The US has reimposed economic sanctions against a Venezuelan state-owned mining company and says it could go on to reimpose further sanctions on the country’s oil and gas sector after Venezuela’s Supreme Court barred main opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado from running for president last week.
The US Treasury on Monday revoked General License 43, which had authorized dealings with mining conglomerate CVG-Minerven. The Treasury said US companies have until February 13 to wind down transactions that were previously authorized by that license.
While US economic sanctions against the mining company are unlikely to cause significant damage to the Venezuelan economy, the US State Department has crucially signaled it intends to renew oil and gas sanctions from April 18, if there’s no progress between Venezuela’s authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro and the opposition “particularly on allowing all presidential candidates to compete in this year’s elections,” it said in a statement.
First of all, all censorship and undemocratic laws are justified by “protecting the people” from dangerous ideas, case and point, the Kids Online Safety Act, the problem being, who defines what is bad or good? and the fact of the matter is that people on power will always conveniently decide that the opposition is “dangerous” and “extremist”.
Secondly, the US system, as broken as it is today, actually started in a time where there were no political parties and as such, it was a popularity contest between whoever wanted to run, and still is to a point, had the system not had been enveloped by them.
Finally, the point of the location of birth is that most people tend to be faithful to their nation, especially the one they were born (of course it is not linear, but it is a reasonable rule)
That’s the point. It’s not fascism if it serves the purpose of benefiting everyone, it’s just a rule.