What is happening in Venezuela provides valuable lessons for Americans. In the recent presidential election, the country’s dictator Nicolas Maduro immediately claimed victory but, suspiciously, has refused to reveal tally results from the voting stations. His opponent Edmundo González, on the other hand, quickly produced written tallies that were taken from many of the voting stations across the country that showed that he had actually won the election by an extremely wide margin.
Since then, there have been massive protests in the streets in favor of Gonzalez and the woman who is the real leader of the opposition, María Corina Machado. Maduro blocked her from running against him and Gonzalez was chosen to run in her stead. Maduro has responded by arresting and incarcerating some 2,000 protestors.
What then are the Venezuelan people to do under these circumstances? Thomas Jefferson provided the answer in the Declaration of Independence.The Venezuelan people have the right to resort to violence to oust Maduro from power.
2019 Uprising against Nicolas Maduro.
There is one big problem, however. Several years ago, the Venezuelan government adopted a policy of gun control, which disarmed the Venezuelan people. The only ones left with guns were the Venezuelan national-security establishment, the Venezuelan police, Venezuelan criminals, and those Venezuelan citizens who secretly and illegally decided to keep their guns, which, most likely, was not very many people.
What is occurring in Venezuela is precisely what our American ancestors assumed would happen here in the United States. That’s why they enacted the Bill of Rights — because they figured that U.S. officials would do the same thing to the American people that Venezuelan officials are doing to the Venezuelan people.
Consider the First Amendment. It says everything about the mindset of our American ancestors. It expressly prohibits federal officials from doing to Americans what Venezuelan officials are doing to Venezuelans for protesting against their government. After all, why have the First Amendment if one is certain that federal officials will never arrest and jail people for exercising freedom of speech and other fundamental, God-given rights?
Consider the Second Amendment. It prohibits U.S. officials from doing what Venezuelan officials have done to the Venezuelan people — disarming them. Our American ancestors knew that when a people are disarmed, they have no means to violently resist, in which case the right to “alter or abolish” a tyrannical regime is nullified. A disarmed citizenry has the tendency to become an obedient and submissive citizenry in the face of a brutal dictatorial regime, as Maduro well knows.
The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments are express protections against the types of things that Maduro’s henchmen are doing when they round up and arrest those protestors. Our American ancestors understood that U.S. officials would do the same things that Maduro is doing. That’s why they included those specific protections in the Bill of Rights.
In fact, our American ancestors displayed tremendous wisdom and insight regarding freedom when they included the right of habeas corpus in the Constitution itself. It has been said that habeas corpus is the lynchpin of a free society. Without it, people are subject to being arbitrarily arrested and incarcerated for exercising fundamental, God-given rights, like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to protest and petition government for redress of grievances.
A person taken into custody by U.S. officials can file a petition for writ of habeas corpus with a federal court. The federal judge issues the writ, which then commands whoever is holding the person to immediately produce the person before the federal judge. At the habeas corpus hearing, if the official holding the person cannot show a valid reason for holding the person, the federal judge orders his immediate release. The person holding the person must comply with the federal judge’s order or the federal judge will order his arrest and incarceration.
Of course, habeas corpus depends on an independent federal judiciary — that is, judges who are willing to take an independent stand against the president of a country — and a federal judiciary able and willing to enforce its orders against a president. That’s problematic in Venezuela, where Maduro controls the judiciary. But it does show Americans the importance of an independent federal judiciary.
That brings up another important factor: Venezuela, like the United States, is a national-security state — that is, a government that has a vast military-intelligence establishment with omnipotent powers. It is virtually impossible for a disarmed citizenry to take on a national-security state. Therefore, given its overwhelming power within the governmental structure, the military-intelligence establishment inevitably becomes the wild card in deciding who is going to prevail.
As of now, the Venezuelan national-security establishment is sticking with Maduro, but the opposition is trying to persuade it to change sides. But even if it does change sides and ousts Maduro from power, the opposition will be beholden to it and, therefore, most likely will leave it in charge of the government, even if the new president Gonzalez will be permitted to have the appearance of being in charge.
The problem here in the United States is similar. If a political crisis were ever to strike the United States where a president refused to leave office, the wildcard would be the U.S. national security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA. If they sided with the president who refused to leave office and began following his orders to round up and arrest protestors, as Madura’s military-intelligence goons are doing, there is no reasonable possibility that the Supreme Court or the rest of the federal judiciary or the Congress would interfere. But at least well-armed Americans would have an option that disarmed Venezuelans do not have: the option of “altering or abolishing” their government through force.