mhaze,

You're doing the same thing Leyonhjelm did: asserting motives instead of addressing arguments.

Opposing Trump's Venezuela intervention doesn't require affection for Maduro, reflexive anti-Trump dogma, or anti-US sentiment. It requires nothing more exotic than scepticism toward foreign-imposed outcomes, especially given the historical record.

This sentence does a lot of work without justification:

//Libertarianism must always support democracy in other nations//

Libertarianism is about constraining coercive power. It does not follow that libertarians must endorse foreign states deciding which government is "rightful", or using economic and political coercion to enforce that judgement.

And this claim simply doesn't survive contact with reality:

//Removing Maduro wasn't about regime change.//

If a foreign power recognises an alternative leader, applies sanctions, encourages insurrectionary pressure, and removes the sitting government, that is regime change. Calling it "restoration" is branding, not analysis.

You also slide past the central libertarian problem: coercion used in the name of liberty doesn't stop being coercion. Harm doesn't vanish because the stated aim is democratic alignment or geopolitical convenience.

You may believe the outcome will be positive. Fine. But that's a consequentialist gamble, not a libertarian principle. And it deserves to be argued on those terms, not smuggled in under claims about democracy or "win-win" narratives.

The strongest objection hasn't been answered:

Why should libertarians trust powerful states to impose liberty abroad, given their incentives, their track record, and their insulation from the harm they cause?

Until that's addressed directly, waving away opposition as tribalism just avoids the hard question.

"Opposing Trump's Venezuela intervention doesn't require affection for Maduro,..."

Well lucky I didn't say it did, eh? There are all sorts of reasons which is why I wrote..."There are all sorts of reasons for many to oppose the attempted overthrow of the Maduro/Chavez regime,". Did you miss that or choose to ignore it? I simply listed those which are, in my view, the most common. You are free to have a different opinion but assuming that differing from your opinion is the same as being wrong is rather pompous.

"Libertarianism is about constraining coercive power.".
Libertarianism cannot exist outside democracy. Its a concept so obvious I don't know where to start to explain it to you. Therefore Libertarians would always favour democracy over authoritarianism.

"Calling it "restoration" is branding, not analysis."
Venezuela held elections. The party that won those elections and is therefore the legitimate government were overthrown by a combination of kleptocratic communists, the military and cadres of foreign powers. Restoring a legitimate government to power isn't regime change.

"Why should libertarians trust powerful states to impose liberty abroad"

Liberty can't be imposed. But the conditions that stop liberty from flourishing can be overthrown, as, hopefully, will happen in this case.

Are you in favour of ordinary Venezuelans having the right to elect the leaders they want or not? It's that simple.

You're again sliding between implication and denial, mhaze.

Yet you explicitly framed opposition in terms of "reflexive anti-Trump dogmas”, "anti-US beliefs” and "unerring support by many socialists”. If that wasn't meant to characterise most opposition, it's hard to see what purpose it served. Pointing that out isn't pompous; it's reading what you wrote.

On libertarianism and democracy: you're asserting, not arguing. Libertarianism doesn't collapse into democracy. Democracies can restrain power, but they can also legitimise coercion. That's precisely why libertarians have historically been wary of majoritarianism. Saying libertarianism "cannot exist outside democracy” is a claim, not a self-evident truth, and it doesn't justify foreign states deciding which elections count and which governments are "rightful”.

Which brings us to regime change.

If a foreign power recognises an alternative government, applies economic coercion, encourages destabilisation, and removes the sitting government, that is regime change. Calling it "restoration” presupposes the conclusion under dispute. Libertarians should be especially cautious about outsourcing legitimacy to external actors.

Saying "Liberty can't be imposed, but the conditions can be overthrown” doesn't resolve the problem. Overthrowing "conditions” still involves coercion, harm, and external agency. The issue isn't whether liberty is desirable; it's whether powerful states can reliably dismantle political conditions abroad without substituting their own interests. History suggests they can't.

And no, it isn't "that simple”.

I support Venezuelans electing their leaders. That does not entail endorsing foreign powers deciding when, how, and under what pressure that choice is allowed to occur, nor treating intervention as libertarian by default because it's framed as democratic.

You're asserting outcomes. I'm questioning mechanisms.

Until that distinction is addressed, the disagreement isn't about values. It's about whether coercion stops being coercion because we approve of the intended result.

"Well lucky I didn't say it did, eh?" - mhaze

"Democracies can restrain power, but they can also legitimise coercion."

That's beside the point. True, libertarianism doesn't necessarily exist under democracy, but it can't exist outside democracy. Aquatic life doesn't necessarily exist in a body of water, but it can't exist outside a body of water. Again, its so simple a concept, I don't know where to start to explain it to you.

You seem determined to ignore the fact that Venezuela held elections, badly run and far from free and fair, but elections nonetheless. And the party that won that election and were then denied power, is the party that is now slated to take recover power. Ignore it if that fact doesn't suit your narrative, but its still there.

"Yet you explicitly framed opposition in terms of "reflexive anti-Trump dogmas”, "anti-US beliefs” and "unerring support by many socialists”. If that wasn't meant to characterise most opposition,"

That's right, those are, in my view, the main reasons that people oppose the freeing of Venezuela. But there are other lesser or less prevalent reasons, despite what you say.

It is probably better to view the situation from AC's vassal state perspective. Arresting Maduro then becomes an action of changing the real powers in charge, in this instance Russia and China.

Given that Japan and Germany are examples of US vassal states (compare with Iran and Venezuela under Russia/China), I would guess that Venezuelan's now stand a higher chance of increased prosperity and greater personal freedoms.

Hi mhaze,

No election in Venezuela can be considered free and fair when the U.S. openly declares itself to be interfering, with candidates such as Juan Guido, especially when Donald Trump declares the oil already belonged to the United States and that Venezuela 'stole it', more or less declaring their involvement is a matter of national security in support of their own multi-nationals..

No country is obligated to hold an election when there is clearly foreign interference and candidates aligned with a foreign power.

The people aren't being given a chance to be lead by someone loyal to their own nation Candidate A and Candidate B, you're forcing an election where one candidate is under sanctions and the other is loyal to a foreign government and offering the removal of U.S sanctions, which means it's essentially rigged from the start no matter what the outcome is.

It's not an election about domestic policies though the candidate loyal to U.S. will claim the leader is a dictator, is corrupt and has economically mismanaged the country when clearly the problem is outside economic coercion and interference by sanctions.

Here's Marco Rubio explaining how because of nations trading in their own currencies, the U.S. won't be able to sanction them anymore.
(Hooray!)
If this does not demonstrate both economic coercion and foreign interference then I don't know what does.

Rubio on “Secondary Economy in the World”: “We Won’t Have the Ability to Sanction Them”
http://youtu.be/pxkSz-HR-FM

Do you support economic coercion and foreign interference in national democratic elections?
Yes or No