In any case, you are completely missing the point. Maybe you think the US has lousy heathcare, and maybe you think we should have some kind of universal health care system instead of the system we have now. But what else do people in Cuba have? Do you seriously think you would want to give up what we have in the US so you could get free checkups every year? Seriously? Do you really think giving up your civil rights would be worth it?
What are you talking about? I didn’t bring up their healthcare system…Seven did, with this post:
My point was that universal healthcare is all well and good, but doing “something right” is pretty weak praise, when they are doing everything else wrong.
Their government is more representational than ours. They actually have turnover in their government and participation. 98 percent of incumbents win here. Not so there. 99.6% of their population votes. What percentage of our population votes? Cuba’s literacy rate hovers around the mid 90 percent. There’s another reason to be “jealous”.
All things i’ve told you before and proven in previous threads. You don’t listen, care, or learn.
The OP seems to think that giving people the right to an abortion, a divorce, and sodomy are more important to humanity than basic freedom. I am trying to show why I believe that the Cuban government isn’t QUITE as “enlightened” as some may think. The fact that they shoot people who try to leave SHOULD be one indication, one would think.
I have not seen these threads, but anyone who believes that Cuba is not a dictatorship is delusional. And I care a great deal…I have family who lives there, so I have a suspicion that I care more than you do.
Freedom to buy something exotic (like a kilo of soap) when you like.
Freedom to own your own home.
Freedom to criticize the government.
Freedom to go on vacation overseas.
Freedom from conscription.
Freedom to start a little business
Freedom to get rich.
What the heck good are other freedoms if you are required to live your life in poverty?
I’m saying it’s easier to affect change when it’s merely one person deciding things. Complaining that a democracy can’t change it’s mind as fast as a dictatorship kind of misses the point of the whole “freedom” and “voting” thing, dontcha think?
I mean, you’re taking reality denial to remarkable heights of stupidity here. Fidel Castro is an absolute dictator. He isn’t subject to the will of the people, and if you oppose him even a little too vocally, they send you to prison or shoot you. It is not a free country or a democracy by any reasonable definition thereof.
You’re allowing the controversy over the USA’s admittedly silly attitude towards Cuba to blind you to one inescapable fact: It’s a prison. Most prisons have good food and handy health care and a nice prison library. It still sucks to live in them and they won’t let you leave.
Ok. Those are examples in which the U.S. is superior to Cuba. It goes both ways. Surely if you can recognise the points on which the U.S. is better, you can recognise the points on which Cuba is better?
According to the CIA factbook, the US literacy rate is 99%. Why would we be jealous of Cuba? Cuba’s preventative care is laudable, but it should be noted that good preventative care is essentially the extent of what they can offer everybody… the resources for more simply do not exist. There are no doctor shortages because of free university education and the quite simple fact that the doctors produced there are not allowed to leave to find more lucrative work overseas. A prison with a good staff of GPs and a liberal education policy doesn’t for one moment obscure the fact that it’s still a prison.
Well, let’s not mince words. I wouldn’t want to live in Cuba. I’m sure life there is very different from what we have here in America, and in most other countries as well.
My point about Cuba isn’t that it’s some island paradise. My point has always been that it’s not as bad as the constant propaganda and bad stories would lead you to believe. They are doing some positive things right. They are doing some things wrong. They’re not a complete brutal place. They’re not comfortable by any means as well. They have different values, desires, hopes and dreams.
No need to hate anyone because of the location of their accidental birth.
Right. If the literacy rate is 99 percent, then there are virtually no illiterate people.
Let’s Ask the CIA about literacy like we’d ask the Library of Congress about infectious diseases. I’d rather ask the Department of Education, if you don’t mind.
I’ve seen rates ranging from 5 percent to 22 percent. Either way, best or worst case scenario, 99 percent is amazingly inaccurate.
That’s exactly right. Dictatorships ALWAYS have an extraordinarily high % of people voting…don’t people wonder how they manage that? How could any free country EVER get 99.6% of the population to do ANYTHING? It’s absurd. And yes, it is a prison. If you try to leave, they shoot you. And somehow universal health care is supposed to make up for all of this? Please. Don’t make me laugh.