There are certain universal laws that never alter and can never be changed. One of them, for instance, is Newton's Law of Motion. Another less scientific universal law that remains constant is the law which states that there is no such thing as a free lunch. No matter how you try to manipulate this universal law, there is no way it can be made truly free. Someone, somewhere, is paying for it. Most often, what may appear as a free lunch initially is in reality being paid for by the recipient in an indirect fashion.

An example of this universal law in practice is a prison. Throughout the duration of an inmate's incarceration they are given "free" room and board. Among other things, at no monetary cost to the inmate he or she is provided with a roof over their head, three square meals a day, and access to medical care. Although the inmate does not have to pay for any of these "free" amenities with cash, they are paying for it with something much more valuable than food, shelter, and medical care: they pay for it with their freedom. In this case, what on the surface may appear to be free in reality carries an exorbitant price.

The situation in Cuba is not much different from the prison example. In fact, the only difference is that the Atlantic ocean takes the place of the steel bars that keep the inmates from escaping. In Cuba there are armed guards, just as there are in prisons. In Cuba you go where you are told and you sleep and work where you are told, just as it is in prison. In Cuba the dictatorship decides what you can and cannot eat and how much food you are allowed, just like prison. Entertainment is important to keep a prison population prone to insurrection preoccupied, and just like the prison warden decides when and what entertainment is provided to the inmates, the dictatorship in Cuba does the same with the citizens of the island. If an inmate challenges the authority of a guard or questions too loudly the policies of the prison, they are dealt with swiftly and sternly, just as dissidents in Cuba are dealt with when they dare to speak out. The only true difference between being an inmate in a prison and a citizen in Cuba is that prison inmates knowingly and willfully committed a crime that brought about their detention. Cubans, however, are guilty only of having been born in Cuba's island prison.

Recently, the Cuban dictatorship announced it would have to pare down the choices and amount of food provided in the ration books given to Cubans since 1962. The announcement made headlines across the world, and interestingly enough, it was reported by various news agencies as "the end of the free lunch." In a CNN article today, they report how Cubans are dealing with this reduction in "free" food being provided by the state.

Missing from this article, though, is any explanation as to why Cubans are dependent on the state for access to food. There is no mention that the "free lunch" the Cuban dictatorship supposedly provides the Cuban people is in reality not free at all. It is paid for with their freedom. The ration book and the free lunches are paid for by the liberty, the sweat, and the blood stolen from the Cuban people by the dictatorship. There are few places in the world where a bag of rice and a dozen eggs carries such a lofty price tag as it does in Cuba.

Having fallen for the ruse that a free lunch can actually exist, the media wonders how Cubans will make do with less food. What they should be wondering is how much more expensive can food become in Cuba?

Lunch in Cuba is far from free and I doubt that if anyone had a choice, they would trade their freedom and their dignity for a 20-ounce bag of black beans every month.