But when I was younger and even more beautiful (is that even possible?), I went with a girl whose family lived in Caracas. One summer, we visited her family there and I met some important Venezuelans. Because I'm American, they hated me immediately. "What gives American the right to tell the world how to live?" they argued. "Because we kick ass," I replied.
Them: "America tells us how much they will pay for our oil. If we charge too much, they say they will stop buying from us. So they treat us like animals."
Me: "Then why don't you find someone else to buy your oil? It's not our fault that you only look to the closest country to sell to; start selling to other countries and the competition will make the oil more valuable because different countries might be willing to pay more for it."
These were not officially important people in the government I argued with, but sons of important people. And this was over twenty years ago, so these sons of important people could be important now. So like I say, the current price of oil could be my fault.
But I never told them to start a socialist dictatorship. That was their own idea.
