You may not realize how badly the Cuban style of politics warps things here in Florida. There are plenty of goons among them, and more than a few of those goons were out on the streets at the time pissing off the rest of us. The whole Elian affair was simply two sets of people trying to claim one boy as a propaganda prize–Castro on the one hand, and el Exilio on the other hand. Castro had the advantage of having the father as trump card to play as he wished. But don’t mistake the Florida community of Cubans as a group that actually had Elian’s best interests at heart.

He didn’t raise his son and that was never a serious prospect. It’s astounding to me how many people thought it was. Go look at that kid today. He always belonged to the state.

You people are as wrong about this as you were the day that Reno’s goons yanked him.

Obama is living down to my expectations.

Excellent work, Les. If libertarians (and liberals like me who haven’t forgotten their classical liberal roots) believe in the concept of natural rights, or at least believe that government should assume that we have such rights, then it follows that the Cuban regime’s views on rights should be irrelevant. The only reason the state should have an interest in removing a child from his or her birth parents is if that child is being physically abused or very seriously neglected. Unless you have substantial proof that Mr. Gonzalez mistreated Elian, then you would be hard pressed to find a reason why the U.S. should have deprived Mr. Gonzalez of his son. The fact that Elian had the misfortune of being born into an authoritarian, state socialist society does not justify this kind of intrusion by the state. Elian’s mom died, so Elian needed to be with his dad, pure and simple. As for the raid, I don’t think it necessarily had to be done that way, but the family in Miami did have some culpability in how it played out.

I read the corner every day douche-nozzle. I’m a libertarian who agreed with WFB’s stance on many issues. And on the issues on which we disagreed, I usually respected his thoughtful consideration of the issues.

Pre-internet, I was an NR subscriber. While earning my Ivy degree in political philosophy I studed conservate ideas and thought under Jeff Hart, an NR editor.

I’ve don’t often read Kos or DU. And if you, young feller, could read, you’d notice my post wasn’t about the links, but the duplicitous nature of NR’s team-spirit stance when it comes to tormenting youngsters.

Also, I fucked your mother.

I love uninformed comments like this. Clearly you haven’t bothered actually READING the site for the last 8 years, other than cherry picked posts linked from KOS or DU.

I would be most interested in what you disagreed with in those links. Of course, that would require you to actually read them. Which, since it appears you prefer to argue absent the facts, is something you are unlikely to do.

This is poorly reasoned. Because Cuba doesn’t recognize people’s rights means that we shouldn’t recognize a Cuban’s right to raise his son?

It’s important to remember that there are a lot of folks, like myself, who loathe the Bush administration and think several members of it should be in prison, who also loathe the Clintons for being the habitually lying, authoritarian opportunists that they are.

I hate unnecessary SWAT raids as much as the next libertarian, but I don’t know what choice the feds had since the folks holding Elian had not only refused to allow him to return to his father, but suggested they would violently resist attempts to remove the boy.

That presumes that Elian’s father had rights in Cuba.

Don’t be fucking ridiculous.

I believe the rights of a parent are greater than the rights of the state where their children are concerned.