Posted on 06/06/2004 5:13:09 AM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
Even Saddam Hussein was a lot calmer after having lost his job than Al Gore.
I didn't know until recently how deep his dementia goes. He's demented enough to believe that you're fortunate if he even notices you. Glad he's not a Kentuckian, but sad that he disgraces Tennessee.
"Not really. This family didn't follow the law, the rest of us have to follow. And were asked nicely numerous times."
If the Gonzales family broke any laws, why were they not arrested?
The short answer is they never violated one US law.
The fact that Reno kept asking them shows that the law was not being broken. Law-enforcement need not ask to do what the law requires. No lawful warrant was ever presented to the Gonzales. No US Official ever knocked on the door of the Gonzales home and asked to speak peacably to anyone. The Gonzales family were stand-up people, the kind America needs more of, guarding their little nephew from totalitarianism.
What they refused to do was deliver up their beloved little Elian, like an innocent sacrificial lamb, to Janet Reno to be a political pawn of Castro. I don't blame them.
Their statement is on the record. "We will not give our nephew to Castro," who actually did get Elian, not the father, when the Clintonistas kidnapped him.
No one ever served any papers to the Gonzales home. No due process in Reno's hand-picked courtroom, recognized the child's rights in contravention of US and International law and, for all you lefties in Massachusetts, in violation of repeated UN resolutions on Childrens' Rights.
"In other words, Elian's mother and the group she was with were attempting to enter the country illegally. Were they Mexicans who died of thirst in the middle of the desert or suffocated in the back of a truck, I suspect many Freepers would not describe their plight in such terms ("trying to attain freedom") and would be considerably less sympathetic."
Dr. M., presumably, your Ph. D. did not issue from a phony internet entity. Real, educated people exhibit thinking skills that would eliminate such quotes, e'er they appear, as yours in the above paragraph.
Mexicans have no greater need for drinking water on the desert than Cubans do on salt-water. If they, from a desert environment themselves, fail to plan as well as the Cubans, how is that an apt comparison? Suffocating in the back of a truck smacks of people playing fast and loose with their own lives, foolishly trying to buy their way into the US via some criminal enterprize. But most of all, these Mexican illegal aliens are ECONOMIC REFUGEES, unlike the Cubans who are POLITICAL REFUGEES.
Navigating the Straits of Florida on a sail-raft exhibits the kind of hope and confidence in one's own abilities that brought the brightest and best to the shores of America and has helped make America the land of the free and the home of the brave.
"I don't know why people keep referring to "Little Havana" as America.Only the cousin has assismilated[sic] enough to bother learning english. They have nothing to do with Americans. Most have no education."
Bogey, ignorance is not becoming. You are ignorant of the Gonzales family, with whom I have personally met. Did you not read in my post that the uncle and I prayed together? He spoke good English then, thickly accented as it was, yet quite understandable. His English is better than my Spanish and, I venture, than yours as well.
Your bigoted remark about a supposed lack of education in the Cuban exile community is totally without a factual basis. Of all the hispanic demographical groups, the Cuban refugee has the highest marks for academics and citizenship, bar none, a fact further evidenced by their largely Republican voter registration.
I grew up in Miami in the fifties and saw it change drastically. On balance, Miami is much richer for its new residents from across the water, whatever the country of origin.
I can say that the influx of new Americans to South Florida has been less odious than that of liberal, New York/New England retirees and their rude yankee elitism. At the very least, Cuban immigrants love America.
Beckett says, "I checked the source. Totally non-credible. The author is an amateur partisan, not a skilled reporter and writer. Elian "goes off" to school from where? Which family can't speak to him?"
World magazine is a very credible source. Their articles have a better history of reliability than those liberal media rags which constantly get it wrong, either purposely or incompetently. The editor of World Magazine has been an advisor to Governors, Presidents and other politicians.
Any news that escapes the Island Prison that does not emanate through Castro is more credible than that which does. So, how would the world get any news out of Cuba that would be credible, Beckett, concerning where Elian lives and how he lives his daily, Big Brother managed life?
CORRECT on both points, and nicely stated!
Bogey says, "Would that apply to American mothers who have had middle eastern fathers kidnap their children and not return them.
America is a cesspool culture and the Saudi father and government know best how to raise children? "
No, that would not apply.
Simply because something is asserted does not make it true.
Simply claiming that the USA is a cesspool culture worse than say a culture where hands and heads are cut off routinely, where women are legally mutilated in their genitalia, violently abused and murdered with the imprimatur of Sharia(Islamic) law, where personal freedoms are nonexistent does not constitute the truth.
There is such a thing as the truth, you know, right and wrong and all that sort of thing. Islamic nations are as much repressive of humanity as totalitarian communist countries are, and usually worse.
They voted out a GOP governor who violated his promise not to raise taxes, just like GHW Bush got axed for not reading his own lips--"no new taxes"
Your post is 100% correct. That is exactly what happened.
" I agree with you that the correct action was taken by Clinton/Reno given the most unfortunate of circumstances."
What was unfortunate? The death of Elian's mother? Yes, saddeningly unfortunate. The escape from communism? No, most definitely no. Hopefully, I would have the courage to be attempt what that young mother almost succeeded in doing, as any courageous, red-blooded, able-bodied and loving parent would.
All the circumstances of this injustice were the direct or indirect creation of the brutal dictator, Castro, himself. Clintonistas preffered to please a despicable dictator than honor the dying wish of a desperate mother escaping the bearded thug's Island Prison. That is hardly a correct situation or action and goes far beyond unfortunate to unjustly tragic.
"If the father had so little involvement in the boy's life, it's rather surprising that he was involved in the escape plan. My memory of the situation is that the boy was taken by the mother without the father's knowledge."
Your memory like your flawed polemic fails you. The uncle had been in on the plan to escape Cuba. After Elian became a world figure, Castro got in on the act and used his powers of "persuasion" on Juan, who was one of his employees, and to rewrite the family history.
Dr. M. says, "I'd tend to say that most Americans were operating under an American conception of parental rights, not a Cuban one. On other threads on FR father's rights are considered sacrosanct. Why not in this situation?"
This is an international, not unilateral, issue. International law recognizes the rights of children to be free from repression and abuse, by definition the Cuban experience for all its little ones. How this irony escapes you, Dr. M., that children, mothers and fathers have no basic rights of any sort in Cuba is indicative of your blindness to what is really going on in the Elian Gonzales issue.
The Clintonistas preferred pleasing Castro, their ideological comrade, than protecting anyone's rights, especially those of the mother who died trying to get her son to freedom, those of the boy and even those of the father.
Never on Freerepublic do people advocate that a father has an untrammeled right to subject his son to abuse, which was a certainty upon Elian's return to totalitarianism.
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