Today's Fugitive Slave Act. Almost lost in the news today due to the media's inability to focus on more than one thing at a time was the interception by our brave Coast Guard of Cuban refugees who left their island prison for the "freedom" that Dubya keeps blathering about. They had apparently left Cuba just after hurricane Rita passed thru the Straits of Florida, and got to within a mile of Florida's golden shore when they were surrounded by officers of the law intent on keeping freedom for ourselves alone. The Cubans will, in accordance with U.S. law, be returned to Fidel's Cuba. So much for the Bush Administration's devotion to freedom. South Florida TV station WPLG's website says:

Most Cuban refugees who fail in their attempt to get to the United States and are sent back to Cuba are treated extremely harshly by the Cuban government, according to Local 10's poltical reporter Michael Putney. He said they will lose their homes and even their food vouchers will be taken away from them.

But that doesn't disturb Dubya, champion of freedom worldwide.
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In 1850, the U.S. Government passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which provided that slaves who escaped to free states would be arrested and returned to 'their rightful owner'. Any law officer who refused to do so was prosecutable and made personally liable to the slaveowner for the value of the slave s/he allowed to escape.
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In 1966, the U.S. Government passed the Cuban Adjustment Act, which provided that Cubans who escape from Communism and manage to reach U.S. shores would be permitted to remain in the U.S. But:

Under 1994-1995 immigration accords, the United States agreed to return Cubans picked up at sea unless there was a strong chance they faced persecution — ending a policy under which they, too, were generally allowed into the country.

This was an act of the Clinton Administration, which disgraced itself — and us — in returning Elián González, whose mother died in getting him to freedom. The Bush Administration, bizarrely, agrees 100% with Bill Clinton on this: Cubans should remain under Communism, and the U.S. should actively assist Fidel in imprisoning Cubans on his Stalinist island.
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Thus, Cubans who do not reach landfall in the U.S. are arrested and returned to their rightful owner, Fidel Castro.
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The pretense behind this grotesque policy is that Cuban would-be refugees are fleeing not Communist oppression but poverty. The fact that their enforced poverty is created by Communism is apparently to be regarded as irrelevant.
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Congress eventually became ashamed of the Fugitive Slave Act and abolished it in 1864, but only after Southern scum had been excluded from Congress by their treasonous attempted secession. The Bush Administration is apparently not the slightest ashamed of the Cuban immigration accords but is enforcing them, enthusiastically intercepting would-be refugees and sending them back to Communism.
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Why are Republicans so fervently pro-Communist? They are subsidizing Communism in China by shipping hundreds of billions of dollars to the Butchers of Beijing thru trade deficits, and acting as prison guards for the Castro regime. I guess our own slavers, champions of wage slavery and debt slavery for Americans, are in perfect rapport with the masters of Communist slavery. They all stick together.
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Who champions freedom?
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The next time you hear George Bush talk about "freedom", don't believe a word.
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(Updating the September 18th entry of this blog, boxer Leavander Johnson died last nite. How many more must die before we abolish boxing?)
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,913.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:11 PM