Posted on 12/18/2014 3:05:33 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Sen. Rand Paul broke with the field of Republicans considering a 2016 presidential run on Thursday, calling President Barack Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba a "good idea" since the American embargo against Cuba "just hasn't worked."
Paul, a likely presidential candidate, made the remarks in an interview with News Talk 800 WVHU's Tom Roten, just a day after his potential competitors for the Republican nomination -- former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz -- slammed the decision to normalize relations as a dangerous move. Rubio and Cruz are sons of Cuban immigrants.
Paul joined the mostly Democratic supporters of the decision, asserting that the embargo hasn't produced results and hurts the Cuban people rather than their autocratic rulers. He even likened his support to U.S. trade with China, which he called "ultimately the best way to defeat communism."
"The 50-year embargo with Cuba just hasn't worked," Paul said. "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working and probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship."(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at clickondetroit.com ...
Cuba benefits from trading with the country that has parts for all their cars, and from being able to purchase all the other things a real economy has.
And from their refugees being able to send money home, like the wetbacks do to Mexico.
We would benefit from... what?
Sanctions don’t usually work on regimes like this. It’s pretty obvious it won’t work on Cuba. Why not ease the burden on its people? Some prosperity might help. Might not. Certainly our current policy is worthless. Failing invading Cuba and hanging the Castros and their apparatchiks I don’t see any point in continuing a failed policy.
Adios rand.
Rand Paul Goofball.
Rand Paul....like one of those ping pong balls on a string and attached to the little paddle. Boing, Boing, Boing....looking for a target, at which to make contact.
Rand Paul is either not getting enough sleep, or hitting the sauce maybe.
Yeah, you’re right.
I’m so glad Randi and Mario showed their true selves so early.
He looks so disheveled and his constant changing opinions scream internal chaos, and choosing between drugs and alcohol, the latter is easier to hide. The sleep issue would probably be public by now, if he was seeing a doctor for sleep apnea or some interfering health issue.
No vote for Paul for me....
Rand Paul is an idiot, just like his father, who I met when he first came into Congress.
To Libertarian wackjobs.
I don’t understand Rand or his nutty father.
I’ve learned to hold back, way back, before I jump on someone’s band wagon. So far, I’m still waiting for a wagon to go by that I can jump on.
In a year from now Trump will be building a casino and hotel on the beach in Havana. Nobody here will care as nobody cared or thought about cuba until Barry announced that we are restoring diplomatic relations. Things will get better for the Cuban people and we squeeze Putey and Iran out. Its a good idea.
Just so. For all the decades foreign aid from Soviet Bloc and Western European tourists money being spent in Cuba, Castro has squandered it all. Including hefty drug running bucks.
And after all these years why haven’t foreign investors swept in as they did in the fall of the Soviet empire? Liberals and the fellow travelers on FR would have us believe that a cornucopia of opportunities are waiting to be seized and democracy but another short step there after.
Fact is that the Castro brothers have been plundering, oppressing, and murdering Cubans before LBJ started his Great Society and the War on Poverty. Cuba today is what the liberals are endeavoring to effect here.
The Cuban middle class fled or imprisoned. The great leveling there was achieved in astonishing few years. Whatever industry remained was at best based on fifties equipment and processes, more on pre WWII generation tech. There’s no continuity of vocational skills there, zip, zero, nada. And Obama speaks of internet access. The Soviets failed in improving matters.
Fifty years later the situation rather than improving even marginally has decayed even more.
Investors have seen a population largely unskilled and un-teachable and thoroughly entrenched in socialist ethos. Couple that with property and legal rights based on the whims of the Castro bros. Who in their right mind would consider investing in such an environment.
Rand Paul was born in 1963 and thus has no direct memory of the missile crisis and probably little of of the period of Cuba’s exporting revolution to South America and the forays into Africa. Whatever sense of history he has was formed at the knee of his whacked-out daddy. Ask Rand how he feels about the nationalization of American properties by Castro. Ask him what safeguards Cuba now offers to attract foreign money. Or the ongoing torture and oppression.
Rand changes his coat according to his audience, there is no moral core to the man, he just cleans up a tad better than his old man.
F both RPs
Yes i understand. Rands bandwagon seems to have veered off main street and taken a trip down stupid avenue though.
CC
There’s no need to be surprised by anything Rand Paul says. His core beliefs are totally consistent with libertarian principles. Which means much of what he believes in and supports is identical to a hard core leftist (same-sex marriage, open borders, legalized drugs, legalized prostitution, defunding the military, letting rogue dictators operate with impunity, due process for foreign terrorists). It’s always been laughable to watch him try and hem, haw, dodge and change the subject when one of these topics comes up that he doesn’t think the mainstream public is “ready for” yet.
So you’d rather that we trade freely with them so that they can be rich communist dictators like China instead of poor ones? Heck, if we try hard enough we might be able to help them build up a nice, strong military like China.
Gee I miss all those sleazy goose stepping Paul followers...wonder what hole they crawled into?
Rand's favorite bandwagons are oh-so-stylish, like legalization of hardcore drugs, bashing US military power, apologizing for our military actions, etc.
Also, wasn't Che a Libertarian too? It's a twofer, Rand!
Of course, Che wasn't your everyday middle-class Libertarian. He was the son of a wealthy family, then a doctor himself, then the chief executioner and torturer for an entire nation. But his wealth makes him an even closer match to Rand ... they're both in that uppermost echelon of "Limousine Libertarians".
No doubt Che'd approve of Rand's worldview. Ship all those hard drugs through Cuba to Miami! I envision a photo of Rand with a Che shirt on, sitting in a limo between Raul & Fidel, waving at all those Little People, cruising through the poshest Cuban resorts catering to Western Sex Tourism, to celebrate their finally being opened to Americans.
Why it's absolutely unfair that only rich western European pervs get to enjoy the 10-14 year old sex slaves of Cuba. So *unfair* to American Pervs. Cuba is sooooo close by that the airfare and sex-cruise fares would enable them to indulge in the joy of "Young Meat" for like maybe 5 trips a year for what it costs them now for one trip to the SE Asian meat markets.
And if anyone questions the wisdumb of this, just hit 'em with that sure-fire argument-stopper ----
Hey, the embargo "hasn't worked" so we might as well deep-six it. Just like illegalizing hard drugs "hasn't worked," so legalize 'em now. Just like projecting military power overseas "hasn't worked," so deep-six our military now. Just like all the really smart people said for decades that an obstinate refusal to surrender to the USSR in the Cold War would never NEVER work (but would that pig-headed RR listen to them? Noooooo!) .....
Just wait for him to give Castro the American installation at Guantanamo. This will happen before 2016.
He promised to shut it down and he will do it and give it away.
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