Sunday, October 21, 2007

Some straight forward questions on the legality of the proposed Constitutional reform Questions on the Constitutional reform that no rational person can answer the way Chavismo pretends to do it:   ---Don’t the redefinitions of the Republic as a Socialist State, which now will be a centralized one and the indefinite reelection, imply fundamental changes to the Constitution, which require a Constituent Assembly (see Art. 342)?   ---Since 25 new articles were not part of the first and second discussions of the proposed reform, as they were introduced after the second discussion, doesn’t this mean that they have to go back and begin the process with a first discussion (see Art. 343)?   ---The original argument to why the reform should be voted as a block, was that Chavez’ proposal was a single unit and could thus not be voted in parts. Doesn’t this mean that now that the Assembly has introduced 25 new and separate articles that argument is no longer valid?   ---Since the Constitution guarantees the “progressivity” of human rights (Art. 19), i.e. no right can be reduced, can the reform of Art. 337 be legal?   Given these four items, isn’t the proposed Constitutional reform totally and absolutely illegal and thus constitutes a coup de etat against the current Constitution, using the favorite language of Chavismo? 10:44:53 PM    comment []

Random things, all read today... Random quotes read today, a very rainy day in Caracas:   ---“Decree:   Unique Article   Let it be declared starting today a state of exception in all of the territory of the Republic, assuming this Junta the quality of Commander in Chief which will operate the emergency.”   Signed Augusto Pinochet, September 18th. 1973. The rest the deaths, the tortures and the disappearances is, as they say, history.   ---“In the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent an democratic country with a relatively free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look”   Amartya San, Nobel Prize in Economics.   ---“The data points to three important characteristics influencing growth: (1) the extent of competition domestically, and, especially for developing nations, the extent of country’s openness to trade and its integration with the rest of the world; (2) the quality of a country’s institutions that make an economy work, and (3) the success of its policy makers in implementing measures necessary for macroeconomic stability.”   Alan Greenspan in “The Age of Turbulence”   ---“I was particularly distressed by evidence that despite the indisputably bad economic outcomes of populist policies undertaken by almost all Latin American governments at one time or another since the end of World War II, these results had not seemed to dampen the impulse to resort to economic populism.”   Alan Greenspan in “The Age of Turbulence”   ---“We are drowning in the Devil’s Excrement”   Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, 1975 7:45:52 PM    comment []