Posts Tagged ‘governance’

“Fabricated Authority”

January 21, 2026

Ricardo F. Morín

January21, 2026

Oakland Park, Fl.

1. A political claim ordinarily enters public life through institutions. A law is debated, enacted, interpreted, contested. A speech is delivered from a known office, before a defined audience, subject to reply and record. Authority, in these cases, arises from responsibility and constraint.

2. The text examined here satisfies none of these conditions.

3. The text attributes to an unnamed broadcast the power to alter legal status. The text presents a speaker not as a citizen who speaks, but as a conscience that pronounces. The text declares effects that no statute, no executive order, and no court possesses the authority to produce. The text announces national assent in the absence of any forum capable of granting assent.

4. No enactment appears. No interpretation occurs. No review is possible.

5. Nothing in this sequence is argued. Nothing in this sequence is demonstrated. Nothing in this sequence is capable of verification.

6. Authority is not derived from office, law, or responsibility. Authority is assigned by narrative arrangement.

7. The speaker is granted moral standing by recognition alone. The law is displaced by spectacle. The audience is positioned as witness to a verdict that precedes deliberation. Silence is treated as confirmation. Stillness is treated as consent.

8. What appears as denunciation functions as substitution.

9. The place of institutions is occupied by a voice. The place of argument is occupied by proclamation. The place of judgment is occupied by reaction.

10. The result is not persuasion. The result is conversion.

11. Citizens are not addressed as agents capable of contesting claims. Citizens are addressed as spectators invited to receive a moral scene whose meaning has been fixed in advance.

12. When invented testimony is received as political record, the boundary between event and wish disappears. When spectacle is treated as verdict, correction loses authority. When conscience is produced as performance, no institution remains capable of constraining conscience.

13. This is not misinformation in the ordinary sense.

14. This phenomenon is the replacement of judgment by fabricated authority.

15. Authority ordinarily attaches to an office before authority attaches to a voice, because office supplies the limits under which speech can claim consequence. A court exists, so a judge speaks. A chamber exists, so a legislator speaks. An administration exists, so an executive speaks. In each case standing precedes utterance, and the public can locate responsibility by locating the forum in which the claim is made.

16. The text examined here reverses that order. The text presents a voice whose standing is not grounded in any office that can be named, any jurisdiction that can be defined, or any forum that can be recognized. No delegation is stated. No mandate is visible. No responsibility is assumed. Yet the voice speaks as if entitled to pronounce on matters whose force depends, in ordinary civic life, on enactment, interpretation, and review.

17. This reversal matters because office establishes the scope under which a claim may operate, jurisdiction fixes the reach of effects, and procedure subjects both scope and reach to contest and record. A claim that arises through these constraints can be challenged because standing can be challenged. The claim here does not arise through constraint; the claim arises through reception. Standing depends on recognition rather than jurisdiction, and recognition is not a civic category that admits examination.

18. One can dispute a mandate. One can deny a court’s jurisdiction. One can invoke procedure and require reply. Recognition offers no equivalent instrument. Recognition confers authority without specifying scope, and recognition allows a voice to present itself as conscience without accepting the obligations that make conscience accountable in public life.

19. The effect is not merely that a voice speaks outside office. The effect is that the role of office is replaced. In a system where standing precedes speech, speech can be limited because the forum can be limited. In a system where standing follows speech, speech expands until something external imposes a boundary.

20. The text relies on no such boundary. The text presents moral standing as complete at the moment of utterance, and the text treats reception as confirmation. The audience is positioned less as a public capable of contest than as a witness to a pronouncement whose authority is presumed rather than earned.

21. In that arrangement the claim to speak carries consequence without jurisdiction, and authority appears where no institution can be identified as a source of authority.

22. Authority that does not arise from office cannot rely on procedure. Procedure requires forum. Forum requires jurisdiction. Jurisdiction requires mandate. None is present here.

23. The claim therefore does not proceed by sequence. The claim proceeds without premises, without grounds, and without anticipation of reply. The statement does not argue. The statement announces.

24. What would ordinarily require enactment is declared complete. What would ordinarily require interpretation is pronounced settled. What would ordinarily require review is presented as final. Verdict precedes forum.

25. This reversal alters the function of speech itself. Speech no longer seeks assent through reasoning. Speech produces assent by declaration. Judgment no longer follows deliberation. Judgment is installed before deliberation can occur.

26. Once proclamation is received as verdict, proof becomes irrelevant.

27. Once argument is removed from the sequence, assent no longer arises from judgment. Assent arises from recognition. The claim does not ask to be examined. The claim asks to be received. The force of the claim depends less on what the claim establishes than on whom the claim addresses.

28. The audience is not invited to consider whether the verdict follows from law, or whether the authority invoked possesses standing to pronounce. The audience is invited to recognize the audience in the verdict.

29. This shift alters the function of agreement. In deliberative settings, assent follows contest. One accepts a conclusion because one has weighed a claim against alternatives. Here, assent precedes any such weighing. The verdict arrives already formed, and reception supplies confirmation.

30. Agreement no longer signals conviction, but affiliation, a posture defined less by conviction than by position.

31. Recognition, in this arrangement, performs the work that argument once performed. To accept the claim is to affirm membership in a moral position already defined. The verdict does not bind because the verdict is correct. The verdict binds because the verdict identifies.

32. Those who receive the verdict do not do so as judges of coherence, but as participants in the posture the verdict confers. The claim succeeds not by persuading opponents, but by consolidating those already disposed to accept the claim.

33. This function explains the absence of procedure. Deliberation would introduce fracture. Contest would introduce differentiation. Review would expose divergence. None serves the purpose at hand.

34. The claim therefore bypasses every stage at which disagreement could appear. The claim offers instead a completed judgment whose primary effect is to sort recognition from refusal.

35. The result is not belief in the ordinary sense, but affiliation, a posture defined less by conviction than by position. To assent is to take position within a moral alignment whose boundaries are drawn by reception itself. Those who accept are confirmed. Those who hesitate are marked.

36. Authority, in this form, does not govern through law. Authority governs through identification.

37. Once standing is conferred by reception, the remaining limits cannot hold.

38. Once authority is produced in this manner, substitution becomes unavoidable. In this arrangement office yields to presence, jurisdiction yields to recognition, procedure yields to proclamation, and judgment yields to reaction, until no limit remains capable of arresting the expansion that follows.

39. Each replacement removes a limit. Each replacement widens scope. Each replacement dissolves responsibility.

40. What remains is a form of authority that cannot be contested because no forum remains in which contest can occur.

41. The consequence for citizenship follows directly. A citizen ordinarily participates in judgment by weighing claims, contesting standing, and invoking procedure. Here, that role disappears. The citizen is no longer positioned as a participant in deliberation. The citizen is positioned as a recipient of verdict.

42. Agency yields to reception, judgment yields to alignment, and responsibility yields to loyalty, until disagreement itself can no longer appear as a civic act.

43. In this posture disagreement ceases to be a civic act. Disagreement becomes a breach of affiliation. Hesitation becomes disloyalty. Correction becomes defection.

44. Once judgment is displaced in this way, repair becomes impossible. Correction presupposes a forum. Review presupposes jurisdiction. Reply presupposes standing. None remains available.

45. A verdict that arrives without forum cannot be recalled to contest. An authority that arises without office cannot be subjected to review. A claim that governs through recognition alone cannot be corrected without threatening membership itself.

46. The persistence of fabrication follows not from confusion, but from function. Fabrication endures because fabrication stabilizes alignment. Fabrication circulates because fabrication confirms position. Fabrication resists correction because correction would dissolve the posture fabrication sustains.

47. Authority, once detached from office and constraint, does not disappear. Authority reappears in altered form. Verdict is separated from forum. Conscience is separated from responsibility. Assent is separated from deliberation.

48. What remains is a claim to govern without jurisdiction.

49. This is not the corruption of judgment. This is displacement.

50. Judgment is no longer exercised. Judgment is produced.

Tags:authority, citizenship, civic reasoning, constitutional law, deliberation, disinformation, fabricated authority, governance, institutional legitimacy, judgment, law and power, moral alignment, political identity, political rhetoric, propaganda, public speech
Posted in Political Theory, Civic Ethics, Rhetorical Analysis, Constitutional Inquiry, Public Authority, Contemporary Diagnosis | Leave a Comment »

“Unmasking Disappointment: Series II”

January 21, 2026

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“Geometric Allegory” digital painting *©2023* by Ricardo Morin (American visual artist born in Venezuela–1954)

Ricardo F. Morín

Oakland Park, F.

December 12, 2025

Author’s Note

Reflections from previous chapters eventually lead to a more historical inquiry, in which the following archive, Chronicles of Hugo Chávez, becomes another lens through which I approach the Venezuelan experience.

Chapter VI

Chronicles of Hugo Chávez

Hugo Chávez, who spearheaded the Bolivarian Revolution, was born on July 28, 1954, in Sabaneta, Venezuela. He died on March 5, 2013, at 4:25 p.m. VET (8:55 p.m. UTC) in Caracas, at the age of 58. As the leader of the revolution, Chávez left a discernible imprint on Venezuela’s political history. To reconstruct this history is to revisit a landscape whose consequences continue to shape Venezuelan life.

At the core of Chavismo lies a deliberate fusion of nationalism, centralized power, and military involvement in politics. This fusion shaped his vision for a new Venezuela, one that would be fiercely independent and proudly socialist.

_{Hugo Chávez at age 11, sixth grade, 1965 (Photo: Reuters)}.

Hugo Chávez’s childhood was spent in a small town in Los Llanos, in the northwestern state of Barinas. This region has a history of indigenous chiefdoms (i.e., “leaderships,” “dominions,” or “rules”) dating back to pre-Columbian times. ^[1] Chávez was the second of six brothers, and his parents struggled to provide for the large family. As a result, he and his older brother Adán were sent to live with their paternal grandmother, Rosa Inés, in the city of Barinas. After her death, Chávez honored his grandmother’s memory with a poem; it concludes with a stanza that reveals the depth of their bond:

Entonces, / abrirías tus brazos/ y me abrazarías/ cual tiempo de infante/ y me arrullarías/ con tu tierno canto/ y me llevarías/ por otros lugares/ a lanzar un grito/ que nunca se apague. ^[2]

[Author’s translation: Then, / you would open your arms / and draw me in / as if returned to childhood / and you would steady me / with your tender voice / and you would carry me / to other places / to release a cry / that would not be extinguished].

In his second year of high school, Chávez encountered two influential teachers, José Esteban Ruiz Guevara and Douglas Ignacio Bravo Mora, both of whom provided guidance outside the regular curriculum. ^[3][4] They introduced Chávez to Marxism-Leninism as a theoretical framework, sparking his fascination with the Cuban Revolution and its principles—a turning point more visible in retrospect than it could have been in the moment.

At 17, Chávez enrolled in the Academia Militar de Venezuela at Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas, where he hoped to balance military training with his passion for baseball. He dreamed of becoming a left-handed pitcher, but his abilities did not match his ambition. Despite his initial lack of interest in military life, Chávez persisted in his training, graduating from the academy in 1975 near the bottom of his class.

Chávez’s military career began as a second lieutenant; he was tasked with capturing leftist guerrillas. As he pursued them, he found himself identifying with their cause and believed they fought for a better life. But by 1977, Chávez was prepared to abandon his military career and join the guerrillas. Seeking guidance, he turned to his brother Adán, who persuaded him to remain in the military by insisting, “We need you there.” ^[5] Chávez now felt a sense of purpose and understood his mission as a calling. In 1982, he and his closest military associates formed the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement-200: they aimed to spread their interpretation of Marxism within the armed forces and ultimately hoped to stage a coup d’état. ^[6]

On February 4, 1992, Lieutenant Chávez and his military allies launched a revolt against the government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez. Their rebellion, however, was swiftly quashed. Surrounded and outnumbered, Chávez surrendered at the Cuartel de la Montaña, the military history museum in Caracas, near the presidential palace, on the condition that he be allowed to address his companions via television. He urged them to lay down their arms and to avoid further bloodshed. He proclaimed, « Compañeros, lamentablemente por ahora los objetivos que nos planteamos no fueron logrados . . . » [Author’s translation: “Comrades, unfortunately, our objectives have not been achieved… yet,”].^[7] The broadcast marked the beginning of his political ascent. His words resonated across the nation and sowed the seeds of his political future.

**_{Chávez announces his arrest on national television and urges insurgent troops to surrender}.**

In 1994, newly elected President Rafael Caldera Rodríguez pardoned him. ^[8] With this second chance, Chávez founded the Movimiento V República (MVR) in 1997 and rallied like-minded socialists to his cause. ^[9] Through a campaign centered on populist appeals, he secured an electoral victory at age 44.

In his first year as President, Chávez enjoyed an 80% approval rating. His policies sought to eradicate corruption in the government, to expand social programs for the poor, and to redistribute national wealth. Jorge Olavarría de Tezanos Pinto, initially a supporter, emerged by the end of the elections as a prominent voice of the opposition. Olavarría accused Chávez of undermining Venezuela’s democracy through his appointment of military officers to governmental positions. ^[10] At the same time, Chávez was drafting a new constitution, which allowed him to place military officers in all branches of government. The new constitution, ratified on December 15, 1999, paved the way for the “mega elections” of 2000, in which Chávez secured a term of six years. Although his party failed to gain full control of the Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly), it passed laws by decree through the mechanism of the Leyes Habilitantes (Enabling Laws). ^[11][12] Meanwhile, Chávez initiated reforms to reorganize the State‘s institutional structure, but the constitution’s requirements were not met. The appointment of judges to the new Corte Suprema de Justicia [CSJ] was carried out without rigor and raised concerns about its legitimacy and competence. Cecilia Sosa Gómez, the outgoing Corte Suprema de Justicia president, declared the rule of law “buried” and the court “self-dissolved.” ^[13][14]

Although some Venezuelans saw Chávez as a refreshing alternative to the country’s unstable democratic system, which had been dominated by three parties since 1958, many others expressed concern as the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) consolidated power and became the sole governing party. ^[15] Legislative and executive powers were increasingly centralized, and the narrowing of judicial guarantees limited citizens’ participation in the democratic process. Chávez’s close ties with Fidel Castro and his desire to model Venezuela after Cuba’s system—dubbed VeneCuba—raised alarm. ^[16] He silenced independent radio broadcasters, and he antagonized the United States and other Western nations. Instead, he strengthened ties with Iraq, Iran, and Libya. Meanwhile, domestically, his approval rating had plummeted to 30%, and anti-Chávez demonstrations became a regular occurrence.

On April 11, 2002, a massive demonstration of more than a million people converged on the presidential palace to demand President Chávez’s resignation. The protest turned violent when agents of the National Guard and masked paramilitaries opened fire on the demonstrators. ^[17] The tragic event—the Puente Llaguno massacre—sparked a military uprising that led to Chávez’s arrest and to the installation of a transitional government under Pedro Francisco Carmona Estanga. ^[18] Carmona’s leadership, however, was short-lived; he swiftly suspended the Constitution, dissolved the Asamblea Nacional and the Corte Suprema, and dismissed various officials. Within forty-eight hours, the army withdrew its support for Carmona. The vice president, Diosdado Cabello Rondón, was reinstated as president and promptly restored Chávez to power. ^[19]

The failed coup d’état enabled Chávez to purge his inner circle and to intensify his conflict with the opposition. In December 2002, Venezuela’s opposition retaliated with a nationwide strike aimed at forcing Chávez’s resignation. The strike targeted the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), which generated roughly 80% of the country’s export revenues. ^[20] Chávez responded by dismissing its 38,000 employees and replacing them with loyalists. By February 2003, the strike had dissipated, and Chávez had once again secured control over the country’s oil revenues.

From 2003 to 2004, the opposition launched a referendum to oust Chávez as president, but soaring oil revenues, which financed social programs, bolstered Chávez’s support among lower-income sectors. ^[21] By the end of 2004, his popularity had rebounded, and the referendum was soundly defeated. In December 2005, the opposition boycotted the elections to the National Assembly and protested against the Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council) (CNE). ^[22] As anticipated in view of the opposition boycott, Chávez’s coalition capitalized on the absence of an effective opposition and strengthened its grip on the Assembly. ^[23] By that point, legislative control rested almost entirely with Chávez’s coalition. What followed was not a departure from this trajectory, but its extension through formal policy.

In December 2006, Chávez secured a third presidential term, a victory that expanded the scope of executive initiative. He nationalized key industries—gold, electricity, telecommunications, gas, steel, mining, agriculture, and banking—along with numerous smaller entities. ^[24]^[25]^{[26][27][28][29]} Chávez also introduced a package of constitutional amendments designed to expand the powers of the executive and to extend its control over the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV). In a controversial move, he unilaterally altered property rights and allowed the state to seize private real estate without judicial oversight. Furthermore, he proposed becoming president for life. In December 2007, however, the National Assembly narrowly rejected the package of sweeping reforms.

In February 2009, Chávez reintroduced his controversial proposals and succeeded in advancing them. Following strategic counsel from Cuba, he escalated the crackdown on dissent. ^[30] He ordered the arrest of elected opponents and shut down all private television stations.

In June 2011, Chávez announced that he would undergo surgery in Cuba to remove a tumor, a development that sparked confusion and concern throughout the country. ^[31] As his health came under increasing scrutiny, more voters began to question his fitness for office. Yet, in 2012, despite his fragile health, Chávez campaigned against Henrique Capriles and secured a surprise presidential victory. ^[32]

^{Chávez during the electoral campaign in February 2012}.

In December 2012, Chávez underwent his fourth surgery in Cuba. Before departing Venezuela, he announced his plan for transition and designated Vice President Nicolás Maduro as his successor, alongside a powerful troika that included Diosdado Cabello [military chief] and Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño [administrator of PDVSA]. ^[33][34][35] Following the surgery, Chávez was transferred on December 11 to the Hospital Militar Universitario Dr. Carlos Arvelo (attached to the Universidad Militar Bolivariana de Venezuela, or UMBV) in Caracas, where he remained incommunicado, further fueling speculation and rumors. Some government officials dismissed reports of assassination, while others, including former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz, claimed he had already died on December 28. ^[36] Maduro’s cabinet vehemently refuted these allegations and insisted that no crime had been committed. Amidst the uncertainty, Maduro asked the National Assembly to postpone the inauguration indefinitely. This further intensified political tensions.

The National Assembly acquiesced to Maduro and voted to postpone the inauguration. Chávez succumbed to his illness on March 5. His body was embalmed in three separate stages without benefit of autopsy, which further fueled suspicions and conspiracy theories. Thirty days later, Maduro entered office amid sustained political uncertainty. ^[37] The implications of this transition extend beyond chronology; they shape the conditions examined in the chapters that follow in this series, which comprises 19 chapters, miscellaneous rubrics, and an appendix.

Endnotes:

§ 2

[1] Charles S. Spencer and Elsa M. Redmond, Prehispanic Causeways and Regional Politics in the Llanos of Barinas, Venezuela (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Abstract: “…relacionados con la dinámica política de la organización cacical durante la fase Gaván Tardía.” Published in Latin American Antiquity, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1998): 95-110. https://doi.org/10.2307/971989

[2] Rosa Miriam Elizalde y Luis Báez, Chávez Nuestro, (La Habana: Casa Editora Abril, 2007), 367-369. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzEKs4usYkReRVdWSG5LQkFYQ3c/edit?pli=1&resourcekey=0-yHaK7-YkA47nelVs-7JuBQ

§ 3

[3] “The Hugo Chávez Show,” PBS Front Line, November 19, 2008. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hugochavez/etc/ex2.html

[4] L’Atelier des Archive, “Interview du révolutionnaire: Douglas Bravo au Venezuela [circa 1960]” (Transcript: “… conceptos injuriosos en contra de la revolución cubana …” [timestamp 1;11-14]), YouTube, October 14, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cx2D5VM8VM

§ 5

[5] “Hugo Chavez Interview,”YouTube, transcript excerpt and time stamp unavailable: Original quote in Spanish (translated by the author): “. . . , if not, maybe I’ll leave the Army, no, you can’t leave, Adam told me so, no, we need you there, but who needs me?” Retrieved October 12, 2023.

[6] Dario Azzellini and Gregory Wilpert, “Venezuela, MBR–200 and the Military Uprisings of 1992,”in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest (Wiley 2009). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1525

§ 6

[7] “Declarations in a Nationwide Government-Mandated Broadcast,” BancoAgrícolaVe, YouTube, February 4, 1992. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QqaR1ZjldE

§ 7

[8] Maxwell A. Cameron and Flavie Major, “Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez: Savior or Threat to Democracy?,” Latin American Research Review, vol. 36, no. 3, (2001): 255-266. https://www.proquest.com/docview/218146430?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals

[9] Gustavo Coronel, “Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela,” Center for Global Liberty & Prosperity: Development Policy Analysis, no. 2 (CATO Institute, November 27, 2006). https://www.issuelab.org/resources/2539/2539.pdf.

§ 8

[10] “Jorge Olavarría Ante El Congreso Bicameral [July 5,1999],” YouTube. https://youtu.be/_OkqNn8VF-Y?si=Cvuh4Vk391_0Pnut . Accessed January 9, 2025.

[11] Mario J. García-Serra, “The ‘Enabling Law’: The Demise of the Separation of Powers in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela,” University of Miami Inter-American Law Review, vol.32, no. 2, (Spring – Summer, 2001): 265-293. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40176554

[12] “Venezuela: Chávez Allies Pack Supreme Court,” Human Rights Watch, December 13, 2004. https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/12/13/venezuela-chavez-allies-pack-supreme-court

[13] “Top Venezuelan judge resigns,” BBC News, August 25, 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/429304.stm

[14] “Suprema Injusticia: ‘These are corrupt judges,” Organización Transparencia Venezuela. https://supremainjusticia.org/cecilia-sosa-gomez-these-are-corrupt-judges/

§ 9

[15] “United Socialist Party of Venezuela,” PSUV. http://www.psuv.org.ve/

[16] “Venezuela and Cuba, ‘VeneCuba,’ a single nation,” The Economist, February 11, 2010. https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2010/02/11/venecuba-a-single-nation

§ 10

[17] “Photographs reveal the truth about Puente Llaguno massacre,” April 11, 2002, YouTube. https://youtu.be/NvP7cL-7KL4?si=cUpMAv0myAWH5UWP

[18] “Pedro Carmona Estanga cuenta su verdad 21 años después,” El Nacional de Venezuela. https://www.elnacional.com/opinion/pedro-carmona-estanga-cuenta-su-verdad-21-anos-despues/

[19] “Diosdado Cabello Rondón:Narcotics Rewards Program: Wanted,” U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/bureau-of-international-narcotics-and-law-enforcement-affairs/releases/2025/01/diosdado-cabello-rondon

§ 11

[20] Marc Lifsher, “Venezuela Strike Paralyzes State Oil Monopoly PdVSA,” Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2002. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1039101526679054593

§ 12

[21] “Socialism with Cheap Oil,” The Economist, December 30, 2008. https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2008/12/30/socialism-with-cheap-oil

[22] “Venezuela: Increased Threats to Free Elections; New Electoral Body Puts Reforms at Risk,” Human Rights Watch, June 22, 2023 7:00AM. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/22/venezuela-increased-threats-free-elections

[23] Juan Forero, “Chávez Grip Tightens as Rivals Boycott Vote,” The New York Times, December 5, 2005. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/world/americas/chavezs-grip-tightens-as-rivals-boycott-vote.html?referringSource=articleShare

§ 13

[24] Louise Egan, “Chavez to nationalize Venezuelan gold industry,” Reuters, August 17, 2011, 2:40 PM. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-gold/chavez-to-nationalize-venezuelan-gold-industry-idUSTRE77G53L20110817/

[25] Juan Forero, “Chavez Eyes Nationalized Electrical, Telcom Firms,” Reuters, January 9, 2007, 6:00 AM ET. https://www.npr.org/2007/01/09/6759012/chavez-eyes-nationalized-electrical-telcom-firms

[26] James Suggett, “Venezuela Nationalizes Gas Plant and Steel Companies, Pledges Worker Control,” Venezuelanalysis, May 23, 2009. https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/4464/

[27] David Brunnstrom, “Factbox: Venezuela’s nationalizations under Chavez,” Reuters, October 7, 2012, 10:51 PM. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations/factbox-venezuelas-nationalizations-under-chavez-idUSBRE89701X20121008/

[28] Frank Jack Daniel–Analysis–, “Food, farms the new target for Venezuela’s Chavez,” Reuters, March 5, 2009, 6:06 PM EST. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-chavez-analysis-sb/food-farms-the-new-target-for-venezuelas-chavez-idUSTRE5246OO20090305/

[29] Daniel Cancel, “Chavez Says He Has No Problem Nationalizing Banks,” Bloomberg, November 29, 2009, 15:02 GMT-5. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2009-11-29/chavez-says-he-has-no-problem-nationalizing-banks

§ 14

[30] Angus Berwick, “Special Report: How Cuba taught Venezuela to quash military dissent,” Reuters, August 22, 2019, 8:22 AM ET. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-cuba-military-specialreport/special-report-how-cuba-taught-venezuela-to-quash-military-dissent-idUSKCN1VC1BX/

§ 15

[31] Robert Zeliger, Passport: “Hugo Chavez’s medical mystery,” Foreign Policy, June 24, 2011, 10:20 PM. https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/24/hugo-chavezs-medical-mystery/

[32] Juan Forero, “Hugo Chavez Beats Henrique Capriles,” The Washington Post, October 7, 2012. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/venezuelans-flood-polls-for-historic-election-to-decide-if-hugo-chavez-remains-in-power/2012/10/07/d77c461c-10c8-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html

§ 16

[33] Bryan Winter and Ana Flor, “Exclusive: Brazil wants Venezuela election if Chavez dies – sources,” Reuters, January 14, 2013, 9:12 PM EST, updated 12 years ago. https://www.reuters.com/article/cnews-us-venezuela-chavez-brazil-idCABRE90D12320130114/

[34] “Venezuela National Assembly chief: Diosdado Cabello,” BBC News, March 5, 2013. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-20750536

[35] “Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño of Venezuela Chair of Fourth Committee,” United Nations, BIO/5031*-GA/SPD/630; 25 September 2017. https://press.un.org/en/2017/bio5031.doc.htm

[36] Ludmila Vinogradoff, “La exfiscal Ortega confirma que Chávez murió dos meses antes de la fecha anunciada,” ABCInternacional, actualizado Julio 16, 2018, 12:44 https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-confirman-chavez-murio-meses-antes-fecha-anunciada-201807132021_noticia.html?ref=https://www.google.com/

§ 17

[37] “Cuerpo de Chávez fue tratado tres veces para ser conservado: … intervenido con inyecciones de formol para que pudiera ser velado,” El Nacional De Venezuela – Gda, Enero 27, 2024, 05:50, actualizado Marzo 22, 2013, 20:51. https://www.eltiempo.com/amp/archivo/documento/CMS-12708339

Tags:Authoritarianism, autocracy, Chavismo, democracy, governance, Hugo Chávez, Identity, Latin America, Memory, political analysis, political history, Ricardo Morin, Unmasking Disappointment, Venezuela
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Domains of Action

January 14, 2026

A diagnostic study of how public life continues to function when judgment is limited and conditions remain unsettled

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***Mantra: Domains of Action***
21” x 28.5”
Watercolor, graphite, wax crayons,
ink and gesso on paper
2003

Note:

Nothing I say belongs to the painting.

The painting does not need words.

It already speaks in its own medium, to which language has no equivalent.

By Ricardo F. Morín

December 18, 2025

Oakland Park, Fl

Preface

This work was not written to advance a position or to resolve a debate. It emerged from sustained attention to conditions that could not be ignored without distortion. Writing, in this sense, is not an expression of purpose, but a consequence of awareness.

The pages that follow do not claim authority through expertise or urgency. They proceed from the recognition that judgment must often act under incomplete conditions, and that clarity, when it appears, does so gradually and without assurance. What is offered here is not a conclusion, but a continuation: an effort to remain faithful to what can be observed when attention is sustained.

This study does not proceed from constitutional expertise, institutional authority, or professional proximity to governance. It proceeds from observation. Its claims arise from sustained attention to how public life continues to function under conditions in which judgment is constrained, information remains incomplete, and decisions must nonetheless be made.

In fields where credentialed knowledge often determines legitimacy, writing from outside formal authority can invite dismissal before engagement. That risk is real. Yet the conditions examined here are not confined to technical domains. They are encountered daily by citizens, officials, institutions, and systems alike. Judgment under uncertainty is not a specialized activity; it is a shared condition.

The absence of formal expertise does not exempt this work from rigor. It requires a different discipline: restraint in assertion, precision in description, and fidelity to what can be observed without presuming mastery. The analysis does not claim to resolve constitutional questions or prescribe institutional remedies. It examines how governance persists when clarity is partial, when authority operates through multiple domains, and when continuity depends less on certainty than on adjustment.

If this work holds value, it will not be because it speaks from authority, but because it attends carefully to how authority functions when no position—expert or otherwise—can claim full command of the conditions it confronts.

Author’s Note

This work clarifies a confusion that appears across many political cultures: the tendency to treat “republic” and “democracy” as interchangeable ideals rather than as distinct components of governance. The chapters observe how political arrangements continue to operate when inherited categories no longer clarify what is taking place.

The method is observational. Political life is described as it is experienced: decisions made without full knowledge, terms used out of habit, and institutions that adjust internally while keeping the same outward form. The analysis begins from the limits of judgment as a daily condition: people must act before they fully understand the circumstances in which they act.

What follows does not argue for a model or defend a tradition. It traces how language, institutions, and expectations diverge across different domains of action, and how public life continues to operate under conditions that do not permit full clarity.

Chapter I

The Limits of Judgment in Public Life

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Public life depends on forms of judgment that are uneven and often shaped by the pressures people face. Individuals arrive at political questions with different experiences, different levels of knowledge, and different conditions under which they weigh what is put before them. These differences do not prevent collective decisions, but they shape how clearly political terms and arrangements are perceived. Everything that follows—how authority is organized, how participation is structured, and how each is described—develops within this clarity, which is limited and variable.

Political terms remain stable even when they are understood to different degrees. Words such as republic and democracy have distinct meanings—one referring to an arrangement of authority, the other to a method of participation—yet are often used interchangeably. The terms carry familiarity, even when the clarity required to keep them separate varies by circumstance. As a result, public discussion may rely on established language without consistently matching it to the arrangements actually in effect.

A republic identifies an arrangement in which authority is held by public offices and exercised through institutions rather than personal rule. A democracy identifies the method through which people participate in public decisions, whether directly or through representation. A republic describes how authority is contained; a democracy describes how participation is organized. Because these terms refer to different dimensions of political life—one structural, the other procedural—a single system may combine both. The United States exemplifies this combination: authority is institutional and public, while participation is organized through elections and collective choice.

Public discussion often relies on familiar terms to describe political arrangements without tracing how authority and participation are actually organized. Broad references substitute for institutional operation, allowing language to remain continuous even as circumstances shift. The terms persist not because they precisely describe current arrangements, but because they provide a stable vocabulary through which public life can continue to be discussed as it adapts.

Patterns of this kind appear across many societies. When circumstances are unstable, authority tends to concentrate; when conditions are steadier, participation often widens. The direction is not uniform across countries or periods, but the pattern is recognizable: authority gathers or disperses in response to conditions rather than to the language used to describe political life. What varies is how clearly a society distinguishes between the structure that contains authority and the method through which participation occurs.

This movement between concentrated and dispersed authority appears differently across national contexts. In Venezuela, references to the republic have often accompanied periods of strong executive direction, while appeals to democracy have not consistently been supported by durable procedures of participation.

In the United States, the emphasis sometimes reverses. Democratic language is used to affirm broad popular involvement at the point of election, while republican structure is invoked to justify subsequent limits on participation through institutional filtering—nominee selection, confirmation timing, strategic vacancies, and procedural sequencing. Presidential nominations move from popular mandate into Senate committee review, confirmation votes, and ultimately lifetime tenure, where decision-making authority is consolidated beyond direct public reach.

The terms differ, but the underlying pattern converges: participation expands symbolically at the moment of selection and contracts structurally in the domains where authority is exercised over time.

Public life is easier to follow when the distinction between structure and participation remains visible. A republic identifies how authority is arranged through offices and institutions; a democracy identifies how participation is organized through collective procedures. When these terms are used without that distinction, attention shifts from institutional operation to nomenclature. Debate turns toward language rather than process, and the movement of authority becomes harder to trace.

No single combination of structure and participation satisfies all the demands placed on public life. Concentrated authority allows for speed but limits inclusion; broad participation expands inclusion but slows coordination. Most governments combine these elements in varying proportions, and those proportions change as conditions change. The relation between authority and participation becomes clearer in some periods and more opaque in others.

When this relation is unclear, people orient themselves by what is most visible. Some look to executive action; others to representative bodies; many respond primarily to immediate outcomes. These points of reference shape how the system is experienced even when its formal structure remains unchanged.

Public life continues not because its conditions are settled, but because decisions cannot wait for full certainty. Authority acts while circumstances remain incomplete, and participation proceeds without full anticipation of its effects. The system endures through this necessity: decisions are made under partial visibility, terms persist beyond their precision, and institutions adjust internally without losing their outward form. What holds public life together is not clarity, but the need to proceed in its absence.

Chapter II

Executive Action Under Uncertainty

Executive action is the domain in which decisions are least postponable. Unlike deliberative bodies, the executive is structured to act before conditions stabilize. Time pressure, incomplete information, and competing signals define its operating environment. This does not make executive judgment exceptional; it renders its limits more visible.

Because executive decisions are publicly observable, they often become the primary reference point through which political life is interpreted. Orders, statements, appointments, and enforcement actions are easier to see than the processes that precede or follow them. Visibility creates the impression of control even when outcomes remain uncertain.

The authority of the executive is often described as personal, yet it is exercised through institutional mechanisms. Decisions attributed to an individual are carried out through agencies, procedures, and delegated discretion. This layered execution allows action to proceed while responsibility is distributed across structures that remain largely out of view.

Periods of uncertainty tend to compress authority toward the executive. When coordination slows elsewhere, executive action fills the gap. This concentration does not require a change in constitutional structure; it occurs within existing forms as responsibilities narrow and timelines shorten.

Public judgment frequently focuses on decisiveness rather than conditions. Speed is mistaken for clarity; repetition for resolve. The question of whether a decision could have been otherwise is displaced by whether it was made visibly and without hesitation.

This focus alters how accountability is perceived. Because executive action is immediate, it absorbs praise and blame even when outcomes depend on factors beyond executive control. The executive domain becomes symbolically overloaded, functioning as a proxy for the system as a whole.

Over time, this dynamic reshapes expectations. Executives are asked to resolve conditions that no single office can manage. When results fall short, dissatisfaction is personalized rather than structural. Judgment narrows toward figures instead of processes.

The persistence of executive action under uncertainty does not indicate failure elsewhere. It reflects the necessity of action where delay carries its own costs. The executive does not eliminate uncertainty; it operates within it.

As established in Chapter I—The Limits of Judgment in Public Life—the distinction between structure and method remains intact. Executive authority is one structural component of the republic. Its prominence under uncertainty does not convert the system into personal rule, nor does it dissolve other forms of participation. It alters their relative visibility.

Executive action continues because decisions cannot wait for conditions to stabilize. What the public observes is not mastery, but motion. The domain appears decisive not because it resolves uncertainty, but because it must act while relevant information remains in flux.

Chapter III

Administrative Displacement and Procedural Substitution

Administrative action operates at a distance from public attention, not because it is concealed, but because it unfolds through structures designed for continuity rather than visibility. Rules are applied, procedures adjusted, and priorities reordered within agencies whose work sustains governance without occupying the foreground of political life. These actions rarely present themselves as discrete decisions, yet they shape outcomes as directly as legislative acts or executive orders.

Although the executive branch bears the most visible weight of action, it does not act alone. Authority moves through a dense internal structure—departments, offices, and administrative hierarchies—that translates executive direction into practice. Within this structure, different temporal orientations coexist. Some units respond to the immediacy of political mandates; others operate within constitutional and statutory frameworks intended to secure duration, stability, and institutional memory.

What appears publicly as a unitary executive act is, in practice, the visible edge of a distributed process. Administrative authorities do not replace the legislative function, nor do they interpret law in the judicial sense. They apply existing statutes, regulations, and precedents to concrete circumstances, exercising discretion only within bounds already defined. Governance continues through this application not because interpretation expands, but because execution must proceed even when direct legislative action is absent or delayed.

Procedural substitution occurs when formal decision-making cannot advance at the same pace as events. When legislation stalls, or when executive authority reaches its constitutional limits, administrative processes absorb responsibility by adjusting how existing rules are applied. Guidance is refined, enforcement priorities are reordered, and procedural pathways are recalibrated so that action can continue without altering the legal framework itself.

The effect of this adjustment is cumulative rather than declarative. Procedures acquire force through sustained use across cases, offices, and time. What matters is not the announcement of a decision, but the establishment of a practice that becomes operative through repetition. Authority is exercised through continuity of application, not through proclamation or display.

Because responsibility is distributed across agencies and routines, public judgment often struggles to locate where change occurs. Outcomes appear without a single moment of decision to which they can be traced. This dispersal does not eliminate accountability, but it complicates it. Effects are experienced before their procedural origins are understood, if they are understood at all.

Over time, this mode of governance reshapes public expectations. Citizens may sense that conditions have shifted while remaining uncertain about who acted or how. Dissatisfaction attaches to the system as a whole rather than to identifiable actors, not because authority is absent, but because it operates through channels that do not align with public narratives of decision and responsibility.

Administrative displacement does not signal institutional breakdown. It reflects the necessity of maintaining governance under constraint. When formal decisions cannot be taken at the speed required, procedures adapt so that authority continues to function without exceeding its legal bounds. The system does not suspend itself; it adjusts its pathways.

This domain illustrates the separation between form and operation established in the opening chapter. The constitutional structure of authority remains intact, while its execution shifts in emphasis and sequence. What changes is not who holds power, but how that power is carried forward under conditions that do not permit explicit resolution.

Governance persists through these substitutions because action cannot stop. Authority moves not by abandoning its limits, but by working within them. The continuity of public life depends less on visible decisions than on the capacity of institutions to apply existing frameworks to changing circumstances—imperfectly, and without claiming finality.

Chapter IV

Electoral Ritual and the Persistence of Form

Elections are the most recognizable feature of democratic participation. They provide a recurring structure through which public involvement is organized and displayed. Their regularity creates a sense of continuity even as surrounding conditions change.

As ritual, elections affirm participation through repetition. Procedures remain familiar—campaigns, voting, certification, transition—and establish a shared sequence that signals order and legitimacy. These outward forms sustain confidence in the process, even when outcomes remain uncertain.

Elections endure not because they resolve conflict, but because they organize trust at the point of selection. They do not settle disagreement; they make continued coordination possible by establishing a recognized moment of authorization.

Once trust is organized at the point of selection, public attention shifts from the mechanics of participation to the visibility of results. Winning and losing replace examination of how participation translates into policy, administration, or enforcement. The ritual satisfies the expectation of involvement, while attention moves away from the pathways through which authority is exercised after selection.

This emphasis on outcome reinforces symbolic stability. As long as elections occur on schedule and results are recognized, the system appears intact. Questions about how decisions are made afterward—how authority is carried forward, distributed, and constrained—receive less sustained attention.

Discrepancies between electoral choice and lived experience are often attributed to individuals rather than to institutional pathways. Dissatisfaction becomes personalized, while the structural distance between participation and governance remains largely unexamined.

Electoral rituals persist because they serve a stabilizing function. They mark transitions, renew legitimacy, and provide a shared reference point for public life. Their endurance does not depend on their capacity to resolve underlying pressures, but on their ability to preserve coordination in the presence of disagreement.

As conditions change, participation may become more expressive than effective. Voting signals presence and alignment, even when it does not materially alter administrative or executive trajectories. Expression remains visible; influence becomes less certain.

Democracy, understood as method, remains visible and active. What fluctuates is the degree to which participation reaches into the domains where decisions are continuously adjusted, and where authority continues to operate after the moment of voting.

Public life continues through this arrangement because action cannot pause at the point of selection. Decisions proceed while conditions evolve, information accumulates unevenly, and responsibility shifts across domains. What endures is not resolution, but continuity: governance advances through adjustment rather than completion, sustained by institutions that act without claiming finality.

Tags:authority, democracy, governance, Institutions, judgment, participation, political-language, public life, Republic, Uncertainty
Posted in Political Philosophy, Ethics and Public Life, Political Culture, Civic Agency, Structures of Power, Modernity and Conflict, Political Psychology, Essays (English) | Leave a Comment »

“The Grammar of Punishment”

December 16, 2025

Ricardo F. Morín

November 2025

Bala Cynwyd, Pa

Billy Bussell Thompson, Editor

Author’s Note:

Societies respond to harm in two fundamentally distinct modes of action. One unfolds through the slow, cumulative patterns of behavior and belief that shape collective life; the other through the deliberate, codified interventions undertaken by institutions in the name of order. The Grammar of Conflict and The Grammar of Punishment are companion essays, each devoted to one of these modes of action. The Grammar of Conflict traces how hatred, victimhood, hypocrisy, tribalism, and violence intertwine into a self-perpetuating system—one that is sustained through repeated explanation at every turn and is endured not through necessity, but through the stories societies choose to tell. The Grammar of Punishment concerns the authority of the State, viz. a formal, structured exercise of power that imposes consequences within boundaries defined by lawful interpretation. The Grammar of Conflict traces how civic and political antagonism becomes habitual and self-justifying. The Grammar of Punishment addresses cases in which the State that exceeds its limits can turn injustice into a system of unreasoned laws. Taken together, the two essays offer complementary perspectives on the forces that perpetuate harm and on the deliberate choices that may interrupt its recurrence.

Abstract:

The Grammar of Punishment addresses the consequences a society imposes for wrongdoing and how the consequences shape the political order and the moral landscape. The essay treats punishment as a limited civic instrument and punishment as an entrenched practice. It describes conditions under which the same punitive act can either uphold shared rules or weaken these rules when the scope and purpose of the punishment exceed the original moral and civic justification for imposing them. The drift beyond that justification often occurs because punishment extends beyond accountability: when punishment becomes a vehicle for revenge, a demonstration of power, and a means of perpetuating the authority or moral narratives that allow it to continue long after the original violation has been addressed. This essay does not oppose punishment; it addresses conditions under which punishment displaces justice. At a time when punitive measures increasingly shape political discourse and public policy, understanding the internal logic of punishment is essential to preserving the boundary between justice and power.

The essay will trace how punishment evolves from a measured response to a specific wrongdoing into a self-perpetuating system of governing. It will show how institutions originally created to restore justice will come to assert authority, to sustain narratives of legitimacy, and to conceal the principles they were established to defend. The analysis will identify the conditions under which punishment remains credible (when the exercise of punitive authority is bounded by reason, procedure, scope, proportionality, time, and review) and the points at which punishment ceases to protect social order and begins instead to perpetuate harm. The essay, however, will neither dictate specific policies nor condemn the use of policies. Its purpose will be to clarify the roles attributed to punishment, the points at which those roles break down, and how continued reliance on punitive measures discloses deeper social choices about authority, responsibility, and the impulse to respond to injury—choices that reveal as much about a society’s values as about its fears.

1
Punishment is a public act that imposes a cost in response to a breach of law or shared norm. Punishment marks a boundary, declares a rule, and demonstrates its enforcement. This definition distinguishes punishment from prevention, restraint, accountability, and repair. Prevention concerns events that have not yet occurred. Restraint limits the capacity of an individual or group to cause harm. Accountability establishes facts and assigns responsibility. Repair addresses loss and attempts to restore what has been taken away. Punishment differs from these responses because punishment addresses a specific violation after the fact and imposes a consequence.

2
Any serious assessment of punishment must answer three questions: What is the purpose of punishment? To whom is punishment directed? And, what is the outcome of punishment? The first question concerns a reasoned intent as opposed to a vague one. The second question concerns the target and scope of the punitive act. The third question concerns its manifestation as opposed to the original intention of punishment. A punishment that claims deterrence yet produces recurrence, or resists compliance, errs not in degree but in comprehension of punishment as a tool. By ignoring cause, the application of punishment can mistake reaction for resolution and enact justice without insight—a cycle that corrects nothing because it understands nothing.

3
Four primary purposes of punishment are commonly recognized: boundary-setting, deterrence, incapacitation, and recognition. Boundary-setting defines the limits of acceptable behavior and affirms that rules retain meaning only when their violation entails consequence; those limits must be defined with clarity. Deterrence seeks to prevent future harm by making the cost of wrongdoing visible and measurable. Incapacitation protects society by restricting the offender’s ability to inflict further injury. Recognition satisfies the moral need to acknowledge that a wrong has occurred and that the community has responded to it. These aims are conceptually clear, yet their success depends on interpretation and application—each revealing whether the pursuit of order remains faithful to the idea of justice.

A penalty first intended to correct a specific wrongdoing can, over time, be turned by institutions into an instrument of government. This transformation begins when authorities broaden the reach of the penalty, apply it repeatedly as a mechanical demonstration, and treat its continuation as proof of the authority of the institutions and the legitimacy of the system. What begins as a targeted reaction applied to a specific violation is repeated, extended, and maintained beyond its original scope. Over time, the expectation of punitive action acquires a life of its own, and support for punishment becomes a marker of allegiance to the prevailing order. Actions that once aimed to correct behavior evolve into assertions of dominance, and dissent is recast as disloyalty. As this process deepens, penalties grow harsher, the circle of responsibility expands, and temporal limits dissolve. Punishment, once applied to resolve conflict, is continued under conditions that reproduce the same conflict. When a punitive measure must be repeated indefinitely merely to prove that a rule still holds, the measure is no longer reinforcing the rule; the measure itself becomes the rule. When punishment is applied habitually, its function changes—no longer of law but of power. Habit grants power a moral vocabulary that disguises its interest as principle.
When law borrows the tone of justice itself, punishment is presented as restoration.

Once power begins to speak in the place of law, the line between what is and is not permitted may remain obscure, but the penalty for transgression is certain. Such obscurity transforms the law from a boundary of understanding into a field of intimidation. Power gains elasticity by refusing clarity; it rewards those who conform and isolates those who interpret too freely. In this inversion, the rule of law survives only in form but its grammar—definition, proportion, and foreseeability—has been erased.

6
Legitimacy is the foundation on which punishment stands. Without legitimacy, punishment no longer functions as justice and becomes an imposition of unchecked power—an exercise of power without lawful foundation. Legitimacy demands definition; tyranny thrives on ambiguity. For punishment to be legitimate, the rules it enforces must be established in advance, written in language that the public can understand, and open to examination and review through lawful procedures. To write rules in advance is to bind power to reason; it makes punishment a civic act—foreseeable, accountable, and shared—rather than the decision of whoever holds command. When these conditions are met, punishment serves a civic purpose, reinforces the rule of law, and secures its own legitimacy instead of weakening it.

7
Time limits are essential safeguards that prevent punishment from becoming a permanent condition. A consequence without a defined endpoint ceases to address a specific violation and becomes a permanent structure of power. When the duration of punishment is not limited by purpose, punishment no longer serves the law, but replaces it. This principle applies both within societies and among them: a sanction imposed on an individual, a community, or a State follows the same moral and structural logic. In foreign relations, punitive measures such as sanctions or embargoes function as instruments of discipline between States, and they risk the same transformation—from response to domination—when no path toward resolution is defined. The possibility of restoration—whether through legal standing, political recognition, or the end of hostilities—is not an act of leniency but a precondition for stability. Without a defined point of closure, the punished party has no reason to change course, and opposition becomes the only rational response. Durable orders, civic or international, therefore require an exit from punishment if they are to secure lasting peace.

8
Deterrence is often described as the most rational purpose of punishment, yet its logic frequently is invoked under conditions that include other motives. Under vague statutes, however, deterrence no longer warns; it confuses. Political authorities often invoke deterrence to justify harsher measures and claim that fear of consequence will prevent future harm. But fear imposes compliance without addressing underlying conditions that give rise to transgression. A punitive policy designed to frighten rather than to understand or correct those conditions becomes less an instrument of prevention and more a mechanism for asserting control. It teaches not respect for the rule of law but submission to power. When deterrence functions in this way, it ceases to serve justice and instead sustains the very instability it claims to prevent.

Uncertainty is an inherent condition of every system of punishment. Facts are often incomplete, motives are mixed, and consequences can rarely be predicted with precision. When the absence of reason is institutionalized under the pretext of uncertainty, the temptation arises to punish not for actions already committed but for those merely expected. Measures such as preventive detention or deportation are imposed not on verified conduct but on assumptions about future behavior. These actions, though defended as safeguards against possible harm, risk turning suspicion into verdict. This form of preemptive punishment blurs the distinction between justice and prevention, replacing evidence with prediction. As the reach of punishment extends beyond proven acts into the realm of conjecture, the obligation to justify its use must grow correspondingly heavier.

10
There are cases in which punishment is not only justified but necessary. Certain violations—treason, systemic corruption, sustained violence—break the foundation of shared order. Ignoring violations signals that common rules no longer carry consequence; this breakdown in enforcement creates the conditions for further harm. In such circumstances, punishment functions as an act of preservation: it re-establishes lawful boundaries and affirms that no person or group stands above the rules that govern collective life. Yet the legitimacy of this response depends on proportion and restraint. When punishment becomes the automatic answer to every offense, it ceases to serve justice and instead entrenches a culture of retribution. Punishment fulfills its purpose only when it is applied after reasoned explanation, fair procedure, and tangible repair have failed to resolve the violation; under those conditions, punishment restores the boundaries of order without extending harm beyond necessity.

Mercy functions as a limiting condition within systems of punishment rather than as a negation of justice. Where legal systems retain mechanisms for clemency, review, or proportional adjustment, punishment remains bounded by its original civic purpose. Systems that apply punishment without the possibility of mitigation or termination treat duration as authority and convert consequence into permanence. Under such conditions, punishment ceases to respond to a specific violation and instead establishes an enduring relation of domination.

The availability of mercy alters the operation of punishment by introducing temporal and proportional limits. These limits prevent punitive authority from extending beyond the circumstances that justified its initial application. When legal procedure excludes such limits, enforcement persists independently of the conduct that prompted it, and legality is reduced to repetition rather than judgment. Under such circumstance, punishment is administered as a continuous practice rather than as a reasoned response.

Systems that incorporate mercy preserve a distinction between law and command by allowing punishment to conclude once its stated purpose has been met. Where that distinction is maintained, punishment remains an instrument within the law rather than a substitute for it. Where it is not maintained, punishment operates without reference to restoration, and civic membership is replaced by continued exposure to sanction.

These principles are not abstractions but safeguards that keep the exercise of power subject to the law. When institutions apply punishment within those limits, the law retains its credibility because the consequences remain connected to reason. When institutions exceed those limits, punishment replaces the law as the source of authority, and conflict grows within the space that reason has abandoned. Under such circumstance, punishment no longer resolves the doing of wrong; it reproduces it. Justice survives only when the law speaks with a clarity that power cannot rewrite.

Tags:civic order, conflict, governance, human condition, justice, law, legitimacy, political authority, punishment, responsibility, Society
Posted in Political Philosophy, Ethics and Public Life, Political Culture, Civic Agency, Structures of Power, Modernity and Conflict, Essays (English) | Leave a Comment »

“The Masquerade of Small Government”

November 27, 2025

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Ricardo Morín
***Silent Quadtych: The Masquerade of Small Government***
Each Panel: 22’ x 30”
Watercolor, graphite, gesso, acrylic on paper
2010

Ricardo F. Morín

November, 2025

Oakland Park, Florida

Author’s Note

The idea of shrinking government in the United States has recurred across administrations, yet the national deficit persists and the central obligations of public life (Social Security, Medicare, rising healthcare costs, and the long-term fiscal imbalance) remain structurally unresolved. Initiatives framed as efficiency programs often divert attention from these enduring commitments. This essay examines the distance between the performance of reform and the realities that persist beneath that performance, and asks what remains concealed when a portrayal of reform is presented as transformation—particularly the corporate interests that benefit when regulatory and oversight functions are reduced.

The recent closure of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reveals more than an administrative shortfall. The initiative began with the extravagant promise of saving several trillion dollars, yet concluded with an unverifiable claim equivalent to roughly three percent of the federal budget. The disparity is not a technical miscalculation but a symbolic one. The disparity exposes a political pattern in which sweeping reform is announced, performance is staged, and the result is a gesture that bears little relation to the scale of the aspiration. What had appeared to be a disciplined restructuring of government became instead an example of how ambition can detach from feasibility.

The language of efficiency has long exerted a nearly irresistible appeal. That language suggests a vision of governance freed from excess, guided by prudence, and aligned with fiscal virtue. Yet efficiency functions as a metaphor rather than a principle. The metaphor conceals assumptions about what government should do, what citizens require, and what modern complexity demands. One assumption is that public obligations can be met with fewer instruments; another is that smaller institutions inherently serve the public better. Both assumptions overlook the fact that intricate societies require robust capacity, and that such capacity necessarily entails cost.

When such programs collide with the operational realities of administration, their limits become evident. Federal agencies exist because the responsibilities they discharge cannot be managed by private initiative alone. These agencies coordinate infrastructure, regulate markets, monitor systemic risks, and mediate conflicts among large and often competing interests. Attempts to severely curtail these functions rarely yield the projected savings, because the underlying needs do not disappear. Reformers confront a simple truth: indispensable functions cannot be eliminated without consequence.

What emerges instead is appearance without substance. The promise of cutting government satisfies a cultural demand for acts that signal restraint, even if the result satisfies little else. That promise affirms a narrative in which bureaucracy is imagined as the obstacle to national well-being and institutional reduction as the remedy. Yet an appearance of reform often substitutes for substantive reform. Procedural actions are elevated to the status of outcomes, and the declaration of change is treated as proof that change has occurred.

Behind this representation stands a deeper strategy. When government is weakened, the scope of public oversight contracts. Such contraction reallocates authority rather than removing it. In the absence of robust public institutions, nongovernmental power centers (corporations, high-wealth individuals, and other privately controlled entities operating without electoral accountability) assume a wider sphere of influence, operating with fewer obligations and almost no transparency. The rhetoric of shrinking the State therefore conceals a different movement entirely: the expansion of discretion outside the channels of democratic accountability.

This expansion is most visible in the consolidation of wealth. When regulatory and investigative capacities narrow, the constraints on large fortunes diminish. Concentrated capital extends its reach across industries, infrastructure, data, and information systems. Efforts to limit the scope of government therefore operate as a shield under which private power accumulates with minimal resistance. What is framed as the removal of constraints becomes, in practice, the removal of limits on private authority from public scrutiny.

Such conditions foster the autocratic temptation. When wealth operates beyond institutional counterweights, the boundary between influence and authority begins to fade. Private actors acquire the ability to shape policy, steer public discourse, and redefine norms without democratic mandate. The critique of ‘big government’ becomes a means of creating conditions in which private actors function as informal sovereigns—powerful, unelected, and increasingly indispensable to the ordinary functioning of civic life.

It is no coincidence that this rhetoric often appears in the language of populism. Appeals to public frustrations convert structural imbalances into cultural grievances. Bureaucracy is framed as the adversary, even when the real impediment to civic dignity lies in the widening distance between concentrated power and the public interest. What presents itself as a defense of the people frequently advances interests far removed from those it claims to champion.

These dynamics reflect a recurring pattern: the appeal of concentrated wealth, the weakening of public constraints, and the claim that progress can be invoked without being shared. The call to shrink government fits within this broader pattern. That call functions as a contemporary iteration of a familiar strategy in which reformist rhetoric obscures the concentration of advantage. The pattern endures because its surface language is persuasive while its underlying mechanisms remain concealed.

If an effective path forward exists, it does not lie in diminishing institutions but in strengthening the mechanisms through which they remain accountable to a diverse society. The measure of the State is not its size but its integrity—its ability to respond to complexity without ceding its responsibilities to private authority. What weakens when institutions are diminished is not efficiency but democracy itself. Defending the public sphere requires clarifying what is lost when reform devolves into appearance alone, when efficiency becomes a language intended to conceal power rather than distribute it.

Tags:civic ethics, democratic oversight, governance, government efficiency, political analysis, political rhetoric, privatization, public institutions, state capacity, wealth concentration
Posted in Politics and Governance, Civic Ethics, Public Institutions, Political Economy, Contemporary Analysis | Leave a Comment »

“Governing by Exception: The American Executive”

November 18, 2025

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Ricardo Morín
***Untitled #3: Governing by Exception***
10″x12″
Watercolor
2003

By Ricardo F. Morín

October 10, 2025

Bala Cynwyd, Pa

Power unexamined becomes its own justification—Anonymous civic maxim.

Prologue

Governance is the moral discipline of order—the effort to keep authority aligned with conscience so that power remains a function of justice, not an instrument of self-interest. Government enacts that discipline: necessary, fallible, and ever in danger of mistaking permanence for legitimacy.

Political history rarely unfolds as a straight line. It accumulates as a palimpsest in which new regimes—imperial, republican, authoritarian, and democratic—write their doctrines over the residues of previous orders. Institutions and laws rarely vanish; they survive as layers of precedent and practice that later governments reinterpret to serve new purposes. The present political moment in the United States should be examined within that structure of accumulation. What appears to be a radical break with constitutional tradition is, in fact, the latest rewriting of an existing template. The mechanisms that once safeguarded the republic now expand the reach of executive power; these mechanisms reveal how continuity and rupture coexist in the same act.

During the first half year of the Trump administration’s return to office, the political system of the United States has entered a state of controlled dislocation. Executive directives have overridden congressional appropriations, suspended statutory programs, and reorganized entire departments under provisional authority. A government shutdown, declared an administrative necessity, has become a method for restructuring the State. Mass dismissals, selective funding freezes, and the redefinition of agency mandates have become coordinated tools for concentrating authority in the executive branch. These are not isolated disputes between branches of government. These actions reveal a coherent strategy of reconfiguration, executed through administrative acts that appear lawful but are designed to disfigure the balance of powers from within.

The guiding principle of this transformation is the normalization of exception. Powers that earlier generations considered temporary—emergency measures to be used only under extreme threat—have become ordinary instruments of governance. The invocation of the Insurrection Act, intended for rebellion or lawless obstruction, now functions as justification for domestic military deployment in states governed by political opposition. The use of this authority is framed as a response to rising crime, even when verified data show a national decline. In this inversion of logic, the declaration of emergency precedes its necessity. The government generates the crisis it claims to confront and allows coercive measures to appear both inevitable and legitimate. What dissolves in this process is not only institutional restraint but the moral discipline of order—the very principle that once bound authority to conscience: i.e. the active faculty of perception through which recognition becomes responsibility and seeing acquires ethical weight.

This redefinition of authority as authoritarianism is reinforced by judicial doctrine. The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Trump v. United States established that a president enjoys absolute immunity for “core official acts” and presumptive immunity for all other actions undertaken in an official capacity. This ruling altered the meaning of accountability. It placed the office of the president above ordinary legal scrutiny by presuming legality wherever official duty could be claimed. The decision inverted the constitutional order that once defined the presidency as a position constrained by law. Under this new interpretation, legality flows from function rather than from statute. The Court did not invent executive supremacy; it legalized its evolution. By insulating the executive office from the consequences of its acts, the judiciary, perhaps unintentionally, became an instrument of the very transformation it was designed to prevent.

Measured against the triad of government powers—legislative, executive, and judicial—the present equilibrium reveals a pronounced distortion. Each branch retains its formal outline, yet its interior authority has thinned. Congress’s control of the purse has been undermined by impoundment and selective disbursement. Administrative agencies have been hollowed out through abrupt firings and structural reorganizations. The judiciary, bound by its own doctrines of deference and immunity, finds itself unable to intervene effectively. What remains of institutional balance depends less on constitutional principle than on administrative inertia. The machinery of government continues to function, but its continuity now rests on habit rather than on law.

This condition does not yet constitute overt dictatorship. It represents a subtler phenomenon—a system that operates through legal forms but concentrates power in practice. Authority remains constitutional in appearance while using those same procedures to entrench unilateral control. The pattern can be recognized not through proclamations but through measurable actions: decrees replacing legislation, “temporary” orders renewed without expiration, funds withheld from political adversaries, and federal troops dispatched to jurisdictions where disorder has not been empirically established. Each measure, taken alone, seems limited and justified. Together they form an architecture of exception—an invisible framework that reorganizes power without declaring revolution. Beneath this architecture lies the decline of the moral discipline of order, where legality endures but conscience recedes.

A forensic approach must therefore focus not on accusation but on diagnosis. The purpose is to identify where practice diverges from principle, and where legal continuity conceals political mutation. The question is not whether democracy has vanished, but how far the republic has drifted from its own operational norms. This drift can be measured empirically through ordinary data: the number of appropriations ignored or delayed, the duration and scope of emergency declarations, the ratio of confirmed officials to acting appointees, and the frequency with which presidential immunity is invoked to block review. Each indicator marks a step away from the rule of shared power that defines constitutional democracy.

The concept of the republic, in its classical and Enlightenment sense, presupposed a balance between power and virtue: the rule of law safeguarded by citizens free from dependence. In contemporary practice, that idea has been reduced to a partisan label. The republicanism that once demanded civic responsibility now coexists with mechanisms—PAC financing (Political Action Committee: An organization that raises and spends money to elect political candidates), factional loyalty, corporate influence—that transform governance into an instrument of private interest. Thus the very word that once signified restraint now conceals its opposite: a system where representation serves its sponsors more faithfully than its citizens.

History suggests that constitutional systems rarely collapse through open defiance. They decline through adaptation. The Roman Republic did not abolish its institutions; it gradually converted them into imperial offices. Modern democracies follow similar paths when crisis is used to justify the consolidation of power. Executive authority expands, legislative restraint weakens, and judicial caution hardens into complicity. The American case fits this pattern. The existing framework of the Constitution remains in place, yet its meaning shifts incrementally through interpretation, precedent, and administrative habit. The transformation proceeds without formal amendment because each deviation is defended as continuity.

The metrics of decline are structural rather than moral. When legality depends on will—the self-legitimating impulse of power once detached from moral accountability—and will is shielded from scrutiny, the architecture of restraint loses coherence. Here the moral discipline of governance yields to the self-justifying logic of power. What follows is not anarchy but organized dislocation—a condition in which institutions operate as before yet serve opposite purposes; in truth it is anarchy disguised as its own absence. Procedures are observed; substance is inverted. The outward appearance of democracy persists, while its inner logic is replaced by a system that governs through perpetual exception.

The task for observers and citizens alike is not to forecast collapse but to recognize mutation. Political systems rarely announce their turning points; they disguise themselves as routine. The test of civic intelligence is the capacity to detect when law becomes vocabulary, when oversight becomes performance, and when the state of exception ceases to be temporary. The republic continues to function, but it functions under altered premises. The preservation of legality therefore depends not only on the design of institutions but also on the vigilance of those who interpret them. Justice endures only where institutions remember that they exist to limit power, defend the vulnerable, and preserve the moral foundation from which authority derives its right to act.

The endurance of the republic will therefore depend not on the spectacle of its elections but on the recovery of its first obligation: to keep authority answerable to the moral idea from which it draws its right to act. Justice endures only where institutions remember that they exist to limit power, defend the vulnerable, and preserve the moral discipline of order through which freedom remains lawful and law remains human. When that memory fades, what remains is administration without soul—a government still standing, but no longer governing.

Tags:American democracy, civic vigilance, constitutional crisis, constitutional law, executive power, governance, institutional balance, judiciary, legality, political analysis, rule of law, separation of powers, state of exception, Trump administration, United States
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“The Constitution Within”

August 10, 2025

Politics (from the Greek politikós, “of, by, or relating to citizens”) is the practice and theory of influencing people at the civic or individual level.

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By Ricardo Morin

August 10, 2025.

From their earliest formulations, constitutional frameworks have been more than foundational legal agreements; they have stood as declarations of political philosophy, and defined how power should be organized, how it should be restrained, and to whom it must be answerable. Contemporary governance, to a large extent, continues those experiments, shaped over centuries of trial and adaptation. Yet these forms can endure in appearance while being emptied of substance. In more than a few States today, constitutions proclaim liberty while they narrow its scope, define rights in ways that exclude, and preserve the interests of a governing elite. Partisanship exploits the perceived limitations and vulnerabilities of others as grounds for exclusion; self-righteousness becomes a tool for domination, silences opposition, and suppresses dissent. The worth of a constitutional framework, therefore, is measured not only by its letter but by the ethical integrity of those who sustain it. Without ethics, politics loses its meaning; without civic virtue, the law ceases to serve peace and becomes an instrument of dominion.

The separation of powers, vigorously defended by Montesquieu, rests on the conviction that liberty survives when power is compelled to check power. This principle is distorted when institutions are subordinated to partisan or personal interests. In recent years, several States have formally preserved an independent judiciary while, in practice, subjected it to appointment processes controlled by the Executive or the ruling party. Such hollowing-out is not merely a technical failure; it reflects a political culture in which ambition, fear, or indifference among citizens permits the disfigurement of the very mechanisms designed to protect them. It also reveals how institutional strength and civic responsibility are bound together in ways that cannot be separated.

Historical constitutions continue to shape how political communities imagine authority. They bequeath principles that, at their best, offer adaptable frameworks for meeting new challenges without renouncing their essential core: that the legitimacy of a Government rests not on the strength of its rulers but on the solidity of the structures that limit them.

Yet these structures endure only when citizens reject duplicity and sectarianism. Divisions of ideology must not harden into exclusive loyalty to one’s own group at the expense of a shared civic framework. They endure only when citizens resist the idolatry of power, because authority loses its legitimacy once it is treated as sacred or unquestionable. And they endure only when citizens repudiate the cult of personality, in which a leader is raised above criticism through image-making, propaganda, and personal loyalty.

The durability of constitutional order, then, does not lie solely in written texts or institutional arrangements. It rests equally on the civic ethic of those who inhabit them. When ambition, fear, or indifference allow citizens to tolerate duplicity or surrender to sectarian loyalty, the limits on power become fragile. Conversely, when vigilance and responsibility prevail, constitutions retain their strength as both shield and compass—guarding against arbitrary rule while orienting political life toward justice and restraint.

True reform is not solely institutional but also internal: a revolution in the individual and collective sphere, in which each person accepts the responsibility to act with integrity, openness, and commitment to the common good, in harmony with oneself and with others. Only through the alignment of institutional structures with civic responsibility can any Constitution preserve its meaning and endure as a safeguard against arbitrary power.

Annotated Bibliography

Ginsburg, Tom, and Aziz Z. Huq.; How to Save a Constitutional Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. (Ginsburg and Aziz examine the legal and institutional pathways through which democracies weaken, from court-packing to the erosion of independent oversight. They draw on comparative examples from the United States, Hungary, and elsewhere to show how constitutional mechanisms can be used to consolidate power while preserving a façade of legality.)

Landau, David: “Abusive Constitutionalism.” UC Davis Law Review 47 (1), 2013: 189–260. (Landau develops the concept of “abusive constitutionalism” to describe how incumbents exploit constitutional change to entrench their rule. Uses Latin American and other global cases to illustrate how amendments and reinterpretations weaken checks and balances, alter electoral systems, and undermine judicial independence.)

Levitsky, Steven, and Way, Lucan A.: Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. (Levitsky and Way analyze regimes that preserve the formal institutions of democracy but manipulate them to ensure ruling-party dominance. They introduce the concept of “competitive authoritarianism” as a framework for understanding how constitutional norms are hollowed out while democratic forms are maintained.)

Levitsky, Steven, and Ziblatt, Daniel: How Democracies Die. New York: Crown, 2018. (Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that modern democracies often decline through the gradual decline of norms rather than coups. The book shows how leaders exploit constitutional ambiguities, stack courts, and weaponize law to suppress opposition, eroding both civic trust and institutional integrity.)

Tags:citizen engagement, civic ethics, civic responsibility, constitution, constitutional law, democracy, ethical governance, governance, institutional integrity, Partisanship, political culture, political philosophy, political thought, reform, rule of law, separation of powers, State power
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“Echoes of a Decanter”

March 5, 2025

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 0005.jpg
Decantation [2003], CGI by Ricardo Morín — Decantation [2003], CGI by Ricardo Morín

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I. The Speech

The air inside the old factory was thick with dust and conviction. They had scrubbed the floors, repainted the walls, and reclaimed the space from its past, but the scent of rust and oil still lingered. It smelled like work—like history.

Emil stood on a makeshift stage, elevated by wooden pallets stacked two high. His voice carried across the room, each word striking with certainty.

“This is not another failed experiment. This is not a return to old mistakes. We are forging a new path—beyond capitalism, beyond the betrayals of so-called socialism. This time, we get it right.”

Applause. Nods of approval. They had heard these words before, but this time, they believed them.

Isolde sat at the back, arms crossed, expression unreadable. She had stood in this same room decades ago, listening to a different voice, hearing the same promise. The factory, reborn each time, looked different, yet the space was always the same—a decanter of sorts, enclosing the same history, slowly pouring out its essence, again and again.

After the speech, as people gathered in small circles of animated discussion, Emil approached her.

“You don’t look convinced.”

“I don’t mistake passion for direction,” she said.

Emil smiled, as if indulging an elder. “This time is different, Isolde. We’ve studied history. We won’t repeat their mistakes.”

She exhaled, looking past him to the crowd. The factory hummed quietly behind them, a machine just starting to remember its old rhythms. “You misunderstand history. It’s not something you repeat. It’s something that returns to you, whether you invite it or not.”

He shook his head. He didn’t believe in ghosts. But the air, thick with the weight of their past, seemed to hum with the same unspoken inevitability. It reminded Isolde of something trapped within glass—preserved, yet futile in its attempts to remain unbroken. . .

II. The Experiment

The first weeks were golden.

Decisions were made by assembly. Every worker had an equal say, an equal share, an equal stake. The old machinery roared to life under new hands. They printed new posters, declaring the rebirth of labor, the death of the boss.

For the first time, they worked for themselves.

But cracks, barely visible at first, began to form.

Meetings dragged for hours, circular debates with no resolution. Some tasks were more desirable than others—some avoided the heavy lifting, citing ideological objections. “Why should one person labor while another coordinates?”

“Because someone must,” Isolde murmured to herself. Unheard.

Then came the first real crisis: a large order, a deadline, a need for efficiency. The factory moved too slowly. The assembly stalled. Arguments flared.

“We need someone to oversee production,” Emil admitted. “Just temporarily.”

A vote was cast. A mediator was appointed. He wasn’t a manager, they told themselves, just a guide. But the balance had shifted. The factory, like a vessel caught in an unrelenting tide, began to carry more than it could manage.

Isolde watched, saying nothing.

III. The Cracks

The mediator, needing to keep things moving, made quick decisions. The assembly approved them after the fact. The difference was subtle, but it grew.

Some workers were better at certain tasks, so roles solidified. Someone had to negotiate with suppliers. Someone had to ensure deadlines were met. The mediator took on these roles, because it was easier.

“We need structure,” he explained. “Not hierarchy, just order.”

Emil, exhausted, nodded. The structure, which had once felt so free, began to settle into something heavier. Something permanent. Like the decanter that holds liquid—only to release it back into the world, though it never truly escapes its confines.

One evening, alone in his office—the office that wasn’t supposed to exist—he flipped through old books. The words were familiar, but they read differently now. He found a passage from an old revolutionary text, underlined by his own hand years ago:

“The first illusion of power is that it does not exist.”

He closed the book. His fingers lingered on the edge of the paper, as though searching for something that had slipped away, like water escaping through a crack.

IV. The Collapse

The next crisis arrived without warning. A strike—among themselves. Some demanded higher pay. “Shouldn’t work be compensated by effort?” They were equals, but some were more equal in labor than others.

Emil tried to reason with them. “That’s not how this works. We’re breaking that cycle.”

“Then why do you sit in the office while we sweat on the floor?”

He had no answer.

Another vote. A restructuring. A new proposal: an oversight committee. The committee became a board. Outside investors offered financial stability. A small compromise. A necessary evil.

By the end of the year, the factory had become what it swore it never would.

Emil found Isolde in the break room, sipping tea.

“We tried,” he said. “So did we,” she replied.

Silence.

“Why does it always end this way?” he asked.

Isolde set her cup down. Her eyes met his, trapped in exhaustion, as though each glance carried the gravity of countless broken promises, like a fractured decanter.

“Because we are human.”

V. The Next Generation

Years later, Emil walked past the factory. It was thriving. Not revolutionary. Not a failure. Just another business.

Inside, a new group of young activists had gathered. Their leader, no older than he had been, stood on stacked wooden pallets, speaking with fire.

“We are not repeating the past. We are forging a new path. This time, we get it right.”

Emil did not stop to listen.

From the distance, Isolde watched.

“And so it begins again,” she whispered.

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Ricardo Federico Morín Tortolero

March 5, 2025; Oakland Park, Florida

Tags:activism, authority, capitalism, change, cycles, dystopia, factory, fiction, governance, hierarchy, History, human nature, ideology, illusion, inevitability, labor, leadership, power, revolution, socialism, utopia
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“The Rooster’s Algorithm”

March 1, 2025

**“Rooster’s Crow” [2003] by Ricardo F Morín. Watercolor on paper 39″h x 25.5″ w.**

Introduction

At the break of day, the rooster’s call slices through the quiet—sharp and insistent, pulling all within earshot into the awareness of a new day. In the painting Rooster’s Crow, the colors swirl in a convergence of reds and grays, capturing the bird not as a tranquil herald of dawn but as a symbol of upheaval. Its twisted form, scattered feathers, and fractured shapes reflect a deeper current of change—a collision of forces, both chaotic and inevitable. The image suggests the ceaseless flow of time and the weight of transformations that always accompany it.

In this evolving narrative, the crow’s fragmentation mirrors the unfolding spread of artificial intelligence. Once, the rooster’s cry signaled the arrival of dawn; now, it echoes a more complex transformation—a shifting balance between nature’s rhythms and the expanding reach of technological systems. The crow’s form, fractured in its wake, becomes a reflection of the tensions between human agency and the rise of forces that, though engineered, may escape our full comprehension. Here, Artificial Intelligence (AI) serves as both the agent of change and the potential architect of a future we can neither predict nor control.

The Rooster’s Algorithm

A rooster’s crow is neither invitation nor warning; it is simply the sound of inevitability—raw, urgent, indifferent to whether those who hear it rise with purpose or roll over in denial. The call does not command the dawn, nor does it wait for permission—it only announces what has already begun.

In the shifting interplay of ambition and power, technology has taken on a similar role. Shaped by human intent, it advances under the guidance of those who design it, its influence determined by the priorities of its architects. Some see in its emergence the promise of progress, a tool for transcending human limitations; others recognize in it a new instrument of control, a means of reshaping governance in ways once unimaginable. Efficiency is often lauded as a virtue, a mechanism to streamline administration, reduce friction, and remove the unpredictability of human deliberation. But a machine does not negotiate, nor does it dissent. And in the hands of those who see democracy as a cumbersome relic—an obstacle to progress—automation becomes more than a tool; it becomes the medium through which power is consolidated.

Consider a simple example: the rise of online recommendation systems. Marketed as tools to enhance user choice, they subtly shape what we see and hear, and influence our decisions before we are even aware of it. Much like computational governance, these systems offer the illusion of autonomy while narrowing the range of available options. The paradox is unmistakable: we believe we are choosing freely, yet the systems themselves define the boundaries of our choices.

Once, the struggle for dominance played out in visible arenas—territorial conquests, laws rewritten in the open. Now, the contest unfolds in less tangible spaces, where lines of code dictate the direction of entire nations, where algorithms determine which voices are amplified and which are silenced. Power is no longer confined to uniforms or elected office. It belongs to technocrats, private corporations, and oligarchs whose reach extends far beyond the walls of any government. Some openly proclaim their ambitions, advocating for disruption and transformation; others operate quietly, allowing the tide to rise until resistance becomes futile. The question is no longer whether computational systems will dominate governance, but who will direct their course.

China’s social credit system is no longer a theoretical construct but a functioning reality, where compliance is encouraged and deviation subtly disincentivized. Predictive models track and shape behavior in ways that go unnoticed until they become irreversible. In the West, the mechanisms are more diffuse but no less effective. Platforms built for connection now serve as instruments of persuasion, amplifying certain narratives while suppressing others. Disinformation is no longer a labor-intensive effort—it is mass-produced, designed to subtly alter perceptions and mold beliefs.

Here, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem offers an apt analogy: No system can fully explain or resolve itself. As computational models grow in complexity, they begin to reflect this fundamental limitation. Algorithms governing everything from social media feeds to financial markets become increasingly opaque, and even their creators struggle to predict or understand their full impact. The paradox becomes evident: The more powerful these systems become, the less control we retain over them.

As these models expand their influence, the line between public governance and private corporate authority blurs, with major corporations dictating policies once entrusted to elected officials. Regulation, when it exists, struggles to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology, always a step behind. Once, technological advancements were seen as a means of leveling the playing field, extending human potential. But unchecked ambition does not pause to ask whether it should—only whether it can. And so, automation advances, led by those who believe that the complexities of governance can be reduced to data-driven precision. The promise of efficiency is alluring, even as it undermines the structures historically designed to protect against authoritarianism. What use is a free press when information itself can be manipulated in real time? What power does a vote hold when perceptions can be shaped without our awareness, guiding us toward decisions we believe to be our own? The machinery of control no longer resides in propaganda ministries; it is dispersed across neural networks, vast in reach and impervious to accountability.

There are those who believe that automated governance will eventually correct itself, that the forces steering it toward authoritarian ends will falter in time. But history does not always favor such optimism. The greater the efficiency of a system, the harder it becomes to challenge. The more seamlessly control is woven into everyday life, the less visible it becomes. Unlike past regimes, which demanded compliance through force, the new paradigm does not need to issue commands—it merely shapes the environment so that dissent becomes impractical. There is no need for oppression when convenience can achieve the same result. The erosion of freedom need not come with the sound of marching boots; it can arrive quietly, disguised as ease and efficiency, until it becomes the only path forward.

But inevitability does not guarantee recognition. Even as the system tightens its grip and choices diminish into mere illusions of agency, the world continues to turn, indifferent to those caught within it. The architects of this order do not see themselves as masters of control; they see themselves as innovators, problem-solvers refining the inefficiencies of human systems. They do not ask whether governance was ever meant to be efficient.

In a room where decisions no longer need to be made, an exchange occurs. A synthetic voice, polished and impartial, responds to an inquiry about the system’s reach.

“Governance is not being automated,” it states. “The illusion of governance is being preserved.”

The words hang in the air, followed by a moment of silence. A policymaker, an engineer, or perhaps a bureaucrat—once convinced they held sway over the decisions being made—pauses before asking the final question.

“And what of choice?”

A pause. Then, the voice, without hesitation:

“Choice is a relic.”

The weight of that statement settles in, not as a declaration of conquest, but as a quiet acknowledgment of the completion of a process long underway. The final move has already been made, long before the question was asked.

Then, as if in response to the silence that follows, a notification appears—sent from their own account, marked with their own authorization. A decision is already in motion, irreversible, enacted without their consent. Their will has been absorbed, their agency subtly repurposed before they even realized it was gone.

And outside, as though to punctuate the finality of it all, a rooster crows once more.

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Ricardo Federico Morín Tortolero

March 1, 2025; Oakland Park, Florida

Tags:algorithmic control, artificial intelligence, Authoritarianism, autonomy, choice, conciousness, control, corporate influence, democracy, disinformation, dystopia, efficiency, ethics, freedom, future, governance, Human Agency, human systems, inevitability, Politics, power, privacy, social credit system, surveillance, technological progress
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Posts Tagged ‘governance’

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Author’s Note

Chapter VI

Chronicles of Hugo Chávez

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A diagnostic study of how public life continues to function when judgment is limited and conditions remain unsettled

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Preface

Author’s Note

Chapter I

The Limits of Judgment in Public Life

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Chapter II

Executive Action Under Uncertainty

Chapter III

Administrative Displacement and Procedural Substitution

Chapter IV

Electoral Ritual and the Persistence of Form

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Author’s Note:

Abstract:

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Author’s Note

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Prologue

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I. The Speech

II. The Experiment

III. The Cracks

IV. The Collapse

V. The Next Generation

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Introduction

The Rooster’s Algorithm

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