First of all, I have to apologize.

I told some friends a few weeks that I wouldn't talk about this whole Cuban boy business. It was over a long time ago. And most of us who pontificate over stuff like this should have put the story on low radar and left it alone. But when the Presidential Race is wrapped up before the summer movie season kicks in, there has to be something else to talk about. And for the last month, the Cuban boy has been in the bullseye.

Saturday morning the INS stormed the human-chained fortress in Miami and took the boy from his distant American relatives. The photo shot around the world was of a shrieking child with a gun point blank in his face. The soldier had his finger on ready (over the trigger, but not wrapped). The look on the face of the relative holding the boy was of fright and disbelief.

Of course, if a bunch of heavily-armed guys stormed my house, I'd be frightened too. But the measure of shock should have been minimal for the relatives. They'd been defying the government mandates for a while. They said they'd never give up the boy. They should have known that someone was going to crash through the door one morning.

One of the statements I heard was that they were not informed the INS was coming that morning. Duh. Most of the time there is no courtesy call before the government comes calling.

I like the fact that the relatives could rant and rave and chant and sing and hold their human chain together with Cuban and American flags clashing like slo-mo lightsaber battles. That's what this country is about. Everyone gets their say and then there's the law. We have laws for a reason, so there isn't mob rule. To say that what was happening in Miami was anything more than mob rule is to close your eyes to the truth.

One afternoon while I was living in Florida (St. Petersburg, not Miami), we heard some chanting going on. So my roommates and I went outside to see what the commotion was. There was an anti-drug rally going on in front of a suspected dealer house. We walked over and watched the spectacle.

The thing about people chanting, holding songs and singing songs is that they don't care what your view of their cause is. Because they're not listening anymore. They're not there for discussion, they're there for action.

The cops that were hanging around seemed amused by the whole scene. It was pretty easy work for them. They just stood with their car doors as possible shields and surveyed the area, throwing quiet asides to each other as the chanting went on to what seemed like an empty house. The suspected drug dealers knew (if they were around) that this wasn't a chance to discuss ideology, this was a time to hide.

But there's a time when the chanting has to stop. The flag waving and sign posting should be over. The rioting doesn't mean anything when nothing is going to be accomplished except a bit of looting and car burning.

The Cuban boy is with his father. Which, if the father lived in the U.S., is where he would have been five months ago. But they're Cubans, so we have to try and push a little bit of our American ideology on them. We have to prove our point about freedom and courts and frivolous lawsuits.

Well, I think everyone's heard the arguments. Everyone's made up their mind. And, even though we'll hear more about this when the Presidential elections heat up again (both said the boy should stay, because everyone they're trying to impress are voters in this country, not Cuba), it's all over.

The Cuban boy and his father will go back to Cuba and live their lives. And maybe the kid won't get the new Playstation 2 for Christmas, and there won't be as many toys and gifts in his future. But I'm thinking that's okay. When he looks back on this time in a few years, he'll wonder what the whole fuss was about. He might see that picture of his frightened face in front of a big gun and wonder why he even thought he wanted to be in Imperialist America at all.

After all, he's got as much of his real family now as he could have. And the rest of us need to shut the hell up and let him get on with his life.

Matt Worley hasn't ever swam an ocean for freedom, so maybe he's just a spoiled brat.