Sorry that you feel that I am not arguing in “good faith”; but, if you can show me an instance of such an argument in what I have written, I would be happy to consider your objection.

For both you and Dan, I never said, nor did I imply, that Allende’s election was not legitimate. It was absolutely legitimate.

What I said was, Allende was NOT popularly-elected; that is, he did not win the majority of votes cast by the public. He (more specifically, his leftist coalition) won only a plurality of the votes cast (36.2%). In the absence of an absolute majority, the Chilean Constitution required that congress select the president. Allende’s Unidad Popular coalition in concert with the left-of-center Christian Democrats, who received 27% of the popular vote, voted together in congress to elect Allende president. Under Chile’s Constitution at the time, this makes his election absolutely legitimate.

I would like to point out that George W. Bush did not win the popular vote when he won his first term as President, i.e., he was not popularly-elected. He was elected President because he won the most Electoral College votes and was subsequently elected president by the Electoral College. Bush received 50,460,110 votes to Al Gore’s 51,003,926; but, he received 271 Electoral College votes to 266 for Gore.

To my mind, there is no question that that the Chamber of Deputies did not have the Constitutional power to initiate a coup against the Allende government. I believe that what they did was absolutely illegal. One can only speculate about why they took such a radical step; but, my guess is that there were several reasons. First, the country was in a severe social and economic crisis and was on the verge of collapse, with an annual inflation rate in excess of 500%, and a severe shortage of necessities that had become available only on the black market. Second, I would speculate that they believed that he intended to establish a totalitarian regime, and in view of his blatant disregard for the law and courts, he would not surrender power even if impeached; and, would, perhaps, even turn to his friend Fidel Castro to intervene on his behalf.

You can read the “Declaration of the breakdown of Chile’s Democracy” which is the document created by the Chamber of Deputies requesting Allende’s removal here:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Breakdown_of_Chile%E2%80%99s_Democracy

The irony of their actions is that by initiating a coup, they facilitated the establishment of a right-wing totalitarian regime run by a dictator backed by the power of the Chilean military.

Dan,

So far as I can determine, Allende attempted to have his agenda enacted into law by the congress, even though some of it would have apparently been unconstitutional, but for the most part was unsuccessful.

At some point in his tenure, he was publically opposed by even the left-of-center Christian Democrats who were originally allied with his coalition in congress. Some of this parting of the ways seems to have come about because of his willingness to disregard the law and ignore the courts to implement his extra-legal agenda.

I have excerpted a couple of the points from the Chamber of Deputies “Declaration of the breakdown of Chile’s Democracy” (See link above) which seem to cast some light on this issue:

5. That it is a fact that the current government of the Republic, from the beginning, has sought to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state and, in this manner, fulfilling the goal of establishing a totalitarian system: the absolute opposite of the representative democracy established by the Constitution;

6. That to achieve this end, the administration has committed not isolated violations of the Constitution and the laws of the land, rather it has made such violations a permanent system of conduct, to such an extreme that it systematically ignores and breaches the proper role of the other branches of government, habitually violating the Constitutional guarantees of all citizens of the Republic, and allowing and supporting the creation of illegitimate parallel powers that constitute an extremely grave danger to the Nation, by all of which it has destroyed essential elements of institutional legitimacy and the Rule of Law; …

NO one deserves anything. There are no “rights” and thinking otherwise is foolish.

Are you arguing that there are no positive rights (The state must supply employment, The state must supply housting), no negative rights (The state may not suppress speech, The state may not confiscate arms), or both?