Those are all excellent points. Thanks for a thought provoking post. I'll address issues in it point by point tomorrow, as I'm too tired now, but I thought I'd try to define Alejandro Ortiz better, to help forumites to speculate what he might do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tshiggins
If Col. Ortiz is a reactionary, he may think the current U.S. administration isn't doing enough to overthrow Morales, who any "Real 'Murrican" would consider just another Latin American Commie bound to ruin his country, just as Chavez did. Under those circumstances, Ortiz may not be working for the government of Bolivia, but he may be working for the well-heeled oil companies and mine owners in Bolivia.
Conversely, if Col. Ortiz has a strong indio heritage in which he takes considerable pride, he may actually have chosen to support Evo Morales in his efforts to create what he considers social stability and economic justice to people of Bolivia.
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Colonel
Alejandro Ortiz was born on the 28 of June 1971, in Goliad, Texas. At least some of his ancestors were aristocrats, real limpieza de sangre hidalgos, and all of his ancestors were Tejanos before the United States existed.
Politically, Ortiz would be either a hawkish liberal or a compassionate conservative, depending on who's defining. Ortiz is against the forcible redistribution of wealth, class warfare or any form of intergroup hatred, but in favour of
voluntary redistribution of wealth, strong safety nets and laws that ensure equal opportunity for all.
By upbringing, Ortiz disapproves of premarital sex, but he disapproves of it by indulgently encouraging favoured proteges to get married so they'll stop living in sin. And while he sternly admonishes his nieces and nephews to avoid sin and temptations, he was surprisingly cool about it when Chase Taylor (PC) dated his favourite niece for a while. It's pretty clear that Ortiz is a lot more open-minded about modern sexual mores than he pretends to be. Also, that no one in his family is at all bothered when he pretends to be a stern patriarch and his nieces and nephews seem quite willing to discuss their love-lives with him and ask his advice.
Pretty much the same seems to apply to the issue of same sex relations, as Ortiz theoretically considers it a sin, but practically, dotes on his gay nephew just as much as any of his other relatives and even had some choice words with his brother-in-law when that worthy had some trouble with accepting his son as he was. A case could even be made that Ortiz has never married and forms very close relationships with favoured subordinates...*
Ortiz has a strong sense of noblesse oblige** and is much more likely to have sympathies with the working poor than the established elite class. He hates bullies and bigots. He joined the US Army Special Forces because he believed wholeheartedly in their motto,
'De oppresso liber' ('From (the state of) oppressed (man), to (the state) of free (man)' or more colloquially, 'free the oppressed').
Ortiz is in favour of using military force for regime change, but only when this serves the cause of human rights by preventing worse harm, such as by removing leaders who massacre and victimise their own people or pose significant risks of destructive war to their neighbours.
I strongly suspect that Col. Ortiz has a very low opinion of Hugo Chavez and his presidency of Venezuela, but that wouldn't necessarily translate into a distaste for
all leftist politicians. Indeed, he admires many leftist figures, such as Antonio de Montesinos, Lourenço da Silva de Mendouça, Toussaint Louverture, Abbé Grégoire, Miguel Hidalgo, Simon Bolivar, Vicente Guerrero, Leo Tolstoy, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King and Gabriel García Márquez.
Ortiz probably saw Chavez as a hypocritical failed terrorist*** more concerned with his image than his people. And an utter incompetent, which for someone who seeks such absolute power is pretty much unforgivable, as only being better for his people than any alternatives makes the exercise of that kind of power legitimate in the eyes of Ortiz.
It wouldn't matter to Ortiz what political dogma someone claimed to believe if they were honest, capable and trustworthy.
*As far as our characters know, there is not even a hint that Ortiz ever behaved inappropriately toward any soldier in his career. Of course, that might be a sense of morality, due to the power inequality, and not lack of interest. Ortiz's proteges do tend to be handsome and charming. It wouldn't shock me if it turned out that Ortiz had been carrying a torch for some of them. It wouldn't shock Chase Taylor (PC), either, unless, of course, it turned out that Ortiz felt that way about him. Wouldn't that be an interesting complication?
**Though his family is not fantastically wealthy, by any means. They are simply respectably middle-class and his relatives tend to be hard-working, with a strong respect for education and a tendency to gravitate to careers where a sense of professional fullfilment is more likely than extreme wealth. A lot of his forefathers and -mothers have been soldiers, priests, sherrifs, doctors, nurses, politicians or activists.
***Not a value judgment or any kind of political commentary. It is simply an undisputed fact that Chavez planned and carried out assassinations and the taking of hostages for political purposes. He admitted this and spent a year in prison, but was later pardoned for his crimes.