By Wes Vernon. CNS Commentary. CNSNews.com. 19 May, 2000
Communist dictator Fidel Castro apparently is not satisfied with the Clinton Administration's bowing and scraping to him with its storm trooper invasion of a private home to yank a six-year-old boy away at gunpoint.
Now we learn that a pillar of the liberal establishment in this country wants to please His Highness in Havana by denying employment to Cubans who dare to defect from his Communist police state. Adult Cuban defectors, you see, are not as easily snatched away by the Janet Reno's Justice
Department. Other ways must be found to deal with them.
Peter Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, has announced that he will not hire players who defect from Cuba, saying it is bad for relations between the United States and the Communist island.
Now stop and think for a minute. Just imagine the uproar that would have ensued in 1937 or 1938 if some major company in the US announced that it would not hire any Jews, refugees or otherwise, because they felt it best to-borrowing a quote from Orioles V.P. Syd Thrift --"not do anything
that could be interpreted as being disrespectful" of the regime then ruling Nazi Germany.
For those not familiar with Pete Angelos's background, here's a thumbnail sketch. He is a trial lawyer who gives big bucks to the Democrats, and sat with Fidel Castro through two games after the Clinton Administration granted him a waiver allowing the Orioles to go to Cuba. So if you're looking
for a stereotypical pillar of the liberal establishment, this fellow is right out of Central Casting.
The libertarian in me says, "Well, after all, it's his ball club. So he can do whatever he wants to do with it."
But those of us who are offended by this rank discrimination against people whose only crime is a love of freedom also have a right to be heard. After all, the fact that he was in private sector employment did not induce the public to sit still for John Rocker's racist remarks.
Other than the fact that this case has shown that expertise in rocket science is no qualification for owning a baseball club, there are public policy, moral, and perhaps legal ramifications to all this.
From the public policy standpoint, nobody has died and anointed Peter Angelos the arbiter of US foreign policy.
Secondly, the Cuban Americans who have defected to this country have become industrious and patriotic citizens, which is why they are the one minority that liberals hate. They are ardent advocates of the free enterprise system, which has enabled Peter Angelos to enjoy a nice fat living.
With this latest development, the proposal of columnist Paul Craig Roberts to trade our leading left wing liberals for freedom-loving Cubans looks better every day. Let them go to their Castro paradise where they can personally dote on the dictator and regale him with their worldview of how
capitalism is wicked and cruel except for the limousine, the maid, the butler, the large backyard swimming pool and the Park Avenue penthouse, or the mansion in Beverly Hills, or Nob Hill or Georgetown, and of course, the ranch in Montana.
Finally, there is a question as to whether one of the liberal's favorite laws can come back to bite one of their own.
I am not a lawyer. But I have to believe that somewhere there is a conservative-minded barrister who would be inclined to research the statutes to determine if this is a violation of the civil rights laws. After all, it is a clear case of discrimination, is it not? In his profession, Mr. Angelos
would be no stranger to hefty lawsuits. Perhaps he would like to see what it's like being on the wrong end of one.
The left-wing in this country loves to make laws telling you and me what to do. But God forbid that they should be reminded that those laws apply to them too. Are ball club owners, like liberal presidents, above the law?
Personally, as a longtime resident of Maryland, I hope the Baltimore Orioles lose every game under their present ownership.
Wes Vernon, a former CBS Radio correspondent, is a freelance writer and broadcaster in the Washington, DC area who writes periodically for CNSNews.com. |