re:  A fair trade:  Opening Cuba to Texas rice, beef seems sensible

Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  Unless he was a prophet as well as a genius, he wasn't talking about US trade policy towards Cuba (he died about 4 years before the ouster of Fulgencio Batista), but he might as well have been.  The embargo will "celebrate" its 50th anniversary in October, and Cuba remains a Communist dictatorship with a Castro as its premier (Fidel only giving way to Raul because of health problems).

In "A fair trade:  Opening Cuba to Texas rice, beef seems sensible", the Chronicle editorialists explain their advocacy of removing the government-imposed ban on travel to Cuba in terms of self-interest to Texas agriculture and economic interests.  But there's a more fundamental issue at stake:  individual liberty and freedom of movement.  Not only is it bad policy for the government to prevent commerce — voluntary exchange — between Cubans and farmers in Texas (or any other industry in any other state) from an economic standpoint, absent national security or criminal concerns, it simply isn't any of the government's business where its citizens are traveling.  While the federal government has the right to restrict flights directly from US airports to Cuba (obviously, this would legitimately be considered interstate commerce), what soil on which American citizens set foot is not the business of politicians and bureaucrats in Washington.

Ending the travel ban to Cuba would serve to end a policy that is ineffective, economically misguided, and an infringement on individual liberty.  Albert Einstein might even view it as a step towards sanity.

Sincerely,
Dave Smith
Houston, TX