# 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:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/101 "2015-04-23T19:24:32Z")
You seem to think I’m here to engage with your communist propaganda rather than share basic facts about the Cuban slave camp with anyone who might actually want to learn something. You can go ahead and correct that misconception; I don’t care what lies you have. For those who have moral sense – it remains illegal in Cuba to this day to be “publicly” homosexual, and the decriminalization of private homosexuality in 1979 had little impact on the continued persecution of sexual minorities, because the defining characteristic of dictatorships is lawlessness. No one has the right to point to a law that says their behavior is tolerated in Cuba; what the state wants to do to you, it does, and that’s that. A good chunk of those gay Cubans who were not already executed or in prison at the time of the “decriminalization” were exiled to the U.S. in 1980. It’s simply not any place to be for a person who does not meet Castro’s 1955-era definition of Latin machismo, and anyone who has a choice would certainly much rather live in one of the thriving gay communities in Texas that successfully fought the long-unenforced sodomy law in 2003 than in Cuba today or ever. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/102 "2015-04-23T19:25:08Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I think my explanation is more likely true, but fair enough, I can’t prove it. Considering that you have strongly implied you believe dictatorships are better than democracies it’s not surprising that your argument seems to be, “don’t bother me with facts or evidence, I know this and that’s enough.” ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/103 "2015-04-23T19:29:20Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > …the long-unenforced sodomy law in 2003 than in Cuba today or ever. I agree that Cuba is an awful place, and much worse than Texas. But choosing to focus on its laws concerning homosexuals is bizarre, since the US really was a pretty bad place to be gay for a long time. Your claim here, that the sodomy laws were not enforced, is just plain wrong. You might start by, you know, actually reading _Lawrence v. Texas_. Beyond that, the laws were used to justify all kinds of other public and private discrimination beyond their use in criminal prosecutions. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/104 "2015-04-23T19:30:53Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > You seem to think I’m here to engage with your communist propaganda rather than share basic facts about the Cuban slave camp with anyone who might actually want to learn something. You can go ahead and correct that misconception; I don’t care what lies you have. > > For those who have moral sense – it remains illegal in Cuba to this day to be “publicly” homosexual, and the decriminalization of private homosexuality in 1979 had little impact on the continued persecution of sexual minorities, because the defining characteristic of dictatorships is lawlessness. No one has the right to point to a law that says their behavior is tolerated in Cuba; what the state wants to do to you, it does, and that’s that. > > A good chunk of those gay Cubans who were not already executed or in prison at the time of the “decriminalization” were exiled to the U.S. in 1980. It’s simply not any place to be for a person who does not meet Castro’s 1955-era definition of Latin machismo, and anyone who has a choice would certainly much rather live in one of the thriving gay communities in Texas that successfully fought the long-unenforced sodomy law in 2003 than in Cuba today or ever. In other words, no evidence. Great. I don’t know precisely what you mean here by ‘lawlessness’. If you’re referring to the social dangerousness law, there’s no evidence it’s used particularly against gays, and I’ll also note that in spite of that law, Cuba still imprisons fewer people per capita than America. (I think they’re third behind America and Rwanda, which is still pretty bad, and they should imprison fewer). ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/105 "2015-04-23T19:31:17Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Apparently, **Hector\_St\_Clare** has never been there, not even on one of those carefully supervised Potemkin village tours. Every one I know who went, who got off “the tracks” have said Cuba is suffering and not a great place at all. Mind you, they also often had a couple good things to say. Try going off the tracks in Jamaica. At least in Cuba you’re probably coming back alive. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/106 "2015-04-23T19:32:02Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > @John Mace: What you posted did not address state vs citizen. So yeah, it makes a difference. > > Human Action, I’m a little surprised at zero political prisoners in the entirety of central America and the Caribbean save Cuba But hey, I’m no expert. Why? Aren’t most Latin American countries democracies? Poor democracies but still democracies. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/107 "2015-04-23T19:37:33Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Why? > > Aren’t most Latin American countries democracies? Poor democracies but still democracies. Because democracy is not binary and because many Latin American countries have only emerged from military dictatorship relatively recently. It was only a couple of Presidential administrations ago that the US was training torturers in the region, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/108 "2015-04-23T19:39:52Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I agree that Cuba is an awful place, and much worse than Texas. But choosing to focus on its laws concerning homosexuals is bizarre, since the US really was a pretty bad place to be gay for a long time. Your claim here, that the sodomy laws were not enforced, is just plain wrong. You might start by, you know, actually reading _Lawrence v. Texas_. Beyond that, the laws were used to justify all kinds of other public and private discrimination beyond their use in criminal prosecutions. I am gay and have participated in protests and gay rights advocacy. To compare the situation in Texas in 2003 to Cuba even in 2015 is ridiculous. The U.S. did not build Potemkin sugar plantations solely for the purpose of working gay people to death like Cuba did from 1965 to 1968. It did not execute gay people as recently as 1979 like Cuba did. America’s sexual minorities were not put on a boat and forcibly exiled from the country like they were in Cuba in 1980. It’s wrong when someone in the U.S. throws a brick at a synagogue. It’s not remotely comparable to the Holocaust. The situations of gays in red-state America and in Cuba are basically analogous to those levels. I only brought up the fact that “public homosexuality” remains per se illegal in Cuba in 2015 and that homosexuals were persecuted with a particular vigor that could only be a reflection of Fidel’s personal hangups in order to add to a list of 45 political crimes posted by a member of the Spanish parliament that people interested in learning about Cuba, rather than drinking the poison of communist propaganda, might want to peruse. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/109 "2015-04-23T19:43:22Z")
And my point was that you were (1) factually wrong about the non-enforcement of sodomy laws; and (2) choosing one of the very few areas in which the US also had a negative record, unlike all of the bad things Cuba does and has done for which there is no comparable persecution in the US. At no point did I equate Cuba and Texas. You’re just knocking over a straw man there. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/110 "2015-04-23T19:45:58Z")
There are free speech issues in the U.S. There are people in prison in the U.S. who shouldn’t be. The U.S. doesn’t have to be perfect before I can point out that Cuba is a hellhole and its defenders are amoral. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/111 "2015-04-23T19:52:17Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > There are free speech issues in the U.S. There are people in prison in the U.S. who shouldn’t be. The U.S. doesn’t have to be perfect before I can point out that Cuba is a hellhole and its defenders are amoral. All true. All utterly irrelevant to my point. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/112 "2015-04-23T19:52:25Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > No, the price was paid by _some_ Cubans, the ones who ended up as political prisoners. I think most of them deserved exactly what they got, and that the achievements of Cuba were generally worth sacrificing political freedom, so I have very little sympathy for them. No, every Cuban that wasn’t permitted to choose his or her leaders, or freely speak their political ideas, or access outside information, or move about within the country, or leave the country, or appeal to an independent judiciary; or hell, was falsely accused of being a dissident, paid that price as well. Cuba is a tragedy, a repressive dictatorship that was replaced by a shiny, _new_ repressive dictatorship. Its principle achievement is to be a cautionary tale for every revolutionary political movement. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/113 "2015-04-23T20:05:44Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > I am gay and have participated in protests and gay rights advocacy. To compare the situation in Texas in 2003 to Cuba even in 2015 is ridiculous. The U.S. did not build Potemkin sugar plantations solely for the purpose of working gay people to death like Cuba did from 1965 to 1968. It did not execute gay people as recently as 1979 like Cuba did. America’s sexual minorities were not put on a boat and forcibly exiled from the country like they were in Cuba in 1980. > > It’s wrong when someone in the U.S. throws a brick at a synagogue. It’s not remotely comparable to the Holocaust. The situations of gays in red-state America and in Cuba are basically analogous to those levels. > > I only brought up the fact that “public homosexuality” remains per se illegal in Cuba in 2015 and that homosexuals were persecuted with a particular vigor that could only be a reflection of Fidel’s personal hangups in order to add to a list of 45 political crimes posted by a member of the Spanish parliament that people interested in learning about Cuba, rather than drinking the poison of communist propaganda, might want to peruse. I’ll ask again, any evidence that any gay person in the UMAP (or any straight person, for that matter- the UMAPs weren’t just for gays) was ‘worked to death’, that public expressions of homosexuality (not public sex which is illegal here too) is still illegal, or that any one was executed for homosexuality prior to 1979? The sad thing is that most of the Anglophone democracies in the Caribbean _continue_ to criminalize homosexuality and subject gays to mob violence. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/114 "2015-04-23T22:09:38Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > You seem to think I’m here to engage with your communist propaganda rather than share basic facts about the Cuban slave camp with anyone who might actually want to learn something. You can go ahead and correct that misconception; I don’t care what lies you have. This is the GD forum. You **are** here to **engage.** ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/115 "2015-04-23T23:12:46Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > You seem to think I’m here to engage with your communist propaganda… Wait. Hold up there, hoss. Communists? There are Communists here? Wow, no shit, where? Been a radical lefty since I knew better, and know oodles and oodles of lefties of every stripe. Even had some friends who were orthodox Communists, kept a copy of the latest _Soviet Life_ on their living room table. Like, forty years ago… So, honest to gosh communists? “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, “dialectical materialism”, the whole _schmeer?_ Pickled in in a jar, somewhere? I thought the Communist Party dissolved when all the FBI guys stopped paying their party dues. _…Karl Marx nothing! Engels nothing! Bakunin and Kropotkin …nothing Leon Trotsky lots of nothing Stalin less than nothing…_ _The Fugs,_ God bless 'em… So, Granpa? What’s a “communist”? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/116 "2015-04-23T23:15:40Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Wait. Hold up there, hoss. Communists? There are Communists here? Well, we do have **Hector\_St\_Clare** , who is at any rate an apologist. And there’s **Kropotkin** , who appears to be a Marxist (not necessarily the same thing; “Communist” implies “Stalinist” ever since Stalin). Ain’t seen **Olentzero** around for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/117 "2015-04-23T23:23:12Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > So, Granpa? What’s a “communist”? Someone advocating for the Cuban model of governance, up to and including cheerfully advocating the righteousness of imprisoning people for their political statements, would certainly qualify. Cuba is communist, in case you haven’t heard. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/118 "2015-04-24T00:01:07Z")
Nothing makes me roll.my eyes harder than when I watch Americans get all fucking worked up about Cuba’s oh so evil dictatorship. Yeah, emigration should be easier. Yeah, political prisoners isn’t cool. But there are a fuck of a lotworse places to live in Central America and the Caribbean. Believe it or not, most humans are worried more about being murdered and/or eating than being able to move to another country. And many of those places that are shittier to live in over the years has been the direct result of American intervention. So despite notnbeing a communist, please forgive me for not taking the pearl clutching too seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/119 "2015-04-24T00:07:02Z")
So that would be a no on the “not defending Castro” thing still being accurate? ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237/120 "2015-04-24T00:26:53Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > So, Granpa? What’s a “communist”? A member of a self-described communist party. In the last century, they tended to have a socialist ideology, but this is decreasingly common. Going back a bit in the thread, I wanted to make a comment about the wealth of the leaders of ruling communist parties, such as Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Nguyễn Phú Trọng, and the Castro brothers. These people are sometimes described as not personally corrupt. This is because they live in a non-cash bubble where anything they want, and that their society can provide, is theirs for the taking. It is thus pointless to measure their vast wealth in cash equivalents. The same is true for authoritarian leaders like the late Chiang kai-Shek. While seen as one of the great losers of history, his system and party (the Kuomintang), to a significant degree, anticipated today’s communism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cuba-forbid-emigration/718237.md?page=7)