As we approach 2026, let’s not forget that every public leader is chosen to improve the social and political conditions of those they govern. That standard, basic as it is, has been strangely absent from much of the public conversation lately.
On January 3, we awoke to reports that Nicolás Maduro and his wife had been forcibly apprehended in Venezuela, the country they had ruled for twenty years. Almost immediately, major news outlets invoked the language of national sovereignty, international legal standards, and the rule of law.
Yet one widely shared LinkedIn post captured the issue with unusual clarity:
“Because of Venezuela, everyone is suddenly an expert on sovereignty. Let me tell you what sovereignty actually means under international law, because I don’t think most people screaming about it have any idea.
‘Sovereignty’ isn’t about who controls the land with guards, guns, and ammunition. If it were, every warlord with a checkpoint would be a ‘sovereign.’ Every drug cartel would be sovereign. Every terrorist organization holding land would be sovereign.
Sovereignty requires not only ‘effective control,’ but also an assessment of the extent to which that control represents the will of the people and supports their well-being. International recognition and adherence to international obligations are shorthand for laws that embody human rights and the welfare of the governed. These are corollaries to the main principle.
Nicolás Maduro may have had military control, but he lacked the other three requirements.
The will of the people? Maduro lost the July 2024 election by a margin of two to one. The Carter Center confirmed it. The opposition released tally sheets from more than 80 percent of voting machines. Maduro declared victory anyway.
Adherence to international obligations and human rights? After he seized power, Maduro imprisoned roughly 1,700 political opponents, including children; disappeared untold thousands; forcibly shut down opposition voices; and forced María Corina Machado—recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize—into hiding for fear of her life. For years, he also presided over the Cartel de los Soles from the presidential palace: a narco-terrorist operation that flooded American streets with cocaine.”
The United States did not invade Venezuela. It executed a long-standing arrest warrant against a convicted felon who lost an election, refused to leave office, and abused his people for over twenty years.
Yet suddenly, headlines and commentators were shouting about “violations of sovereignty.”
Mitchell Schneider posted the excerpt above on LinkedIn and then continued:
“Here is what makes this so infuriating. Many of the same voices rushing to defend Maduro’s ‘sovereignty’ have spent years insisting that Israel has no right to defend itself when Hamas fires rockets from Gaza, when Hezbollah launches missiles from Lebanon, or when Iran builds drone factories in Venezuela to manufacture weapons that kill Israeli civilians. But Venezuela’s sovereignty is sacred; the sovereignty of Israel, apparently, does not exist. The double standard is not subtle, and it is not kind. But thank God, some members of the public still retain the ability to articulate moral clarity.”
President Trump doesn’t sugarcoat things, and that bluntness shows up in how he handles foreign policy. Maduro is now in U.S. federal custody. Assad fled to Moscow. And across the region, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iran have taken real hits, while Russia has been warned.
Those who hide behind international law while defending dictators and terrorists are learning something the hard way: sovereignty does not deserve protection simply because someone occupies a presidential palace. Power is not a shield for those who lose elections, refuse to leave office, and commit crimes while cloaking themselves in the language of law. That does not serve justice.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking and I’m done pretending not to see it.
This moment also points to a deeper problem, one that the media should take far more seriously. HonestReporting puts it plainly:
“Visual storytelling shapes perception just as powerfully as headlines, and omissions can be as revealing as what is included. This matters because editorial choices are rarely neutral. Year-end photo roundups are often presented as objective snapshots of the world, but they reflect deliberate decisions about which conflicts dominate, which images stir emotion, and which stories quietly disappear.”
As HonestReporting demonstrates in this video, these omissions are not accidental. They are editorial decisions, and they play a powerful role in shaping global public opinion and elections.
The Stories That Form Public Opinion
This issue of “telling the story” extends beyond journalism. Professor Gad Saad recently highlighted a new book, The Hoaxing of Margaret Mead, which revisits foundational flaws in Margaret Mead’s PhD work on Samoa. That work helped popularize cultural relativism, an approach that, in its strongest form, treats cultures as morally off-limits for evaluation.
This debate truly matters.
Human biology differs, but since Darwin it’s been hard to deny that there’s a shared structure to human development. Culture grows out of that shared nature. We form communities for protection, and also to restrain our worst impulses, so that life can be stable, productive, and worth living.
Cultures, therefore, have an obligation to evaluate how well they fulfill those goals. Do they promote stability and fairness? Do they safeguard children? Do they encourage responsibility and care for others? Do they support the well-being of as many people as possible?
Every society must answer these questions. Some rely more heavily on families, others on schools, religious institutions, or communal law. How well a society succeeds in these areas is what will distinguish one culture from another.
It’s worth remembering that both Christianity and Islam drew heavily from Jewish texts and ideas. Those Jewish sources, including the Torah, the Talmud, and centuries of rigorous study, continue to nourish Jewish communities and the State of Israel today, and they have helped shape much of the Western world.
The Talmud, codified in the seventh century, is not abstract theology. It is a compilation of law and extensive discussions about law. It is a textual document that is practical and grounded, deeply concerned with daily life: how we raise children, care for the vulnerable, pursue justice, and live responsibly. Today, it is accessible on multiple platforms for anyone curious enough to engage with it.
Just as physical exercise sustains the body, spiritual and intellectual nourishment sustains the human spirit.
We have learned from recent year-end reports that young people are voluntarily returning to churches, seeking community and meaning. I seek nourishment each Sabbath morning in my synagogue, whether I am in Montreal or Jerusalem. The question is simple and deeply personal: Where do you find your physical, mental, and spiritual nourishment?
In the end, sovereignty, culture, and leadership all revolve around the same question: What values are you willing to uphold, and what are you willing to do to defend them?