U.S. Policy and Paternalism

The Heritage Foundation has some policy prescriptions for U.S. policy toward Latin America. They're actually pretty innocuous for a very conservative think tank (make Costa Rica a priority??).

What jumps out immediately, though, is the tone, which is openly paternalistic. The U.S. has superior values, Latin America is in need of these values (the word "need" is in fact used because Venezuelans will need reforms and we should plan what they could look like) and so the U.S. needs to teach them. Much of that they are doing now is inferior and not working as well as it could if they would just listen to us. We also need to use our intelligence agencies to clean up your messes. You Latin Americans are so messy.