Yes, let’s all return Cuba to its former days as an island paradise ruled by the military dictator Batista and the Cuban and American mafias. Come on, Lib. Be realistic, here.
I apologize for that last post, Lib, it was way too harsh. The sad fact is that, in our hemisphere, countries where Spanish is the primary language tend to end up as military dictatorships run by one extreme wing or the other. There’s no guarantee that whatever replaces Castro wouldn’t be ten times as bad as you imagine he is.
In anycase, I really do believe you want to create a Catch-22 situation for the Juan Gonzales. If he loves Cuba just the way it is, he is a volunteer and thus as a peaceful honest person has rights with respect to his son. (Actually, in real life, he does anyway. He doesn’t live in Libertaria and neither do we.) But if he says he really loves Cuba, he can’t be telling the truth, because he lives in Cuba. So the only way for him to be believed is to defect. But if he really loves Cuba, he doesn’t want to defect. But if he says he really loves Cuba, he can’t be telling the truth, because . . .
How many more hoops do you want the man to jump through before he gets his son back and gets to return to his home? Everyone said, “We want to hear it from the father,” so the father appeared on TV. Then they said, “Well, he’s a tool of Castro. Let him stand on American soil and say it.” So he came to America. Then they said, “Well, he’s a tool of Castro. Let him defect and say it.” Why does this man have to do parlor tricks for you anymore?
You’re right, I’m sorry. That came off mean spirited, but was meant to be a joke.
Lib, you are right in saying that no parents wishes his children to live in slavery. And I would grant that Juan may secretly want to defect to the USA. I would be happy to see the whole family living in freedom…
But what if you are wrong about Juan prefering Cuba?
I think it is just that possibility that has everyone so riled up. If you’re right, and Juan is a mouthpiece for Castro, then I’m right with you. But if you’re wrong, you’re making a terrible mistake in wrenching father from son.
Of course we cannnot know Juan’s heart. If we assume Juan prefers Cuba, and we deliver Elian to him, and our assumptions are wrong, we send the boy back into slavery like you’re saying. If we assume Juan tells the truth and we keep Elian from him, then we are worse than Castro for destroying that family, and hypocrites to boot.
Which error is better?
Stop the violins!
First of all, Lib, congratulations to you and Edlyn on the occasion of your recent nuptials.
Now, back to disagreeing with you, as usual:
Pardon me, but haven’t you been pretty emphatic in the past concerning the tyrannical nature of the U.S. government? I mean, we’ve been 'round that bush more than a few times. IIRC, I had (on multiple occasions) suggested that standards of comparison were in order; that, compared to most other countries (now and throughout history), the USA in 1999/2000 was/is a very free place, and hardly tyrannical at all. Your response more or less amounted to: tyranny is tyranny.
Now I’m perplexed: you seem to be the one either ignoring the tyrannical nature of the USA, or conceding the relevance of a comparative approach - essentially arguing that the USA (however tyrannical it may be) is so much less tyrannical than Cuba that taking a child away from his Cuban parents is fully justified, in order to raise him in the tyrannical (but much more modestly so) USA.
Do I read you correctly with one of these either/or’s?
Homepage: www.galacticgovernment.gov
Occupation: Galactic Emperor
Location: Trantor
Interests: Palace intrigue, hereditary successors
–Profile by UncleBeer
BTW, I have to interject that I consider the World Net Daily to be nearly as authoritative and unbiased a source as Charley Reese. 
[/hijack]
Has anyone in this whole fracas ever asked Elian who he would rather be with? Or do his opinions not matter, because he’s under 18 and therefore a piece of property?
Lib, many people here have been addressing what your position. You, it seems, have been mae uncomfortable by the consequences of your own reasoning. As I have so often witnessed when this is the case, you now accuse others of ignoring what you really meant (as if your failure to communicate clearly were the fault of others). You then “took your ball and went home”.
Fine. I am not at all surprised that you have grown tired of trying to defend removing a child from his loving father as a Libertarian position. Neither am I surprised that you have no wish to defend the absurd proposition that a slave is incapable of ever speaking for himself. It does give you a lovely little pedestal from which to dictate which of your fellow human beings can be allowed to express their own will, though. Hmmmm – that sounds suspiciously like something a dictator would do, doesn’t it?
Of course, tou have huffed your way home by now and will not be gracing this thread with your reply. I cannot tell you how much that disappoints me.
Oh, before I forget. Thanks for the concern, but I bear you no grudge and suffer under no burden. When I thought you were a reasonable man, I wasted much time in discussion with you and sufered much anguish over our failed attempts to communicate. Once I realized that you subjugated integrity to ideology, it actually eased my burden considerably.
I do appreciate the concern, though.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Lib, surely you can see that “human rights abuses in Cuba” is not the same as “wide-spread slavery” and not alone enough to trasform Juan Miguel into Castro’s “slave.” As David B. pointed out, there are human rights abuses everywhere; that doesn’t make all the citizens who live in the various countries where they occur bad parents.
The fallacy of your argument – and it’s a pretty big one – is that there is NO EVIDENCE that Juan Miguel IS Castro’s “dupe” or “slave” or whatever you want to call him. To assert that his is is nothing more than the rankest speculation on your part, based on no evidence whatsoever. How can you possibly justify coercing a man on the issue of raising his own children, based solely on your own opinions and the most over-generalized of “facts”? Again, your opinion is totally inconsistent with libertarianism. Totally. And, by the way, let me point out that it blows to hell your assertion that any man may choose the system he lives under (even to be a slave) so long as he does so freely. Under your new iteration, he has the “right” to do so as long as he understands that you will take it upon yourself to remove his children from him if you don’t happen to like the political system he chooses. I mean, c’mon – it’s indefensible, especially for a person who purports to follow the libertarian ethic of minimal government interference on the rights of the individual. Please answer this question: How can an individual ever prove that he or she chooses to live in a society with anything less than perfect freedom, if you conclude from the lack of perfect freedom that any answer they give must be coerced?
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
Lib, we (or at least I) know what you are saying – and we (or at least I) still disagree. You seem to be assuming that we couldn’t possibly disagree if only we understood. Well, you’re wrong. I understand what you’re saying, and I think you’re still just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. As RM Mentock said:
That is exactly where this leads – to having children taken away because the government doesn’t like the parents’ political leanings. I mentioned that to you before and you managed to ignore it. You can claim slavery all you want, but the man is here, and he is apparently freely making his decisions. You don’t know what’s going on in his mind. All you know is your assumptions, and from that you would take a child away from his father.
What if I assume that since Libertarians are for drug legalization, that means they all must be druggies and not fit parents? Does that mean we take away the children of all registered Libertarians? Or anybody we suspect of being a Libertarian?
Try looking at it from a point of view other than staunchly anti-Castro. Try looking at it as a father. Or better yet, try looking at it as a Libertarian…
On Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher refers to them as Elian’s “crazy cousins and drunk uncles.”
I love that show. It’s like a half-hour version of Great Debates, though it sometimes becomes a BBQ Pit!
Sig Alert!
In my mind, they would. That my government would take them from me is no different from your government taking them from me. That is the way societies grow–through their children. Everybody should have that right.
I do not advocate taking sons and daughters from their parents. I am advocating taking sons and daughters from tyrants who hold their parents in slavery. No parents would want their sons and daughters owned by their government.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm. I know this is thin ice, here, as you’ve said that we’ve misinterpreted your words, but I think you’ve said that Cuba owns the children of its inhabitants. And of course, Elian’s dad is ready to take him back to Cuba (there could be more suprises yet). Given that, there seems to be an inconsistancy in what you’re saying there.
Perhaps, Elian’s dad doesn’t want his son “owned” by the government–maybe he wants to work against that government, with his son at his side, for as long as possible.
Or maybe he is a complete dupe of the system, and wants to do everything in his power to promote and extend that system. Are you saying that such a person has no right to have children?
rocks
Phil
I had to chew on that question for a long time. I believe that, essentially, your argument is correct. If Juan is indeed a voluntary slave, then he has surrendered his rights willingly and freely to his master. I can hardly disagree with an argument that I myself have made from time to time.
Likewise, it is unfair, as you point out, to demand that he jump through any hoops to prove anything. I certainly would have been less wary had he come here immediately. But there might be many reasons why he didn’t. My concern, of course, is that he didn’t because he wasn’t allowed to, or else, that he didn’t because he didn’t want to.
All that said, I still believe that the courts are the best place to determine the issue, because there are counter-charges of tyranny. In Libertaria, of course, there would be an arbitration ruling before any enforcement of any kind could take place.
Jodi
I’m very relieved that you and I are reconciled. I don’t know how you put up with me for so long. You must be a good-hearted Sanguine. When I think of how much time I wasted throwing up my defensive shields based on multiple levels of misassumption, I just shake my head. Clearly, you and I still don’t see eye to eye, but I no longer interpret your passion as acidity.
Hardwood Paneling
Neither. I believe that priority one, at this point, as far as arbitration is concerned, is to ascertain Juan’s true wishes. But that cannot (and ought not) to be done by the Justice (sic) Department, while Juan is captive in a Cuban enclave. That ought to be done by a family court, where Juan is free of any coercions, real or perceived.
RT
A valid point, and put best by:
OldScratch
Thanks for helping me get my bearings back.
As it turns out, this all is, after all, a pissing contest between two tyrants, thereby validating my original instincts.
Anybody here see this week’s episode of South Park? They parodied the whole Elian Gonzales affair to a “T” – except they substituted Romanian quintuplets with a dead grandmother for a Cuban boy with a dead mother.
Given how he feels about Juan in this thread, I’m sure Libertarian would get a kick out of the Romanian government holding a gun to the quintuplets’ dad’s head and forcing him to beg the quintuplets to come home.
Thanks, Lib. I needed a smile today, and your unerring ability to see self-justification in fallacious reasoning was just the ticket.
This is not at heart a “pissing contest between two dictators”. It is at heart a child custody case. Your inability to view the situation except through the lens of your political ideology is nicely representative of the Cuban exile community. You, like the mayor of Miami and Castro and Gore and Bush, are unwilling to acept the human elements of this case at face value. For you, as for them, the political elements of the case are more important than the individuals.
You see validation of this position in the facts that neither the US nor Cuba has a overnment of which you personally approve. chuckle
You also argue for this issue to be decided by the courts before any final custody decidion is implemented. You seem blind, of course, to the fact that the government raid succeeded in restoring exactly that environment which you claim to favor. The initial coersion in this case occurred in the instant that the Miami relatives refused to surrender Elian to the appropriate custodial authority, which was either the father or the INS.
That rifle held by the INS agent that was pointed at the guy holding Elian has a Safety and it was ON. It’s visible in the photos taken at the scene. The photos were shown on Nightline last Thursday.
The agents were under orders to leave their rifles on “safe.”
OK, so in the end, you can’t recognize gradations of ‘tyranny’; everything’s either black or white, good or evil. A moment ago, the USA was the white knight in shining armor, rescuing Elian from the tyrannical dictator of Cuba; now it’s back to being the evil, tyrannical, liberal government you’d previously claimed it was.
That’s cool with me. Happy to provide you with the refresher.
Following your earlier logic, though, I guess your Libertaria should kidnap children from their American parents willy-nilly, to rescue the kids from the tyrannical Amerikan government. After all, you seem to be pretty firm on the principle that free countries have the right to take kids from parents who are governed by tyrants. Your claim that the Elian matter is just a pissing match between tyrants doesn’t afect this underlying principle of yours.
And in Freedonia, of course, no injustice could ever possibly happen in the first place. My imaginary country can beat up your imaginary country, neener neener neener. 
Hmm does anyone care at all about Elian? I thought not. Hes unimportant anywais.
Hmm thats a good point, in Libertaria children have no rights, right? So what would you do in Libertaria if someone had fled America to Libertaria and then died and the son remains, But the fathers in America and wants him back:)
Obviously the child has no rights so he should be given back to his father.
Spiritus
You’re right. Thanks.
You are welcome, Lib.
Proof that the Elian photos are fake.