On the recordJuly 7, 2016
I want to be clear that in just a few moments, I am going to be withdrawing my amendment. Before I do so, I just want to say a couple of things because this amendment was a very simple and straightforward amendment that did nothing more than allow Americans to travel to Cuba, which is to say this amendment ultimately was about American liberty. We just heard a long conversation about Iran, and yet, as an American, you can travel to Iran. You could travel to Syria. You could travel to North Korea. There is no prohibition for any other place on the globe, except for one, and that is Cuba. And that may have made sense 50 years ago. The reality of today is that it does not make sense today. And so this has ultimately been about American liberty. It has been about the bundle of rights that come with liberty. The Supreme Court has said that as real as the food that we eat or the clothes that we wear or the books that we read, the ability to choose where you come and go, where you travel to, is an American liberty. So Jefferson said 200 years ago that the normal course of things was for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield. And I think it is very, very important wherein we run into policies that have outlived their usefulness, that may have made sense 50 years, that don't make sense today, that we push back against them.…
