Fools Rush In

Don't these people realize how preposterous their arguments are? Clemons is at it again at The Huffington Post. In an opinion piece, rife with inaccuracy, he argues for opening ties to Cuba. Shall we try some of his more interesting assertions?

When castro dies, "People will learn about Batista and the fact that the pre-Castro Cuba was a playground for gambling, drugs, prostitution, and organized crime." Mr. Clemons' source for this one has to be The Godfather. Has to be because there is no basis in historical fact to describe conditions in the entire country this way. And here is something puzzling, while we are rewriting history, and your average teenager doesn't know Hoover the President from Hoover the vacuum cleaner, an awful lot of people seem to know the name Batista. One might almost think it was being fed into the discussion.

"Today, Cuba exports doctors and not arms." he tells us with nary a thought that he is equating human beings with pork bellies. Do those doctors have a choice? How much are they being paid, Mr. Clemons? Do you know they are being sent into parts of the various countries where native doctors won't go, that if they refuse to go they cannot practice medicine in Cuba, that they are kept isolated and surveilled, that they are paid pennies on the dollar from the salaries paid to the Cuban government, that host countries have to promise to keep them from freedom? Are you aware of any of that? Or, is it irrelevant to you?

And then, there is the vitriol. It is patently fantastic that people who were stripped of all of their belongings, had to flee their native country when a totalitarian regime took over, a regime that was NEVER a friend to the United States are repeatedly vilified. You have forgotten who was sinned upon and who is still sinning today. The money quote:

And then they will learn how a small cabal of Miami-based Cuban-Americans manipulated laws and our institutions to wage a personal war against Castro and sacrificed core American interests in doing so.

Not a "cabal," Mr. Clemons, lots and lots of people, not all of whom reside in Miami. These are people who have done nothing more than exercise their constitutional rights to voice their opinions and to vote for one of a number of candidates. They are rights, along with the right to voice dissent, that you would not have in Cuba. It seems there are those who would take away those rights.

Frankly, I don't think there are answers at the moment. I do know that if you seek to dictate government policy, your answers should be grounded in fact, not the cool person's talking points.