Cuba Is Turning the Hakkens Over to the U.S. Government
The Hakken familiy's troubles are far from over. The AP reports that the Cuban government is returning the family to the United States:
Foreign Ministry official Johana Tablada told The Associated Press in a written statement Tuesday that Cuba had informed U.S. authorities of the country's decision to turn over Joshua Michael Hakken, his wife Sharyn and their two young boys. She did not say when the handover would occur.
You can read more about the family's tragic tale–which began with a marijuana arrest–here.
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I still have no idea what the hell is going on in this case.
I admit to a fair amount of head scratching, and it looks like a real potboiler that you can’t just start watching halfway through the season.
This is because Mike Riggs and Reason is making this about marijuana, and not about the mental problems or lack of intelligence of the parents.
This is because Mike Riggs and Reason is making this about marijuana, and not about the mental problems or lack of intelligence of the parents.
Fuck.
Man, Cuba can’t do anything right.
Well it’s the least they could do after the US government did this for them.
Good point. They owe them.
Man, I still have that picture in my office and it STILL pisses me off.
god damnit! Fuck you Cuba. Demand some fucking proof at least.
Apparently Cuba can’t do a good thing even out of pure anti-US spite.
What about that awesome free healthcare, yo?
“Health care (in Cuba) was once for the privileged few. Today it is available to every Cuban and it is free?.Health and education are the revolution’s great success stories.” ? Peter Jennings, World News Tonight, April 3, 1989
“Castro has brought great health care to his country” ? ABC’s Barbara Walters, Oct. 11, 2002
“Even today, Cuba has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.” ? Katie Couric reporting on NBC’s Today, February 13, 1992
“Frankly, to be a poor child in Cuba may in many instances be better than being a poor child in Miami, and I’m not going to condemn their lifestyle so gratuitously.”? Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group, April 8, 2000
Fucking disgusting sycophants are disgusting, this is my shocked face. If it’s so great, and they really wanna slobber up that government cock, why don’t these media elites fucking move there? Fucking leave already.
I know otherwise reasonable people who’ve been on Cuban PR junkets and come back believers. I also had a professor who lived and worked there for long enough and came back with a very unfavorable view of the government (still loves the people though).
“Frankly, to be a poor child in Cuba may in many instances be better than being a poor child in Miami, and I’m not going to condemn their lifestyle so gratuitously.”
Apparently living under a totalitarian regime is now a “lifestyle”.
What could Cuba possibly gain by turning them over? You’d think their propaganda types would be salivating over a chance to parade some US citizens who ran to Cuba for freedom.
I’m still wondering what we have to gain by chasing them in the first place. But yeah, totally agree.
These parents don’t think children belong to the state, ergo they are not welcome in Cuba.
I think you mean community. oh wait, I guess that’s the US. Shit i’m all confused now.
Whatever their motives are these parents appear to be a few bricks shy of a load.
Fuck man, some ratty judge stole their kids.
^THIS
The Hakken father is my fucking hero right now.
Yep, Riggs and Reason are missing some bricks as well.
Never trust a fucking commie.
Words to live by.
Andrew Zych, a Canadian docked in a sailboat steps away from the Hakkens, said the family had arrived recently and seemed normal.
Gee, maybe that’s because they ARE normal? Just, y’know, persecuted by their government for ingesting unapproved substances.
I’m gonna have to read some backstory on this, because you can have your kids taken away by ingesting approved substances, ifit results in clear evidence of neglect.
Thus far, the government has given no clues for why the kids were taken beyond the marijuana and a police claim they were talking about armageddon.
Let this be a lesson to everyone: Don’t get stoned and talk about armageddon in Louisiana. Least of all in front of your kids.
“Don’t … talk about … Louisiana … in front of your kids.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Daaaanmmmn.
Why Cuba, why? Can’t they be good for anything?
Well they still have the food which is some of the best in the world
Dammit, that’s a much less fun ending to the story than I’d hoped for.
Honestly I wish the story would have ended with them hopping the family boat and sailing away.
Or with a link to this Styx song.
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
They aren’t heroes and they aren’t criminal dregs. They do sound goofy. But I think there’s tons of stuff none of us know about here. It’s tough to speculate either way.
But I think we can all agree that kidnapping your kids and sailing from the US to Cuba is a pretty insane thing for anybody who’s rational to do.
Depends on the circumstances. And like you say, we don’t know them completely. So, no, I don’t agree. If govmts case was shitty enough, and it became obvious that they weren’t going to get justice no matter what it might have been the only sane thing to try.
An insane thing for people who actually have viable alternatives. I’m not sure if these folks are in that category.
All resistance to the state is insane. The worse the abuse of the state, the more it is true. You think sane rational people get uppity in North Korea?
I’m not sure you can kidnap your own kids. It sounds like they were taking them back from the kidnappers.
I’m mad at myself for allowing myself 6 hours of optimism. I bet Melissa Harris-Perry is ecstatic.
Yeah, I heard his lawyer talking about all the murderers Cuba refuses to turn over and got my hopes up.
Here’s a question: why the hell haven’t we invaded Cuba yet? Seriously: it’s (probably) the second most loathesome regime in the world, with people who have a proven ability to self-govern and it’s a stone’s throw away from us? Libertarians aren’t the most war-happy people ever of course, but how many among you wouldn’t have preferred invading Cuba and letting them transform themselves into a Caribbean paridise, rather than one of our many, many expeditions into the Balkans and the Middle East?
The weather is nicer in Cuba, and as a point of national pride we really need to set a precedent that we will only invade countries with temperate climates and beautiful women.
We should have made it a state when we had the chance.
Either a state or an incorporated territory, PR-style. Believe it or not, PR once had a Communist movement of similar size to the Cuban communist movement.
The moral of the story? Imperialism works great, but don’t half-ass it.
I don’t know if I’d call that imperialism. I mean, to me one of the major parts of imperialism is asserting control over a territory but treating the territory and the people of that territory as second class citizens. Then exploiting them for resources.
If Cuba has been annexed as a new state and treated like any other of the states in the union, I don’t know if that is really imperialism, IMO.
Assuming they were free to become independent if they wanted, it wouldn’t be
I thought Cuba already had a strong independence movement back then. If we’d annexed them we might have had another Philipines-style bloodbath on our hands.
Both Cuba and PR had strong independence movements at the time.
Eh, I think being annexed as a state of the US would have meant no insurrection in the Philippines. Independence has its own problems. Statehood means you lose some of your national character. But a halfway state means you get some of the worst of both worlds. Just like with foreign policy in general. Either treat nations as friendly equals, or ruthlessly wage war. But this “one week we drop food, the next week we drop cluster bombs” strategy is retarded.
The Freehold of Guantanamo Bay. Let’s make it happen.
Turn Guantanamo into a Caribbean entrepot, Hong Kong-style. Cuba was once the center of trade in the Gulf; why couldn’t it be again?
Next problem: what to do with the prisoners at Gitmo?
We “imprison” them in the Freehold of Guantanamo but give them free rein otherwise, and give them about an acre of land each to live on. Within a decade, they’ll be multibillionaire real estate tycoons with skyscrapers named after them.
Here’s a question: why the hell haven’t we invaded Cuba yet?
For libertarians: because initiating force is wrong.
For Congress: because Bay of Pigs II seems like a bad idea.
Why would we do Bay of Pigs II? Bay of Pigs was the result of a CIA-style plausibly deniable coup. This would be more similar to something like the invasion of Granada.
I don’t think we should or should have, but I think it would have been much preferable to Vietnam, Iraq, or the occupation of Afghanistan
Here’s a question: why the hell haven’t we invaded Cuba yet?
We told a bunch of Cuban patriots we’d back them up if they invaded then left them to die in the swamps,on the beaches and in commie prisons. Fuck the USA.
Well, this just goes to show that everyone hates anti-government types.
If nothing else, the profile of this case has moved up about twenty notches. If there’s a legitimate challenge to them losing custody, they may get a chance to argue it. Of course, now they’ll be charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, and plenty more, but still.
If there’s a legitimate challenge to them losing custody, they may get a chance to argue it.
Can this still happen after parental rights are terminated? Is that a process that has appeals? I assume it varies by state.
I don’t see why not, though family law is less law than other kinds of law.
Yeah, why is that.
You can appeal eminent domain up to SCOTUS, but having you’re kids taken away? That’s a lesser matter…
Well, here’s the way that should really work, and we’ve almost perfected it.
When your kids are taken away, it should be done the way everything else in government, is done.
It should be done by an individual, who does not report to anyone, who works for an agency, that is not overseen by anyone, who works hand in hand with other agencies, with whom they have absolutely no contact with.
See, we’ve almost achieved the progressive utopia here.
The Cuban government also recently fired a guy (from being editor of a journal) for writing an op-ed in the New York Times saying that inequalities still existed in Cuba between Afro-Cubans and Cubans of other descent. He blamed it on the headline that the New York Times gave it.
FUCK.
Remind me never to trust a leftist of any strip to be in any way philosophically consistent.
Assholes.
Well, shit.
Fuck you, Cuba, you fucking pussies. I wonder how much they are paying them? With a government that throws money around like there can be an infinite supply, the way ours does, you can bet it is a lot.
Hey, it’s a straight up trade! We sent them Beyonce and Jay-Z, didn’t we? WHAT? They aren’t gonna keep them, either? Commie scum sucking ratfuckers!
Cuba is going to get something they want from the US govt in exchange for the Hakkens. You younger people may, some day, find out what that was. This sort of thing happens all the time, and it’s not pretty.
“Hakkens just pawns in game of life.”
Ecuador would have been a better choice it seems…
Does Cuba have political asylum?
I know that sounds funny.
Maybe they could ask for asylum.