Good morning, gentle people! Well, hardly had the dust died down from the frantic self-back-patting the Freeperati had been doing since the midterms when something very interesting happened.
US TO START TALKS WITH CUBA TO NORMALIZE FULL DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
Fox News ^ | 2014-12-17 | Associated Press (AP)Posted on 12/17/2014 9:00:18 AM by WhiskeyX
[Headline only]
Now I read John Cole most days, and I have to disagree with him 0n his analysis:
Actually, that’s as wrong as it can be.
Don’t believe me? Check out the replies on this thread. There’s currently a uncivil war going on at Free Republic, with the “trade and travel” contingent (in alliance with the glibertarian contingent) fighting the Cold Warriors in a no-holds-barred death cage match.
First – the old guard:
To: WhiskeyX
To: WhiskeyX
But then….
To: WhiskeyXIt’s about time. I am certainly no fan of Obama but there are two things I expected him to do and am amazed he hasn’t done. The first was to end the pointless and self-destructive War on Drugs. The second was to end the cruel and pointless embargo on Cuba. This isn’t the 1960’s anymore and the Castros are dying. If we can have normal relations with China, Burma and Vietnam we can certainly have them with Cuba.
4 posted on 12/17/2014 9:06:11 AM by jalisco555 (“My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy” – Ronald Reagan)
To: dfwgatorCastro needs the embargo, and he will make the conditions so unreasonable that the US will never agree to them.We may see another outrage like happened the past few times this idea was floated. But I suspect not this time. And I have always wanted to visit Cuba. Why should the US government make me jump through absurd hoops to do it? Who are they to tell me where I can and cannot go?12 posted on 12/17/2014 9:09:56 AM by jalisco555 (“My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy” – Ronald Reagan)
To: jalisco555
To: WhiskeyX
To: dfwgatorThere’s a little matter of all of that US-owned property Castro stole.Not to mention the property stolen from Cuban exiles. So this will be messy, no doubt. But it’s time to end the isolation.26 posted on 12/17/2014 9:21:43 AM by jalisco555 (“My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy” – Ronald Reagan)
One of them even gets all snarky with it:
To: WhiskeyXThe Embargo against Cuba has worked for more than 50 years and with a little more effort and a little more time, the Embargo will certainly inspire the Cuban people to depose Castro.
29 posted on 12/17/2014 9:24:35 AM by Oliviaforever
To: jalisco555The embargo against Cuba hasn’t done anything but depress the Cuban economy and make Cuban cigars unobtainable. It hasn’t worked for fifty years, and it is time to try something new. Obama finally got one right.
Cynically, despite my agreement with Obama on this matter, I suspect that it takes Florida out-of-play for the Demoncrats in 2016.
To: Batman11
To: WhiskeyXWhat? Obama foreign policies make no sense.
47 posted on 12/17/2014 9:59:17 AM by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light….. Isaiah 5:20)
To: manc
To: jalisco555
My wife is from there, you’re not missing much.
To: dfwgatorObama has already admitted “we” have been wrong all these years . . .
He has just created another ‘strategic diversion’ as he pursues the overall “change” he promised before ‘amerikanz’ voted him into his current role as ‘pen&phone operator’ . . .
(there will be no elections in 2016, btw . . .)60 posted on 12/17/2014 10:08:28 AM by cuspofcommonsense
To: LazamatazWell, ever since the Election, OTrauma has gone full-on Communist.He has nothing left to lose. That’s when people are the most dangerous………………..53 posted on 12/17/2014 10:02:46 AM by Red Badger (If you compromise with evil, you just get more evil……………………..)
To: bkepleyCuban-Americans send billions in cash and goods every year to their relatives on the island, every dollar of which indirectly keeps the regime on life support. While I can understand their personal motivations in doing so, for them to at the same time be in favor of the embargo is completely hypocritical.
54 posted on 12/17/2014 10:03:26 AM by Eric Pode of Croydon
To: WhiskeyXAgainst! Unless and until Cuba’s Communists release ALL political prisoners, no relations. We couldn’t do this with Russia or China, they’re too big to ignore and pressure like this, but we have done so quite well with Cuba. No reason to stop, other than the COTUS being nice to his fellows commie rat bastards.
64 posted on 12/17/2014 10:11:29 AM by Ancesthntr (“The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.” A. E. van Vogt)
To: sheanaThe country is full of vacationers from Europe and CanadaAnd from South America. I visit Brazil and Argentina on business and frequently hear people talking about going to Cuba on vacation.Their cigars are on sale in virtually EVERY duty-free shop around the world.It’s time Cuba got a big does of American-style consumerism. We need new places for the cruise ships to go.67 posted on 12/17/2014 10:17:23 AM by SomeCallMeTim ( The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them!)
To: WhiskeyXgood news! this will piss off the cuban community in Florida and help the GOP in 2016 🙂
70 posted on 12/17/2014 10:19:20 AM by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
To: jalisco555Castros are not dead yet and they have lined thousands up in front of ditches and mowed them and it is still being done if you open your month and say the wrong thing. THis is just more of Obama’s cozing up to dictators. The marxist,leftist bastard.
To: WhiskeyXNotice the timing again, AFTER the election.
101 posted on 12/17/2014 11:00:50 AM by Steve_Seattle
To: jalisco555
To: WhiskeyXGot to wonder how many levels of treason this POS POTUS can commit in 8 years.More and more, I am guessing hat this despot is planning somehow to extend his dictatorship under the guise of an national emergency.Khrushchev is laughing his ass off in hell right now.138 posted on 12/17/2014 11:25:43 AM by catfish1957 (Everything I needed to know about Islam was written on 11 Sep 2001)
To: ifinneganI have yet to see a good explanation for why having diplomatic relations with China (and by the late 80’s, free trade agreements) is perfectly acceptable while doing the same with Cuba is unacceptable. Nor do I see why if such agreements and relations lead China in the direction of capitalism why they wouldn’t do the same for Cuba.
95 posted on 12/17/2014 10:52:12 AM by ek_hornbeck
To: re_nortexCuba represents a threat to the US? How exactly? Its a crumbling regime run by a dying despot. Communism is dying, and Cuba is one of the final holdouts.
China is technically communist too. Pick up a random object in your house. Look and see where it was made.
And if you think we’re going to win the war on drugs, then i’d like a little of what you’re smoking (pun intended 🙂 )
123 posted on 12/17/2014 11:19:15 AM by bigdaddy45
To: dfwgatorCastro needs the embargo, and he will make the conditions so unreasonable that the US will never agree to them.The embargo is pretty much a joke since we’re the only ones who enforce it. Cuba gets tourists and trade from most of the rest of the world.
To: Olog-haiRed China is still Red ChinaAnother red herring, high on rhetoric, low on facts. It’s true that China remains brutal and authoritarian, but it is “Communist” in party name only. Under Mao, there were no privately owned businesses of any kind, not even mom and pop shops. Today, China’s private sector accounts for far more of its GDP than its public sector. And when it comes to social services, China is probably more capitalist than we are: if you’re sick in China and can’t pay up front, guess what? You’re not going to the hospital. More people get government subsidized welfare and health care in the US (and certainly in Europe) than in “Red” China.
To: catfish1957So was Nixon treasonous for reaching out to China?
Obama will be gone in January 2017, all paranoid fantasies aside.
142 posted on 12/17/2014 11:27:35 AM by bigdaddy45
To: Logical meWow, just in time for the Jimrob to endorse Romney thread that just popped up.
149 posted on 12/17/2014 11:35:32 AM by RummyChick
And amazing how the same ones that one a Cuba embargo claim that an embargo over the handling of the Ukraine won’t do anything. And this on top of a level that the conservative love of Putin has changed from manly man-boobs to really having some economic problems.
Just so.
Tommy