[flagged]
Are people not allowed to express the opinion that Communism is problematic on a discussion on the state of freedom in one of the few remaining communist countries? Should we just say "yay Cuba" and move on?
We moderate HN this way because the site has a clear mandate: thoughtful conversation on topics of intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). At this point we have over 10 years' experience with where the community's limits are in terms of what can be discussed that way versus what spills over into flames. When the needle starts to go into the red, that's when we moderate. I assume that the users who flagged that comment were doing much the same.
This is nonsense. Canada is literally right now in a big huff/dispute with Saudi, and issues of oppression in Saudi Arabia are a constant political issue.
Arms sales to Saudi Arabia from Western nations are always contested, always a hot topic.
Literally in the Swedish election right now - arms sales to Saudi Arabia are an issue.
Saudis can use 'most' of the internet, the country has wealth (luckily) and if they want to they can leave.
The oppression in Saudi is hugely based on super social conservative values, which many citizens, even women, actually support in many ways.
Unless you are a woman and don't have the permission of your father or your husband. Or a migrant labourer who's had their passport confiscated.
A person could read that comment and have any independent feeling about Saudi Arabia, including wanting sanctions to also exist against Saudi Arabia. So I'm not seeing how hypocrisy is an immediate prerequisite to the comment.
It seems more like you wanted to invalidate the comment by bringing up another country that isn't part of the discussion right now and claim hypocrisy.
They've had an Internet for years with no wifi. They have mechanics that can reliably work on cars from a half century ago.
Cuba is a wealth of intelligent engineering minds, plagued by reprehensible Communist rule. Money has never stopped the cuban spirit.
It's a disgrace to compare the Cuban spirit to Saudi Arabia.
I would be mad, if US civilian and military did not treat Cuba or any other Caribbean Island differently from the countries on Eurasian land mass.
Japan did Pearl Harbour .. but you left out Hiroshima and Nagasaki!
>> The idea that you apply sanctions for historical reasons is absurd.
Cuba was 90 miles away from mainland US in 1960s and in 2018 too. Its not historical, its geographic and geo-political with historic context.
US has a harsh embargo on Cuba because it is too close to US. If Cuba was adversarial and is 1000 miles away, the relationship would have been different.
Saudi politics are possibly more detestable than Cuba. Id have said as much if I figured some clueless HN user would pigeon hole my argument.
They funded rebels and coups to overthrow democratically elected governments on the whims of fruit companies. They supported Pinochet in Chile while he was throwing people out of helicopters. In practically every Latin American country the USA was systematically involved in brutal repression of the leftists and anything vaguely pro-Soviet [1], without any regard to human rights or democracy.
The USA also did almost nothing in response to the atrocities of the Duvaliers in Haiti, despite being orders of magnitude worse than Castro.
To say that the USA embargoes Cuba due to human rights concerns is completely and utterly laughable. The USA didn't give a toss about human rights in Cuba under Batista, who was incidentally another brutal dictator propped up by the USA.
The USA has never cared about human rights and freedoms in its neighbours.