When I made the case for electing Ron Paul president before a Miami audience of mostly Cuban-Americans two weeks ago, the younger people in the audience cheered and clapped at the first part of my answer to a question from an older Cuban-American about the embargo. My first reaction was to state the obvious: The embargo has obviously had no effect whatsoever after fifty years: Castro is still there, and Cuba is still a socialist hellhole. Should we wait another fifty years for the embargo to work its magic?
The older Cubans seem clueless about this. It is widely known that other countries like Canada trade with Cuba, so that the U.S. embargo is meaningless. Moreover, the more important point is that socialism does not need help from embargoes or anything else to fail. It is an inherently failed economic system, as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and other Austrian School economists began explaining in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, it is the older Cubans who control the South Florida media, and all that one hears on the eve of the Florida primary is that whomever is a “stronger” proponent of the stupid and futile embargo will certainly win the Cuban vote.
The good news is that it was an absolute thrill for me to meet and talk with all those young Cuban-Americans in Miami who are hardcore Ron Paulians. They will soon eclipse the neocons of the older generation.
11:23 am on January 28, 2012
