I'm curious what peoples feelings are towards Cuba. There has been a lot of talk lately about opening up relations with Cuba and Obama recently announced some major changes in travel and money moving restrictions.

I feel like its about time we took these steps. When we cut off a countries financial growth the only people that suffer are the poor. The leaders of the country we are angry at don't suffer from lack of anything so we are really just punishing the people for not standing up and kicking out their leaders.

I say open the floods gates to include lifting the embargo. I want to build a resort down there and earn that crazy tourist cash!

The reason for the embargo became irrelevant long ago. I say lift it.

Cuba is due for a regime change any day now. Granted, Raul Castro is still a Castro, but they suggest he's less about La Revolucion! than his older brother.

Since Chavez has been palling around with Cuba trying to antagonize us, I think it'd be a good move politically for us to establish relations with Cuba.

And yes, I think we should be able to travel there (and vice versa), and lift the embargo.

Orange juice is too damn expensive these days!

We open up relations with Cuba and it would be like China. Still communist but with market freedoms.

5 decades of embargo has worked so well

It may take a bit , but the slow increase in goods to Cuba ( Coca Cola and Blue Jeans) will hopefully bring them change.

I just want to buy some cigars.

Cubans are OK Jox, but there are other countries producing just as good, if not better, cigars like those made in Honduras, Dominican Republic, or Nicaragua. Plus, those are legal.

It's always fun to see how opinions about Cuba change once you leave Florida.

Obama pissed off a lot of people in Miami and pleased a lot at the same time. To call the issue contentious would be an understatement. For politicians, even how you talk about the issue has tremendous ramifications. Just a few years ago, one congressional candidate tanked shortly after saying she wanted to do away with the embargo, when she actually meant (and corrected herself repeatedly) that she wanted to lift the travel restrictions.

This is the first step: allowing Cubans to travel to Cuba and send money to their relatives.

The first step toward what? The hardliners would say, toward dropping the embargo, of course! But that's not necessarily true.

I'm glad we have a president who's willing to adjust a failed policy (and, pardon the parentheses, acknowledge the basic human right of letting people help their families). It's clear to anyone north of the southern tip of Florida that we haven't brought an ounce of change to Cuba.

This gives us an opportunity to try something different and see what works better. Maybe I'll even be able to see some of the things I've only seen photos of.

This more or less sums up the debate:

The only problem is if Cuba starts arresting Americans who come down there for doing things they consider politically illegal. Hopefully they will avoid doing that.

That would be interesting, yes.

There are some who believe that Castro wants to maintain the embargo, in order to stay in control and pit Cuba against the American Goliath. Taking that kind of action might yield that result.

I think that any non-emotional justifications for the Cuba embargo ended with a combination of the fall of the USSR and normalized economic relations between the US and both China and Viet Nam.

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Hope is the new black.

Well, there are some justifications. Cuba has major civil rights problems (so do many other countries, none of which we've had a nearly 50 year embargo against), they nationalized the property of American citizens, and they shot down American aircraft. So their argument does have some merit.

But our policies should be guided by the effects we want them to have, not a blind idealism or some form of vengeance.

Watching Representative (and wannabe Senator) Rivera go on national TV and say that our Cuba policy is working is just sad. It shouldn't take five decades for us to realize it hasn't, even here in Miami where we can be blindfolded by the issue.

This is the kind of thing I wanted Obama to be all about. I'm heartened to see that he doesn't suck 100%. Maybe 99.5%, but not 100%.

Questioning why we do things that we've been doing for decades is a good thing. There's no reason for the embargo to last, and like others have stated here, I think it could help isolate people like Chavez. We'll see how it unfolds, though.

I hate to say it, but our hands haven't been so clean in that regards over the past few years. Hell, our nations has a far more extensive history of civil rights abuses than does Cuba. We can't point the finger over that and pretend we're on the moral high ground.

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We surely haven't been perfect, but I wouldn't go quite that far. Unless we're discussing conspiracy theories, we don't have political prisoners jailed for dissent. We don't push government propaganda over the airwaves and attempt to block all other forms of communication.

And, ironically enough, we don't prohibit our citizens from travelling abroad... except to Cuba.

Looks like the other side of this argument is losing the debate:

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL-25):

Heh. Godwinning himself. Nice.