I've been to Cuba, and there were a lot of things I really liked about it. I've met Cubans who were there before Castro's revolution and who are still there and who believe very much in what that revolution accmomplished and who are staying in Cuba because they believe in their society and support it.

One of them has visited Canada a couple of times now, and he did not seek refuge here. He went back to Cuba. ;-) He believes in the revolution and is proud of Cuba.

When you talk about the Cubans who are eager to get into the USA, just remember this: there are millions of Mexicans and other Latin Americans who are equally eager to get into the USA and who would also be trying to get to Florida on rafts if the Mexican border wasn't the more obvious and easy way to go. They all live in capitalist countries, and the poor in their countries are way worse off than the poor in Cuba.

None of them are under Castro's hand, but they are just as eager as many Cubans to get into the USA. Ask yourself why. It has little or nothing to do with fleeing socialism, it has mostly to do with their desire for the affluent North American lifestyle as compared to the poverty in Latin America.

If the Malaysians or the Indonesians were sitting where Cuba is...THEN you'd see a flood of boat people that would make your head swim! And they would not be fleeing socialism, they would be fleeing poverty in a capitalist society.

All of capitalist Latin America is suffering deep poverty, and people in ALL those countries would like to come to the USA and Canada if they could...just as much if not more than the Cubans.

That's the part you choose not to take note of when you rail against Cuba and talk about Cuban refugees. It's like you're blind in one eye and can't see out of the other.

Socialism is NOT an all-or-nothing proposition, and as Carol pointed out there is already a great deal of socialism in the USA (and in Canada and in every capitalist society)...she likes it that way, because it is desirable and necessary to have it that way...and THAT is why she has no reason to have to move from the USA to some other place such as Cuba...whether or NOT she likes socialism!

How stupid are you, lansing? Don't you know that your own society, like all modern societies that exist in the world today, already HAS socialism? Lots of socialism? And don't you know that without socialism you would have no police or armed forces or even any courts or government to defend your precious freedoms? You wouldn't have public schools either. You wouldn't have a whole lot of stuff you take for granted...but don't recognize AS socialism.

"Socialism" does not mean an authoritarian system or a dictatorship or anything like that. It simply means something that is financed by government money...not to make a profit, but to accomplish something that is deemed desirable or absolutely necessary...like public schools, law enforcement, a Congress, a courts and justice system, and a standing army, for example.