As American conservatives, sometimes we’re so focused on exposing the creeping tyranny within our own borders we don’t always notice aggressive despotism in other hemispheres. But what’s happening in Venezuela right now should jar us out of our domestic concerns long enough to realize how fast things can go from bad to worse.
 
After Hugo Chavez assumed room temperature last year, Nicolas Maduro succeeded him as president of that troubled country. And, as Glinda said about the Wicked Witch of the West, he’s much worse than the other one I’m afraid~
 

 
Although the Obama administration is presently more subtle in its totalitarian maneuvering than this blatant oppression in Venezuela, we’re fools if we don’t see the ominous parallels between the two situations.

Related:
Venezuela president orders expulsion of three US diplomats
Venezuela on the edge of collapse? ~ from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air ~

Before Chavez, Venezuela was a successful petro-state with a significant middle class and stable economics. Then Chavez created a command economy, expropriated private property, and ruled by whim for most of his term as president/dictator. He managed that through brute force and a cult of personality, but his successor only has brute force to use.
 
This could get ugly quickly. Perhaps the American media might get interested in this story sometime soon, enough to report not just when the bullets fly, but why Venezuelans are marching in the streets and their government is at least tacitly allowing violence to drive them off.