Let's Start With Cuba

There are too many outrages to talk about so let's just take a couple to discuss...

First is the normalization of relations with Cuba. This is something that would have been political suicide to support only a few years ago. I would have supported dropping the embargo in 1963 but, once it had been in place for 5 years, there was no reason to lift it, I think. And that is probably the thinking of most Cubans today though there are still many who support it as a kind of punishment for the Castro regime. Castro used the embargo as an excuse for the nation's poverty when it was really the fault of Cuba's own government.

One side effect of the embargo was to create a powerful sugar industry in the U.S., much of it in Florida and which helped Florida economically. It also helped Lousiana and Hawaii, both of whom had sugar plantations.

The idea behind embargoes, like boycotts, is to hurt a nation's economy and foster resentment of their governments by their people. I do not think them effective because they are easily painted as attacks by outside meddlers... which is exactly what the Castros did with ours. At this point, lifting the embargo will only help Raul Castro maintain his regime and ease the burden on Venezuela (who was helping support Cuba) as oil prices' downward tumble were hurting that economy.

The embargo, at this point, was no longer effective... if it ever was.

The other main outrage has to do with rioting, protests over grand jury decisons, and freedom of speech for license plates in Texas. The protests in Ferguson quickly turned into riots and looting. I do not understand the looting; it only helps make a bad situation worse. It hurts the local economy of the area that was already poor. It has happened numerous times in numerous cities over the years. And it causes even more oppression rather than less. Maybe that is its real purpose: to increase the very conditions being protested in the hopes that it will lead to an uprising. This has happened many times in the past, even our own revolution was a result of protests that created more repression by the Crown in response.

Finally, the kerfuffle in Texas over what can or cannot be on a vanity license plate is silly. I think Texas has every right to restrict what can be on such license plates. After all, there is no right to have an automobile, just as there is no right to have a driver's license.