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Chavez defeated over reform vote

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has narrowly lost a referendum on controversial constitutional changes.
Voters rejected the raft of reforms by a margin of 51% to 49%, the chief of the National Electoral Council said.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Now to see if he enacts his desired changes anyway...

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Now to see if he enacts his desired changes anyway...

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Originally posted by SergeantX:
How do you know?

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Originally posted by SergeantX:

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Originally posted by SergeantX:
How do you know?

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This is where someone is supposed to say "What do you mean?

Well, I'll tell you ...

My point had to do with the title of the thread. I'm as happy as the rest of you that the people of Venezuela seem to have made a good call. But I'm concerned by the attitude that we sometimes have where we judge the quality of democratic rule by the wisdom of the results. For instance, would we be celebrating the success of democracy if the vote had gone the other way?

This is the issue that is front and center in Iraq right now. Something tells me that if the new government of Iraq held a vote and decided to kick the U.S. out of their country, we wouldn't exactly be hailing it as a victory for 'democracy'.

(For the record, I'm not picking on you Geezer. I'm assuming that what you actually meant was "Democracy sometimes produces worthy results", which is definitely worth celebrating. The wording just reminded me of this issue.)

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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