Venezuela and Chavez
This my response to a Venezuelan friend/resident, who asked me if I’d observed direct evidence of Chavez’ likely alcoholism:
I have found nothing about Chavez directly. I have confirmed that most megalomaniac tyrants have been alcohol or other drug addicts. Addiction to psychotropic drugs (those capable of causing distortions of perception and memory in susceptible individuals) causes egomania. The reason for this is a key distortion that all alcoholics experience, one that makes them think that everything they do or say during a drinking episode is good and right, nothing bad or wrong. In other words, it makes them view everything they do/say in a self-favoring light. If you are always right and never wrong, you must be God.
This seems to feed on itself. Time and again I have tested this hypothesis with positive confirmations. Stalin, Mussolini, Eichmann, Ivan the Terrible were all alcoholics. Hitler was addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates (which have the same action on the brain of the addicts as alcohol); Mao, barbiturates. There is strong confirming evidence that Saddam and Kim Jong Il of N Korea (who I view as the most dangerous man ever–a megalomaniac alcoholic with nukes) are alcoholics. So is the head of Turkmenistan, who is likely as much a megalomaniac as Kim.
The problem, Daniel, is that nothing stops megalomaniacs driven by alcoholism except brute force. The behaviors _cannot_ change until sobriety occurs (which is _not_ merely abstinence). They will, in fact, get worse until the alcoholic succumbs to latter-stage alcoholism, when all he cares about is getting the drink. By the way, the commonly accepted definition requires loss of control over drinking. That’s a latter-stage symptom. The early-stage symptoms are behavioral, specifically bad behaviors driven by a need to inflate the ego. Unfortunately, successful ego-inflation seems to allow the addict to remain in the early stages of his/her disease for decades.
My heart goes out to you, Daniel, and your fellow countrymen. If it were me, I’d simply take him out. No arguing, no negotiating, no discussion. We cannot negotiate with chemistry.