Elian leads conservatives astray

Jonathan Kay

National Post

The battle for Elian is over. Once a court throws out the asylum application filed on his behalf -- an event scheduled for May -- he will be back in Cuba. As for the Miami relatives, their 15 minutes of fame ended rather gracelessly. Marisleysis Gonzalez, the boy's cousin and "surrogate mother," went out in a blaze of overwrought tears, telling dubious stories of threatened INS brutality. Great-uncle Lazaro, the clan's patriarch, told the rabble outside his home he would have brandished a gun if he owned one -- and with those words did Janet Reno the favour of retroactively justifying her Full Metal Jacket tactics. No wonder a solid majority of Americans approve of the raid.

But the Miami relatives' Saturday hangover was nothing compared to the one Castrophobic Conservatives (CCs) can look forward to. They have tied themselves up in so many ideological knots over Elian that their sound bites will give liberals a field day for years.

Asylum. Nothing makes a right-winger's blood boil more than bogus refugees trying to steal our jobs. (Just look, for instance, at the rude welcome illegal Chinese migrants have received in these pages.) That's why American conservatives take such a hard line on the Immigration and Naturalization Service's asylum standard: "a well-founded fear of persecution" upon return to one's country of origin. But wait. Elian, whose asylum application CCs endorse, doesn't face any persecution in Cuba. True, political dissent is not tolerated under Castro. But what is a six-year-old supposed to be dissenting from -- except perhaps an early bedtime? By the time he's old enough to carry a placard and chant slogans, Castro will most likely be dead. As for persecution of the economic variety, Cubans enjoy a per capita GDP of $1,540 (US) and an average lifespan of 76. That's better than Vietnam, Guinea, Haiti and China -- all countries to which the INS deported juvenile aliens without fanfare or protest in 1999.

Guns. Ahhh! A gun! Elian saw a gun! Oh, the humanity. Make no mistake, CCs will tell you -- guns are wonderful things, just what the average Joe needs to repel intruders. But this was a bad gun, an evil government gun. According to CCs, the German-made Heckler & Koch submachine gun captured in Alan Diaz's famous photo has special powers. Unlike the millions of weapons on display at pawn shops and gun shows, this one can take a child's innocence without firing a single shot; indeed, without the user even touching the trigger or pointing it at the child.

Children's rights. "Republicans trust parents and believe that they, not courts and lawyers, know what is best for their children." As Michael Kinsley noted on Slate Tuesday, these words were part of the 1992 Republican platform and signaled the party's aversion to the idea that children had legal rights -- to divorce their families for instance -- that might be used to thwart their parents' better judgment. "Liberal philosophy has assaulted the family on every side. Today, its more vocal advocates ... deny parental authority and responsibility ... This is the ultimate agenda of contemporary socialism under all its masks."

But the "better judgment" of Juan Miguel Gonzalez -- Elian's father -- has already been expressed. He has said he wants to take his son to Cuba, and the most recent disclosures indicate his views are genuine. The only thing thwarting him, it seems, is the obstructionism of "contemporary socialists."

Law and order. No sight was more bizarre during the whole Elian saga than watching CCs cheer on Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas' declaration that "We will not lend our respective resources, whether they be in the form of police officers or any other resources, to assist the federal government in any way, shape or form to inappropriately repatriate Elian Gonzalez to Cuba."

The cops, to their credit, dismissed the sentiment and declared they would respect federal law. Not CCs, though. They were up in arms when the INS searched-and-seized on Saturday; and the fact that the operation went off without a hitch seemed to make them even angrier. What happened to the Right's chest-thumping endorsement of "law and order"? Does the rule of law apply only when it suits local politicos? (If so, we should remember this next time aboriginals blockade a bridge or sawmill.) Lazaro Gonzalez's legal basis for holding Elian ended on April 12, when the INS revoked Elian's parole. He was ordered to turn over custody of the boy the next day. The GOP can hold all the hearings they want. The only illegal behaviour they'll find is that committed by Lazaro et al.

When Elian does leave, perhaps CCs will regret having spent so much political capital trying to keep him in the U.S. They will have sold the ideological farm for what? To deny a father his son and confound a cruel but irrelevant tyrant. Is the post-Cold War Right really that desperate for bogeymen? It was a short-sighted campaign -- and one conservatives will regret when their words are thrown back in their faces to defend policies they have long opposed.