Tom Hanna's Lifestream

. . . Roger Cohen discusses the current status of the socialist paradise 90 miles south of Florida. Healthcare is still universal and free! Education is still universal and effective! There are, Cohen admits, some drawbacks. Few people have decent work--the U.S. embargo is largely to blame, naturally--and if someone speaks a few honest words about the government he or she risks spending decades in hell on earth. One of the best answers I've ever read to the point of view implicit in this article is P. J. O'Rourke's magnificent "The Liberty Manifesto". It's over 15 years old now, and this passage is even more relevant than when it was written:

Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle.