Bolívar could and did, in perfect good faith, assume dictatorial powers without thinking himself any less a “liberator” — because the essence of liberation was the destruction of classical monarchy.  … “democracy” … might mean nothing more than that the ruler’s authority had been acclaimed by a more-or-less sizable crowd of “the people,” for example, his army.

I knew something about these kids by now. They were all in their early twenties and they were all veterans of “the war,” the popular insurrection against Somoza which had ended four years earlier.