Yikes...talk about pressure. Okay. I'll do my best.

I will set aside the fact that you seem to be equating the U.S./Cuba situation with, say, you not being allowed to hang out with your friend Tommy any more because his slutty sister Sarah said something mean about your sister during 8th period study hall... "Petty quarrel", indeed.

A long, long time ago this guy Castro seized power of Cuba. As with most leftists, he didn't reveal his true stripes until the reigns were firmly in his hands (one tends not to get much support when one is openly leftist). He booted the United States out and seized all the privately (foreign or not) owned property and proceeded to set up yet another Communist Experiment (why can't these people just do experiments in a lab like everybody else?). The people suffered.

Blah blah blah, Bay of Pigs, blah blah blah... He befriended the USSR and attempted to have Soviet ballistic missiles placed a scant 90 miles from our shoreline. These would have had the range to reach most of the United States including Washington, D.C.

It has since been revealed that it was nastier than JFK let on at the time. We were ridiculously close to nuclear war. That's right, Matthew Broderick, Global Thermo-Nuclear War. If the U.S. invaded (again, sorta), the orders were to launch 'em if they have 'em. Hell, they even had subs armed with tactical nuke torpedoes. That would have been fun!

When we run into countries we don't like, we have a number of options. We can invade them. We can try to change them from within (foment revolution). We can squeeze them economically. Invasion works, but can be messy: see Iraq. Trying to get them to change from the inside out can be frustrating and unpredictable: see Iran (hopefully). Squeezing that little banana republic, however, was entirely doable.

You see, I'd actually like to treat China that way right now. But, unfortunately, we've pinned our economic future on them. Cuba, on the other hand? Cigars? Meh.

So, the question is "who does this embargo hurt"? You sound as if you're affected by this, personally, but, at the same time, I hear about how the "silly" embargo can easily be "worked around" via Canada and whatnot, so I guess it's a mere inconvenience, really. By the way, Dominicans have made great strides with their cigars in the last few decades...but I digress.

So, who is punished? Them. So goes the old joke, then: "Hey, doctor, it hurts when I make my country a Communist dictatorship 90 miles off the coast of Florida!" "Uh, so don't do that, then."

If there is anybody to blame for the length of this embargo, it is them. I am willing to bet that had serious reforms been made within Cuba - even within the framework of a communist government - things might have eased up by now. But, NOOOOOOO! Castro persists and, still, countless people risked (and risk) their lives to get to Florida (Joke: Why doesn't Cuba have an Olympic swim team? Any of them that can float are already in Florida). Reagan might have been willing to bend a little - he had the capital to do it and would have loved to break the Cuba/USSR bond - but idiot Castro emptied his jails and insane asylums onto the shores of Florida. Real. Smart. Castro.

Communism is evil. Period. If you're young enough, you probably don't realize this. That is understandable. Just realize that regarding communism as harmless now is as irresponsible as regarding smallpox as harmless now "because people don't get it anymore" (we're learning a hard lesson there, eh?)

Communism is bad, m'kay. The abuses to the people there are myriad and are 100% due to the oppressive regime in control.

See how far Hugo Chavez takes things before - oil or not - Venezuela has some harsh treatment coming to it.

When those Cuban refugees in Florida think it's a good idea to maybe go back, then we'll know Cuba is worthy of better treatment. Really, they should be the ultimate judges. Would you be willing to live there, now? They aren't and they know the real deal - not just the part the leftist media shows. Says it all to me.

__________________

"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.