There is no doubt that the 60-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba inflicts horrific economic suffering on the Cuban people. That is its purpose — to squeeze the Cuban people through suffering and even starvation into ousting their communist regime and replacing it with a regime that will be subservient to the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA.
Not surprisingly, the embargo has failed to achieve its end. That’s because most Cubans detest the idea of having the U.S. government wield control over them, justifiably so. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to revolt against a well-entrenched regime, especially one that has imposed strict gun control on its citizens.
But a question naturally arises: Why the extreme passivity among the American people to the destruction of their rights and liberty, which comes with the U.S. government’s embargo against Cuba?
After all, the infliction of economic suffering and even death on Cubans is not a cost-free endeavor, at least not insofar as American citizens are concerned. The price paid by Americans has been their liberty as well as their economic well-being.
Travel is a fundamental, God-given right, one that precedes the existence of government. People have the right to travel anywhere they want without the interference or control of their own government.
Economic liberty is also a fundamental, God-given right. People have the right to spend their money any way they want without the interference of control of their own government.
It is indisputable that both of these rights have been destroyed by the U.S. government’s embargo on Cuba. If an American citizen travels to Cuba and spends money there in some unapproved way, he is subject to criminal prosecution, conviction, incarceration, and fine by his own government upon his return to the United States.
From the very beginning of the embargo, U.S. officials said that U.S. “national security” was threatened by Cuba’s socialist system. Socialism, of course, is an economic system in which the government controls the economic activity of the citizenry.
Thus, note the irony: In order to oppose socialism, U.S. officials control the travel and spending of American citizens and punish them if they fail to follow the orders and directives associated with their embargo.
What we need in this country is a freedom revival, one in which the American people rediscover what freedom really means and rise up and demand the restoration of their freedom. A great place to start would be an unconditional, non-negotiable demand to lift the cruel and destructive embargo on the Cuban people, which, at the same time, would go a long way toward restoring freedom of travel and freedom of trade to the American people.
The post The Cuban Embargo Has Destroyed the Liberty of Americans appeared first on The Future of Freedom Foundation.
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