stupid discussions of “my favorite dictator” and opinion magazines should quit publishing them. For any real U.S. citizen, their attitudes towards dictators should the same as the motto the State of Virginia adopts.

Sic semper tyrannus

Thus always to tyrants.

--Sean Scallon