I'm Not Angry, Or Surprised. Just Disappointed.

See, a few days ago, the totalitarian leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, announced his plan to steal all the oil in Venezuela.

Back up a bit; I know you're asking "But it's Venezuela's oil in the first place, isn't it?"

Not exactly. See, when the oil companies find oil somewhere, they agree to pay the country in question huge sums of money - usually as a fixed percentage of production - in exchange for building the infrastructure to extract it, without which the country would have nothing.

Venezuela does not possess the industrial infrastructure to build drilling fields, pumping platforms, pipelines, refineries, and transportation for oil. They DO possess oil, but oil only has value if it can be sold. As long as it is in the ground, it is valueless.

So, years ago, Venezuela agreed to take a chunk of the oil's sales value in exchange for the oil companies doing all the work.

The oil companies spent literally billions and billions of dollars for research to design the specific installations they would need; more to transport the components; more to build them; more to operate and maintain them, which they have done for years, all the time paying Venezuela big chunks of money to let them alone.

Apparently the price wasn't high enough. Chavez has announced that he is "nationalizing" the oil production and refining facilities in the entire country. Now, basically, what he's doing is offering compensation - but only for the actual facilities themselves; not the research, or any of the other costs associated with the years and years of profits his nation has seen from that oil production.

In other words, he's stealing billions and billions of dollars from U.S. industry.

Now there are crowds of people who chant "No blood for oil."

I say to them: FUCK YOU.

Why?

Because the purpose of our military is to defend our national interests. THEIR JOB is to prevent gigantic, national-scale armed robberies. This is one of the LEGITIMATE purposes of a military, because the interests of our companies ARE the interests of our citizens, and therefore defending one is an extension of defending the other.

Our military is supposed to exist as a deterrent to thugs like Chavez, and it is because of the whining of the NBFO dumbfucks that it has become as emasculated as it is.

What SHOULD happen won't, sadly. What SHOULD happen, is that we should land on Venezuela with both feet, and depose Chavez. We should NOT replace him "with a government of our choosing;" simply eliminate him, and secure our holdings. Make no mistake; the property, legally acquired, of a U.S. corporation, even on foreign soil, is treated by international law as U.S. territory. We have a right, and a moral obligation, to defend that.

Sadly, we won't do that. Because as a nation, our citizenry seems incapable of comprehending the concept that invading U.S. territory is wrong, and deserves punishment - not by "humane" means, but by means sufficiently horrifying that no-one could possibly be stupid enough to do it again.

But we let the countries throughout the Middle East nationalize our oil facilities, and there's no reason to expect that Venezuela will be treated any differently.

Which is why your price at the pump went up 30 cents in two days.

Thank Hugo Chavez; but more to the point, thank the idea that violence is never justified.

Because sometimes it IS. And when you don't use it, you perpetuate greater violence in the long run, because your enemies will believe themselves safe from retribution - and this will lead to a situation in which the retribution necessary is far greater than what would have been required to settle the issue if you had used violence when it was justified in the first place.

Ask the city fathers of Carthage if violence never solves anything.

"I can't; everybody knows Carthage was destroyed."

How sad some of us seem to have forgotten. At some point, unchecked aggression will result in bloodshed; the longer it is delayed, the greater the bloodshed.

If you want to be humane, choose.

Choose whether to be humane in detail, causing the horrible, wasteful deaths of huge numbers...

...or to be cruel in detail, saving the lives of those same huge numbers.

Because those are your choices.

I will spell it out for you in terms that any boy raised before the Whiffle Life™ Generation can understand.

If you act like a badass, no one will fight you. Thus, many ass-beatings are saved.
If you act like a pussy, EVERYONE will fight you, and eventually you will have to hospitalize someone to get them to stop.

Understand?

Chavez needs to be stopped by military force. Why? Because it will prevent other countries from doing the same thing, and the ultimate cost to us and them will be far lower.

Sadly, no-one seems to remember back when kids learned this in school, by virtue of youthful and basically harmless fistfights. Now, they're safe from fistfights, never learn the lesson, and as a result, millions will die in warfare that could have been prevented.

You're welcome to think that the two are unconnected, if you want.

There's no law against you being wrong.