Obama’s Cuba policy

Cuba remains an oppressive, communist regime. Men and women of valor still rot in the island nation's prisons for the "crimes" of speaking and writing in favor of freedom, in opposition to a government that rejects the very underlying tenet of property rights -- the right to the fruits of one's own labor.

Yes, Cuban governments before 1959 exhibited corruption, in varying degrees. That's why many Americans at first sympathized with the guerrilla resistance led by Fidel Castro and the murderous Che Guevara -- until the revolutionaries started seizing private property, en masse, to fund their schemes.

If every corrupt Latin American regime were overthrown and replaced with a slave state, how many would remain?

The 50-year U.S. trade embargo is not the main reason Cuba is an economic basket case. After all, no cutoff of U.S. trade -- which was never substantial -- can be blamed for the economic plight of communist North Korea, where its starving citizens eat weeds.

What Cubans need is freedom. The question is -- short of an American invasion, for which there is little appetite -- what course is most likely to produce that result, once Fidel follows his heroes, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, into whatever afterlife is reserved for such "leaders"? (Lenin, if memory serves, is stuffed.)

Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama lifted travel restrictions for U.S. residents with family on the island. Demand for flights to the island has exploded, according to Miami-based charter companies licensed to operate them.

Fulfilling a campaign pledge, Mr. Obama lifted those restrictions over the objections of Cuban-American leaders in Congress who have argued that such travelers prop up Cuba's failing economy and perpetuate the 50-year rule of Fidel and Raul Castro.

A poll of 400 Cuban-Americans conducted April 14 to 16 by Florida-based research firm Bendixen & Associates found that 64 percent of respondents supported Mr. Obama's new travel policy, The Washington Post reported Monday. An even larger number, 67 percent, said all Americans should be able to go to the island.

Support for the 1962 U.S. trade embargo against Cuba has also eroded in the past three years, the poll found, dropping from 53 to 42 percent.

Of course, the majority isn't always right -- and note the poll was of "Cuban-Americans," only.

But "the survey results underscore the changing demographics that are most likely to determine those views," Nick Miroff of The Post reports. "Younger Cubans, and those who arrived more recently and tend to still have family on the island, are generally more supportive of liberalization, while older exiles continue to back the embargo and oppose increased travel."

"How can you say you're fleeing from the regime and ask for political asylum if you're going to turn around a few years later and go vacation in Cuba?" asks Juan Carlos Meneses, a 51-year-old building manager who arrived as part of the 1980 Mariel boat lift and hasn't been back since.

The remaining concern is that there are some in the current U.S. administration who would argue "communism was never so bad; what's the fuss all about?"

If the Cuban government seeks a fuller rapprochement, let them restore the basic rights of speech, dissent and freedom of the press, for starters -- so that the Cuban people, themselves, can finally speak on these issues, without fear of a knock on the door at midnight.

On balance, the steps taken to date by the Obama administration deserve applause and support. Get these people radios! Get them televisions! The greatest enemy of such tyrannies, in the long run, is any opportunity for their people to see the fruits of freedom and capitalism, first hand.

It would be nice to believe those in Washington, at least, understand the difference.

Here's a way to find out: If those in Washington truly respect property rights, then as a part of any normalization of relations with Cuba, there will be an insistence that those whose property was seized in 1959 -- especially American corporations and their private investors -- be reimbursed by the Cuban government, at least on a prorated basis.

On the other hand, if Washington decides to celebrate the change by offering to send lots of free money to Cuba for "redevelopment" -- money seized from U.S. taxpayers to be spent on yet another "foreign aid program" not authorized in the Constitution -- that will indicate something quite different about the current level of respect for freedom and property rights in our own capital ... won't it?