Month: September 2019

A Venezuelan Second Amendment?

Richard Barnes

Since I believe the articles alluded to in this post are worthy of the reader’s time and consideration, I will keep my own words brief so as to afford you the time to read the articles and ponder them on your own.

The group, Rumbo Libertad, has proposed a Venezuelan Second Amendment. Unsurprisingly, the official “opposition” opposes this and has gone so far as to ratify the Chavez era’s gun control policy, “also known as Ley Desarme [Law of Disarmament], implying with his arguments that criminals and law-abiding citizens are equal…. Guaidó used the fact that socialist thugs disguise themselves as police to attack unarmed citizens as an argument to keep self-defense weapons out of … citizen’s hands.”

The current Venezuelan constitution stipulates that only the State can possess arms and that this must be enforced by the official armed forces.

How convenient.

I have no connection with Rumbo Libertad. I do not know any of its leadership. I do not know anything about it other than what I am presenting to you in this post. However, I am tickled to see that there is a brave group in Venezuela who appeals to Natural Law (presumably they mean the law of Nature’s God, as in our Declaration) and to the United States Constitution. 

The second link below is to the Rumbo Libertad position on self-defense. Please note that it is in Spanish.

For a more general-readership, the World article (first link below) is excellent.

“The idea of having the means to protect your home was seen as only needed out in the fields. People never would have believed they needed to defend themselves against the government,” Vanegas explained. “Venezuelans evolved to always hope that our government would be non-tyrannical, non-violator of human rights, and would always have a good enough control of criminality.”

That is an astounding statement which could only be made or believed by a people unwilling to look beyond yesterday’s headlines.

Venezuela’s “revolution” was perhaps the most violent and bloody of the lot. “Leaders” ranging from Bolivar to Bove spilled countless gallons of civilian and prisoner blood, as is usually the case in “revolutions” which attempt to impose an ideology as opposed to a defense of hearth and home. After the revolutionary wars, criminality was incredible. Once dictators began to rule, criminality receded to a point where ladies and children could walk freely, undisturbed, even at night. Then criminality made a comeback, along with tyranny. By the late 90’s, it spiked back to the frightening levels of today.

“Much of the crime has been attributed by analysts to government-backed gangs — referred to in Spanish as ‘collectivos’ [sic]– who were deliberately put in place by the government.”

“So while Venezuelan citizens were stripped of their legal recourse to bear arms, the ‘collectivos’ [sic]– established by Chavez when he came to power — were legally locked and loaded. Deemed crucial to the survival of the socialist dictatorship, the ‘collectivos’ [sic] function to brutally subjugate opposition groups, while saving some face as they aren’t officially government forces, critics contend.” 

The article doesn’t mention it, but the use of armed thugs as collectives is based on the Cuban model. Nor does the article mention that Chavez and Guaidó are in agreement with experts in modern history, such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, who also believed in disarming their citizens. Most recently, the China-controlled Global Times published a smarmy article about the need for gun control in the United States.

Thanks for the advice.

Maribel Arias, 35, who fled to the Colombian border with her family two years ago – living mostly on the streets as she and her husband take turns finding odd jobs while sharing the parenting duties for their four children – said Venezuelans cannot rely on the nation’s law enforcement.
“Crimes are committed by police, a lot of the criminals are police themselves,” Saul Moros, 59, from the Venezuelan city of Valencia (left). Luis Farias, 48, said gun violence was bad when guns were freely available – but became much worse after the so-called prohibition. (Fox News/Hollie McKay)

Having been born in Venezuela, the photos and captions above strongly tug at my heart.

One final pull quote: “The problem from the beginning and still now is that there are too many people in Venezuela who are lawless.”

Well said and very applicable to us here in the United States. To be free, we must know how to govern our own selves. Put another way, the most basic government is self government. 

I think it was William Penn who said, “You will be governed by God, or, by God, you will be governed.” Put in another, more contemporary way, “Either govern yourself or be governed by tyrants.”

That’s a problem not only in Venezuela, but increasingly here in the United States as well.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/venezuelans-regret-gun-prohibition-we-could-have-defended-ourselves
Policy to institutionalize the right to bear arms. 

The link below is in Spanish. If you are able to read in Spanish, you will note the appeal to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution:

https://rumbolibertad.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/PROPUESTA-DE-POLÍTICA-PARA-INSTITUCIONALIZAR-LA-PROPIEDAD-DE-ARMAS-EN-VENEZUELA-1.pdf

Bocón, Caribe, Anchor Chain

Richard Barnes

Having caught only one fish, and after trying for hours and catching nothing else, the boy set his bamboo rod on the barge and climbed down the iron ladder to the third or fourth rung from the ground from which he jumped to the shore where he scrambled to the large saltines can holding the lonely fish.

His father had placed the large “Nabisco La Favorita” can beneath what seemed to the boy to be the largest anchor chain in the world. It was fastened to a giant anchor screwed to the hill just beyond the shore, from whence it held the barge from floating away into the Orinoco current.

The cans I recall were red, but the shape and branding were as above. My father would use a large hand forged iron nail to punch holes into the can to allow air to circulate and thus lengthen the life of the fishes used for bait.
The nail looked something like this, only it was larger (as recalled by me as a young child). The head was large enough for my mother or father to hit it with the palm or fist to open cans or punch holes

The chain was large enough to provide shade for the fish as well as for the boy, who now crouched beneath it, watching the fish swim to and fro or at times just remain stationary.

He recalled the occasion when he had caught a piranha and his father had placed it in a can all by itself. They had taken it home to show his mother. Seeing the fish refused to move, his father, who did indeed know better, stuck his finger in the water to move it a bit only to see blood. He quickly pulled out and saw that the cannibalistic fish, having moved faster than sound, had bitten off the tip of his finger. They all had had a good surprise followed by hearty laughter.

In Venezuela, Piranhas are called “Caribe(s)”, after the Caribe Indians who ravaged Venezuela at the time of Columbus. As usual, current “scholarship” tends to preface their cannibalism with “allegedly”. However, contemporary accounts leave no room for doubt. One reason no Mayan or Aztec-like civilizations are found in Venezuela was the unrelenting warfare of the savage Caribes. Their tortures included holding subjugated peoples and biting (yes, biting) them to death, while also slicing them with sharp shells. It is no secret why the Piranha is known as the Caribe in Venezuela.

Piranha (Caribe). Not a fish to take home to mother.

The fish in the can under the chain was a Bocón, a “big mouth.” These were in great abundance in the Orinoco but usually during a certain time of the year. Clearly this day was not during that certain time of year, else the can would have been teeming with the fish, not just one.

He crouched in the shadow of the chain and contemplated the Bocón as it balanced itself lazily near the center of the can; his father remained on the barge, patiently waiting for the big one.

Anchor Chains.

The barge was big, rusty, and seemingly abandoned. At least it was “always” there when father and son went fishing in or about that spot. Halfway across the wide Orinoco a dredging vessel and crew did its work. In 1952 U.S. Steel Corporation undertook the dredging of the Orinoco to allow deep water shipping which would eliminate the need to transfer ore from river boats to ocean going vessels. Once the dredging was done a few years later, the Bethlehem Steel closed its ocean port, Puerto de Hierro, and shipped ore from its Orinoco port, Palúa, directly to its massive steel works in Sparrows Point, Maryland. Puerto de Hierro was transformed into a Venezuelan navy base.

For years, Bethlehem Steel, and others, paid tolls to U.S. Steel for using the dredged river channels as its ships came to load and returned to the United States, laden with ore. After expropriation, the maintenance and usage of the channels continued, but by 2005, maintenance had suffered and deep sea shipping had become more intermittent, usually limited to high water seasons.

Dredging the Orinoco River. This photo was taken in the year 2000. Maintenance had to be kept up, otherwise the mighty river would soon render the channels unseaworthy. By 2005, shipping was limited to high water seasons.

The boy felt someone pushing down on him below the shoulders. He looked to his right, towards the barge and fleetingly saw his father holding the fishing line, facing the river, away from the boy. Fleetingly, because what was pushing him down unremittingly was the giant chain. The river’s undulation was bringing the barge down and that action was lowering the chain onto the boy. He yelled, but by then was crushed so tightly that no sound escaped his mouth. Not even a whisper.

From the corner of his eye he saw the shadow of his father jump from the barge to the shore and rushing up behind him. He saw that shadow grab the chain and seek to lift it. Lift it. Lift it. 

He lost consciousness.

He opened his eyes as his father carried him running up the steep cement steps that led from the river back up to the camp.  Then he lost consciousness again only to awaken in the camp hospital with the doctor saying that he was going to be OK.

We returned to the river to pick up our stuff and then headed for home. My father explained that he had heard nothing until a guard standing atop the stairs yelled at him, “Oiga! Su hijo le necesita!” (Hey! Your son needs you!”). That’s when my father looked to the chain and saw me, seemingly being flattened. I did not hear anyone saying anything, but I might have been passing out by then. 

What surprised my father was that, in a day when everybody knew everybody, he had never seen that guard before, nor did he ever see him again. Not even when he finally reached the top of the stairs. There was no one around. In addition, of course, no man could have raised that barge from the river either.

When my father grabbed that chain and sought to lift it, it just kept bearing down, down. But Someone made the river swell. And the water rose. And so did the chain. He told me that, once the chain lifted from my back, I just fell to the side, doubled over like a clam. He thought for sure my back was broken, which I’m glad it wasn’t. Else carrying me up the stairs, although perfectly understandable, would not have been a good idea!

God lifted the tide and preserved my back from breaking. He also sent an angel to minister. I believe that if my back had been broken, that “guard” would have told my father and he would have called for an ambulance instead.

“Take heed that ye despise not [look down on] one of these little ones; for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”

That’s as good an explanation as any.

This is the closest I can find on the “Bocón” that we used to fish in great numbers in the Orinoco. When we fished from the shores of the Orinoco or from the barges, we’d mostly catch smaller sizes than seen in the image, and we used them for bait as well as taking them home for grilling or frying.
The port of Palúa. The events alluded to in the post occurred beyond the ore bridge in the photo’s background.
Arial view of the port. Note the ore bridge on the right. 
The Orinoco River heading across from the company port. Sailors compared this river to the ocean.
Father and son on the Orinoco

So far from God and so close to the United States!

Richard Barnes

“Only those born in Spain were allowed to own shops or mines in the colonies.” The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, page 47.

“…[Simón] Bolivar was the son of one of Caracas’s wealthiest creole families [which] owned several plantations, mines and elegant town homes.” The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, page 117.

Yes, it’s the same book, published in 2016 (I am about halfway through). And the above tendentiousness — the colonists could own nothing on page 47 — and contradiction — the colonists were tycoons 70 pages later — are not isolated.

It is hailed as a masterpiece by the usual literati. It is considered at times interesting, at times insufferable, and at times infuriating by your humble blogger. You’re better off reading Humboldt’s writings directly.

We’ve much work yet ahead of us in clearing the misconceptions and prejudices which color our understanding of South America generally and Venezuela specifically, not to mention world history and science.

The fact remains that Spain’s conquest of much of the Americas, their export of European culture to these shores, their eradication of human sacrifices, their education and teaching of the Spanish language to the indigenous peoples, and much more, remains an unequalled, spectacular achievement in history. Humboldt, himself a creature of the Enlightenment, who like his fellows, borrowed profusely from Christianity without so much as a tip of the hat, would have achieved nothing had it not been for Spain who gave him a passport when Enlightenment France did not, and had it not been for the missions in the Americas who helped him and had even seen many of his discoveries centuries before he was conceived in his mother’s womb. He just took it all for granted, like a good modern.

Now, saying the above does not mean I am blind to Spanish failures (nor am I blind to English failures) or Jesuit perfidy. But it does mean that I refuse to take at face value the usual textbook approach to Spain and South America that we’ve been spoon fed for centuries now. The history of our neighbors to the south and across the pond is much more complex and vastly richer than: Spain bad–Spain rape–Spain kill–Las Casas saint.

I would challenge us to consider the possibility that we in the United States have much more in common with South America than we do with modern Europe. But to consider that challenge, we must first make an effort to clear the underbrush accumulated over hundreds of years. What did Spain do right? What did she do wrong? Was Spain responsible for the fearsome bloodletting in 19th century South America? Hint: she was not. Then who and what was? 

In 1829, after “independence”, Simón Bolivar wrote to his fellow South Americans in A Look At Spanish America: 

“From one end to the other, the New World is an abyss of abomination; there is no good faith in [Spanish] America; treaties are mere paper; constitutions, books; elections, combat; liberty, anarchy; life, a torment. We’ve never been so disgraced as we are now. Before, we enjoyed good things; illusion is fed by chimera…. we are tormented by bitter realities.”

This, from a man who was largely responsible for the chaos he now bitterly laments. A man who proclaimed the glorious unity of the continent, saw it irredeemably fractured and destroyed. He died, embittered (“I have plowed the sea!”), a mere year later.

Historian Luis Level de Goda wrote in 1893, “The revolutions have produced in Venezuela nothing but the most vulgar leaders, tribal chieftains, the greatest disorders and lack of concern for one another, corruption, and a long, never-ending tyranny, the moral ruin of the country, and the degradation of a great number of Venezuelans.”

Half a century before Level de Goda, the writer, Cecilio Acosta made a like point, “The internal convulsions have produced sacrifices but not improvements; tears but not harvests.” Others have made similar, terrible, and depressing observations.

One of the purposes of this blog is to look at these and related matters as dispassionately as possible and hopefully to encourage us to reconsider what we’ve been taught for generations. 

And maybe, with God’s help and with sincere goodwill, we might see a true and wonderful rapprochement between “The Colossus of the North” (how they referred to the USA for generations) and the land which was first called “America” (it was South America who first had that epithet, not the United States).

Long time Mexican president, Porfirio Díaz, spoke for many in Central and South American when he exclaimed in exasperation: “Poor Mexico! So far from God, so close to the United States [Pobre Méjico! Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos]!”

I’d say that, today, both the United States and South America are far from God as far as their legislators go. Let’s pray and work towards a rapprochement with the Triune God. Then the way to a bright future between these great neighbors will be not only more possible but excitingly successful and fruitful!

Porfirio Díaz, president of Mexico; photo taken early 20th century. 
Don Porfirio Díaz and his wife, Doña Carmen, in exile in Paris circa 1912, shortly before his death.
Simón Bolivar as usually depicted
Sketch from life in 1830 by José María Espinosa. Bolivar was 47 and died shortly thereafter.

Following are representative examples of Spanish architecture in colonial Americas

Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Florida, United States, built 17th century.
Cuzco Cathedral, Cuzco, Perú. Built 17th century.
Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City. Built in sections with the first section built in the 16th century (the century before the arrival of the Pilgrims)
Metropolitan Cathedral of Quito, Quito, Ecuador. Construction began in 1562.
Cathedral of San Juan, Puerto Rico, first constructed of wood in 1521; current building first constructed in 1540, almost 100 years before the Pilgrims.
Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, construction began in 1512 and was completed in 1540. Pilgrims arrived in Massachussets in 1620. First permanent English settlement in America was in 1607. My point is not that “Spain is better or that England is better”; it is simply that there is more to our stories than that in the standard narratives.
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was one of the very few Spanish colonies that was not devastated by the bloodletting elsewhere in the Americas. The district, now a national historic site, is characterized by cobblestone streets and stone buildings dating to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Snippets

Richard Barnes

This week’s post is a bit of a departure. 

It is composed of snippets that, although not directly about Venezuela, they do apply in that they reflect thinking that takes hold on societies that lose their moorings.

The first link is to a 6-minute excerpt of an interview with Yuri Bezmenov (1939-1993), a KGB defector who after years of work with the Communist regime in the Soviet Union during which he grew to love the liberty of the West, defected in 1970, disguising himself as a hippie. His comments will not surprise you but will, nevertheless, disturb you as he details the focus of our countries enemies to demoralize us by creating chaos in our thinking and questioning our moral foundations. 

The next link is an interview of Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) by Mike Wallace in 1958. If you sit through the entire thirty minutes you will, first, in today’s sensitive era, be a bit amazed at an interview where the host is smoking a cigarette; second, you will appreciate the superior intellectual conversation that was not only tolerated a generation ago, but encouraged and enjoyed; and, third, you will also see that men who were not easily pegged as conservative or liberal, nevertheless saw the direction we as a free people were taking: a direction to slavery by bamboozlement. He believed that the “Brave New World” that he wrote about can and will “come to these shores.” 

That world arrived in Venezuela, with a vengeance. But we are not immune to it. “Why is it that you think that the wrong people” will use these instruments for evil ends? Huxley’s reply comes close to the Calvinist understanding. Yet, he was an atheist. 

There is much more in the interview and it is healthy to challenge yourself to listen to a man and go through the exercise of refuting his errors while agreeing with some of his insights. Somewhat like the Apostle Paul when he quoted a pagan poet in Acts 17. 

It is also bracing to hear Mike Wallace speak of the Soviet Union in 1958 as a successful society despite its lack of freedom. There was plenty of alternative reporting back then which, had he been a bit more curious, would have caused him pause before declaring the Soviet Union a success.

In his letter to George Orwell in 1949 congratulating him for his book, 1984, Huxley wrote:

“Within the next generation I believe that the world’s leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narcohypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of governments, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.”

And the last link is a reenactment of a lecture given by C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) on the BBC in 1941. He went on to give lectures on the BBC for about three years, during a time when the city of London was being bombed. Civilians and soldiers looked forward to these lectures because, as many of them expressed it, they gave them a sense of order and meaning at at time when it was easy to believe all was chaos. Pubs would suddenly come to a hush, when Lewis came on the radio. These lectures became the foundation for his great book, Mere Christianity.

This first lecture is about right and wrong. And, if you find it compelling, I would recommend reading Lewis’ The Abolition of Man where he develops these thoughts into a challenging and rewarding read.

Contrary to Huxley, Lewis was a Christian. One thing they had in common was that they both died on November 22, 1963. Their deaths were overshadowed by the death of another famous man on that same day: John F. Kennedy.

I believe you will find these three links to be challenging yet engaging and provocative. I recommend you set times aside throughout this coming week to listen to each. They not only help us understand what has been, and what is happening in Venezuela, but also what has been happening in the United States for generations now.

Model for Destruction.