Posted on 09/26/2013 6:40:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
Maybe it’s because I have a bit of a old-fashioned moralistic streak to me, but I viscerally object to the notion that good people should pay bad people not to do bad things.
That’s why, a few years ago, I didn’t react favorably when the former dictator of Libya asked for several billion dollars per year to stop illegals from crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.
And this also explains why I don’t think American taxpayers should cough up $1 billion to bribe Syria’s dictator into giving up his chemical weapons.
In this interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News, I make the basic libertarian argument that we shouldn’t be involved in Syria’s civil war, but I also make a practical argument that – if you accept that American tax dollars should be spent – it would be much cheaper to bribe a few high-level people in Assad’s government.
Dan Mitchell Defending Taxpayers from Syrian Boondoggles
Since I’m not a foreign policy expert, I don’t think I said anything particularly memorable in the above segment.
But one line apparently did resonate. Here’s Senator Rand Paul, speaking later that day
I have to admit that made my day. Sort of like when Chairman Brady mentioned Mitchell’s Golden Rule in his opening statement when I testified last week to the Joint Economic Committee.
Of course, I’d like it even better if some of my ideas actually wound up being implemented (like the flat tax or smaller government), but at least it’s nice to be noticed.
Fighting for freedom is often a thankless task in DC
Being a libertarian in Washington, after all, is not the easiest job. To quote former Senator Phil Gramm, it’s like trying to do the Lord’s work in the Devil’s city.
P.S. Any time I begin to get cocky and think I’m some sort of hot shot, something happens to pull me back down to earth. In my Syria interview, you may have noticed that my mouth looked a bit red. That’s because I made the mistake of eating some red candies that were in the car that took me to the interview.
As the old saying goes, you can dress me up, but you can’t take me out. That’s why I’m glad Senator Paul picked up on my line (which I stole from somebody, so I can’t really take credit) about threatening Syria with Obamacare. Otherwise, I probably would have been reluctant to even post the interview.
P.P.S. As I intimated in the interview, the best way to learn more about foreign policy is to read the scholarly writings of my colleagues from the Cato Institute. You also can’t go wrong by perusing these columns by Mark Steyn, George Will, and Steve Chapman.
Karl is your neighborhood drunk. Government healthcare arrives and Karl wants free rehab....lots of fancy tough expensive and in-patient rehab. Karl can’t afford it, so he expects everyone to pay for his share.
In this case, Syria is Karl. You’d have to be an absolute nutcase to sign up the US and cover a billion dollars of disposal. You can imagine the imaginary Russian companies that would suddenly show up, and get the contracts....put the stuff into barrels and drop them off sixty miles west of Hawaii.
This is the greatest gimmick to stick onto the President. He has to go and ask the Republicans for a billion of chemical disposal money...which they will argue about and say no. He looks dopey in front of his world audience because he can’t find a billion just laying around.
No Fu_____g Way.
Were all upset over Seria Cassing 1400 people, the’ve already killed 100.000 people and no one is really upset.
We in America have destroyed the lives of 65 million Pre-Born babies and we seem to be proud of that.
Time for some serious Intro-spection, Ya’, Think
Didn’t we give North Korea a ton of money and other goodies not to develop nukes? That worked out well. What could possibly go wrong with this deal? /s
No — let the Saudis pay it.
That'd be an awfully short bombing raid...
And by that previous comment I meant that it would be short because those countries aren’t too far advanced PAST the Stone Age...
How about Syria keep its weapons, we keep our billion, and we stop arming Al-CIA-duh that is slaughtering Syria’s Christians.
... bombing Iran and North Korea forward into the stone age.
FIFY
No way squared.
In addition to your point, nobama is all wee wee’d up to save some little muslim children halfway around the world but won’t lift a finger to protect taxpaying americans from the narco armies on our border and in our country.
North Korea used Bill Clinton's massive payoffs intended to stop the North Korean nuclear weapons program to, in reality, fund their nuclear weapons program.
Repeating that mistake would be beyond stupid, so our politicians are certain to do so.
Obama has only one goal in his extremely small view of the world, Redistribution. Toward that end, He does nothing that would really help the country, and that is Jobs.
My daughter has the ability to earn $100,000 to $150,000 and for her efforts she brings lome less than 50 % of those
earnings due to this racist thug in the whitehouse.
Clear,\ly about 1/3 of the USA budget goes to undeserving
Layabouts.
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