Faith, Hope, Carnage

Daniel Ortega, the one-time Sandinista leader ran for Nicaragua's presidency on a rehabilitated image that he had put radicalism and violence behind him. With much help from Hugo Chavez and international leftists, the new and improved Ortega won, with promises to maintain the institutions of democracy in the once war-torn Nicaragua. The kinder, gentler Marxist revolutionary showed his true colors by recently altering the law to allow him to hold on to power by removing term limits. Nicaragua, like Venezuela, find themselves with presidents for life. When freedom is stripped away, lovers of liberty naturally resist. So contras or some new incarnation of rebellion may well arise. No dictator that ever rose through a more or less democratic process ever revealed the true nature of his plans. Hitler did not say he would wage aggressive war, attempt genocide, and ultimately ruin his own country when he offered himself as a candidate to lead. All the excesses may have been in his mind but only became apparent later. In America, we are facing a leader who craves power and is rapidly consolidating it. Who knows where Obama may take us? I only know there are no benevolent dictators.