UDI Leader Arrested in Venezuela

The president of the far right Chilean UDI youth party has been detained in Venezuela. Rightfully, the party is very vocally calling on the Chilean government to do whatever it can to get him released.

The irony, of course, is that this is the party that stayed close to Augusto Pinochet and never embraced human rights. That may gradually be changing precisely because of younger members. Chilean democracy would be greatly strengthened as a result.

One interesting phenomenon in recent years is the left/right "shoe on the other foot." Leftists lauded human rights organizations until they started criticizing leftist governments. Conservatives hated those organizations during the Cold War and now embrace them. After years of supporting arbitrary detentions, now the right denounces them.

So either this pendulum will just keep going back and forth or we'll finally agree that there are universal rights.