The Communist regime in Cuba is crumbling in the face of the largest protests in a generation. Thousands of young people have taken to the streets to protest the lack of individual freedom and impoverished living created by a backward socialist economy.
They want the same civil liberties many others, elsewhere, take for granted.
The people of Cuba want to be free.
Republican lawmakers have taken a deep interest in events 90 miles south of Florida.
The week after the protests began, Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted about them more than 70 times, without mentioning any other issue — foreign or domestic.
Sen. Ted Cruz spoke on the Senate floor, declaring that "America should stand up and speak boldly on the side of freedom."
I share the desire of Sens. Rubio and Cruz to see their parents' homeland become free.
But it's also frustrating to see Republican senators speak so much and so enthusiastically about spreading freedom to a foreign land.
Why?
Because right now, our freedoms are in plenty of danger, right here in the United States.
In Cuba, religious freedom has improved slowy, after decades of Communist suppression.
But in America, thanks to the United States Supreme Court's failure to act, Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman was told two weeks ago that she cannot be a florist while sincerely practicing her faith.
In Cuba, the government blocked access to Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Instagram to contain protests. Here in America, we don't need such heavy-handed tools.
If a social media network like Parler seems like a threat, our own tech companies simply collude to crush it. The Biden administration gloats openly about collaborating with social media giants to suppress "misinformation" and if a user is banned from one Website for such "misinformation," he or she is banned from others as well.
Our ruling class knows they can block or ban anybody they want and get away with it.
After all, their initial test case succeeded with a sitting U.S. president.
In Cuba, the toxic ideology of Marxism-Leninism is in decay.
But in America, the toxic ideologies of critical race theory and transgenderism grow increasingly powerful — daily.
The Biden administration is trying to award COVID-19 funds and other benefits, not based on need but on skin color. People can even lose their jobs for refusing to submit to the lie that there are more than two genders.
In Cuba, elections are fake, and the Communist Party's rule is absolute.
But in America, Democrats want to use amnesty to register hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to vote, make universal mail-in ballots without safeguards the standard, and other tactics to make U.S. elections just as much of a mere formality.
Once they've destroyed the integrity of our electoral process, they hope to pack the Supreme Court, so even the Constitution won't serve as a barrier anymore.
For the past two decades, America has spent trillions of dollars trying to build free democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere.
All along, freedom in this country has regressed.
The people of Cuba deserve liberty — but so do Americans.
So before the GOP gets excited about "spreading freedom" to yet another country, I implore you to remember Cuban American Maximo Alvarez's warning at the Republican National Convention a year ago.
Our elected officials must focus on ensuring the country they live in remains free itself — or there will be nowhere left to go.
Catharine O'Neill served at the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development from the first day to the last day of President Donald J. Trump's administration. The issues that she focused on included religious freedom, immigration, UN reform, and protecting life. Read Catharine O'Neill's Reports —More Here.
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