It's basically the left wing version of how right wingers support military despots, except in left wing movements that have gone off the rails the criminal underclasses thrive, as they are used as a paramilitary against their enemies. See Hobsbawm's works on social banditry for the history of this, also see Tom Wolfe's Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.

Of course, if you point this out to "progressives" they'll call you a racist, as successful revolutions against "the man" are considered sacred.

Only in strawman world, apparently.

I find your comment to lack nuance. I'm opposed to Chavez, I think he's a failure as a leader. However, there's a false dichotomy that's often created in discussions such as these.

There are economic and social principles that I find to be positive for countries like Venezuela. If I say that I support those principles, many people (such as yourself) have a hard time not reading that as support for Chavez as a steward of those principles. Even though nothing I said in my comment about Chavez was positive in any way.

On the other side, if I state that I'm opposed to Chavez, that doesn't mean that I would support things like privatization of their oil reserves, or a dismantling of the social welfare programs or a move away from neighorhood democracy, all of which I think are important programs for pulling a country like Venezuela out of poverty and disarray and into a state of social health and prosperity.

If the principles have been tried in dozen of countries over the last 90 years, and the results most of the time have been much worse than capitalistic countries like the U.S, then maybe the principles should not be used to organize a society or a government until there is fundamental progress on the art of governance.

Yes, I saw your reference to Rwanda. I doubt the accuracy of the stats on Rwanda. None of the dozens of expats and world travelers who post here and no one I have seen anywhere else on the internet has said anything positive about the prospect of living in Rwanda.

Social democracy has as much of a claim to success as anything the U.S. has done. And I'm talking about principles like education, health care access, food and water access, infrastructure investment, and direct democracy.

It seems to me if you're referring to "principles" such as central planning and autocracy, which is not what I'm referring to, then I would agree that those have been obvious failures. But if you read what I've written, nowhere did I praise those principles.

So I would ask what principles you think I'm referring to?

about the prospect of living in Rwanda.

Compared to 15 years ago? This isn't about comparing Rwanda to countries which have been stable. If you follow their trajectory towards community-driven healthcare (which has adopted the Partners in Health approach), and building an information infrastructure, it's a positive trajectory. You can't take that away simply because people still prefer to live in the U.S. or Europe.