Why I love the truth

I'm going to write in English now. Why? Because I feel like. Because I can. Because I like it and because it comes naturally to me. Actually there's an underlying reason, but I don't want to go too much into it - not for now at least. I get fucking annoyed sometimes and, hey, nothing better than your own blog to let steam off, so I'm gonna write my own personal stuff just because it takes my fancy (this is a political blog, but we take breaks too).

Today I posted something on the FB site. I said there that I love the truth. Of course, like anything you love, you don't necessarily have a reason to love something. I love the truth and I love freedom, and I don't have the faintest idea why I feel so compelled to fight for both. Actually, now that I'm over 30 and starting to feel a lil' bit old, some old memories came to my mind. Don't think that everything that has inspired me came out of dusty books written by grandiose authors. Some of the things that have pinned me down all these years just come from, yes, pop culture. More to the point, on why I love the truth, the following song came to my mind:

I wrote these words for everyone
Who struggles in their youth
Who won't accept deception
Instead of what is truth

That was spot on, wasn't it? Yes. I just don't accept deception. I don't take any bullshit. That's why I love the truth, and I won't accept deception. It's been incredibly helpful all these years, and I'll go on like this. I keep myself sane and happy by only taking the truth, nothing but the truth.

The lyrics I quoted above are just an extract of a great song that came on when I was young, 20 years old or so. And it gets even better:

It seems we lose the game
Before we even start to play
Who made these rules?
We're so confused
Easily led astray
Let me tell ya that
Everything is everything
Everything is everything
After winter, must come spring

So I'll keep writing this blog on what is true, and on what is factual. We have to sort the truth from the bullshit - it'll keep us all sane and happy. In case you're wondering, the song is by mighty, talented and gorgeous (sometimes controversial) Lauryn Hill. Take a listen.

So, are we Latin Americans part of the 'West'?

Emilia has written a very interesting essay on Latin America, named 'Is Latin America Truly Western?' (also posted on her website Cynics Unlimited). This is quite a controversial subject in Latin American countries, or at least in Chile. Same way that the 'n-word' can only be used by Afro Americans, not many Chileans are prepared to readily accept the label 'Third World' given by someone from the West proper (nobody's ever heard of Canada bombing or invading other countries, so they're spared acid criticism). So classing Chile as not quite part of the West only means it's the Third World, and I think that's where the problem is rooted: the West is associated with wealthy industrialised nations, while Latin America is -at the most- an emerging area. The term 'West' means rich countries, but in fariness, we should realise that it's applicable to The Americas (ie North, Central and South) , despite the sad reality: the southern part has lagged behind the northern part for far too long.

But this leads to a semantic problem then: what's the definition of the 'West'? Certainly, and following Emilia's analysis below, high technology and high standards of living are not exclusive to the West. We now see that we all use the term 'West' although nobody really knows what it means. In my view, the very essence of the West dates back to the Greco-Roman world. The cultural cornerstones of the West were crafted there: philosophy, democracy, science, and the Latin language, among many others, are some of the most distinctive fundamentals that today define 'the West' even until now. By extension, the Roman Empire's influence extended to North Europe, and then to The Americas., so we´re all part of the West. This may explain why we don't think of Russia as the West, or all Slavic countries for that matter. It may be a wishy-wahsy definition, for instance, Romania cannot be called a Western country, althoigh it certainly is a Latin one. To call a country truly Western we have two boxes to tick: in the past, it must have been heavily influenced by the Roman Empire; and more recently, it must have not been subjected to the Soviet Empire. So much for West Europe. What about Latin America?

The Continent does tick a number of other boxes: its culture does come from the foundations laid out by classical philosophy, its laws and language also come from the classical tradition, just like main components of its culture. OK, most countries have fledgling democracies, but all Latin Americans know is a good thing to vote for their political leaders. Even Cubans, although mainly in exile, want democracy and have always wanted it. So apart from not being industrialised and with precarious democracies, its culture is rooted in the Greco-Roman world. And that makes it Western.

A more practical definition of the West would be any country where the proper Westerners manage to carry on with their regular lifestyles without being shaken up by cultural differences - only feeling mildly irritated. Having said that, I'm not sure if your average Santiago guy could easily manage to live in La Paz or Quito, to name but a few. So I think that Latin America is part of the West, but some parts are more westernised than others.

Well, the above was my opinion. Here you have Emilia's thought-provoking essay:

Is Latin America Truly Western?

By Emilia Liz

While surfing the Net recently, I came across a website that posed an interesting question: is Latin America Western? Though the site did not give a definite “yes” or “no” to the question, it discussed some of the reasons why people might or might not consider Latin America a part of the West.

The term “West” is somewhat ambiguous these days. “West” and “Western” seem to have joined the ranks of words like “Creole,” “humanist,” and “liberal,” whose meaning varies according to where, when and by whom they are being pronounced. Most people would agree that Canada, the United States, Australia, and Western Europe are clearly part of the West. But they might disagree on where to place East Germany, for instance, which until the fall of the Berlin Wall belonged to the Communist Eastern bloc but which has strong linguistic, historical and cultural ties to Western Europe.

Latin America’s status as part of the so-called Occident is also shaky. On one hand, a writer for Canada’s National Post Magazine referred to Colombia as the “most dangerous country in the West.” An Ecuadorian friend similarly tells me that of course his country is Western; after all, it was colonized by Europeans long before many areas of the United States were. Others, though, would hesitate to include Latin America in the Western fold. Some leftists, seeking to create a sense of Third World solidarity, lump the region together with Africa, Asia and the Middle East rather than with Europe and North America. Ironically, many right-wingers too would place Latin America outside the Western pale, not only because the region is not industrialized but because the majority of its inhabitants are not “white” (that is, of unmixed European descent).

My answer to the website’s question is that yes, Latin America is Western. Saying that Latin America is not Western is to my mind a bit like saying that humans are not mammals. In other words, what else could it be? Just as humans possess all the physical features of mammals (hair, the ability to produce milk for their young, and so on), Latin American culture is largely based on that of Western Europe, more specifically Spain’s and, in the case of Brazil, Portugal’s.

The first objection to classifying the Latin American countries as Western is that they are not industrialized, at least not to the same degree as those of Europe and North America are. But industrialization is not the exclusive domain of the West. Japan is one of the most industrialized nations in the world, yet it certainly is not Western. The far less technologically developed Philippines is far more Westernized than Japan, due to its three hundred years under Spanish control. While the wish to promote solidarity between Latin America and other Third World areas is commendable, those who do so sometimes forget (or prefer to ignore) that culturally — even if not politically or technologically - the former resembles Europe more than it does Asia or Africa, for example.

Another reason often cited for not including Latin America in the West stems from the fact that most of its people are not “white.” However, Turks are genetically similar to Europeans, but few consider Turkey a Western country. Others might argue that large portions of Latin America, such as Bolivia and Guatemala, are inhabited by people with no European ancestry whatsoever. But the same thing could be said of Canada, where in the most northerly areas of the country the population is mostly Aboriginals and Inuit.

Moreover, most Latin Americans have at least some European ancestry. There are even some with no non-White background at all, such as a former boyfriend of mine who was born in Peru to a German-Northern Italian couple. Even setting Latin America’s “white” inhabitants aside, the average mestizo [1] or mulatto [2] has more in common with his or her European forbears than Indian and/or African ones. He or she in all likelihood speaks a European language — Spanish in most of the region and Portuguese in Brazil — as his or her mother tongue, practises a religion that while not originally from Europe took root on that continent more widely than on any other, and leads a lifestyle similar to that of Spain, Portugal and other Latin countries like Italy and France.

From this standpoint, it’s hard to claim that Latin America is any less Western than the United States or Australia. The difference is of course that the latter two places derive their culture from Britain whereas the former traces its culture to Spain or Portugal.
Undoubtedly Native American and African customs have influenced Latin America. And it’s understandable that countries like Mexico, which broke away forcefully from their “motherland,” Spain, are now stressing their Indian roots over their European ones. Other nations emphasize their “mestizaje” — the term for “racial mixture” in Spanish — in an attempt to recognize their dual (or in the case of places like Brazil with a strong African component, triple) heritages. But the reality is that for most mixed-race Latin Americans — who, by the way, form the majority of the area’s population — their European heritage has played a far greater role in shaping in their world views, social attitudes, and daily lives than has their non-“white” ancestry.

Indeed, the fact that miscegenation — generally involving Europeans and other “races,” though individuals of mixed African and Native American descent also exist — played such a major role in Latin American history is probably the principal reason for that region’s status as part of the West. It’s important to stress that not all Spanish and Portuguese colonies joined the ranks of the Western world. Spanish rule in the Philippines, for example, did not transform the islands into a Latin country. Though Spain did have considerable influence on the Philippines — in converting most of the people to Catholicism, in providing Spanish loan words to the local languages, and in giving the people Spanish first and/or last names — the Filipinos’ pre-colonial Asian culture remained largely intact even after three centuries of Spanish domination — roughly the same amount of time Spain controlled Latin America. Interestingly, miscegenation between Spaniards and Filipinos (or should we say Filipinas, because practically all such unions involved Spanish men and Filipina women) occurred on a fairly limited scale, as very few Spaniards settled in the islands. As historian John Phelan explains, the Philippines failed to become a Latin nation as Mexico did in part because the former lacked a mixed-race population to help Hispanicize the natives and by extension the country.

A friend from Colombia, a man of mixed Spanish and Native American descent who would never have passed for “white” in the United States, admitted to me that he felt “at home” on a visit to Italy because Italy is a Latin country, like Spain and Portugal. Obviously Latin America is not a carbon copy of Iberia. [3] But neither is the United States a replica of England. And just as no one would ever classify humans as fish, amphibians, reptiles or birds, Latin America cannot be anything but Western.

Notes
1. The term “mestizo,” though it literally means “mixed” in Spanish, in Latin America generally refers to people of mixed European and Native American ancestry.
2. A “mulatto” refers to a person of mixed European and African descent.
3. “Iberia” refers to Spain and Portugal.

Stephen Harper: Bible-basher, philistine, conservative and divisive, apart from that OK

Canada has traditionally been perceived as a quiet, prosperous and welcoming country. Perhaps that's why there aren't many Canada watchers. Not that there's nothing to watch, but there's not an awful lot to criticise. Personally, I feel grateful to a number of Canadian clerics who founded and run my high-school and were my teachers, and I always felt that it was a faraway place but close at the same time.

Having said that, I fear things are changing fast, an for worse. Indignation sparked in Chile when we saw our footballers beaten up by the Toronto police. Not that Chilean police are exemplary, but the brutality was excessive and disproportionate—even for Chilean standards. The use of billy clubs, pepper gas and other devices, banned in the civilised world, amounted to extreme anger when the whole country saw their footballers physically damaged and needing medical attention weeks after the incident, which left some players out of work for months. The behaviour of the Chilean footballers was wrong. The passion that football ignites is beyond anyone's understanding, even more so when it comes to playing with Argentina. Chilean footballers have a sad record of trashing hotel rooms after games and drunken incidents. The incident also divided Chilean public opinion. As expected, the ultra-conservatives/Pinochet nostalgic thought it was OK because police are supposed to be tough. Chilean players wanted to sign autographs to their fans after a heated game, and the police didn't let them, and a fight broke up. What really struck me was to see such brutality in Canada, of all places. I would expect to see the Chileans apologising for wrongdoing, or brutality in some ex communist nation, but you don't expect the police services of Canada being singled out for excessive use of force. Enraged Chilean residents in Canada then told another story: Canada may not be the quiet, peaceful and welcoming place we once thought. The article Policing in Canada published in The Economist in july 2008 has actually confirmed some of these fears.

At the root of all this, probably, lies what I describe as the greatest economic evil: the welfare state. What's the conection? A country that decidedly need immigrants to populate their vast lands can't attract workers if there's a welfare state in place because that means that some make a living off other people's work, which only generates resentment and social agitation. If you work hard and you realise that for four or five months of the year your hard-earned money goes straight to he tax collector, and you notice that scores of people live off your money, you have reasons to get angry. Some time ago, someone told me that in Canda you only need a medical card to have 'free' medical care, and apparently it is a 'very good thing', even an 'example' for countries like the US or Chile for that matter. First of all, it doesn't matter how many times I repeat this but here we go again: there's no such thing as a free lunch. No, in Canada health care is not free, it's paid, by everyone and not at the point of delivery, but it is paid. Second, if people are paying, why can't they pay it to a private insurer of their choice which can design a customised health plan for each individual, potentially making it cheaper and more effective? It is sad to see that conservatives are the only ones to note the problem and offer a solution, but once you put them in government they start promoting their values. The stereotype of the Canadian Conservatives, quoted from someone mentioned in The Economist (see article), is as follows: “Philistines from the west, sweeping out of the prairies towards the outposts of civilisation in Toronto and Montreal".

Stephen Harper, the re-elected Canada's prime minister, has a record in office not quite impressive. I have checked with some of my friends and he's divisive and linked to Christian orthodoxies (abortion and same-sex marriage are not only opposed by him, but he intends to prohibit it to others too). On the other hand, he's pushing to curb the welfare state, which is necessary for many reasons, but crucial to keep the immigration process working smoothly by attracting people intersted in making a living by joining the economy, and not living off the state. A welfare state is funded by heavy taxation, and taxes distort the economy making it less efficient, and where there's no efficiency there's no economy.

Though in favour of free trade, Harper will have to review the terms of NAFTA, where Chile has also joined. It's shocking to learn that senator Obama wants to revisit it. Free trade is the key to development and growth. With the credit-crunch crisis possibly getting worse before it gets better, a market skeptic like Obama can be a serious disruption, and potentially lethal. US Democrats will surely also control Congress and further government spending (remember Obama's universal healthcare plan) and reviewing free trade agreements is definitely going down a dangerous road. But just like McCain turned his candidacy an unpalatble option by naming religious freak Sarah Palin as his running mate, it's the silly things that make Canada's Stephen Harper a bad choice for liberal free-marketeers. Harper may be in favour of NAFTA. That's a good thing. Although we still need to ask ourselves if we can call free trade a treaty of over 8000 pages of regulations. But why do Conservatives insist in free trade but not free minds to marry or terminate a pregnancy? His socially conservative stance has receded, and he's won, fair and square, although in a low turnout election.

Canada's Liberals are only themselves to blame. If Liberals are not willing to promote a free market agenda, they become a less attractive choice. The most attractive policy of Canada's Liberals was their support of a carbon tax, something that has made this blog an unpopular one among the most extreme sections of the libertarian opinion. I know taxation is—as described by John Stuart Mill—a mild form of robbery. But again in line with The Economist's pragmatic stance, it has become necessary to punish polluters to prevent the climate change catastrophe. Lacking arguments, Conservatives and orthodox libetarians regard climate change a mere conspiracy. This is wrong, inadequate, stupid and dangerous. Quebecker Stépehan Dion was right to push for a carbon tax. Sadly, his party slumped in this week election and needs a new leader to revive an alternative to the current Conservatives. Stephen Harper may be OK for now, but soon Canadians will need to get rid of him.

Canada is increasingly becoming a multicultural place, and that's praiseworthy. The key of evolution is inclusion, not exclusion. The question now is how to prevent ghetto and riots like we saw in the French banlieu, or radicalised religious fanatics willing to bomb their own country fellows, like we saw in London. Let the market attract brave, flexible, enthusiast and open-minded immigrants, and don't let the welfare state get in the way.























The following is The Economist's political endorsement for Stephen Harper (my highlights).

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Canada's general election
The fear factor

Oct 9th 2008

Why Stephen Harper does not deserve to be dumped

IT IS not easy to be a successful Conservative in Canada. Perhaps it is the effect of living next to the United States. Perhaps it is because the country was founded on the collectivist principles of “peace, order and good government” rather than the individualist “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” of its neighbour. Perhaps it is because the things that Canadians most value about their country are its publicly run health service, its European-style welfare state and its tolerance. All are associated with the Liberals, who have been the natural party of government in Canada for the past century. To cap it all, conservative ideas of deregulation and unfettered free-market capitalism have been brought into disrepute by the financial turmoil south of the border.

So perhaps it is not surprising that the hopes of Stephen Harper, Canada’s Conservative prime minister, of endowing his minority government with a parliamentary majority at a general election on October 14th may end up being dashed. At first his decision to call the election looked shrewd, as the Conservatives raced to a lead of 15 percentage points in the opinion polls. Then the Wall Street panic got going. Canadians began to worry that Mr Harper was not doing enough to protect them. His poll lead has been cut by almost half. Unless he bucks the trend he could even lose power.

That would be unwarranted. It was a surprise when Mr Harper won the last election in January 2006, ending a dozen years of Liberal rule. Few pundits imagined that he would survive longer than a year. That he has governed for 32 months is a tribute to the political skills of an underestimated man. He does not offer a soaring vision of radical change. Canadians have not warmed to him: he comes over as a bloodless control freak. But he is hardworking, and a skilled parliamentary tactician. He governs a rather successful country that needs incremental improvement, not a revolution.

Mr Harper promised Canadians some modest measures. Some of these were sensible. Others, such as the cut in the sales tax, were not. But he got most of them done. He patched up Canada’s relations with the United States, which had deteriorated. His decision to keep Canadian troops fighting in Afghanistan was unpopular, but he was careful to ensure that it was backed by leading Liberals. He has increased defence spending, which shows realism in a country that lays claim to a large chunk of the disputed Arctic.

Mr Harper’s political home is in the west, in oil-rich Alberta where they like their politicians in the carnivorous mould of Sarah Palin. In office he has tried to woo eastern Canada, dropping his previous opposition to abortion and gay marriage, and recognising French-speaking Quebec as a “nation within a united Canada”. But his inner oilman has won out when it comes to the environment, an important issue in a country that is both a heavy carbon-emitter and especially vulnerable to climate change. Stéphane Dion, the Liberal leader, bravely proposes a carbon tax, which he claims would be revenue-neutral. Simply to rubbish this as a “crazy” idea that would “screw everybody”, as Mr Harper has done, shows a disappointing lack of leadership, and is grounds enough to deny the Conservatives a majority. In fact another minority Conservative government would not be a bad result for Canada: neither of the main party leaders has done enough to persuade Canadians that they deserve untrammelled power.

The first credit-crunch election
If the voters go further and eject Mr Harper, that, sadly, will not be because they have been convinced by the cerebral Mr Dion’s worthy carbon tax. It will be because the opposition—a gang of four, comprising the socialist New Democrats, the separatist Bloc Québécois and the rising Green Party as well as the Liberals—has succeeded in panicking the voters on the economy. And yet, in a sinking world, Canada is something of a cork. Its well-regulated banks are solid. Growth has slowed but not stopped. The big worry is the fear that an American recession will drag Canada down with it.

Mr Harper says, rightly enough, that his government has taken prudent measures to help Canada weather a storm it cannot duck: he has offered tax cuts and selective aid to help vulnerable manufacturing towns. But it is his seeming non-reaction to what is so far a non-crisis that looks likely to deny him the majority he was seeking, and could even let in the opposition. In what is the first credit-crunch election in a big Western country, Mr Harper’s ejection would set a dispiriting precedent that panic plays better politically than prudence.

Hardest Custom To Adjust to in Chile

-- 1st Update: Kyle has organised a drawing for a good cause so I invite everybody to check out her post -- click here please. She's doing a giveaway of great products.

-- 2ndUpdate: See all the other posts on this topic
Sara
Heather
Abby
Rita (Colombia)
Lydia
Clare
Amanda
Kathleen (Ecuador)
Lori (Brazil)
Renee
Shannon
Katina
Emily
Tyffanie
Jessica
--end of updates


It was so much fun to take part in the group blogging before, that here we go again. People spoke, and voted for Hardest Custom To Adjust to in Chile. This is a tough one because I am Chilean, so how can I find anything hard to adjust in my own country? Should I write about customs in other countries where I had to adjust? There are many things I hate about the long and narrow strecth of land, but I want to focus now on three particularly irritating traits of the Homo chilensis which were always annoying for me, but once I was back home after living away I realised how absolutely irritating they are.

Let's start with socialising and intrusion. Chileans aren't as gregarious as Argentinians or Spaniards, and that's a good thing. But we like to hang out in groups and we like to call friend to anyone (the word Spanish for "acquaintance" is "conocido", and sounds awful). So people make friends and they can turn up at your door, unannounced, and expect you to receive them and invite them for tea (see Wikipedia entry for 'once'). Don't get me wrong, I like people coming over to my place. But please ring me in advance? At least tell me 'hey man I was passing by your neighbourhood—can I come over?'. Be warned that perhaps the day before I had an off day at work, and on the the way home I picked up a couple of movies and I want to watch them now and I had just order a pizza and it's gonna be delivered in 10 mins and I am not in the mood to be with anyone. I don't even want to explain all this, I just want to say 'no, sorry, not today', and if you're a good friend you will understand. But Chileans don't act like this. Not that I am a misanthropist, but I need space. And telephones were invented long ago, and they are there to be used. Use them.

I blame this on the fact that well into the 80s telephone sets were still an oddity on Chile. The state telephone company only catered for the middle classes, and when it was privatised, left-wingers immediately complained (well, little wonder if all the companies were being transferred to Pinochet's cronies), but in the end everyone got one. So for ever people got used to living without a phone. This sounds unreal now, I know, cause who doesn't have a mobile? Back in the 80s, it was a different story. News update: land lines, mobiles, and all sort of means of communication are readily available, so please announce you're coming. The 80s are gone. Thanks.

Which leads me to the second point (I promise, this time I'm trying to be brief). Why Chileans ring each other so late at night? Again, it was one of those things I never really liked, but once I came back after living abroad it became a nuisance like no other. If my phone rings after 9 pm, I think the person calling me has something important to say. If it rings after 10 pm, then it's something serious. After 11 pm, it's an emergency. In Chile they call you after midnight just to have a chat. Why then they can't call at 3 pm to announce they're coming instead of popping up out of nowhere? And, by the way, telephones are a means of communication. Phone conversations should not exist. They are uncomfortable. Just say want you want to say, ask whatever you want to ask, and once you said what you watned and got the answer to your question, please hang up.

I remember when I was little one of my uncles used to come down to my parents every weekend. They couldn't figure out a polite way to tell him to go away so they kept the blinds closed and when he came round and we saw his car, we went quiet. He knocked on the door but nobody would answer. It's been 20 years since then and I still find people doing similar things.

The above are all ways of hinchar, which means to annoy. And annoying, nosey people are known as hincha-pelota, as Kyle rightly describes them.

But now there's a new kind of hincha-pelota: the bloody beggars. They show up at the door, thinking that because they are poor is someone else's fault (i.e. your fault) so you have to give something to them, and even they think we should actually thank them because otherwise they could well be robbing us instead. So they just come and collect what you owe them. No, they don't offer to cut the grass, paitnt the walls, or do any kind of work. Nothing. Theit attitude is: "Hi, I'm poor, it's your fault, give me something now or else I'm gonna die and it'll be your fault. And remember, I could also rob you or kill you, so I'm being nice now".

I find that begging is the ultimate humiliation, for both beggar and the one giving a handout. Receving something without offering something else in exchange is humiliating (hence my total aversion against the so-called 'Welfare State', which is 'beg-thy-neighbour' institutionalised). I feel equally embarrased to give a handout. I'm not Rockefeller. Yes, I do have some spare change, but I'm not giving you any. You look young and perfectly healthy, don't bullshit me cause there are plenty of jobs out there, why don't you take one? Now it's even high-school students, they just stop people on the street and ask for spare change. The slang for begging is macheteo, check out that link. Every year I see more people begging on the streets, public transport, etc, but every year the economy grows. There are thousands of Peruvians and from other nations coming to Chile to work. How come they take those jobs and not the Chileans? I don't like beggars and I don't give any money to anyone, unless I am certain the money will be properly used. (No need to say how much I despise Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons and Canutos -evangelicals- who pop up at your door for the most idiotic reason of all: god exists, he loves me, he's all-powerful, but he also needs some money. No, I don't care about your religion, just go away.).

These patterns of behaviour are of course minutia, but shows that Chileans are unaware of each other's space. Individuality, respecting one another, knowing our own duty and minding one's own business are alien concepts. At a general level, even politically speaking, it explains why unquestioning obedience, uniformity, distrust and ridiculous acceptance of hierarchy pervades everything. This may explain our annoying bureaucracy, centralism, lack of creative thinking, inability to respectfully disagree with each other, poverty, lack of initiative and even lack of self respect. Lately, they have added this obsession with the creation of a Welfare State. Certainly, there are many good things about Chile, but I'm not going to ellaborate on those because I am Chilean so it's easier to moan and complain.

Perhaps the thing that bothered me the most when living abroad was to see ridiculous taxation levels. I will talk about that in a another post.

Morning-after pill: The case for Concertación Progresista

"Revenge is a dish best served cold"
Oscar Wilde

This blog endorses the centre-left Concertación, currently in government. In the coming local elections it's time to punish the right-wing Alianza for standing against the emergency contraceptive in particular, and their ultra-conservative stance in general

In this blog I have repeteadly argued that a woman should always have the freedom to decide whether to go ahead or not with an unplanned pregnancy. Earlier this year, Chile's Constitutional Tribunal--that impossibly unaccountable and biased all-powerful trace of the Pinochet dictatorship--ruled that a woman should not seek an emergency contraceptive in the state-run health centres, or else she's breaking the law. In other words, the Tribunal has decided that if a raped woman wants to ensure she is not going to get pregnant, well, she shouldn't.

The idiocy of the pro-life lobby is hard to fathom, and together with their natural allies in the right-wing Alianza (strongly religious and socially conservative) they should be feared. The Tribunal's ruling saw the light of day thanks to the invaluable help from a group of Alianza MPs who challenged the legality of a government resolution that ordered to purchase the morning-after pill to make it available in the public health system, on demand, by 14-year old girls or older. As expected, the Tribunal turned out to be a piece of legal folly that sparked massive protests staged in all Chile's main cities. After the controversy, nobody dared to ask why this contraceptive is ilegal when provided by the state, but why it remains legal if bought at the Chemist's. The reality is that that nobody dared to enforce the ruling in private pharmacies, where even some owners objected to sell it.

Now, with local elections underway and polling day looming (26th october), it's time for the electorate to punish the Alianza and vote for the candidates running in the lists presented by the centre-left Concertación. It's time now to express the anger in the ballot box, casting votes. Crucially, the public health centres are managed directly by mayors, and as expected, Concertación local governments will be less hostile to the distribution of the emergency contraceptive, illegal as it may be.

Why taking this pill is legitimate
The whole point of the verdict by the Tribunal can be summed up as follows: the morning-after pill may induce an abortion, and abortion is illegal in Chile, so it should never be used. It's important to highlight that Chile is one of the very few countries where abortion is prohibited under any circumstances, and it's even penalised, although no woman has been recently convicted under charges of abortion probably because no judge dares to enforce such tyrannical law.

Did you register to vote? The time is now then

Whether it's abortive-inducive or not, it's not quite the point in question. If it inhibits implantation of the embryo (in other words: if it causes an abortion), we need to keep in mind that abortion spontaneosuly occur even in planned pregnancies. The pro-life lobby seems indifferent to this fact of nature which poses the following uncomfortable question: if preventing the development of an embryo equals homicide, then why a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) is not a crime but an induced abortion is a punishable offence? Pro-lifers can't satisfactorily answer to this challenge. They fail to explain the reason why their God or whatever they call the Grand Architect etc has created women as natural-born embryo-killers.

If an embryo is likely to be aborted anyway, the fierce opposition to abortion shows the fundamental stupidity of the pro-life campaigners.

Feel the pain?
But there's more. I argue that inflicting pain to a living creature is what we really find repulsive. If your dog is irreversibly ill, you wouldn't stab him or drown him, but you find the way to put him down in a dignified, painless manner. In contrast, we don't think it's particulary abhorrent to kill an insect. This is because we don't want to deliberatley make another creature feel pain, and some beings can feel pain while others can't.

The case against an abortion of a developed foetus is because it's unnaceptable to make this human creature suffer, and for the foetus to experience pain it needs a nervous system and of course a brain--remember it's in the brain where pain is actually felt. The embryo is not only likely to be spontaneously aborted, but it's incapable of experiencing pain of any kind because it doesn't have a brain, and for that same reason, doesn't have a conscience. To put it bluntly, it's a bunch of cells that doesn't count as an individual, unless the mother thinks otherwise for personal convictions (religiuous beliefs, etc), in which case she's of course entitled to carry on with ther unplanned pregnancy.

In civilised societies a time limit has been determined where we can draw a line to establish the legal limit for an abortion. I suggest that this is set at 24 weeks into the pregnancy, when it is plausible to have a developed brain and where it is feasible for the embryo to survive. Sadly, in Chile there's no debate on this matter but it's about time to have our laws in line with the rest of the world (with Roe vs Wade, for instance), that's why a good start is the promotion of emergency contraceptives. Incidentally, they would help to prevent abortion in advanced foetuses, but the religious/right-wing/conservative lobby is not up for talks. If the conservatives claim that the super-powerful creature they worship is on their side, and apparently he's an unbreakable pro-lifer, there's not much to discuss with them (and no point in asking them explain the spontaneous-abortion bit, apparently their god is not as powerful as they believed, or he's sloppy when designing people). So at this local election is time to keep the conservatives out of government.

The same ones who ferociously oppose the morning-after pill also object to condoms, although the latter can't provoke an abortion. Their stance is indefensible mainly because it lacks consistency, and I suspect that their pro-life campaign is a nothing but a facade to stifle sexuality. It's this same section of the public opinion the ones who promote virginity and place images of "virgin mary" in various strategic locations (by the way, Mary--if she existed-- got pregnant at the age of 12, which under Chilean law renders the Holly Ghost a statutuory rapist).

Should a libertarian/liberal really vote for the left?
After voting for the left we can expect higher taxes, more bureaucracy, and a giant state. Nothing really palatable for free-marketeers like us. We want individuals empowered to decide for themselves and for that we need low taxes, a lean state and limited government. But a modern economy demands a modern society. As it stands, the left offers the best hope to liberalise social attitudes and to obliterate the absurd laws concerning reproductive rights, essential to fight poverty. There will be a chance in the future to fix the economy and clean up the mess.

Let's not forget that it's in the slums of Santiago and other major cities where poor and uneducated girls become teenage mothers. With no life skills and no chance of getting well-paid jobs, and confronted with unwanted pregnancies, they breed poverty and crime. It's in the state-run health centres where proper and robust sex education is needed, together with comprehensive plans for fertility control based on individual choice, not government coercion.

There's a golden rule in politics which says that voters should prefer the opposition if it offers a better chance of sound governance than the coallition in office. The right wing politicians have consistently proved they can turn Chile into a big Opus Dei branch.

For now, it's time to keep the progressive left in government, at least at municipality level.



Your comments are welcome.