I’ve long been fascinated by the reluctance of conservatives to condemn wrongdoing by the U.S. government, especially since the time that the U.S. government was converted to a national-security state after World War II. The primary reason for this phenomenon, it seems to me, is that conservatives have come to view the federal government as a god, one that works in partnership with their religious God. In the conservative mind, it’s okay to carp about minor mistakes that their national-security god makes but it’s never okay to challenge or question it at a fundamental level.
A good example of this conservative mindset is the decades-old U.S. economic embargo against Cuba and, more recently, the oil restrictions that the U.S. government has imposed against Cuba. Conservatives go out of their way to blame Cuba’s economic woes on its socialist system, arguing that Cuban officials are using the embargo and oil restrictions as a convenient scapegoat for the failures of their socialism. They’ll point to the various socialist programs and measures that, they say, are the real culprits behind the shortages, blackouts, and overall economic suffering in Cuba.
Fair enough. Socialism is bad. It brings about impoverishment and suffering.
But … does that mean that the U.S. embargo and oil restrictions have no negative effect on the economic lives of the Cuban people? That’s where conservatives have a moral blind spot. They simply cannot comprehend that it’s possible that the U.S. embargo and oil restrictions can be contributing to the economic suffering of the Cuban people. In their minds, it’s just the socialism that is the problem, not the U.S. economic interventionism.
In the process of placing sole responsibility for Cuban suffering on socialism, conservatives fail to ask themselves an important question: Why then have the embargo and the oil restrictions? In other words, if the embargo and the oil restrictions aren’t inflicting any harm or damage on the Cuban people, then why have them? Why not go ahead and call for their termination, repeal, and dismantling if they are, in fact, irrelevant?
I suspect that many conservatives recognize, even if they are unwilling to acknowledge it publicly, that the U.S. embargo and oil restrictions are aggravating the economic suffering of the Cuban people.
In other words, the Cuban people are being squeezed by a vise. On one side of the vise is Cuban socialism. On the other side of the vise is the U.S. embargo and oil restrictions. Thus, if the embargo and oil restrictions were to be lifted, things would still be bad because of socialism, but they would be significantly less bad.
In their blind devotion to the national-security-state, this is what conservatives simply will not permit themselves to recognize. In their minds, the economic suffering of Cubans is due solely to socialism and the U.S. economic interventionism plays no role at all in the suffering. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether some conservatives have convinced themselves that the embargo and oil restrictions actually bring economic prosperity to the Cuban people.
Let’s consider motive, something conservatives are loath to do because it comes close to criticizing their national-security-state god. The very purpose of the U.S. embargo and oil restrictions is to target the Cuban people with death and economic impoverishment. Even though conservatives have convinced themselves that this purpose has not been achieved, why can’t they at least criticize or condemn the motive behind these interventionist measures?
The reason is undoubtedly that they buy into the real purpose of the embargo and oil restrictions, which is regime change. The idea is that if the Cuban people can be made to suffer, especially through the deaths of their children from illness or starvation, they will rise up and violently remove Cuba’s communist regime from power and replace it with a pro-U.S. “capitalist” regime. Recall, after all, U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright’s infamous words when asked about the massive death toll among Iraqi children from U.S. sanctions against Iraq. She responded that yes, those deaths were “worth it.” By “it,” she meant regime change.
Of course, conservatives cannot openly endorse the purpose of the embargo and oil restrictions because that would run contrary to their belief that the embargo and oil restrictions do not cause any economic harm on the Cuban people and that it’s only Cuba’s socialist system that causes the harm.
Perhaps the most fascinating issue is why conservatives have this moral obtuseness with respect to the consequences of the national-security-state’s embargo and oil restrictions. My hunch is that it has to do with the longstanding fear that conservatives have had about the Reds coming to get us — you know, the old Cold War racket, which, when it comes to Cuba, obviously has never come to an end.
Finally, and perhaps most important, notice that conservatives never recognize an important point: the U.S. embargo and the oil restrictions serve as a grave infringement on the economic liberty and private-property rights of the American people — that is, the freedom to engage in economic commerce with Cubans. If you don’t believe me, try traveling to Cuba as an ordinary tourist and spending your own money there without obtaining the U.S. government’s authorization. Or try selling wheat or some other product to Cubans without the permission of U.S. officials. You will soon discover that the federal government, with the full support of conservatives, will punish you severely, including criminally, for engaging in peaceful economic transactions with Cubans without the official permission of the U.S. government.
There is a profound irony here. Conservatives profess to believe in “private property, free enterprise, and limited government.” It’s their favorite mantra. Yet when it comes to Cuba, they enthusiastically support a federal system that prohibits Americans from freely trading with Cubans, spending their own money in Cuba, and engaging in peaceful economic transactions without U.S. government permission. For conservatives, economic liberty is a wonderful principle — except when their national-security-state god decides otherwise.
