"Hey, neighbor"

Lost in a lot of the hub-bub of this tea party non-sense this week was some more good news regarding freedom and liberty.

President Obama is lifting some restrictions on Cuban Americans' contact with Cuba and allowing U.S. telecom companies to operate there, opening up the communist island nation to more cellular and satellite service, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announced at his regular news briefing today.

The decision does not lift the trade embargo on Cuba but eases the prohibitions that have restricted Cuban Americans from visiting their relatives and has limited what they can send back home.

It also allows companies to establish fiber-optic and satellite links between the United States and Cuba and will permit U.S. companies to be licensed for roaming agreements in Cuba.

We want to commend the President on this decision. We have posted previously on the dubious nature and effectiveness of trade embargos on countries as punishment for their collectivist economics and/or deplorable human rights conditions (it seems those two are always canoodling in the corner, doesn’t it?).

It never made any sense that we would be carrying the banner of freedom while denying many of the tools of democratization to people we were claiming to help.

Again, good on President Obama for beginning to tear down some of these antiquated Cold War policies.