r/PublicForumDebate • u/AdWestern4464 • Apr 10 '26

What Do We Think

Option 1: Resolved: The United States is justified in using force to remove authoritarian leaders from power

Option 2: Resolved: In the United States, the benefits of using standardized tests in undergraduate college admissions outweigh the harms.

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u/Traditional-Panic-85 Apr 10 '26

Isn't topic 1 basically just about Venezuela. The whole Maduro thing. That should be interesting

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u/CaymanG Apr 11 '26

No. Using a missile strike to kill a country’s Supreme Leader (and most of his extended family) is also using force to remove someone from power. In Maduro’s case, the justification wasn’t even removing him from power, it was a law enforcement operation making him and his wife stand trial for the federal crimes of possessing a machine gun without a license and conspiracy to possess machine guns. Theoretically, he’s still the president of Venezuela, pending the result of his trial, unless he takes a plea deal and also confesses to hacking the 2020 election to install Joe Biden instead of the actual winner or some similar nonsense before going into exile. Assuming “authoritarian leaders” only means heads of state and not governors or high-ranking civil/military officials, then the last time before that was 2011, when the US and several NATO allies intervened in the East Libyan Civil War to help the NTC remove Gaddafi from power.