Second, before you all censor Chavez for this, you ought to remember that as soon as Quakers became a minority in Philadelphia, all the wonderful things Quakers had managed to do were GONE. As Voltaire said, only ONE decent government has ever existed on Earth since Adam and Eve, and it only lasted 70 yrs in Philly. It was gone by 1757 ONLY because the majority wanted to murder Native Americans and French. That sure speaks well for democracy.

As a professor of math, chemistry and tutor of street children, I have seen a lot- and I know that there is no way that ANY kind of voting that includes more than a thousand people or so can be very ‘clean’. I don’t believe in ANY election being right, but they’re good for keeping wildmen at peace, since few people who’d make good leaders ever go into politics so it matters little who wins.

Most exceptions have been epileptic geniuses, and it is no blessing to have that kind of eps, which is genetic, BTW. My favorite in this group is Isaac Newton. Paez, first president of Venezuela also had the same type, as did Joan of Arc. These last 2 won battles the same way, not even knowing they were fighting, really. But Joan was burned at age 19, so her brain never went down due to the endless seizures, as did Paez, who was thus manipulated by the North to divide the Great Colombia (remember- divide and conquer?). BTW, today’s meds don’t let us have all these seizures, unless you’re in a poor country. Newton also may have managed well because they smoked a lot of opium back then, which is a very good med for the epilepsy.