Quote:
Originally Posted by cobraboy
I always mentally scratch my head when someone says they prefer peace under a brutal dictator and world isolation over a more chaotic life under freedom and exposure to the world.
I don't get it. 
I was born in 1952 in the Southern US. Times were more peaceful back then, too. 3 channels of TV, the worse crimes in school was chewing gum, "wait until your father comes home" had teeth, and the milkman left bottles in the little insulated box by the unlocked front door. |
Mr. Cobraboy, I certainly do not endorse nor condone living in a repressive dictatorship, but you must admit that today's DR. is much more oppressive due to high crime and governmental/police corruption than just twenty or so years ago.
In the forties, fifties and early sixties, DR experienced a brutal, totalitarian government, I admit. My point is that back then, you only had Trujillo and his goons to fear. Drug dealing and getting killed over a cheap item was unheard of. The police didn't/couldn't shake you down as it is regularly done today.
Life was less complicated and all was peaceful.
Back then, firearms were carried only by the military and other big shots. Today, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of civilians -don't really know for sure-, carry guns. The more guns in the streets, the easier to commit crimes.
I'm comparing people's life situations and relative security, not political dissimilarities.
I certainly do not "prefer" a Trujillo over a Balaguer or Fernandez, but I do long for the good ol' days when life was simpler everywhere in the world.