Venezuela through the lens of good and evil
I woke up yesterday morning happy and relieved that the Venezuelan people were finally free of their brutal dictator.
I ended the day angry and depressed that Trump, as it turns out, does not seek to turn over Venezuela to María Corina Machado and her inspiring democracy movement—the pro-Western, Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning, slam-dunk obvious, already electorally-confirmed choice of the Venezuelan people—but instead seeks to cut a deal with the remnants of Maduro’s regime to run Venezuela as a US-controlled petrostate.
I confess that I have trouble understanding people who don’t have either of these two reactions.
On one side of me, of course, are the sneering MAGA bullies who declare that might makes right, that the strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must, and that the US should rule Venezuela for the same reason why Russia should rule Ukraine and China should rule Taiwan: namely, because the small countries have the misfortune of being in the large ones’ “spheres of influence.”
But on my other side are those who squeal that toppling a dictator, however odious, is against the rules, because right is whatever “international law” declares it to be—i.e., the “international law” that’s now been degraded by ideologues to the point of meaninglessness, the “international law” that typically sides with whichever terrorists and murderers have the floor of the UN General Assembly and that condemns persecuted minorities for defending themselves.
The trouble is, any given framework of law needs to do at least one of three things to impose its will on me:
- Compel my obedience, by credibly threatening punishment if I defy it.
- Win the assent of my conscience, by the force of its moral example.
- Buy my consent through reciprocity: if this framework will defend my family from being murdered, I therefore ought to defend it.
But “international law,” as it exists today, fails spectacularly on all three of these counts. Ergo, as far as I’m concerned, it can take a long walk off a short pier.
Against these two attempted reductions of right to something that it isn’t, I simply say:
Right is right. Good is good. Evil is evil. Good is liberal democracy and the Enlightenment. Evil is authoritarianism and liars and bullies.
Good, in this case, is Maria Machado and the Venezuelans who went to prison, who took to the streets, who monitored every polling station to prove Edmundo González’s victory. Evil is those who oppose them.
But who gets to decide what’s good and what’s evil? Well, if you’re here asking me, then I decide.
But don’t the evildoers believe themselves to be good? Yes, but they’re wrong.
It’s crucial that I’m not appealing here to anything exotic or esoteric. I’m appealing only to the concepts of good and evil that I suspect every reader of this blog had as a child, that they got from fables and Disney movies and Saturday morning cartoons and the like, before some of them went to college and learned that those concepts were naïve and simplistic and only for stupid people.
Look: I regularly appear, to my amusement and chagrin, in Internet lists of the smartest people on earth, alongside Terry Tao and Garry Kasparov and Ed Witten. I did publish my first paper at 15, and finished my PhD in theoretical computer science at 22, and became an MIT professor soon afterward, yada yada.
And for whatever it’s worth, I’m telling you that I think the “naïve, simplistic” concepts of good and evil of post-WWII liberal democracy were fine all along, and not only for stupid people. In my humble opinion. Of course those concepts can be improved upon—indeed, criticism and improvement and self-correction are crucial parts of them—but they’re infinitely better than the realistic alternatives on offer from left and right, including kleptocracy, authoritarianism, and what we’re now calling “the warmth of collectivism.”
And according to these concepts, María Machado and the other Venezuelans who stand with her for democracy are good, if anything is good. Trump, despite all the evil in his heart and in his past, will do something profoundly good if he reverses himself and lets those Venezuelans have what they’ve fought for. He’ll do evil if he doesn’t.
Happy New Year, everyone. May goodness reign over the earth.
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Comment #1 January 4th, 2026 at 1:06 pm
The stated rationale for the Trump preferring to keep the current Venezuelan administration around versus working with Maria Machado is that Machado lacked a “day-after” plan for Venezuela. Now, considering that she’s been in hiding for years fearing assassination and had to be covertly smuggled via US assistance to reach Oslo to accept her Nobel Peace Prize, it seems unreasonable to expect a fully prepared plan.
Nonetheless, the question remains: even if America was willing to assist, does Machado have a viable path to achieving a monopoly on the use of legitimate force in Venezuela? The current Venezuelan regime currently possesses it (with the help of Cuba, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Venezuelan Military, and various other unsavory characters), and the way that this situation turns into a quagmire is for that tenuous monopoly to be splintered into Civil War. Considering those risks, it’s understandable why the current administration would take the approach it has taken. My future hope would be a truly free and fair election in Venezuela, one where America assures that, should Machado or her party win power, an actual transfer of power occurs.
Comment #2 January 4th, 2026 at 1:17 pm
Freeman Dyson wrote a lot about this kind of thing in Disturbing the Universe, especially with regards to how he thinks the nuclar arms race could have been ended under Krushchev but the opportunity was missed.
Comment #3 January 4th, 2026 at 1:58 pm
I don’t know if you consider prediction markets to be a reliable source of info, but they seem to think that it’s probable that Machado or Gonzales will be the leader of Venezuela by the end of the year, rather than Rodriguez or Maduro ( https://kalshi.com/markets/kxvenezuelaleader/who-will-be-the-head-of-state-of-venezuela-on-date/kxvenezuelaleader-26dec31 , https://polymarket.com/event/venezuela-leader-end-of-2026 ). Manifold Markets also has only 16% chance that the US will “run” Venezuela. ( https://manifold.markets/Balasar/will-the-us-run-venezuela ).
Comment #4 January 4th, 2026 at 2:37 pm
I’m not sure what game is being played here, except that the main intended goal doesn’t seem to be the well-being of the people of Venezuela. Likely, it’s the old game of war and dominance over resources. Both Trump and María Corina Machado have asked for war, instability, deterrence of Venezuela’s allies, and the control of Venezuela’s oil by the US. Nobel Peace Prize has made terrible mistakes in the past and will continue to do so to the point of losing its credibility, so I wouldn’t enter that in the calculations. The outcome may very well end up being a net positive for the people of Venezuela, which should be celebrated if it eventually turns out to be the case (way too early to call now). But in any case, it’s important to make the distinction between that being the intended goal or a collateral of a very different game.
Comment #5 January 4th, 2026 at 2:47 pm
I live in a country that has the misfortune of being in one of the ‘spheres of influence’ in the MAGA bully worldview you described. I believe there is a very realistic chance that, once Putin manages to rid himself of the war with Ukraine, my country will be the next on the list. An invasion, of course, needs a justification, so if it ever occurs, one will be provided. So I know that any such attack will be preceded by a campaign to frame us as evil, basically nazis or whatever, and undeserving of running our own affairs. The campaign is, in fact, going on at the moment. I expect that many of the MAGA types will eventually buy this narrative, and that so will many others.
I’m not saying this to deny that the Maduro regime is evil, or that the Maduro regime being evil is similarly a fabricated narrative. But perhaps this explains why some of us really hope that you guys took international law, really, the idea that countries with powerful militaries shouldn’t just be allowed to attack weaker countries to do what’s good from their point of view, seriously.
Comment #6 January 4th, 2026 at 2:48 pm
I of course generally agree with what you say.
The only thing is that I believe international law and rules-based international order are one of the great achievements of the Enlightenment. It is our achievement which we need to rescue from the crackpots who are reminded of it only when the bad guys are in trouble and not something to commit to the flames.
Comment #7 January 4th, 2026 at 3:19 pm
It might be one of the accidentally good decisions. The worst possible outcome right now is the factional strife if a third party is established as a notional leader. This happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Keeping the status quo will calm down the local ruling elites, reducing the risk of guerrilla warfare.
As for oil, it’s not going to matter in the near term. Maduro mismanaged the country so much that the oil export fell from 2 million barrels to just about 600k barrels. It’s going to take years and tens of billions of dollars in foreign investments to rebuild it.
Longer term, oil can help to stabilize the country. Right now all the factions are fighting for literal scraps, for the right to rob local companies out of pennies. Oil income will make all that completely inconsequential.
Comment #8 January 4th, 2026 at 3:59 pm
When I woke up to the news, I felt torn: On one hand, yes, Maduro’s downfall is a good thing. On the other hand, this feels completely wrong – but I couldn’t quite articulate _why_ it feels wrong. And I really didn’t like the reasons people were giving for why it was wrong. No, we shouldn’t let dictators hide behind sovereignty. No, we shouldn’t insist on a traditional invasion that kills thousands of foot soldiers (and civilians) before capturing the leader.
I agree with your view that foreign policy should be more driven by “good vs evil” and less by “process”.
After having a day to digest it, I’m still glad that Maduro is gone, but my heart sinks when asking what’s next? There doesn’t seem to be any plan other than to let the VP continue the regime, but with a friendlier attitude towards the US.
That said, I still can’t get over how absurd the “process” was. Congress was kept in the dark supposedly because it’s just a law enforcement operation, not a war. That’s absurd – imagine if a foreign power killed 40 people on US soil and abducted the President – would anyone pretend that isn’t an act of war?
And, speaking of law enforcement, why does the jurisdiction of US law extend to Venezuela? In particular, one of the charges Maduro faces is about possessing machine guns. Isn’t every leader of a country with an army guilty of that?
As much as I don’t care about process …really?
Comment #9 January 4th, 2026 at 4:04 pm
Reader #5: If Putin invades your country, whichever one it is, I can guarantee I’ll be on this blog urging the US and NATO to defend you. I of course favor the norm that countries don’t invade each other, and certainly don’t invade liberal democracies, without a damn good reason. But I disagree on one point: to whatever extent that norm is upheld, I don’t think it’s because of “international law” as it currently exists. It’s simply because liberal democracies that more-or-less internalized the lessons of WWII were the reigning powers on earth. So the latter is the thing I want to fight for, both internationally and within the teetering liberal democracies.
Comment #10 January 4th, 2026 at 4:27 pm
The international community needs laws at least as much as human society does and for much the same reasons, so it was chilling, Scott, to hear you dismiss this need so casually while replacing it with nothing. Because it will be replaced by something and that is the law of the jungle. If international law is failing spectacularly, that is a reason for improving it dramatically not getting rid of it completely.
PS Anyway,have a Happy New Year!
Comment #11 January 4th, 2026 at 4:38 pm
David #10: Fine, improve it then! The day the UN stops spending more than half of its time condemning tiny Israel for defending itself against genocidal neighbors, and starts standing up to the world’s actual autocratic regimes, that’s the day I’ll believe that “international law” can exist as a concept capable of doing more good than harm.
In the brief 1945-1949 window when the US had a nuclear monopoly, there were many famous intellectuals (including, briefly, even Bertrand Russell!) who urged the US to seize the opportunity to impose a world government under American leadership, as the last best hope of averting World War III. However uncomfortable that idea makes us, I can’t help but reflect that it might’ve been vastly preferable to what we now have instead. At least, if we were also able to keep the US under the leadership of people of the caliber of Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy rather than Trump.
Comment #12 January 4th, 2026 at 4:57 pm
Maduro’s capture is followed by a news that certain oil company of US will be involved in Venezuela. It’s unlikely for the purpose of justice and emancipation, instead, in the name of.
Comment #13 January 4th, 2026 at 5:23 pm
If imposing full regime change and installing radical alt-right Trump ally Machado is your only misgiving, I think you just need a little patience. I am sure the Trump administration will insist on “free and fair” elections once they establish control. Maybe that will be better for the Venezuelan people than Maduro’s rule. It will certainly be better for Machado’s American oil industry sponsors.
Comment #14 January 4th, 2026 at 5:26 pm
Welker #13: Do you consider it irrelevant that 70% of Venezuelans voted for her—or rather for Gonzalez, who the regime allowed as her stand-in? I want who Venezuelans voted for. You don’t?
Comment #15 January 4th, 2026 at 6:10 pm
There is actually a fair degree of reciprocity in international law. Maybe not reciprocity that *you* have consented to, but then you’re not a nation.
The nations of the world, have largely consented for a long time to a reciprocal principle of not killing, kidnapping, or otherwise messing with the heads of state or government of other nations outside of actual declared wars(*), and for the most part of not declaring wars for the sole purpose of getting rid of an unwanted foreign leader. Note that the closest parallel to the recent Venezuelan kerfluffle was the US invasion of Panama and capture of Manuel Noriega – which only happened after the Panamanian government issued a formal declaration of war against the United States and shot a bunch of American soldiers. The Venezuelan government hasn’t declared war on us, hasn’t (except possibly in self-defense yesterday) shot at any of our people, and for that matter Trump also is claiming that the US isn’t at war with Venezuela.
Abandoning that generally accepted principle, may cause a sort of blowback we really don’t want to see. It’s all well and fun to imagine the Good Guys bringing all the Evil Dictators to justice, but reciprocity happens. And tactically, it’s easier for the forces of Evil to simply assassinate someone than it is for the forces of Good to seize them from their stronghold and bring them to trial. For that matter, it’s easier for Evil dictators to hide out in very secure strongholds than it is for the Good Guys who have to win democratic elections.
Last week, Evil Dictators mostly didn’t try to assassinate e.g. American presidents, because spending your life hiding in a random series of bunkers is no fun at all and not worth the mediocre benefit of replacing one POTUS with another only marginally more favorable to their interests. Now, many of those Evil Dictators are faced with a lifetime playing the bunker shell game no matter what, so what do they have to lose?
Trump is probably safe – he’s really good at cozying up to Evil Dictators, so most of the people who would be up for assassinating a US president are probably going to want to keep him safe. And maybe J.D. Vance will inherit that mantle. But I thought most of us here were hoping to elect someone better in 2028, someone more likely to be solidly one of the Good Guys. Now we have to wonder whether that guy will even make it to inauguration day.
* Yes, the ICC sometimes issues arrest warrants for heads of state, but it’s generally understood that those aren’t going to matter unless and until that head of state has left office and even then probably only if he’s foolish enough to engage in foreign travel.
Comment #16 January 4th, 2026 at 6:41 pm
Scott, do you believe that the capture of Maduro by a military operation was legal under US law? This is not a question of international law, but rather of powers of different branches of government. This is intended as a yes/no question.
Comment #17 January 4th, 2026 at 6:52 pm
@John Schilling #15
Thank you for the informative reminder about the Panamanian comparison.
Comment #18 January 4th, 2026 at 7:03 pm
matt #16: That’s a very different question, but no, if we still had a legal system in the US that functioned as it did in the pre-Trump era, I believe it would not have ruled this legal. (But also, that the current Congress would’ve given Trump permission, had he bothered to ask.)
Comment #19 January 4th, 2026 at 7:09 pm
Scott, as usual, I had much the same reactions as you. Do I think it a good idea for the US to be sending delta force to topple foreign leaders? No. Am I glad that a brutal dictator is gone? Yes. Am I surprised Trump is acting the way he is and trying to steal the resources from another country? Not in the slightest.
As for international law, how about just good old constitutional law? Remember how congress is supposed to be the decider about getting involved in wars? It isn’t even a pretense anymore. Think anyone will stand up when he does the same to Greenland? Any chance a court will take him to task for violating treaties that our congress HAS ratified? No. International law can’t be blamed when we don’t even have the semblance of domestic.
Comment #20 January 4th, 2026 at 7:09 pm
@Scott OP
Charlie (#1) makes a good point – it is very understandable to wish Machado to become president, but there’s a reason why Maduro could successfully enforce his rule. The power structures that enabled him to do so are almost entirely intact, and almost entirely still loyal to his regime (for now at least). Is it just Maduro’s physical presence or lack thereof that makes the difference between them keeping power and losing it?
So either there is a civil war, or USA gets heavily involved at a local level in a way it clearly mismanaged time and again – or Venezuela is left to try and find its own way, hopefully with a higher chance of it choosing the right one.
To the extent a reluctance to turn Venezuela into another Iraq was behind the decision not to enforce Machado’s presidency, is it evil – or just common sense?
Comment #21 January 4th, 2026 at 7:27 pm
B_E #20: The overwhelming reason not to expect Venezuela to become “another Iraq” (or “another Afghanistan”) is simply that Venezuela, unlike those other places, actually had a rightfully elected, pro-Western leader who 70% of the population supported. As with many other dictatorships, Venezuela simply couldn’t solve the coordination problem of replacing the dictator by the rightful leader. If, after decapitating the regime, Trump had made it common knowledge that solving that coordination problem and installing the rightful leader was the goal, isn’t it plausible that the Venezuelan people would’ve done the rest?
In Iraq and Afghanistan, by contrast, we had the vastly harder problem of creating the cultural prerequisites to liberal democracy so that there could be a liberal, pro-Western leader in the first place with grassroots majority support. We still could’ve potentially solved that problem, if we’d even understood the problem, but given how many false assumptions we entered with, it’s unsurprising with hindsight how poorly we fared. And now we’re massively overgeneralizing from that failure.
Comment #22 January 4th, 2026 at 7:36 pm
@Scott #21: so what happens to all the military/ police/ … who fairly openly say they will not accept Machado? You’re making good points about the advantages of current-day Venezuela vs Iraq, but there’s also a disadvantage – the presence of a well-organized military opposing you. 70% is not 95%, particularly if those 30% are heavily armed and heavily invested in the status quo.
I do hope there is a relatively fair election soon and that if its winner is being forcefully denied their leadership, then the threat of further US action is (should be?) on the table. But that’s not the same as declaring Machado to be the leader right now.
Comment #23 January 4th, 2026 at 7:42 pm
@Adam Treat #19: this is not (yet) a war, in ways that aren’t only pretense. In any case, there are many, many examples of presidents conducting special operations, sometimes intense special operations, without congress approval. Were you outraged when Obama launched his operation against ISIS? Sure, his administration argued this could be justified as part of the previously approved actions against Al-Quaeda, but at this point we’re back to whose pretense is thinner. Personally I’m happy Obama took that action and I think there’s a good chance Trump’s operation in Venezuela ends up being a net positive. But I don’t see it as being shockingly worse in terms of “due process”.
Comment #24 January 4th, 2026 at 8:25 pm
OMG, here’s proof that we live in many worlds and that I ended up in one which I never thought to end up in.
I mean, once we get into the “we do what I think is right” territory, that’s a very slippery slope to be. Everybody think they are right, so we now live in the world where the US is like Russia and China (which do what they think is right, with pretty much impunity). Which is unsurprising, given Trump. What is surprising is that Scott thinks this is an improvement compared to the previous status quo!!! Or maybe I misunderstood?
Folks, Trump clearly doesn’t give a s*** about anything, he’s just envy of Obama and Machado and thinks that toppling a dictator would win him the Nobel price.
He doesn’t give a s*** about drugs (otherwise he would not have pardoned Hernandez, who was convicted for that, rather than having had just allegation — however convincing), and perhaps not even about oil (however some of his donors/supports/advisers do and probably have a stake in Chevron).
Plus, when does this stops? Why Maduro and not Putin? Okay, nukes. Why not the other hundreds-odd bad leaders around the world, who have weak enough military to not pose us more threat. Are we going for the “just war” once again and Scott likes it?? OMG, what can of worms we have opened, I wish I was never born or at least (since I had no control there), I wish I had the decency of not bringing innocent children here, what a mistake I made!!!
Comment #25 January 4th, 2026 at 9:03 pm
DeI #24: Of course I’m going to advocate doing what I think is right! What’s the alternative, to advocate doing what I think is wrong?
I thought I was pretty clear, in this post, that
(1) replacing the brutal dictator Maduro by the (I repeat) democratically elected Machado or Gonzalez would be a triumph of good over evil, regardless of what motivated it, but
(2) replacing Maduro by a different brutal dictatorship, as it appears Trump wants to do, is probably worse than doing nothing at all. (More precisely: if that turns out good, it will be despite our best efforts to the contrary.)
Comment #26 January 4th, 2026 at 9:54 pm
I have to say I’m pretty surprised (though I don’t know if I should be) that you’re being so credulous about all of this. Is there any reason whatsoever, given all we’ve seen from this administration, for us to believe that they care about the lives of Venezuelans and did this just to protect their democracy and make sure they wake up happy tomorrow morning? And even if we talk ourselves into believing that extracting resources from a foreign nation is Good Actually, has this administration convinced you in any way whatsoever that they’ll manage to do that well and not get distracted by their next toy project in the middle of this ongoing “occupation”? Is there even a single reason to believe that Trump will appoint a democratically elected leader after this, seeing as the reason Machado didn’t take over was that she committed the grave sin of accepting a Nobel Peace Prize instead of redirecting it to Trump?
It also seems your complete disregard for the UN is because they condemn Israel from doing a genocide (as they say) against its genocidal (as you say) neighbors. Even if I accept that particular view of things, how does that particular scenario as a standalone in any way signify that international law does more harm than good?
I let out a chuckle at you using Mamdani’s “the warmth of collectivism” alongside “kleptocracy” and “authoritarianism.” I myself disagree with a good number of the new Mayor’s proposed policies, but surely you meant that as a joke.
Comment #27 January 4th, 2026 at 10:36 pm
Didier Drogba’s headband #26: I’m confident that Trump doesn’t care about the lives of Venezuelans, much less about their democracy (he doesn’t even care about ours). He cares about projecting dominance and power, his jealousy over Machado winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and other utterly contemptible motives. All the same, actual Venezuelans have been celebrating these past two days, seeing the first hope in years of reclaiming their country. And I care about them a lot more than I care about Trump.
There are individual UN agencies that do good work, but the problem with the UN is deep and structural. The obsessive focus on preventing the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and their children and grandchildren from defending themselves against a new genocide is merely the easiest proof of what’s broken. The problem is that the General Assembly is dominated by governments that stone women for adultery, that sentence gays and lesbians to death, that barely even pretend to hold competitive elections, etc. The “international law” voted on by such governments is of interest to me only insofar as are the commands barked at me by an armed robber or a schoolyard bully—i.e., they’re things I might need to obey until it’s in my power not to.
That Mamdani could unironically utter a phrase like “the warmth of collectivism,” tells me that he sees the hundred million starved and murdered victims of collectivism in the past century as a kind of joke, totally irrelevant to his project. (Just like the right-wingers’ Heil salutes and so forth, show that they see the victims of Nazism as a joke.) That would indeed be consistent with everything else Mamdani has said and done in his career. His voters might have the excuse of actually being as breathtakingly ignorant of history as they seem, but I give Mamdani himself too much credit for that.
Comment #28 January 4th, 2026 at 10:39 pm
@Didier Drogba’s headband #26: you wrote,
“Is there any reason whatsoever, given all we’ve seen from this administration, for us to believe that they care about the lives of Venezuelans and did this just to protect their democracy and make sure they wake up happy tomorrow morning?”
Just thought (since I’ve been watching the Jack Smith deposition) I’d remind everyone that Trump himself tried to subvert a free and fair election. So no, he is the last person I’d trust on this.
Comment #29 January 5th, 2026 at 2:18 am
Trump took a realistic step in the right direction, maybe helped by somebody reasonable inside the Venezuela regime. The bigger step has to be done by people in Venezuela. Machado can risk to try winning realistic elections.
Comment #30 January 5th, 2026 at 2:39 am
First and foremost: I wish you and all the other readers a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year!
—
To me a large part of this post is a version of “better a good king than a messy democracy”.
International law is messy and up for discussion. The UN accepts hateful speeches. International assemblies move slow and cannot react to acts of wrongdoing. And even if they do, it’s often more of a “slap on the wrist” than a real reaction.
But what’s the alternative? Concentrate power in one place and trust (hope?) this one place stays “good”?
Yes, if we could fully trust the US, then it would be great to have it as the guardian of all things good. But, we cannot, as was demonstrated by the election, non-election and uprising, and then re-election of Trump.
There may come a time when the world needs to rescue the USA from itself (that chance is very small, but not unthinkable).
All the options are bad, IMHO:
– Consensus: slow and will be sabotaged by bad actors
– Majority: faster, but will be sabotaged and/or subverted
– Majority with guardians (the current UN with P5): when the guardians include Russia and China that’s not really going to work either.
(and the above options allow idiots like the Taliban a voice.)
– Defer to a small group of legal scholars (example the ICC): these can get detached from the world so much that the ‘book-reality’ doesn’t align with ‘actual-reality’
– The good king: USA as solo team world-police. There’s a long list of ‘failed coups/wars” that suggest this is not ideal
– The European project: countries team up and open borders into a kind-of-superstate but keep local regulations and pile up ever-more bureaucracy. This brings so much stability it stifles innovation.
The best option, in my opinion, are ad-hoc alliances of equal partners. These bring in enough variation of opinions to smooth out rough edges (or block really bad ideas), but can be decisive and fast in response to a crisis.
Currently, the US does not really have equal partners. It _treated_ France, Germany, UK, Canada, Australia (etc) as equal partners in the past – and the world was better for it.
Checks and balances need to be in place, and currently it seems there are not so many for Team-Trump. Neither nationally nor internationally.
—
Good and bad are ethical concepts and can be measured along three axes:
1. The Law. According to international law (and most likely US law, we’ll see), the invasion and capture of a foreign head-of-state is wrong.
2. Intention. The stated intention of the US government as far as I understand is: “Maduro is bad because of drugs”. The brutal-dictator part is less a fundamental part of the argument. But is this _really_ the intention? Trump quickly dropped the veil on this by continuously emphasizing the Venezuelan oil-production…
3. Outcome. Maduro is gone, that’s a good thing. Machado is not back, that’s a bad thing. Zooming out more, this action provides a template for _bad actors_ to do similar actions. It also undermines the legitimacy of international law, which is especially problematic for smaller countries. For all the trouble with international law, it _does_ provide guidelines and security for these countries.
There are obvious good actions (like your daughter baking cookies for firemen) and obvious bad actions (sadly, too many to name). But most fall in the gray area of ‘it depends how you look at it’.
—
On international law: you might only remember the high-profile things that reach the news. The news treats by default ‘the exceptions’. Everything different from the norm. By seeing only the shallow day-to-day news (and not in-depth articles) you actually see the opposite of the real world.
There are plenty of examples of international law playing a role in keeping the world safe by reducing strife in a civilized manner. Arbitration on trade matters, border-disputes, tariffs, countries vs investors, international permits, etc.
Yes: there are examples where international law did not prevent escalation, conflict, genocide, war – but also most of the world has known peace the past 70+ years in part due to international law and order. Especially when the USA _also_ chose to abide by it.
Comment #31 January 5th, 2026 at 3:51 am
I wish I could share our host’s optimism. But the Americans have explicitly said that they’re going to leave Maduro’s underlings in power. They’re not interested in the opposition, or changing the system. According to the president himself this is mainly about getting access to Venezuelan oil. So I’m not sure this action will do much to increase the amount of goodness in Venezuela.
There’s also the broader effects. I don’t believe there’s any such thing as international law, because there’s no Leviathan with a monopoly on violence to enforce it. What there is is a prisoner’s dilemma, in which countries agree to abide by norms like “a country’s laws do not run inside another country” or “we won’t, except in times of war, try to kidnap the leaders of other states”. As long as that equilibrium mostly holds then countries aren’t always at war, or always worried about the possibility of war, as they were throughout most of history. That’s good for most people, most of the time.
Obviously “cooperation”, in the game-theoretic sense, has always been patchy, to put it mildly! But in the past few years the equilibrium has started unravelling pretty visibly. The attack on Venezuela is quite a small “defection” as such things go (and certainly small compared to what’s happening in Ukraine). But it is another kick to something that was already looking shaky.
America, as current top dog, presumably calculates that it has relatively little to lose as the world returns to the standard historic equilibrium of “might makes right”. (Will it be top dog forever? Who knows, though history suggests it’s unlikely.) But there are other countries with more to lose from the collapse of the imperfect post-war system. If might makes right then everyone will want to be mighty as a matter of national survival.
What’s the best way for a medium-sized country to get mighty? Nukes! The geopolitical equivalent of Samuel Colt’s handguns as the best equaliser. That’s why Japanese officials are suggesting the country might acquire nuclear weapons – they’re scared of China and no longer trust America. The Poles are floating the idea, too. Even the chairman of Denmark’s armed forces committee has talked about it – and right after the Venezuela attack the wife of a senior White House’s top official tweeted a picture of Greenland covered in an American flag. Was she joking? You’d be a fool to assume so.
Sure, all those countries are signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But when everyone else is defecting from the equilibrium, the rational response is to defect yourself. The Non-Proliferation Treaty worked because it was underpinned by the post-WW2 security settlement. Since that settlement is collapsing, the NPT seems likely to eventually collapse as well
So I think the Venezuela attack is another small nudge towards a world in which countries are generally more heavily armed, more suspicious and more belligerent (because what’s the point in having a big army if you aren’t going to use it?). That’s a recipe for more wars, and potentially one day a nuclear one. The more countries that get nukes in a fearful and paranoid world, the greater the chance that someone will eventually miscalculate.
I hope I’m wrong!
Comment #32 January 5th, 2026 at 4:13 am
Scott, would you also be happy if some foreign country sent commandos to kidnap president Trump and bring him to another country to try him for his crimes? (Of which there are many)
Comment #33 January 5th, 2026 at 4:43 am
So for what it’s worth, I think I agree with you, both on the subject at hand and on your point about morality
But before making the argument “I’m smart so you should agree with me”, please remember all the times you have seen extremely smart people make absolutely crazy claims
Comment #34 January 5th, 2026 at 5:04 am
Scott #27: Alright. I got the impression that you and some of the others in this thread believe that he does, so perhaps I was mistaken there. Still, I’m really not sure the immediate reaction of Venezuelans is a massive factor in determining whether this ends up being even net neutral eventually, let alone a net positive. Many Libyans celebrated even more effusively after Gaddafi’s death, but that was no indicator of the strife that would later follow in that nation. I’m writing this only just over 48 hours since the incident, but it looks increasingly likely that at some point there will be guerrilla insurgence against American interests in Venezuela (these interests seem to be moving there with extractive intentions), and who knows how things could devolve from there.
I agree wholly with the sentiment that there are serious problems with the UN, and that perhaps certain member governments of the General Assembly have far too much authority than they really should if we’re being serious. And I do understand that international law isn’t of any interest to you (though some might say that this is an easy thing for a citizen of the most powerful nation on earth to say). But the claim that international law does more harm than good is a very, very strong one, and I’m not sure anything you’ve said so far has convinced me of that.
I really think this particular comparison of Mamdani to right-wingers is a massive stretch. When these elements of human scum perform their Heil salutes, it is manifestly clear that they do so to express fundamental racial hatred. But can we ascribe the same immediate interpretation to “the warmth of collectivism”? Of course one interpretation of his statement is that the Mayor intends to replicate USSR under Stalin, but surely you don’t think that’s what he intends to do here. In fact, many things we have done and still do (and some of them government-enforced, most recently relating to the COVID pandemic) harken to preserving collective interests even over individual ones. I think it was silly of him to say that in his inauguration precisely because it invites a kind of unnecessary furore, but despite not being one of them I’ve spent some time among these Dem Socs here in NYC and many of them say things like that without too much care; I suspect Mamdani’s speech-writer was doing the same. And he’s just the Mayor of NYC, not a governor and not a president! He certainly won’t be doing too much collectivism, seeing as many of his ideas will likely never be implemented due to the interests of NYC power holders. Comparing him to kleptocrats and authoritarians, again, seems a massive stretch. (But of course this is tangential to the main focus of your blog, so perhaps it’s unnecessary to dwell on it.)
Happy New Year!
Comment #35 January 5th, 2026 at 5:24 am
https://www.facebook.com/stephan.subero24/posts/im-going-to-say-this-once-and-i-dont-care-if-it-makes-people-uncomfortableif-you/10173562354075375/
Comment #36 January 5th, 2026 at 6:05 am
Scott #9, I suspect Reader #5 lives in the same country as myself, or possibly in the other country the cargo ship Fitburg just severed an underwater cable between. What is puzzling from the perspective here is how mr. Trump seems capable of breaking with impunity even Congress-ratified treaties such as the UN Charter or WTO framework on tariffs. It is then the next question how solid the NATO Treaty is these days, even when taking into account the NDAA 2024 section 1250A. Either mr. Trump is somehow able to use the Congress as his doormat, or the Congress silently consents. NATO disintegration has of course been the wet dream of mr. Putin for years.
In short term the attack to Venezuela may have good consequences for Venezuelans, in medium term likely bad conequences for us living at boundaries of the new spheres of interest, but in the greater context and longest term it shattered what illusions about a rule-based world order there may still have existed. The world is now set back by 100 years, to the years before Kellogg-Briand pact, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-internationalists . That is going to have really bad repercussions.
I thank for your commitment to defend the good against the evil, agree with your three principles, and hope to be able to reciprocate whenever there’s an opportunity. Defending the good is just becoming much tougher these days.
Comment #37 January 5th, 2026 at 6:25 am
Scott #27:
“That Mamdani could unironically utter a phrase like “the warmth of collectivism,” tells me that he sees the hundred million starved and murdered victims of collectivism in the past century as a kind of joke, totally irrelevant to his project. (Just like the right-wingers’ Heil salutes and so forth, show that they see the victims of Nazism as a joke.) That would indeed be consistent with everything else Mamdani has said and done in his career. His voters might have the excuse of actually being as breathtakingly ignorant of history as they seem, but I give Mamdani himself too much credit for that.”
https://cdn.mises.org/Road%20to%20serfdom.pdf
Sigh…Hayek must be turning in his grave.
Comment #38 January 5th, 2026 at 8:59 am
Scott: to echo others like Didier Drogba’s headband, the main problem with your post as I see it is that it doesn’t seem to take into serious account the potential negative effects on the international order that come from Trump acting like a mob boss with respect to geopolitics. Violating domestic laws (according to, e.g., Vladeck) and further degrading norms that have been important for keeping much of the world peaceful since WWII. I don’t think there are many US liberals who are Maduro fans. Probably everyone commenting on this blog is glad he’s out, all else being equal, but that’s not the main point of disagreement here to the extent that a disagreement exists.
Comment #39 January 5th, 2026 at 10:48 am
I was previously of the opinion that a US led operation to remove Maduro and install a more Democratic opposition leader would be a good thing, but I changed opinion.
The difference comes from my understanding of international law.
International law is a clear set of norms, the biggest among them don’t invade other countries and take things by force.
The mechanism for this enforcement is soft power, diplomatic pressure from other nations (backed by trade and personal relationships) and from public opinion (that matters even in authoritarian countries).
Maduro is gone, that’s good in isolation, but the cost is a weakening of that norm and bad actors will take advantage. Will Russia try another operation to install a friendly dictator somewhere? Will China finally pull the trigger on Taiwan? Or will the US feel emboldened to claim Greenland?
In comparison Saddam was an even bigger monster than Maduro, so removing him was surely good? No?
The result of Bush Jr’s invasion of Iraq was weakening norms that set the stage for Putin’s invasions of Georgia and Ukraine. Not to mention the destabilization of the middle east that caused the rise of ISIS and more violence involving Israel and Palestine among others.
Given those known consequences would you still argue for the US invasion of Iraq? Then why support the US invasion of Venezuela with the assumption there will be no consequences this time?
Comment #40 January 5th, 2026 at 11:43 am
@john @aaron
exactly, we now have no right to even suggest that China shouldn’t finally take over Taiwan, which is clearly inside their sphere of influence and historically part of China…
should they do it, our entire supply chain of critical cutting edge chips would be at the whim of the ccp, a lethal blow compared to US oil companies not having full access to Venezuela oil…
Comment #41 January 5th, 2026 at 11:52 am
For those who wonder about the proper procedure to get a foreign (ex) president in US jails, in particular the Ex-Honduras president:
On 1 July 2021, Hernández had his visa revoked by the U.S. Department of State due to involvements in corruption and in the illegal drug trade. On 14 February, he was surrounded by the national police and DEA agents at his home in Tegucigalpa, after the U.S. government had requested his extradition for his involvement with narcotics. On 15 February 2022, he agreed to surrender to US authorities, and on 21 April, Hernández was extradited to the United States. On 8 March 2024, Hernández was convicted of three counts of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy, and on 26 June of that year, he was sentenced to 45 years of prison. On 1 December 2025, he was released from prison after being formally pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Comment #42 January 5th, 2026 at 11:59 am
Scott
There are also those squealing ‘against the law’ on your side who are not naive about the government’s intentions both based on past history and based on the actual statements by the President that his interests are oil and rare earths and his plan is to install a pliant government. Resource imperialism, quaint as that word might be, never died after all. The betting markets mentioned above are already outdated and the proposed Delcy Rodriguez is the leading contender. No doubt the removal of crippling sanctions with a puppet in place will provide relief to the people in the process.
Comment #43 January 5th, 2026 at 1:13 pm
Its nice to see that you share my views on the ridiculous farce that is “international law”. To the various other commenters giving dark warnings about how the law of the jungle is worse: in the international sphere, we already live in the law of the jungle, and always have. One of the few benefits of “international law” as defined by the UN, Red Cross, etc., is that it is utterly unenforceable. Laws within nations are ultimately enforced by force (ie, by the police), but there is no international police that can send armies to enforce the warrants of international courts. No one could make such a police force, since sovereign nations tend to jealously guard their sovereignty. All actually existing international law, including the non-farcial parts like trade agreements and ISO standards, only exist as understandings between national governments.
If this is so, than why does the post-1945 world not resemble a jungle? Where did the Long Peace that Steven Pinker and Azar Gat speak of come from? I think that it is due to the dominance of the liberal democracies, including the US, and the various decisions they made to during and after 1945 to keep the peace and open up the world to trade and development. One of their poorer decisions was establishing the institutions of international law, inviting the Communist bloc and third-world dictatorships in, and granting the resulting farce legitimacy. Luckily, those institutions are irrelevant. Instead, the dominant coalition of rich liberal democracies keeps the world peaceful and safe, as Bret Devereaux describes in acoup.blog/2023/07/07/collections-the-status-quo-coalition.
(One example that seems like an exception but actually proves my point: the United Nations in the Korean War. The reason it proves my point is because the Soviet Union boycotted the UN, allowing the rich liberal democracies to use it as the face of their coalition. Once the Soviet Union returned to actively participating in the UN, that international institution became useless.)
So, what are the implications of the US arresting/seizing/kidnapping Maduro? I don’t actually think that this will shatter the post-1945 world order, at least not on its own. That order endured decades of American interventions, coups, and “police actions” without shattering. It is (so far) less impactful than the 2003 Iraq war, and is a remarkably soft touch in comparison to how the US behaved in Latin America in the half-century after World War Two. It is also a good thing to see Maduro fall, and probably better for stability to keep the old regime’s power structure in place rather than risk a civil war. Still, this action does damage the post-1945 liberal order, which I consider a high cost. I know that Trump and the MAGA crowd do not see damaging the postwar liberal order as a cost at all. Also, the fact that the Chavista regime gets to remain in power makes me pessimistic overall about Venezuela’s prospects, but not any more pessimistic than I would be if Maduro remained in power. All in all, I am ambivalent about Trump’s overthrow of Maduro.
Also, my condolences to New York City on the inauguration of their new mayor. May the courts, police, civil society, Albany, and Washington D.C. prevent him from inflicting too much damage.
Comment #44 January 5th, 2026 at 2:03 pm
B_E #23, “this is not (yet) a war”
As said above, “That’s absurd – imagine if a foreign power killed 40 people on US soil and abducted the President – would anyone pretend that isn’t an act of war?”
Comment #45 January 5th, 2026 at 2:28 pm
@AF #43
Why doesn’t Israel just announce that it has Annexed all of the West Bank and Gaza? Why didn’t Russia take Kiev in 2014?
The lack of an international police force doesn’t mean that International Law has no effect. It still forms a set of rules that help drive international consensus. And this international consensus is backed by trade deals, passport privileges, economic strength, and many other things that ultimately translate into domestic political support.
If international law is so toothless they why does even Putin try to justify his actions under international law? It’s because even he sees the costs to his regime of violating it.
Comment #46 January 5th, 2026 at 2:54 pm
Perhaps we should say: to the extent that there exists “international law” that
(1) actually has teeth,
(2) is about war and peace rather than standards and copyrights, and
(3) is more good than bad,
that international law simply is the nuclear-backed hegemony of the United States and allied liberal democracies, which (sometimes, when it has its act together) gives the world’s authoritarians and tyrants good reasons to lie awake at night in fear.
If we define it in that way, then I’m the biggest proponent of “international law” you can possibly find. And, ironically, near the top of my miles-long list of reasons to oppose Trump, is everything he’s done to corrode international law in that sense.
Comment #47 January 5th, 2026 at 2:58 pm
https://x.com/HillelNeuer/status/2007544059678601493?s=20
Comment #48 January 5th, 2026 at 3:06 pm
Scott: I don’t know what it means to say that international law *simply is* the nuclear backed hegemony of the United States. Law is supposed to enshrine certain principles and impose constraints that are obeyed even when they’re annoying to the party in power or even when violating those laws would have certain auxiliary benefits. What Trump is doing in Venezuela is undermining that idea. The way you put it sounds like you like the idea, at least where the rest of the world is concerned, of a benevolent dictator. “The law is what I say it is.”
Comment #49 January 5th, 2026 at 3:20 pm
Matthijs #30:
To me a large part of this post is a version of “better a good king than a messy democracy”.
I’m actually strongly in favor of liberal democracy, wherever it actually exists, and opposed to all kings. The problem with the UN, as I said, is precisely that the liberal democracies don’t have a clear majority there, and I attach no moral weight to the votes of murderous tyrants.
The US has a great liberal democracy under sustained assault right now. Some of us have been fighting to try to preserve it.
Venezuela had a liberal democracy, but it’s now in the hospital on life support. It is, however, still alive enough to have delivered an overwhelming verdict two years ago: namely, that Maria Machado or her representative Gonzalez is the rightful president.
Comment #50 January 5th, 2026 at 3:26 pm
Tim #31:
I wish I could share our host’s optimism.
Optimism?!?
If this post, or my other political posts, have been “optimistic,” what would pessimism look like? Would you like me to say that evil now rules the earth and there’s nothing for any of us to do about it except kill ourselves, or (like Winston Smith at the end of 1984) wait for the secret police to come shoot us in the backs of our heads? What good would that do?
Comment #51 January 5th, 2026 at 3:39 pm
Eliaas #32:
Scott, would you also be happy if some foreign country sent commandos to kidnap president Trump and bring him to another country to try him for his crimes? (Of which there are many)
If there existed any temporal power that could swoop in, arrest Trump, and charge him for all his crimes, then yes, absolutely, I’d be thrilled for it to do that.
Indeed, it’s hard for me to articulate any deeper wish in life than for some superior agency — an extraterrestrial civilization, an AGI, the God of the Old Testament — to execute vengeance against all the world’s smirking evildoers, from empowered blankfaces to rapists and murderers to schoolyard bullies to Trump himself and his entire circle.
Does that response surprise you? Were you expecting it?
Alas, in the world as it exists, we need to take whatever crude approximations to such justice we can get, very often delivered by agents who are themselves compromised or evil.
As for Trump’s odious MAGA movement, there remains exactly one realistic path to defeating it: namely, at the ballot box. Many of us have been doing what we can there.
Comment #52 January 5th, 2026 at 5:27 pm
Isn’t our traditional israeli Kibbutz an example of somewhat successful collectivism?
Comment #53 January 5th, 2026 at 5:38 pm
John #47:
I agree entirely with your comment, and I find Scott’s assertion that international law simply is the nuclear-backed hegemony of the United States rather puzzling (especially since I don’t think he has imperialist instincts, though I don’t know whether this presumption is incorrect). It is exactly this kind of “the law is what I say it is” thinking that has led many of the more prominent right-wingers in this country to go from “I am avowedly non-interventionist” to “why should we allow some third world communist shithole to control a valuable natural resource” to “we must go to war with anyone on the planet to secure anything that is vaguely in the interest of our people and anyone who says otherwise is our enemy,” all in the space of 48 hours, and the story from there is almost certainly dark.
What I think I have learned from this incident is that perhaps we are to treat the probability of each individual liberal democracy electing a Trump (really, in this case, the triumvirate of Miller, Rubio, and Hegseth; I doubt Trump does anything serious these days considering how unhealthy he seems, which by the way isn’t getting nearly as much attention in the media as it probably should – though I digress) as non-negligible, and, consequently, each of those nations should have a lot of nuclear weapons. Since it is clear as day that we don’t want the self-evident benefits of the post-1945 world order as evidenced by our casual disregard of many of its elements, it’s only reasonable for other such liberal democracies to abandon nuclear non-proliferation etc, especially since the consequences re: trade can probably be offset by other means that exist now (but didn’t in 1945).
Scott # 49:
It appears our hope that Machado be appointed president of Venezuela has succumbed to Trump’s disdain of Machado; the vice president Rodriguez, who is also part of an undemocratic regime, is reportedly now in charge of the nation. It also seems evident that she was the informant who saw to the dictator’s capture, and one wonders how a country that still has many Chavez/Maduro loyalists will react to this.
Comment #54 January 5th, 2026 at 5:47 pm
Scott, isn’t what you’re saying fundamentally “the ends justify the means”? Which has been philosophically debated as long as there has been philosophy, but obviously has some problems. In particular, if you endorse bullies invading and overthrowing governments of other countries based on no principle except having the might to do so and judging the overthrow to be “good”, then
(1) you’re ignoring the fact that such overthrows have pretty much never improved the conditions of any people (any exceptions to point to?), and are generally doomed because any nation has many conflicting powers at play, and an outsider coming in and knocking out one and maybe choosing another just unleashes gigantic conflicts and chaos that the outsider typically has little clue about (see: Iraq/Hussein, Libya/Khadaffi, and about 1000 other cases); it never just leads to a simple “yay” and a stable democracy taking over from there. I’m not talking about defeating an enemy in a war, I’m talking about coups/overthrows.
(2) you’re removing all moral arguments against other powerful bullies doing the same in their sphere of influence. You can say “no, because what they want to do is bad and what we want to do is good, that’s the moral argument” — but you’re then depending on some kind of world agreement on which are good and which are bad, which you’re not likely to get, while you’re throwing away a relatively much greater agreement that big powers overthrowing other governments is bad. Of course, that much greater agreement hasn’t stopped tons of overthrows, but it sets up some impetus against it, as in the west resisting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or a potential Chinese takeover of Taiwan — it’s not an absolute, there are many forces in play including simple might, but it sets up a moral force in opposition to such actions, which has quite a bit of impact.
Comment #55 January 5th, 2026 at 5:48 pm
“that international law simply is the nuclear-backed hegemony of the United States and allied liberal democracies”
I fear ’twas ever so. Like you I see no reason to pretend the emperor has clothes. But that is true not only of international law, but Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 as well; it unfortunately has no clothes.
Comment #56 January 5th, 2026 at 5:55 pm
You forgot to raise your middle finger to the world as you call for the dissolution of international law while Trump is turning to militarism.
Comment #57 January 5th, 2026 at 6:25 pm
Hammam Elyas #56: Thank you for the reminder. Inspired by the Jewish partisans of WWII, the Zionist paramilitaries of pre-state Israel, the Soviet refuseniks, and the Venezuelan democracy activists, I do indeed raise my middle finger high to all those who say that there are international rules that I’m too naïve and simplistic to understand, which have always and everywhere coincidentally pointed to the conclusion that nerds, Jews, my own family members, etc simply need to be imprisoned or killed, since it would be “against the rules!!!” for them to defend themselves. And I raise my middle finger to you in particular.
Comment #58 January 5th, 2026 at 6:57 pm
Ken #54:
Scott, isn’t what you’re saying fundamentally “the ends justify the means”?
No, I nowhere made any blanket statement of that kind, and am surprised at your terrible reading comprehension.
As a trivial example, I would oppose an intentional mass slaughter of Venezuelan civilians (or any civilians), even if I believed that it would lead to wonderful ends in some remote future.
But the arrest of a criminal usurping tyrant, who’s not the legitimately elected president of Venezuela, and who’s rightly despised by the Venezuelan people? In that particular case, the question really is simply one of whether the ends will be worth it. You feel certain that the answer is no. I feel that the answer could have been yes, if Trump had immediately thrown his weight behind the legitimately elected leadership (Gonzalez and Machado), but now (alas) it could go either way.
Machado’s millions of supporters should seize the coming days and weeks to take back their country from both the Chavistas and the Trumpists. I’ll be following them and rooting for them, and I won’t pretend to know anything before I do.
Comment #59 January 5th, 2026 at 7:10 pm
anon #52:
Isn’t our traditional israeli Kibbutz an example of somewhat successful collectivism?
Oh, I certainly never that said collectivism never works! We of course have many examples of hybrid systems (a free market plus some redistributive taxation) working well. As for nearly “pure” collectivism — what Mamdani presumably meant, and would institute if he could — experience has shown that it tends to work precisely in those cases where there are few enough people that they all know each other as individuals, and can reward cooperation and punish shirkers — as for example with family clans, hunter-gatherer tribes, or the early kibbutzim. It works even better if the people are blood relatives and/or are facing mortal external threats.
New York City, alas, satisfies neither of those conditions and is five orders of magnitude beyond Dunbar’s number.
Comment #60 January 5th, 2026 at 7:10 pm
None of this is going to end well…
Eventually there’s going to be a high price to pay for all those people we’re bullying (at best) or bombing.
And by “all those people”, I mean the entire world minus a few millions here and there …
it won’t be long before we push them all away from us for good, irreversibly ruining precious alliances, or they just start hating us with a simmering lethal passion – revenge is a dish best served cold.
Nothing gives any POTUS the right to abuse and ruin what the country has built over decades.
Comment #61 January 5th, 2026 at 7:33 pm
To put it more plainly:
Yes, millions have celebrated the fall of Saddam, millions have celebrated the fall of Gaddafi, and millions are celebrating the fall of Maduro.
But billions would now be celebrating if Trump were to slip and crack his skull on his way down Air Force One.
Let’s not confuse fear and humiliation through the abuse of force with actual respect.
Comment #62 January 5th, 2026 at 7:37 pm
Scott 51.
Can you please admit that, underneath all the principles you profess, you’re really—deep down—running on anger from being bullied in middle school and at summer camp? And that’s why you can live with Palestinian children burning alive: because you’ve projected the faces of the kids who were cruel to you onto Palestinians, onto leftists, onto whoever else. Even here, in this very comment, you’re talking about having violent thoughts about them being crushed by the old testament God.
Please—get over what happened to you in school. At the risk of stating the obvious, the universe does not revolve around it.
Comment #63 January 5th, 2026 at 7:43 pm
Scott #59:
Perhaps even more importantly is the fact a kibbutz is a voluntary arrangement. It is not imposed on others against their will.
Comment #64 January 5th, 2026 at 8:06 pm
Intentional law is not perfect, but it is still useful and it has impact on how intentional actors behave.
It is not similar to the laws within a country, and many countries regularly violate the intentional laws.
Laws, even when imperfect, have value, compared to the alternative. For that to continue, the bar for violating laws should be set pretty high.
The case of Maduro can be looked at various perspectives. Intentional law, even if he is not democratically elected, he is still the UN recognized head of a UN member state. Most heads of states are not democratically elected nor nice people, many are dictators. The UN charter would not allow actions taken by the US in this case, without the authority of the UNSC.
But UNSC is paralyzed because of the US and Russia vetos. But even without the veto, the US would have not gotten approval from UNSC for what it did.
The US domestic law is also violated. This is no doubt an act of war. But Trump did it without the approval of the Congress. He has a general tendency to act like a dictator, ignoring the system including Congress and the courts.
Morally, whether this action was good, depends. The intention of Trump were not good, so it is not good on that sense. Whether it is good independent of the who performed it, that also depends. From utilitarian perspective, one might say it is good, but that depends on the outcomes on the future.
Would you take this action if you were in Trump’s place? I am pretty sure you would not, and would not find it justifiable.
You would probably want to put more intentional pressure on Maduro to leave and hold a free and fair elections, but he refused to do so. And the internal pressure was being weakened by the support Maduro was getting from China (it is likely no coincidence that the attack happened shortly after a visit by a major delegation from China). Unpopular oppressive dictators can last for very long time as we see in North Korea.
There are few arguments for intervention: the duty to protect, which was used as legal justification for intervention in Kosovo. Otherwise, the general intentional legal framework is towards non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries. Super-powers and even regional powers often don’t respect that though.
I am not sad that Maduro is gone. Though I think the US DoJ will have a pretty hard time convincing him in aUS court, this DoJ is not known to be well run, their track record is terrible. They have gone after many who trump didn’t like. It would be an interesting fiasco if the US courts don’t find sufficient evidence in the US laws to convict Maduro.
I am still hopeful for Venezuela. I think we might see a transition to a democratically elected government in a fair and free election over the next 4 years, now that Maduro is gone and the US has significance influence over the Venezuelan government.
What Venezuela needs is a national reconciliation and new social and political contract to open its path to a better life for Venezuelan and good relationships with the US, and heavy investment in getting its economy back on track and delivering for its population.
Comment #65 January 5th, 2026 at 8:37 pm
Scott wrote: “the strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must…”
Interesting to see you describe MAGA philosophy as an extension of ancient Athenian philosophy. I first saw this quote on Deutsch’s twitter last year and it’s been on my mind since.
Comment #66 January 5th, 2026 at 9:01 pm
Jan #62: My childhood bullies (and the teachers and counselors who sided with them) are relevant only insofar as they, together with all my childhood learning about the Holocaust and history’s other atrocities, revealed to me the dark realities of human nature, which provide the backdrop to the sparks of goodness here and there. These experiences are precisely what saved me from the utopian delusions to which so many academics are subject. Part of me is even grateful to the bullies and blankfaces, who in a way were my most important teachers.
Comment #67 January 5th, 2026 at 9:03 pm
People in the energy industry have written about how this is a bid to secure Venezuela’s heavy crude for which Gulf Coast refiners were specifically built, are optimized for and do not have competition elsewhere in the world. With infrastructure upgrades in Venezuela, and favorable environment, there may be a likely 5-10 year time frame of new energy supplies with reasonable ROI over Canadian sources. If this all turns out to be true, any expectation of US interest in Venezuelan democracy etc is likely to be wishful thinking.
Comment #68 January 5th, 2026 at 9:21 pm
You claim to be so affected by darkness and tragedy in history, and yet the dehumanization of Nazism and Stalinism—that’s exactly what you’re doing, right now, with your own dehumanization. I mean for Christs’ sakes, you said you want the old testament God to come down and smite your enemies. And elsewhere you said perhaps more than half of humanity, is your enemy. If not a misanthrope, you’re at least a 50% misanthrope. Don’t you understand that Nazis and communists were in EXACTLY the same position you are now—they ALSO hated much of humanity, ALSO viewed many fellow humans as evil or wicked or horrible, ALSO wished for a God to come down and smite them…until they did it themselves? Your “Scottism” has the germ of another mass murderous ideology within it. Because after all, if so many people are as wicked and evil as you say, including for example bureaucrats or people who voted for Mamdani, why NOT drag them off to camps and have them shot? You basically told us you yearn for this. Who knows, maybe the “Scottists” will be the great mass murderers of the twenty-first century, exterminating all the socialist college students, anti-zionists, “blankfaces,” and high school jocks.
Comment #69 January 5th, 2026 at 9:52 pm
Jan #62:
“Can you please admit that, underneath all the principles you profess, you’re really—deep down—running on anger from being bullied in middle school and at summer camp? And that’s why you can live with Palestinian children burning alive: because you’ve projected the faces of the kids who were cruel to you onto Palestinians, onto leftists, onto whoever else.”
We are honored to have a psychoanalyst extraordinaire like you posting here.
It’s impressive you have this level of access to Scott’s inner mind and have the authority to interpret it in such rigid terms.
This straw man you have constructed comes across as trying to delegitimize anything Scott says as having no merit as it is really just a reaction to childhood trauma.
I suppose that’s one way to avoid engaging with complicated issues.
Comment #70 January 5th, 2026 at 9:52 pm
Paulin #33:
But before making the argument “I’m smart so you should agree with me”, please remember all the times you have seen extremely smart people make absolutely crazy claims.
Bertrand Russell once joked that he (unlike most philosophers) was allowed to talk about social and political issues in plain language, only because he had already proven in Principia Mathematica that he could write if he wanted in a language that only a half-dozen experts could understand.
In so doing, it seems to me that Russell illustrated the only good kind of appeal to one’s own intellectual accomplishments: namely, as a self-defense measure against the many midwits who rely on their intellectual accomplishments (such as they are) to obfuscate and confuse, and to make ordinary words and commonsense morality seem passé.
Comment #71 January 5th, 2026 at 10:14 pm
Jan #68: I’m not a psychoanalyst any more than you are (thanks Ty #69). But I’d imagine that inside me, you, and everyone else are indeed the microscopic germs of what could grow under suitable conditions into murderous ideologies like Nazism or Stalism. We’ve all fantasized about vengeance against our enemies. At least I try to be 100% honest and self-reflective about all my motivations and write everything under my real name, whereas you attack from behind a cloak of anonymity. On that basis alone, some might guess that you’d send me to a death camp long before I’d send you!
But the real answers here are liberal democracy, science, and the Enlightenment: the best technologies our sorry species has so far discovered for controlling our dark impulses. Those answers are what I’ve upheld in every one of my political posts for the past 20 years, and they’re what I uphold today. I want these things for Venezuela as I want them for every nation on earth.
And with that, I’m finished engaging with you.
Comment #72 January 5th, 2026 at 10:15 pm
Everyone: I’m reaching my limit and will turn off this comment section by tomorrow morning. Thanks for participating! May goodness reign over the earth.
Comment #73 January 6th, 2026 at 12:01 am
I think opposition to Machado would likely grow if the USA treads with the footprint required to do what you suggest in Venezeula, and her supporters have relatively less ammunition and ordinance stockpiled. I’m with you that she should lead, with you for the most part really; something like that is just a slower burn and ultimately up to the people of Venezuela writ large. I could definitely be wrong; it’s just how I see the board with the limited information that’s available. Individuals trying to reverse-engineer your sentiments back to childhood are those who simply have nothing meaningful to contribute while somehow still feeling that they must.
Comment #74 January 6th, 2026 at 12:52 am
Scott, you said:
“”” All the same, actual Venezuelans have been celebrating these past two days, seeing the first hope in years of reclaiming their country. And I care about them a lot more than I care about Trump.”””
You’d be surprised to hear how Iraqis acted when Saddam was toppled and how bloody that all turned out for them for two decades.
I suppose for us in the US the conversation would better be centered around whether this move will cause a new multipolar world where nuclear hegemons will see this as a signal to do whatever the hell they want to their neighbors, and I really mean “whatever the hell”, and that in turn causing lots of third world countries to protect themselves either by getting nukes or striking deal with their neighbors’ nuclear rivals to fall under their nuclear umbrella.
Do you see the chain reaction here and what it could lead to?
Comment #75 January 6th, 2026 at 1:43 am
Your post reminded of Feynman’s quote: I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
International law was created to protect humanity against the evils that took place in the second world war and thus to protect your family from being murdered (along with everyone else’s). Unless if you don’t think that you are threatened because you live in a superpower nation, and as a result you (personally) don’t need it.
However, it also protects the superpowers from abusing their power which usually leads to their downfall. An interesting example from history is the incident between ancient Milos (the weak) and ancient Athens (the strong) as documented by Thucydides and the fate of Athens later in the Peloponesian war.
International politics is immensely more complex than computer science and quantum physics to receive such simplistic takes. Please read some history if you want to comment on these issues.
Comment #76 January 6th, 2026 at 1:56 am
@scott: I fully understand your decision to shut off the comments here. Thereve been some real stinkers again.
Just wanted to sneak in real quick to add: of course I know you’re a fan of liberal democracy 🙂
But that democracy always will have its share of “bad participants”. Parties that argue against democracy, populists, etc. And the same will hold for a next-level democracy like the UN. I think we need to be very careful who (if at all) we exclude. That’s a very slippery slope. At the same time, blanket rules like “everyone is always allowed” (like absolute free speech) are also demonstrably bad.
The UN is a unique experiment and to me it demonstrates its value. Even with its shortcomings it’s better than the alternative of separate power blocs that do not communicate.
On international law: there are successes there (bans on biological and chemical weapons! Resolving disputes at international courts. Etc). But these don’t work if the “big players” like the USA ignore them.
I understand the fantasy of the Deus Ex Machina: an all-powerful, all-good player saving the day just in time. But I don’t trust them, whoever they will be. Give me messy, bureaucratic democracy – but influencable – democracy.
The best solution I see is a more equal partnership between the USA and the rest of the west. No solo adventures, but coordinated interventions.
Comment #77 January 6th, 2026 at 2:50 am
Scott #9: I trust that you will, and apologize for the tone of my comment. I’d have more to say about the topic of international law itself, but since you’re turning off this section soon, I’ll leave it here. 🙂
Comment #78 January 6th, 2026 at 3:06 am
Well, that certainly took an unexpected turn into psychoanalytic territory. I’m grateful for the opportunity to weigh in here for the first time.
For all his abhorrent convictions (and they are clearly numerous) Nick Fuentes may have stumbled onto something true about the inescapability of identity politics in the political arena. The undercurrent running through this entire discussion, and through Scott’s perspective on international law, who merits a voice in shaping it, and which strong-arms should be wielded to execute it, appears driven by what he perceives as a profound betrayal of his particular identity group by the UN. And who am I to fault him for that?
Right now the administration seems intent on doubling down with the “might makes right” strategy as they ponder whether the site of their next act of war will be Greenland, Mexico, Cuba, or Canada. We can only hope for goodness to reign over the earth, however unlikely it seems these days. Several restructurings are certainly needed in the medium-term to prevent these affronts to global peace.
Comment #79 January 6th, 2026 at 3:53 am
Scott #50
Fair enough, perhaps “optimism” was the wrong word 🙂 I suppose I had two things in mind. The first is this:
“But “international law,” as it exists today, fails spectacularly on all three of these counts. Ergo, as far as I’m concerned, it can take a long walk off a short pier.”
I think, unless I’m misunderstanding your post, that I’m much less sanguine about the collapse of “international law” or the post-WW2 settlement, or whatever we want to call it, than you are. I think a reversion to a world of unleavened might-makes-right will mean more money spent on unproductive military spending, more fear, more nuclear proliferation and more wars. I don’t think an American invasion of Denmark, for instance, which now seems more likely to happen than not, can be a good thing.
The second was this:
“Trump, despite all the evil in his heart and in his past, will do something profoundly good if he reverses himself and lets those Venezuelans have what they’ve fought for. He’ll do evil if he doesn’t.”
I don’t disagree with this! I just think the chance of him doing good in the sense you mean, is almost zero, given both his track record and his stated aims.
As I said though I would dearly like to be wrong about all this.
Comment #80 January 6th, 2026 at 4:54 am
A war is not supported by the American people but would be needed to install opposition leaders.
Capitalist dictatorship(like UAE) is not ideal but is a massive step up from socialism and could lead to democracy eventually.
Comment #81 January 6th, 2026 at 5:57 am
What touches me most in your post is that you use the words ‘ Will do good’. and ‘ will do evil’.
Refraining from stating that a person ‘ is good’ or ‘ is evil’ , judging the acts, not the person.
Comment #82 January 6th, 2026 at 6:06 am
I also suspect that the entire motivation for Trump’s action was a personal revenge against Maduro, who taunted him, and that there’s hardly any plan beyond this.
On top of that, with his close relations to Iran, the Maduro regime (including his VP) have been loud anti-zionists.
So this operation focused on Maduro himself was a very easy low-hanging fruit, the only complexity was in the military execution.
Regime change?
It’s just going to be as “hand-off” as with Iran. At best, the only thing that matters here is to blackmail a regime to make it compliant to whatever the US asks in the future, like force them to take random deported US immigrants and throw them in their jails, etc.
Oil/mineral exploitation?
Nothing beyond vague promises Trump made to his oligarchs. Just like the so-called mineral deals forced on the Ukrainians, which won’t amount to much without peace and stability… and the deals were framed as the potential source of stability, Russians will never attack again if the US is all over the place building up the mining infrastructure.
Clearly a chicken and egg problem which won’t magically resolve itself without any real political commitment.
Comment #83 January 6th, 2026 at 6:24 am
Scott #58:OK, so I shouldn’t generalize your stand on this particular issue — *in this case*, the ends justify the means. But still, I wonder if there is any generalization or principle here — the ends justify the means when the means involve breaking international law and/or the constitution? when the means don’t involve purposely killing the innocent? or only in the specific case of overthrowing Maduro in Venezuela?
At any rate, I pointed to two things that you didn’t respond to. (1) coming in from outside and cutting off the head of government generally unleashes a myriad of hidden/suppressed conflicts, with resulting chaos. In this particular case, the Chavistas control the military and the local militias — do you think they would have just served obediently under Machado? And Chavez, unlike Maduro, is still I think very popular. I asked if you know any examples of outside intervention to overthrow a country’s gov’t leading to better lives for the people of that country. Do you? (and again, I was omitting cases of winning a war, like post-WW II Germany or Japan, where (a) we had defeated, disarmed, and dispersed the military and destroyed and disempowered the entire government and (b) we were prepared to militarily occupy and rule the country for years while we tried to build up a new government.)
(2) that it is harmful to destroy the international law standard that it’s not OK for a big power to overthrow governments it doesn’t like, even though that international law is frequently violated. You seem to regard such standards or norms as binary, either they’re effective or they’re worthless. I was arguing they provide a valuable moral force working in one direction, and that this is valuable even though there are many other forces and powers in the mix. For example, they help build world opposition to and defense against Putin invading Ukraine or China invading Taiwan. Throw away this standard, and the world’s norm is now each big dog gets to rule its sphere of influence as it pleases, and that’s just fine, the world accepts that and doesn’t resist it. And that’s why the issue goes way beyond whether the outcome is good or bad for Venezuelans (but see (1)), because legitimizing means like this has a lot of consequences. (There’s also the violation of, and thus deligitimization, of the constitution and the rule of law within the US). What is your response to these issues?
Comment #84 January 6th, 2026 at 6:37 am
p.s. As just one example of the Pandora’s Box that is opened up by legitimizing these means for these ends: current headline in the NY Times, “Stephen Miller Asserts U.S. Has Right to Take Greenland”
Comment #85 January 6th, 2026 at 8:02 am
PG #75:
Your post reminded of Feynman’s quote: I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy …
International politics is immensely more complex than computer science and quantum physics to receive such simplistic takes. Please read some history if you want to comment on these issues.
Feynman was a registered Republican who refused to ever apologize for helping develop the atomic bomb, and was famously libertarian and what we’d today call “anti-woke.” He was politically to my right.
More importantly, how dare you imply that if only I studied more history, I’d necessarily agree with you. That’s a perfect example of what I’ve reacted against in this post and indeed my entire life.
My reading of history is precisely what taught me how again and again, those who committed the worst atrocities cloaked themselves in legal frameworks ungrounded from any underlying moral intuitions — ie, how the blankfaces provided crucial cover for the monsters — while those who risked their lives to stand up to the monsters, did so because they thought directly in terms of what was good and what was evil.
As I said, any system of rules has to earn my allegiance. The legal systems of liberal democracies generally clear that bar, but a majority vote among tyrannies affirming “nyah nyah, we get to torture dissidents and it’s illegal for anyone else to do anything about it” does not.
Comment #86 January 6th, 2026 at 8:09 am
The consuls in The Roman Republic occasionally recognized that a problem confronted the Republic that the existing political structure was incapable of efficiently addressing. In this case the consuls requested an Imperium to be installed to serve as the highest governmental authority for a specified period of time. He was expected to resign his position as soon as the problem was resolved. This worked well until Sulla, and then Julius Caesar, who used their special authority to remake the political system. Sulla weakened the plebeian portion of the government and then Caesar the patrician portion.
It seems to me that the US may now be now in a position that the existing governmental structure is unable to correct long term negative trends-
US education continues its downward trend with declining scores and now remedial programs at the university level for high GPA high school grads that can’t do high school math. Far more spent per student then elsewhere in the world but terrible results.
Declining life expectancy even when much higher medical costs per capitat than elsewhere in the world. It is called a paradox by the medical community that Hispanics have longer life expectancy than Caucasians in the US but lower per capita medical expenditures.
Merit is under attack as an employment criteria.
Differences between males and females are attacked as mythical.
The UN and World Court give a pass to blood thirsty terrorism while endlessly attacking reasonable responses
The US is no longer capable of protecting its allies against any aggression. Case in point is Taiwan and this even recognized in a recent Defense Department study. The mighty US aircraft carriers expected to have a life of hours before falling to hypersonic missiles.
Governments are complicit in massive fraud schemes.
My contention is that these trends have persisted through Democratic and Republican Administrations and so may be due at this particular time to problems inherent in the system. Maybe the Supreme Court ratifying superpacs had an effect and maybe elimination of the fairness obligation in media helped this along but in any event these trends are not healthy for the US nor the world.
The Consuls picked widely respected individuals for Imperium but now I don’t believe possible to identify a known and widely respected individual that approximately half the US population wouldn’t loathe.
Continuing business as usual in the face of these trends has ever increasing risk but disturbing the status quo attracts monumental criticism. As noted above Roman Consuls picked widely respected and competent individuals for disturbing the stats quo while we got Trump. Let’s hope for the best for Venezuela and for the US. This battleship nonsense (more giant targets floating in the ocean without adequate defense against hypersonics) and the Mandami will be a great mayor nonsense and the support of the leftist Venezuelan vice president nonsense (let’s hope this doesn’t persist) and the resorts in Gaza nonsense do not bode well.
Comment #87 January 6th, 2026 at 8:20 am
Scott #14 Honestly, I don’t even know what I want at this point. I just don’t think that there is any window dressing that the Trump administration could put on this blatant plundering of resources that would make me feel relieved about it. Given America’s poor record of imposing regime change, I actually felt better that the opening pitch was to capture the head of state and try to preserve the rest of the existing government than if larger changes had been imposed. If this incursion led on to fair elections that would be great…but I am not optimistic. Imposed democracy doesn’t tend to go well and the Trump administration has shown little support for the ideals of democracy any way. (I am also pretty skeptical about Machado but that is a separate point).
Comment #88 January 6th, 2026 at 9:19 am
You mean, this María Corina Machado?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maria-corina-machado-trumps-strategy-venezuela/
This wasn’t even that long ago. What do you even really know about Venezuela to pontificate on who should and should not be their leader?
Comment #89 January 6th, 2026 at 9:39 am
PG #75:
“International law was created to protect humanity against the evils that took place in the second world war and thus to protect your family from being murdered (along with everyone else’s).”
If all of the current frameworks of post-WWII international law existed in 1939, it would have changed absolutely nothing. The reason is this: there was no power on Earth capable and willing to stand up to the Nazis at the time. The US was isolationist, the USSR was looking to strike deals with Nazi Germany to split eastern Europe into spheres of influence, and the main European liberal democratic powers (the UK and France) decided to make appeasement their foreign policy. By 1942, the Nazis controlled an empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the streets of Stalingrad. They could do whatever they wanted within their empire, so that year was the most intense phase of the Holocaust. Even if there had been a Genocide Convention or something similar, the Nazis would have ignored it. Or pretended to comply while mocking it, as they did with the Potemkin village they set up for Red Cross inspectors at the Terezin concentration camp.
“Unless if you don’t think that you are threatened because you live in a superpower nation, and as a result you (personally) don’t need it.” – No one needs it, because it is useless and always has been. Actual protection comes from hard military power, and not from strongly-worded statements by toothless international bodies. People who do not live in superpower countries also know this, which is why Israel relies on the IDF rather than the UN for its protection.
Matthijs #76:
“The UN is a unique experiment and to me it demonstrates its value. Even with its shortcomings it’s better than the alternative of separate power blocs that do not communicate.”
This delusion, that wars are caused by breakdowns in communications between the powers, is one of the most laughable and ridiculous of ideas. I find it to be genuinely scary that so many of the smartest minds of the interwar and postwar years genuinely believed it. They set up international discussion forums (the League of Nations, the United Nations) under this delusion, finally providing a space for the world’s powers to talk out their differences and disagreements (as if nation-to-nation diplomacy and the occasional diplomatic conference did not already exist).
The truth is that countries go to war because some of their governments are predatory and feel like they can get away with invading other countries. No amount of diplomacy and communications can stop a Kaiser Wilhelm II or a Hitler or a Putin (or for that matter a Bush or a Trump) from invading their neighbors and crushing all before them. Only war can stop a conqueror. The nations of the world tacitly acknowledged this when they dissolved the League of Nations after WWII, but they did not really internalize this at all. They simply re-founded the League of Nations with a new coat of paint, called it the United Nations, and watched (with rose-tinted glasses) as the new forum performed about as well as the old forum. Perhaps they thought that giving the UN military intervention powers, which the League of Nations lacked, would make this League of Nations 2.0 more effective. It did not, since the representatives of both power blocs (the democracies and the communists) both have veto power in the Security Council, so the only thing the UN can do is issue strongly worded statements. The only reason that the UN appears to perform better than the League of Nations is because so far WWIII did not break out. But this has more to do with the nuclear balance of terror, and with the economic and military dominance of the rich liberal democracies, than it does with the UN and “international law”.
Comment #90 January 6th, 2026 at 9:50 am
Scott #46
> And, ironically, near the top of my miles-long list of reasons to oppose Trump, is everything he’s done to corrode international law in that sense.
That really is ironic, considering that Trump has been actively giving “the world’s authoritarians and tyrants good reasons to lie awake at night in fear” while the Obama line has been – and would have, had Kamala been elected – actively supporting them.
Comment #91 January 6th, 2026 at 9:52 am
On a lighter note, Jon Stewart’s take on this, always funny
https://youtu.be/HDSzUfMZRHE?si=c8fuHOfqT68A5ofU
Comment #92 January 6th, 2026 at 10:35 am
Tim #79,
“I think a reversion to a world of unleavened might-makes-right will mean more money spent on unproductive military spending, more fear, more nuclear proliferation and more wars.”
Scott is saying this is no reversion. The “international laws” were always toothless. We’re not reverting back to the emperor having no clothes; the emperor NEVER had clothes! It is hard for me to understand how so many seem to have such a problem comprehending this post.
Comment #93 January 6th, 2026 at 10:52 am
So I assume Greenland (Denmark) has the right to kidnap Trump and Melania now?
Comment #94 January 6th, 2026 at 11:06 am
Like Adam Treat #92, I marvel at the willful incomprehension here — as if the world’s murdering dictators were all adhering to a “rules-based international order” before the US decided to violate that order, as if we ever had any option in the international arena other than to judge each individual action according to whether it’s good or bad.
It’s like, what might happen now: could Putin decide to invade Ukraine? Could China decide to threaten Taiwan? Could Iran launch terrorist acts and assassinations in Western countries? Yes, with access to a closed timelike curve, any of them could decide to have already done those things.
Comment #95 January 6th, 2026 at 11:08 am
Anonymous #88:
What do you even really know about Venezuela to pontificate on who should and should not be their leader?
Very little! That’s why—to say it one more time, you dumbass—I defer to their votes.
Comment #96 January 6th, 2026 at 11:20 am
Here’s a tweet from Cristian Campos that not only says what I was trying to say much more eloquently, but should cause some commenters here to hang their heads in shame:
If international law cannot prevent me from being tortured in a cell at the Helicoide, but it does protect Maduro so that he can continue torturing me in the Helicoide, international law not only does nothing for me, but it’s fucking me over.
Comment #97 January 6th, 2026 at 11:42 am
Scott #96
How about the innocent people we’ve deported to El Salvador’s hell prisons, with zero due process?
And who has the monopoly on deciding what’s “good” and what’s “evil” in some absolute sense, beyond “we do because we have the biggest guns!” or “we do because we have elections, never mind we’re making sure the opposition will never win again by framing them as “evil” traitors?
Just like Trump, Putin was voted into office… and, just like Putin, Trump is doing all he can (disregarding the constitution) to be sure his cult will stay in power for the foreseeable future… is this enough for the US to lose its claim as the ultimate arbiter of good/evil?
If not, what would it take?
The forced annexation of Greenland?
Comment #98 January 6th, 2026 at 11:47 am
Scott 96: that tweet is so stupid. You could apply the same logic to lots of things, like many of the laws/legal frameworks or indeed the capitalist system that we have in the US.
Comment #99 January 6th, 2026 at 11:57 am
Scott #94
If that were the case then why didn’t Putin take Kiev in 2014? Why does he keep trying to frame his actions in terms of International Law? Why did Iran agree to and follow the JCPOA, continuing for a while even after the US abandoned it? Why doesn’t Israel just flat out annex all of the West Bank and Gaza?
International law still matters when it comes to international politics and public opinion, which is why even dictators need to acknowledge it. This US action will make it harder for Ukraine to defend itself from Russia, it will make it harder to keep China out of Taiwan.
There’s also the fact that your arguments would also apply quite cleanly to the removal of Saddam Hussein, who was a much worse character than Maduro.
I hope we can agree that the Iraq War was a net source of harm, particularly for the people of Iraq.
Comment #100 January 6th, 2026 at 11:57 am
Ken #83: I already responded to your point (2). Destroying a standard of “leaders don’t just topple each other” unfortunately requires a closed timelike curve at this point. In any case, the standard “leaders don’t just ignore inconvenient election results and declare themselves dictator” seems equally important to me. I’m well aware that Trump himself does not exemplify the latter standard, to put it mildly—something I’ve also spoken loudly about on this blog.
On your point (1), I agree! There are hard-to-predict unintended consequences to anything we do, as there would’ve been such consequences to leaving a terrorist dictator like Maduro in power. I have no idea whether the long-run consequences of toppling Maduro will be good or bad. I say only that the downfall of a tyrant like him is worth celebrating in and of itself, as indeed the Venezuelan people have been celebrating. And if the US were willing to stand behind Venezuela’s rightly elected democratic leaders, that would be worth celebrating even more.
Comment #101 January 6th, 2026 at 12:12 pm
AF #89:
Why the “either/or”? Why does it have to be “the UN has 0 use”?
> (as if nation-to-nation diplomacy and the occasional diplomatic conference did not already exist)
Yes, and usually _after_ war to settle disputes instead of preventing war. And these usually did not include _all parties_ (the famous peace treaty of Utrecht was described as “chez vous, de vous, sans vous” by a French diplomat on the exclusion of the Dutch republic). This is how we get stupid maps with straight lines that lead to anger and strife for centuries (and which in some cases are resolved through UN discussions)
> But this has more to do with the nuclear balance of terror, and with the economic and military dominance of the rich liberal democracies, than it does with the UN and “international law”.
Most of the world does _not_ have nuclear weapons. Most of the world does not really have an influence of western military dominance. Asia, Africa, South America. These nations really do rely on diplomatic channels (and the UN is one of them) to solve disputes.
I am explicitly not saying the UN is solely responsible for peace. Technological advancements leading to improvements in living conditions are a larger contributor.
But: the UN is a place where _all countries_ can have a say, and where diplomacy can take place between countries that are otherwise not on speaking terms.
Also the UN does not prevent all strife, conflict and war. Some dicks will just push ahead. And yes, then you need military deterrence as prevention, or military overmight to stop and push back.
—
Scott #94:
It’s not about preventing bad people from doing bad things. Laws don’t work like that. We (in general) do good things because good things are good. Assholes are somewhat deterred by law and force, but mostly laws give us the justification to enact punishment.
If laws worked as you indicate, there would be no theft/murder/etc.
We sanction Russia because they violate international law. It gives us (functional liberal democracies) the justification (even necessity)for punishment.
Comment #102 January 6th, 2026 at 12:16 pm
anon-48 #97:
Trump is doing all he can (disregarding the constitution) to be sure his cult will stay in power for the foreseeable future… is this enough for the US to lose its claim as the ultimate arbiter of good/evil?
What could possibly make you think I believe, or have ever believed, that the US is the ultimate arbiter of good/evil?
I’ve been perfectly clear that I am. I’m the ultimate arbiter of good/evil.
Or rather: I’m the arbiter of my moral universe, as you are of yours. I refuse to outsource my prerogative to judge the good or evil of individual acts to any system of rules or governing entity external to me. I jealously guard the integrity of my conscience.
Slowly, for those in the back:
– The replacement of the tyrant Maduro by the democratically supported Machado would be good, so I’d support that.
– A US invasion of Canada or Greenland would be evil, so I oppose that.
– Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was evil, so I opposed it.
– The Taliban and Saddam Hussein were both evil, so I supported their toppling in themselves. Alas, the postwar reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq were then criminally mismanaged by blankfaces and profiteers, which I thought was tragic, and opposed.
If you disagree with me on any of those, then you’re welcome to make the case. Defend Putin and the Taliban, for example, for standing up to the evil West!
What you’re not welcome to do, is tell me that if I support country X doing Y then I’d also need to support X if it did Z. That’s outsourcing my conscience to the decision-making processes of X’s government, which might be (and probably are) horribly broken.
Comment #103 January 6th, 2026 at 12:24 pm
anon-48 #97,
Your comment is a non-sequitur. It has nothing to do with the post that you’re purportedly responding to. Nowhere does Scott propose that someone has a monopoly on what is good vs evil. Nowhere does he say the United States has some monopoly on this. He simply reserves the right to decide for himself what he thinks is good and what he thinks is evil and to advocate on behalf of his beliefs. Sheesh.
Scott, you either have a hoard of people who fail basic reading comprehension or are purposefully trolling with stupidity. I’ll leave it to you how you want to deal, but if you wanna shut this down I wouldn’t begrudge you in the slightest. I’m also a big fan of you calling out dumbassery when you see it LOL 🙂
Comment #104 January 6th, 2026 at 12:30 pm
Vladimir #90: I say exactly the same to the critics on my right as I said to the many critics on my left. Namely, that I’m under zero illusions that Trump authorized the arrest of Maduro for any reasons my conscience could endorse or that would generalize to other cases.
If this wasn’t obvious from his petulant refusal to endorse Machado, then it’s certainly obvious from his bromances with Vladimir Putin and countless other autocrats, and (worse) his blaming of Zelensky for his own country being invaded.
At least I’m 100% predictable and consistent: I simply support Enlightenment and liberal democracy triumphing over their enemies, in every conflict, always and everywhere on earth.
And whenever anyone says to me, “nyah nyah, your support of liberal democracy in case X means you logically have to support autocracy in case Y” (leftists because they’re trying to indict me by reductio ad absurdum, rightists because they actually want autocracy in case Y), I respond:
“Nope, I’m simply rooting for liberal democracy and Enlightenment to win, always and everywhere.”
Comment #105 January 6th, 2026 at 12:33 pm
John #96! “that tweet is so stupid.”
Right! I mean imagine the GALL it takes to think people should be allowed to assess the personal impact of various laws and systems of laws on their own particular circumstances and to form opinions based on that. And then to actually voice those opinions! The stupidity!!
Comment #106 January 6th, 2026 at 12:41 pm
Scott #100
Sure, but the observation that everyone has their own view on what’s good and bad is totally trivial and uninteresting beyond the fact that it will collapse into a binary choice at the next election.
What’s crucial is that we live in a common world and of humanity is to survive, we need to compromise and cooperate, especially with those who don’t align with us. Eg, solving global warming requires this.
The fact that international rule of law or the UN just don’t always perfectly align with everyone’s own checkboxes is again trivial and not constructive.
As Churchill put it,
“Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.
International rule of law/UN is our best attempt at democracy at the level of nations.
Not perfect, not easy, but without it, there’s nothing left besides “the law of the strongest”.
Comment #107 January 6th, 2026 at 1:02 pm
Tim #79
“more nuclear proliferation”
I hold the contrary view that some nuclear proliferation would in fact make the world more secure. My position is that if Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea had nuclear weapons they would be safer from invasion than in the current situation. The calculus for an invading country is much more clear in that case. There is no reason to consider the response of the US as a third party guarantor. The world has changed immensely since WW 2 but the narrative in many cases has remained the same. The standard narrative no longer fits the actual situation.
Off track a bit. A major informant against Noriega was a pilot flying Medellin cocaine into the US (Hope Arkansas) with a stiop in Panama. He provided the infamous photo of Noriega at a cocaine loading. He appeared before a Federal judge in Shreveport to obtain his release under his agreement with the government. The judge mandated he go to a half way house in Baton Rouge. His lawyers contended that was effectively a death sentence. Baton Rouge halfway house the judge maintained and no gun and no bodyguards. Surprisingly he lasted three weeks before gunned down by a Colombian hit team
Comment #108 January 6th, 2026 at 1:07 pm
Re the point raised by Matt #16: here’s Steve Vladeck on the legality of this operation. Spoiler: it’s probably illegal.
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/200-five-questions-about-the-maduro
Comment #109 January 6th, 2026 at 1:08 pm
If you ended the day “…angry and depressed that Trump, as it turns out, does not seek to turn over Venezuela to María Corina Machado …” are we to infer that you had at any time during the day entertained any other notion?
Comment #110 January 6th, 2026 at 1:09 pm
@John Schilling #15
Some counter-points:
1) It seems your comment presents Venezuela as being quietly and harmlessly evil, its negative impacts being contained and not hurting others, as having “not shot at any of our people”. This may be too rosy a view. Venezuela actively helped Iran and supported Hamas, Hezbolla and others who certainly did “shoot at any of your people” and of course more so at US allies. Obviously there are degrees to everything and there is a difference between open war and financial or political support for one’s enemies. But as far as there genuinely is an Axis of Evil, as far as China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and their radical Islamist proxies are in a de-facto war with US and the West, Maduro’s Venezuela had at best been one step away from them.
2) Relatedly, the reciprocity you appeal to has been in some ways a farce, in recent times. The norms and international structures enforcing it has been turned (if they ever had been anything else) into puppet shows providing asymmetric power to the aforementioned Axis. But if we still believe in said reciprocity – what were the invasion of Ukraine, October 7, the strategic cultural invasion of the West by the Muslim Brotherhood, systematic acts of sabotage such as cutting of major sea cables, drone harassment of Russia’s neighbors, the build-up for an invasion of Taiwan, and many others, what were all these reciprocal responses for? And if nothing in particular, then what is the reciprocal response to them? If the answer is “all the international sanctions against Russia and Iran, for example”, then you know which country has been instrumental in helping Russia and Iran evade such sanctions. The fact is that China and its vassals have, in fact, been leading a low-key war against US and its interests, and that Venezuela was an important enabler of that war.
Comment #111 January 6th, 2026 at 1:10 pm
On reflection, I agree with Adam Treat. I could leave this thread open for a hundred years, and for a hundred years, new commenters would arrive every day with variations on:
“But if support toppling a murderous dictator, then you also need to support toppling democratically elected leaders”
“If you agree with Trump on the rare occasions when he does something good, then you also need to agree with him on the many occasions when he does something evil”
“If you’re excited about recent experimental progress in quantum computing, then you also need to endorse $IONQ’s claims that QC will revolutionize machine learning, and tell people to buy their stock”
“If your neural net classifies lions and tigers as cats, then it also needs to classify bears as cats”
And I could spend a hundred years trying fruitlessly to explain:
No, my goal in life is to believe all the true things, and disbelieve all the false things. To support all the good things, and oppose all the bad things.
So instead, I’ll just close down the thread now, and try to get back to my other work.
Truth and justice, everyone!