i’m not offering a critique of hugo chavez’s presidency in venezuela but i do hope the folks in venezuela are better students of history than kids in the u.s.

his referendum to extend term limits should be met with much skepticism. its a despotic act and i can’t recall any example in history where something similar has left the citizenry in better shape than before term limits were extended.

here in the united states we’ve lived through eight miserable years as the result of routine elections, but that is nothing compared to decades or even generations of misery the world’s worst dictator’s left in their wake.

one of the few truisms of life is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and with so many examples of it stinking up the halls of government’s and financial institutions it would be nice to have one less instance.