The Alternative

Cuba
     Barack Obama plans a trip to Cuba March 21-22. Being in conservative circles more than liberal ones, I’m constantly bombarded with anti-Obama messages, as if there is some sort of sudden shift brought about by his presidency. I’m heartened by the outrage at his socialistic policies and rhetoric, but saddened that we’ve come this far before the outrage became fashionable.
     Socialized medicine, called Medicare and Medicaid, has made up half of our country’s health care expenditures since 1965. That lack of competition obviously coincides with the rise in medical costs, but there was little rebuke of George Bush’s Medicare Part D escalation.
     Now Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are showing outrage at Obama’s cozying up to the Castros. They haven’t forgotten the brutal revolution that Fidel waged against dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Batista’s cronies in Florida have done well for themselves and are big donors to politicians who claim U.S. pressure will hasten the collapse of Cuba’s economy and they will rise again as a capitalistic society like we once were. It’s 50 years and counting so far. The Cuban people not only suffer under communism, they suffer from U.S. sanctions.
     Rather than continuing the political blabber of how awful the Obamas and Castros are, we need to consider the people who must live with all this grandstanding and macho nonsense. National sovereignty is a hot topic right now, but only if it is our sovereignty. People like Cruz and Rubio seem to believe our noses belong everywhere but here. If their enthusiasm for capitalism were genuine, they would introduce bills in the Senate extricating us from our own socialist programs and allow Cuba’s flawed system to fail without our help. Our attempts to install our own values and politics in other nations have only led to bloody demonstrations of our own hypocrisy. But our past example of prosperity through freedom has changed much of the world.
     The issue of our relations with Cuba should boil down to trade. Our government should be totally absent in the realm of world trade. The Cuba issue and the Trans Pacific Partnership make this a great time to review the benefits of trade.
     1. Best use of labor, infrastructure and machinery as it suits local conditions.
     2. Increased chance of invention as competition directs resources to their best use.
     3. Moral and intellectual gains grow organically through contact and necessity.
     4. Common interests develop understanding of people unlike ourselves.
     5. A commercial and moral barrier for war. As Frederic Bastiat said, “When goods don’t cross borders, armies will.”
     One thing we need to recognize is what a border is. While it is unfortunate there are cruel dictators in the world, we must, as a nation, deal with the established order of foreign nations and let the locals change local politics themselves. This is not to say Cruz and Rubio can’t buy a boat and help with the new Cuban revolution, just so they do it without flying a flag that involves the United States. Their ability to pay will determine the feasibility of the project instead of some lobbying effort for the confiscation of someone else’s money.
     As an executive, Obama’s role in government doesn’t allow him to travel all over visiting with other heads of state. By doing this he legitimizes government’s intrusion in our private business and enables the cronyism that progressives mistakenly call capitalism. So on that front, Cruz and Rubio are correct. But they miss the point entirely and become just like their Democratic adversaries, complaining about how government is used, rather than whether it should be used at all.
 
     Any opinions on this column are welcome at 4selfgovernment@gmail.com or through a letter to the editor. The blog is updated almost daily at www.alternativebyfritz.com. Try it. You’ll like it.