My criticism of Ron Paul's views on Cuba, sparked this e-mailed response from one of the presidential candidate's loyalists:
I am writing about your post concerning Ron Paul. I find your position on Ron Paul ill-informed. You referred to Paul as a person with ‘”whacked-out positions” some of which he might even really believe in.’ Well I hate to inform you sir but Ron Paul does believe in the things he states unlike many of the politicians especially in the Republican Party who talk like persons who believe in freedom but don’t walk what they talk.You are incorrect in stating that Paul “is part of the same blame-America-first-always crowd”. He isn’t. He’s part of the blame-the-politicians-first-crowd. I cannot see how you can say Paul beatifies any other politician when his stance has been consistent in pointing out the way politicians/government interfere with individual liberty in its various forms. Paul has not spoken well of the Cuban regime. You are incorrect in implying that he does. He has consistently denounced communist regimes throughout the world including China and Cuba and has exposed the United States’ subsidization of those regimes. Paul has simply pointed out that government creates the “Chavezes of the world, we create the Castros of the world by interfering and creating chaos in their countries, and they respond by throwing out their leader.” This was/is true in Germany, Iran, Venezuela and yes, Cuba.
You are part of a sector in this country (part of a group I was once in) that equates government with country. Governments only interfere with individual liberties and rarely if ever change their ways. They do not change in this way depending on who is in power. One cannot state that governance all depends on putting the “right” people in power. This is false. Government seeks to destroy the individual, seeks to aggrandize itself and like the fear many have of government intervention in people’s lives in domestic matters, thoughtful persons realize that it seeks to expand its powers outside its borders in foreign matters as well.
The embargo against Cuba is an interference with liberty. If one is willing to visit Cuba, that right to travel is something that belongs to the individual and not the bureaucrats in Washington. Secondly its enactment and enforcement is typical of any government program. Its original intent is possibly initially followed and executed but eventually becomes perverted and becomes politicized. Thereafter it no longer does what it was intended to do. Just go to the Miami International Airport and you’ll see the daily flights of people (many of which may be sympathizers with the regime) going to and fro.
There's more. Read the whole thing, below the fold.
Sir,
I am writing about your post concerning Ron Paul. I find your position on Ron Paul ill-informed. You referred to Paul as a person with ‘”whacked-out positions” some of which he might even really believe in.’ Well I hate to inform you sir but Ron Paul does believe in the things he states unlike many of the politicians especially in the Republican Party who talk like persons who believe in freedom but don’t walk what they talk.
You are incorrect in stating that Paul “is part of the same blame-America-first-always crowd”. He isn’t. He’s part of the blame-the-politicians-first-crowd. I cannot see how you can say Paul beatifies any other politician when his stance has been consistent in pointing out the way politicians/government interfere with individual liberty in its various forms. Paul has not spoken well of the Cuban regime. You are incorrect in implying that he does. He has consistently denounced communist regimes throughout the world including China and Cuba and has exposed the United States’ subsidization of those regimes. Paul has simply pointed out that government creates the “Chavezes of the world, we create the Castros of the world by interfering and creating chaos in their countries, and they respond by throwing out their leader.” This was/is true in Germany, Iran, Venezuela and yes, Cuba.
You are part of a sector in this country (part of a group I was once in) that equates government with country. Governments only interfere with individual liberties and rarely if ever change their ways. They do not change in this way depending on who is in power. One cannot state that governance all depends on putting the “right” people in power. This is false. Government seeks to destroy the individual, seeks to aggrandize itself and like the fear many have of government intervention in people’s lives in domestic matters, thoughtful persons realize that it seeks to expand its powers outside its borders in foreign matters as well.
The embargo against Cuba is an interference with liberty. If one is willing to visit Cuba, that right to travel is something that belongs to the individual and not the bureaucrats in Washington. Secondly its enactment and enforcement is typical of any government program. Its original intent is possibly initially followed and executed but eventually becomes perverted and becomes politicized. Thereafter it no longer does what it was intended to do. Just go to the Miami International Airport and you’ll see the daily flights of people (many of which may be sympathizers with the regime) going to and fro.
Yet people who have families in Cuba are prohibited by mere executive order from visiting their family members or sending remittances except once every three years (correct me on this matter if I’m wrong about the time span). Remember that to disapprove of the US government’s position does not mean that one must approve the actions of another government. That is crucial in this debate concerning Cuba. Those who support less government intervention in people’s actions vis a viz their governments or foreign governments are not haters of their countries or sympathizers with the governments of other countries.
There is indeed another government interference concerning Cuba. It is the embargo that Fidel Castro has against Cuba. People in Cuba are human beings and thus like any human being they act freely until their government interferes. People attempt to open businesses in Cuba and are immediately smacked down by their oppressive regime. A black market flourishes in Cuba (and I am not talking about the sex trade or human smuggling). Of course comparatively speaking the US is much freer than Cuba. I am not suggesting that Cuba is free but rather human beings are free and depending on what government you’re talking about, people’s freedoms are usurped in varying degrees, nation to nation.
To suggest that the US is a friend of those oppressed around the world and not the cause of problems is to ignore history. Consider this factoid from Paul’s A Foreign Policy of Freedom: the Soviet Union spent $10 million a day on Cuba (a 1983 figure) and $10 billion in total (from its initial aid to Cuba until 1983). In 1982 the Soviet Union gave Cuba $4.7 billion amounting to 25% of Cuba’s GNP. Paul pointed out that in 1983 the Soviets and the Eastern bloc owed almost “$100 billion to Western nations”. That’s credit, debt owed to the USA and others! While the US aided the Communists through its credit policies, the Soviets had cash left over to aid the communists in Cuba: “This massive flow of rubles into the Caribbean is being supported by the U.S. government’s credit policies”.
Again the US talks a big game claiming it is supporting freedom in Cuba but does the opposite. With Elian Gonzalez, free individuals oppressed by their government in Cuba decided to leave for America. The interventionist government of the US initially “allowed” the surviving members of that fleeing party to enter, only to insist that the child be returned to his father which the latter had in the past made utterances about how he wanted to leave the island. One government told another government to hand over a child and the latter complied. The US “removed” the child from the Miami home by force and possibly the first time in history a “democratic” government pointed a rifle at a child. Let us not pretend that the Left were to blame for this incident. There were many “right wingers” who applauded the action against this family who was giving sanctuary to an “illegal alien”. Other sectors of the US government did absolutely nothing in reference to the Elian Gonzalez matter except remain silent, or support and applaud the Clinton administration’s actions.
Today in Pakistan Ms. Bhutto was assassinated and again the US spoke platitudes about how the violence must cease, the terrorists are a danger, and yet the same US government supports the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf simply because he denounced, especially after September 11 2001, radical Islam. It is incredible how the US government props up these dictators, then are frightened or surprised when radicals try to overthrow that government (or succeed as they did in Iran). What’s more, the US and some of its inhabitants complain that refugees from those very countries enter the US. The US government does the same with Cuba. It speaks of “Cuba Si Castro Now” “democracia para Cuba” and on and on and on. People in Miami believe it, are suckered into thinking that the Bush family will “Some day liberate” Cuba. Yet those other few brave souls who by conviction believe that force must be used to remove the yoke of aggression and oppression, are systematically hunted by the US authorities under the guise that individuals cannot act in matters of “foreign policy”. They denounce Cuba as a terrorist government but return its residents who flee because it must protect its borders. Many in the US government like to forget the US’s past involvement with Batista and acts surprised that Cuba has had 50 years of an oppressive regime.
The US government cannot find Osama bin-Laden but yet it can find with great ease Jose and Maria who work the fields that you and I refuse to toil simply because they lack a rubber stamp from a bureaucrat allowing their “stay”. The US government cannot remove a threatening dictator (threatening in his words and deeds) 90 miles from its borders but yet can remove a dictator over tens of thousands of miles of which it previously supported (Mr. Saddam Hussein).
We need more people like Dr. Paul who are willing to denounce machines of force because of their love of country. Hopefully you’ll rethink your position and read the history of governments especially this one which continues to bamboozle free people everywhere into thinking that they are the beacons of liberty. They’re not. They’re politicians. They lie. They cheat. They steal. And that’s just during their first week in office.
Merry Christmas,
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