I went to Cuba in February and observed that, while Cuba is realizing the futility of central command-and-control government, President Barack Obama was embracing it.
Like Obama, Fidel Castro — Cuba’s 90-year-old communist dictator who recently died — held grudges. A Yale professor in our group was denied his visa at the last minute because he wrote decades ago that Fidel overstated his baseball prowess. Castro remembered.
Castro took over this once economically vibrant island in 1959, pretending to be selflessly for the "people" and for "democracy." It turned out that he, and his family, were just out for themselves. Castro later decided that socialism/communism was the way to go; that way he'd be in power forever.
Castro seized assets from landowners, corporations and Mafia casino operators. He lived longer than anyone could expect for a man who stole hotels and casinos from gangster “Lucky” Luciano.
After 55 years of rule — and a personal net worth stolen from his people of about $1 billion — he felt that, at age 85 and with his government pension, he had enough money to get him to the barn. Just imagine how much more Castro would have been worth had he not been a "share the wealth" communist.
Fidel Castro realized he was not going to live forever; he's not Larry King. So he appointed his brother and closest family confidant, Raul, to rule.
Desperate for a positive legacy item, Obama set about normalizing relations with Cuba. This means that soon they will have nukes and we will get a box of cigars. In that island nation, Obama is more popular than Castro. When Obama visited Cuba, murals of Obama, Che Guevara and Fidel were everywhere.
My main takeaway: Cuba is a political and economic lesson not taught well enough to our schoolchildren. With the rise in popularity of Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, it's clear that Americans do not understand the dire lessons of socialism's poisonous ideology and the devastation it brings to every country that has fallen prey to its hollow temptations. In a troubling Pew Research Center survey, 49 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds had a positive reaction to the word "socialism."
U.S. teachers, who generally lean left, romanticize Marxist revolutionaries. Kids today wear iconic Che T-shirts, unaware of the 3,000 political murders he committed and economic devastation he caused.
Fifty years of Cuban socialist rule have turned a prosperous country into an impoverished one. Cubans earn $20 a month. Everything is "free" — it's just that there is none of it. Store shelves are empty; even toilet paper is scarce. All the "evil" businesses were run out of Cuba. Seventy percent of the people work for the government, so there is no one left to tax.
Trump should stick with Obama’s stance toward Cuba and see what happens.
Ron Hart, a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, is a frequent guest on CNN. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Look to Cuba, see socialism's perils