For some time now, and for various reasons, politics tends to depress us. The quality of the debate, the lack of knowledge that is often displayed with an abundance of swagger and, in general, the lack of consistency in addressing the most pressing problems affecting our country. If politicians and pundits were barred from saying "we must," most of them would simply be left speechless. However, it is also fair to acknowledge that at other times they compensate us by giving us spectacular moments of humor — the best kind, the kind done with seriousness, a studied voice, and a furrowed brow. This past week, Congress approved, after many tribulations, the norms known as rules on the use of force, which regulate the way in which police and military personnel are authorized to apply force in internal security tasks. All well and good, until a group of deputies who are militants of the Communist Party presented a constitutional reform bill to require the Armed Forces to take human rights classes. I had to read it twice; I thought there must be a mistake, because as is obvious to anyone minimally informed about the last century and certain figures such as Stalin, Mao, Beria, and several others whose list would not fit in these few characters, communism has not been — and is not — precisely the beacon of human rights in the world. The fundamental problem is that it is not simply a matter of people who exercised power lacking any moral sense, but of champions of an ideology whose application inevitably runs along the path of ending essential freedoms, persecuting dissent, and confining anyone who threatens the imposition of their system. It would not be a bad idea for them, before attempting to impose certain studies on the Armed Forces, to leaf through some of Solzhenitsyn's work, in particular "The Gulag Archipelago." Václav Havel said, in few words and with his extraordinary lucidity, that "communism was defeated by life, by human thought, and by human dignity." At this point, this should be quite obvious; therefore, after the first smile that the logical rupture of seeing communist leaders preaching the teaching of human rights may provoke — Koestler said that in that rupture lies the impulse of laughter — it is inevitable to think that only a certain collective numbness can allow this to happen as if it were normal. The dream of a social-democratic left was just that, a dream that lasted little, and here we are again, as in the old days, with a left led by its most extreme versions, the dogmatic ones, the ones who raise their fist, the ones who understand politics as the path to some revolution, those Latin American versions that previously failed following Castro and "Che" Guevara and whose governments are now falling defeated one after another. All indications are that the next will be Lula. The Communist Party ordering the study of human rights. What do we do? Do we laugh? Better to wake up. By Gonzalo Cordero, lawyerNEWSLETTEROpinionSaturday, AMTense ideas, opposing views, and a clear analysis: elements to reveal the issues that divide opinions and will set the agenda. By subscribing you are accepting the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies of La Tercera.