# Why does Cuba forbid emigration? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 21, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237 "2015-04-21T23:57:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/181 "2015-06-27T21:30:19Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Why is it that conservatives only give a damn about LGBT people if they’re in prison is in a Communist or Islamist country? Why is it that you can only conceive of “conservatives” opposing the hellhole Communist dictatorship of Cuba? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/182 "2015-06-27T21:36:18Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Why is it that you can only conceive of “conservatives” opposing the hellhole Communist dictatorship of Cuba? I’m not going by what people have posted in THIS thread. I’m going by more than a decade of reading **Shodan** ’s posts on numerous and varied subjects. He is most certainly a conservative. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/183 "2015-06-27T21:43:34Z")
You quoted me. I’m the one you owe an explanation to as to your bizarre thought that “we must support Communists torturing, genociding, and imprisoning people because to oppose Communism in any way would be ‘conservative’.” ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/184 "2015-06-27T22:13:57Z")
I’m still trying to get my brain around the rubric that a crime committed by someone carrying a communist card is a crime committed by communism itself, but a crime committed by someone carrying an anti-communist card is just something bad done by someone somewhere sometime. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/185 "2015-06-27T22:24:00Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > You quoted me. I’m the one you owe an explanation to as to your bizarre thought that “we must support Communists torturing, genociding, and imprisoning people because to oppose Communism in any way would be ‘conservative’.” I don’t even understand this sentence. Is it English? ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/186 "2015-06-27T22:35:00Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I don’t even understand this sentence. Is it English? Add “simple sentences” to “human rights,” “history,” and “decency” on the list of things you don’t understand. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/187 "2015-06-27T22:42:05Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Add “simple sentences” to “human rights,” “history,” and “decency” on the list of things you don’t understand. Just to let you know, I’m not allowed to tell you what I’m going to do in about 5 seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/188 "2015-06-27T22:57:15Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I’m still trying to get my brain around the rubric that a crime committed by someone carrying a communist card is a crime committed by communism itself, but a crime committed by someone carrying an anti-communist card is just something bad done by someone somewhere sometime. OK, here’s seven things that may help you understand: 1: No one said any such thing and you’re arguing with nobody. 2: “Anti-communism,” being merely the name for everything that is not Communism, is not an ideology so much as a label for thousands of disparate ideologies ranging from Islam to Christianity to libertarianism to JFK liberalism to fascism to Scientology to (insert every belief in the history of humanity that is not Communism here). Thus, there is no point in seeking for an “anti-communist card” or attempting to describe the beliefs of “anti-communism.” 3: No one said any such thing and you’re arguing with nobody. 4: Concentration camps, massacres, and the reduction of humanity to slavery is a feature in Communism, not a bug; when people act in accordance with the basic principles of the philosophy, it means more than when they don’t. 5: No one said any such thing and you’re arguing with nobody. 6: The crimes of Communists across many different times and cultures are remarkably consistent, and are, by Occam’s Razor, most easily explained as being due to the one thing the criminals have in common, their proclaimed allegiance to Communism. 7: No one said any such thing and you’re arguing with nobody. Is that really just 4 things? I wanted to emphasize the most important one. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/189 "2015-06-28T20:52:52Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > 2: “Anti-communism,” being merely the name for everything that is not Communism, is not an ideology so much as a label for thousands of disparate ideologies During the Cold War anti-communism was much more than that. It basically meant U.S.-backed regimes. > [@](#): > > 4: Concentration camps, massacres, and the reduction of humanity to slavery is a feature in Communism, not a bug; when people act in accordance with the basic principles of the philosophy, it means more than when they don’t. All these things also occurred in non-communist regimes and there’s no universal statement of communist philosophy that requires any of them. There’s nothing consistent among them either. The people of West Bengal and Kerala lived for decades under elected communist governments and none of them expressed interest in concentration camps, massacres, or slavery. Communism in fact as opposed to theory is nothing but a label with pretensions to uniform values, the same as Christian or Islamic. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/190 "2015-06-28T21:25:20Z")
Right right, someone else did a bad thing too therefore your death camps are excusable. We get it. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/191 "2015-06-28T21:43:26Z")
You really are incoherent. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/192 "2015-06-28T22:46:56Z")
I’m not getting into an insult volley with an apologist for Communism. There’s nothing I can say that will disgrace you more than what you’ve chosen to present about yourself. So far in this thread we’ve learned that: \*Cuba is a paradise. \*Cuba is a hellhole, but that’s good because American leftists can sit in their six-figure jobs enjoying the reflected virtue of Cuban suffering. \*Cuba is a hellhole, but it doesn’t matter since Cuba isn’t really Communist. \*Communism is good and therefore Cuba is a paradise. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/193 "2015-06-28T22:48:17Z")
Really? An “apologist for Communism” would say this? — > [@](#): > > Communism in fact as opposed to theory is nothing but a label with pretensions to uniform values, the same as Christian or Islamic. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/194 "2015-06-29T11:46:45Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Why don’t liberals give a damn about LGBT people when they’re in prison in a Communist or Islamist country? **We do.** But - and here’s the elephant lurking in your blind spot - in our own countries _we can actually do something about it_. I can’t do squat about Cuba’s treatment of homosexuals (other than argue that they have a legitimate asylum claim when they escape). I can do quite a lot in a country where I’m actually registered to vote and have someone purporting to represent my views in government. And so I put more effort into the battles I can win more easily. Once those are won, I can focus on the harder ones. How does the argument go for the conservative side of things? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/195 "2015-06-29T12:04:35Z")
Funny that liberals felt the they could do a lot to stop South Africa’s mistreatment of its people, or Israel’s, but feign helplessness when it’s a leftist dictatorship. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/196 "2015-06-29T12:19:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Funny that liberals felt the they could do a lot to stop South Africa’s mistreatment of its people, or Israel’s, but feign helplessness when it’s a leftist dictatorship. Funny how you’re ignoring that the left were pushing for economic sanctions against South Africa but that Cuba was _already under economic sanctions_. What more could we do to Cuba to hurt them, short of a full invasion? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/197 "2015-06-29T13:01:02Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Funny how you’re ignoring that the left were pushing for economic sanctions against South Africa but that Cuba was _already under economic sanctions_. What more could we do to Cuba to hurt them, short of a full invasion? Given Cuba’s record on gay rights, do you support continuing the embargo? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/198 "2015-06-29T13:13:01Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Given Cuba’s record on gay rights, do you support continuing the embargo? I definitely would if I thought it had any chance of actually helping gay Cubans. But it doesn’t in any way, and I think ending the embargo would actually help them more than continuing the embargo. Different situations can call for different responses. Sanctions might have worked with some countries and failed in others. In my mind, sanctions have utterly failed to do any good for Cubans, and ending the sanctions will help Cubans far more than continuing them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237.md?page=9)