"you'll just sit around...with the other trust-fund babies, and talk about how you went slumming, too"

Good Will Hunting! Check out these comments I found on Megan's post that excerpted Timothy Burke's sensible views on Zimbabwe.

Poor Nelson.

Specifically the thing that struck me most about Mugabe was his disregard for property rights and his love of power for its own sake. From this all other bad things followed

Methinks that when this ol' chap was a youn' buck, he attributed the monsters under his bed to the sharing of toys.

Meanwhile, Michael blames the rise of Mugabe on... "hidden cultural norms." Which I can only interpret as gangsta rap, watermelons, and hand lotion.

Sace some thanks for Moqui this fall. He's candid enough to just come flat out and praise Rhodesia for...get this... its racial equality.

It's not a choice between racism and riots: Its a choice between racism on one hand, and racism plus riots on the other. You seem to be completely discounting the high levels of anti-white racism within the Mugabe regime

Joe Doakes pe pe in my coke wishes for "Jason Bourne and James Bond...to kill annoying people in far-away places." Is Doakes saving his third wish to have Jack Bauer torture a pan-handler in Myanmar Burma? Sam is more succinct: "Look. It's real simple. Kill the bastard, now." You first.

The award for most contradictory comment goes to DirtyJobsGuy for this gem:

The best statement on Africa I ever heard was from a West African intellectual who said the west should stop treating them like children. His point was to hold africans to high standards and not to excuse the Mugabes.

From my personal experience there is a strong sentiment in much of africa for a neo-colonialism however improbable that might seem.

Stop treating us like children, but come be our daddy!

As much as I love excerpts, I have to quote this comment by RAH in full. Apologies:

African regimes devolve to dictatorships the most current example is Zimbabwe.
Rhodesia was the economic breadbasket of Africa. The civil servant system was the best. They was a high literacy rate, civilization flourished. Yet Jimmy Cater and Great Britain forced white minority rule to be subsumed in the “ enlightened” black thug Marxist regime of Robert Mugabe. Now inflation is over a million and starvation is rampant because the government stole the farms and burned the homes of the farm workers. Break up the white run farms and let the land die. That is better than prosperity right?
When will Jimmy Carter apologize for that and hang his head in shame? Surely that is a crime, right?

Colonial rule was a well run state and vast mobility and education for the black Rhodesians. The bureaucracy was run by black Rhodesians. The entire civil service was well established and very little corruption. The path for educated and trained black Rhodesians was there. This changed when a marxist power hungry Mugabe came to power over Muzorewa after Mugabe slaughtered some of the peace ministers sent to Mugabe to came to a power sharing agreement.

By any parameter Rhodesia was better than Zimbabwe.

Mmmmm....Take a little nibble of that and roll it around your palate. I suggest this: "They was a high literacy rate, civilization flourished." Mmmm... goodness.

At this point, like all African states have to do, the conversation devolves. Al Fin: "Mugabe was welcomed with open arms by Zimbabwean, much like David Dinkins was welcomed by New Yorkers, and Barak Obama will be welcomed by most Americans." Oi! Then, parody, by paul a'barge:

We're talking about Africa, folks. The place is absolutely hopeless and not able to be redeemed.

Let's just stop all foreign aid and involvement and let these poor folks make themselves extinct, shall we?

I mean, really. What's the point?

Megan, these are your fans.