As Venezuela faces a worsening political crisis under Nicolás Maduro’s oppressive regime, calls for international intervention are increasing. Daniel Raisbeck, a policy analyst on Latin America at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, asserts that the Venezuelan people have a legitimate right to reclaim their freedoms.
“In a world where the Venezuelan population is largely unarmed, one remaining option to restore a democratic republic is the hiring of an outside fighting force to act as an army of liberation,” Raisbeck stated. The real issue at stake is popular sovereignty, the notion that a government is legitimate only through the consent of the governed. John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government notes that “whenever the legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people.”
Raisbeck also drew parallels with historical struggles for independence, underscoring the legitimacy of the Venezuelan cause: “Venezuelans, as despotically reduced as they are today, have as clear-cut a case to overthrow Maduro and institute a new government as did the American founders in 1776 when they declared their independence from King George III.
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