McQ At Q&O [1] over the weekend, asks an interesting question. He cites the case of one Luis Posada Carriles, wanted in a 1976 Cuban airliner bombing.
So what have we snagged here? A terrorist plane bomber?
Well sorta. You see the aircraft was Cuban, flying out of Venezuela. And Venezuela, as well as Cuba, consider the act one of terrorism. Personally, if true, I’d have a hard time arguing it wasn’t.
Naturally, Venezuela still wants this guy. But you see, the US is and has been opposed to the communist regime in Cuba, and at the moment is none to fond of the regime in Venezeala. So what’s the US to do?
To which I respond:
Seems to me the outcome of that question depends centrally on your definition of ‘freedom’.
I suppose I’ll catch hell from Beck for even the use of the word, but even he cannot argue that there’s not a major difference between the US’s definition, and that of Communist Cuba.
Is it possible for a government to be wrong, to be unjust, to make the wrong choices?
McQ responds;
Absofreakin’lutely.
That’s the danger of politics in a nutshell, i.e. when politics is substituted for principle, it not only can be wrong, unjust and make wrong choices, you can sorta bank on it doing so.
And my response, which I’ll expand on here:
Then it seems to me that we must consider the idea that Castro’s wrong here, and our reaction to his being wrong.
Castro’s claim that if we don’t consider the man a terrorist, of there being a double standard is only true, if you consider as Jon apparently does, that Castro’s government is a just one, and one whose foundations are based in the freedom of the individual.
There does seem to me to be some room for argument on that point. Indeed; given this, This discussion seems to me very different from it’s original casting, now. The question you’re now forced into asking yourself at this point is, as you point up, one of principle. Namely…
Do we hold politics, or the freedom of the individual as our highest principle?
If we bow to the principle of individual freedom, as I think we must, the man must be considered a freedom fighter.
OTOH, If we play politics, holding the laws of a dictitorial and corrupt government to be higher than those stated principles, and thus label this man a terrorist… well ask yourself; are we not playing into Castro’s game and giving his illegtimate and dictitorial rule of Cuba, and the damage he’s done to the freedom of the individual, legitimacy?
It comes down to this: which principle do you hold higher?