Part of America died quietly last week.
There would have been a lot more wailing and mourning if there hadn't been so much competing interest in an African-American congressman known as a civil rights icon saying he didn't consider Donald Trump a legitimately elected president, and if there hadn't been multiple tornadoes surrounding FBI Director James Comey, and if there hadn't been so much wonderment over how much truth there was in a 35-page "report" on what went on in Trump's hotel room in Moscow.
Among the many reasons to be proud of America is our long and bright history of offering haven, asylum and protection to the lonely freedom fighter or refugee against the thunderous hoof beats of dictators who can't wait to get their hands on him. Sorry, Adolf, Josef, Mao, Vladimir and, more specifically here, Fidel and Raul. "We can't touch him," the dictator's "diplomats" try to explain to their raging boss. "He slipped away, handcuffs and all, and eluded our secret police and made it safely to America. We can't touch him!"
"Come on, now," screams the foiled bully. "Everybody's got a price and so does every country. Who do we bribe, and how much? Maybe we gotta hire one of their celebrity lawyers. There's got to be a way to get him returned to us." And to America's everlasting glory, there's indeed no way. Whether you're Irish, propelled to America by a potato famine, an Italian playing daily ping-pong with starvation, a Jewish victim of the Russian czar (whose pogroms served as an opening act for Hitler) or any of dozens of other nationalities who successfully fled to America from countless bad guys, it soon becomes apparent to both the evil dictator and the grateful refugee that America means it!
Or we did until last Thursday!
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As long as we're counting reasons for Americans to be proud, it's worth a pause here to point out that, contrary to misleading media, the "Yankee Imperialist Bully" has not been "defeated" by the hardy heroes of Stalinist Communism in Cuba. Yes, a Stalinist Communist regime has frustrated America for well over a half-century, but merely because America has too much class to wipe out annoying micro-adversaries like Cuba the way Russia, for instance, ended such sass from little Hungary and little Czechoslovakia. Any day since the Castro ascendancy in 1959 we could have folded Cuba up and stuffed it into our glove compartment before breakfast. We could, but we don't and won't.
Until last Thursday America's policy was richly American. Any Cuban able to reach American soil was free to remain in the United States with the full protection such status guaranteed. Whenever President Obama snarkishly reminded us that "Elections have consequences" we never dreamed he meant he had the right to scorch the earth on his way out! We were wrong. And the sad consequence is that, no matter how many innocent Cuban lives are put at risk or lost, Obama is launching another chapter in his scorched-earth policy, in this case eliminating the "wet foot, dry foot" policy that saved so many Cubans from Communist oppression on that beautiful and dreadfully abused island.
Until last Thursday, America's policy permitted protection for all Cubans who reach American soil without being apprehended on the high seas. No more! Now, wet foot or dry, the freedom-seeking Cuban gets returned to the tender mercy of Raul's regime.
Can you imagine World War II President Franklin D. Roosevelt approaching the regime of the late Adolf Hitler and saying, "Adolf, we're getting a little crowded. If we round up all the Jews who've escaped Nazi Germany and made it to freedom in America, would you be willing to accept them back?" Can't you picture Hitler calling Himmler and shouting, "Stoke up the ovens, Heinrich. America's finally getting wise!"
That analogy has smooth skin. There's not a single wrinkle wrong with it.
The sharpest pain for me – sharper than Obama's blazing non-concern for Cuban life – has a strange salve. First, the pain. The Obama administration actually bragged about its negotiating skills in succeeding in getting the Cuban Communists to "take back" those Cubans who had reached America and had pleaded for asylum!
The salve. Someone in Obama's regime had the brutalitarian honesty to haul off and say, "Anybody seeking to leave Cuba and attain asylum in the United States must now know he'll have no home in America!"
Thanks, Barack. I feel like a jailbird (innocent, by the way) who's already well into his last week in prison. The part of America that died last week can be brought roaring back to life when President-elect Trump drops that "-elect" part Friday and becomes President Trump. It'll just take a signature. I await the presidential tweet that declares "Whole new Cuba policy coming up!"
So, back now to Obama's administration warning that freedom-seekers "will have no home in America." Let me reply with the words of Emma Lazarus that eventually found their way to the bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Media wishing to interview Barry Farber, please contact [email protected].
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