One of the things that has bothered me most over the years is how often and how easily people stop defending principles when they like an outcome.
Over the weekend, the U.S. military carried out strikes in Caracas and captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, flying them to New York in what the Trump administration is calling a “law enforcement” operation.
Almost immediately, something sadly unsurprising started happening.
People who have spent years warning about executive overreach, foreign intervention, and the dangers of unchecked authority began defending an action that, in a different circumstance, they would have immediately condemned.
Look, I’m the first to admit that Maduro is a bad guy. He's a tyrant who has overseen economic collapse, repression, and mass suffering in a country that should by all measures be wealthy and thriving.
Instead, his people were eating zoo animals.
Nicolás Maduro needed to go.
Still, it’s worth noticing how quickly people who claim to care deeply about constitutional limits have suddenly stopped talking about them altogether.
For years, many of these men and women have put a lot of time and effort into insisting they believe in restraint. In separation of powers, due process, and an Executive that is bound by law.
Especially when it comes to foreign intervention and unilateral action.
Sadly, a lot of those commitments seem to have simply vanished almost overnight.
When asked where the Constitution authorizes a president to invade another country and remove its leader, the answers haven’t been rooted in any kind of principle at all. And they certainly aren’t rooted in the Constitution. We’re hearing mostly historical anecdotes, legal theories, and appeals to precedent.
“But… the Barbary pirates!”
“But George H.W. Bush removed Noriega in Panama!”
“But the courts said XYZ!”
“But Congress passed some statute in 199-whatever!”
But none of that is the Constitution, and that distinction matters.
Because a written constitution only works if its text actually constrains behavior. If the standard becomes “someone got away with it before,” then we don’t have limits—we have habits. And habits are a terrible substitute for law.
What we’re really watching is the slow replacement of principle with permission. With, “just this once” type thinking.
Predictably, emotionally satisfying arguments are being treated as if they’re serious ones. “Venezuelans are celebrating,” they tell us. “They’re happier now.”
As if public jubilation were a legal justification for regime change.
Sorry, but I’ve seen this movie before.
Iraqis celebrated when Saddam fell. Libyans celebrated when Gaddafi was killed. Headlines declared liberation in both cases as video rolled of crowds cheering and dancing in the streets.
Then came years of chaos, civil war, extremism, and humanitarian disaster.
Short-term joy does not invalidate long-term consequences, and it certainly doesn’t transform executive overreach into something lawful. The uncomfortable truth is that outcomes people enjoy are often the most tempting excuse for abandoning restraints. And once you do that, you’ve already lost the moral high ground.
Because if your commitment to limits only survives when the target is sympathetic, or the president is from the “other” team, then what you’re defending isn’t principle at all; it’s merely preference.
Every exception you applaud becomes a standard the next guy will rely on. And the chances are pretty high that it will not be someone you trust or someone who shares your values. Instead it will be someone who simply inherits the power you helped expand. Because power doesn’t care why you justified it, it only remembers that you did.
This is how constitutional boundaries erode—by one “necessary” or “for-the-greater-good” action at a time.
We saw a great example of this when, in the same breath as announcing Maduro’s capture, the President talked about American oil companies entering Venezuela and the U.S. “running” the government until a “proper” transition could be arranged.
I mean gosh, what could go wrong?
To be clear, no one needs to be defending Maduro. He’s a despot. That’s not in dispute.
But the question isn’t whether he’s bad. The question is whether we still believe law is supposed to restrain power.
Because “he deserved it” has never been a constitutional argument. It may be a convenient one, but it certainly isn’t one that we should use if we want to preserve the rule of law.
James Madison warned that parchment barriers (the Constitution) would only work if the people insisted they be honored. He was right! A constitution doesn’t enforce itself. It only restrains power when citizens demand that it does.
If we only care about limits when they protect outcomes we already agree with, then those limits don’t actually exist at all.
What we’re witnessing right now is why presidents since Washington have gotten away with exceeding constitutional limits: because the public trains them to. They learn that violating restraints can spark national pride, satisfy a thirst for vengeance, and earn adoration from people who swear they oppose unchecked power—right up until it produces an outcome they like.
If we want a country of laws, then we’ve got to act like it matters, even when it’s unpopular or inconvenient, and even when we really really hate the bad guy. Especially then, actually.
Because the bill always comes due, and history has taught us that the payment is usually made by people who never voted for the war, never authorized the mission, and never wanted their country turned into the kind of thing it once claimed to oppose.
This is exactly why we do what we do at Tuttle Twins.
We’re not here to teach kids what to think—that’s a job for moms and dads. But we are here to make resources that help them learn how power works, how incentives shape behavior, and why principles that bend under pressure aren’t actually principles at all.
Our Year of Growth sale is still live, and it’s built around the important idea that if we want a free and prosperous future, then we’ve got to raise a generation that understands why principles matter.
They need to understand that a free society doesn’t survive on good intentions or feel-good short term outcomes for very long. Lasting security comes when rules still bind, even when breaking them might seem emotionally justifiable.
That’s a lesson a lot of really smart adults are struggling to remember right now.
And that’s exactly why we’ve got to keep teaching it.
— Connor
