Lying about Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill, with Corporate Sponsorship
Watch this video by Molotov Mitchell. It’s repulsive, profoundly dishonest, and appears to be sponsored by major, respectable U.S. corporations. About the only good thing I can say is that it doesn’t embed in WordPress, which limits its distribution.
But look at the corporate sponsors — AT&T, French’s, Dell, Bing.com … did I miss any? AT&T, Dell and Microsoft each got perfect scores on the HRC Corporate Equality Index this year. So what gives? Box Turtle Bulletin has phone numbers where you can call to complain.
For those not up to speed, here’s why Mitchell is lying in the video: Not only would Uganda’s anti-gay bill execute rapists, child molesters, and those who spread HIV, it would go much, much further. Here’s the text of the Ugandan anti-gay legislation. It’s not long. Read it yourself. Even if you don’t live in Uganda.[1]
Like many statutory rape laws in the United States, there is no exception for people who are very close in age. So this bill would execute an 18-year-old for having sex with her 17-year-old lesbian lover, even once. It would execute gays and lesbians who had sex with the disabled, even once, and even if the disabled person was also gay and the sex was consensual. It would also execute “serial offenders” — that is, it would kill two healthy adults who were in a long-term, monogamous, consensual, same-sex relationship. As if that were not enough, it would also kill two people with HIV who knowingly had sex… with each other.
But it would go even further than that. Here’s how.
Aggravated homosexuality gets the death penalty — that’s section 3(2):
(2) A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death.
One way of being guilty of aggravated homosexuality is to be a “serial offender.” That’s Section 3(1)(f). And, under section 2(1)(e), it is an offence for purposes of the bill if a person
touches another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.
So all I need to do is touch someone twice, consensually, with the intent of committing homosexuality, and I’m subject to being executed.
The bill isn’t hard to understand. Read it yourself. The World Net Daily lies about this bill because they want to see it enacted. Religious leaders like Rick Warren have condemned the bill, rather than lying about it. But the WND appears to want a gay genocide. There is no other explanation. What I can’t explain is why otherwise gay-friendly companies would allow themselves to be associated with this.
Update: As of this morning, all advertisements appear to have been removed. Apparently this wasn’t a hard call for the companies involved, and good for them.
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[1] Am I a colonialist for criticizing a bill pending in Uganda? Mitchell seems to think so. But World Net Daily, which presented the video, felt free to criticize Canada, Sweden, Ireland, England, and Spain. Uganda, however, is apparently off limits.
Also, to say that a white person can’t condemn a black person’s opinion, or that an American can’t know any better than a foreigner, is just the sort of moral relativism that I thought American conservatives had renounced.
My only advice to MM… honey come out. It’s okay. Did you see the wrist action in most of his clip? Girlfriend!Report
How is the bill polling? Will it be enacted with overwhelming approval? Split 50/50 and there’s a shot at changing it? Passed over the objections of most of the country and likely to fail if pushed hard enough?Report
I’ve seen conflicting reports. I don’t really have a clear sense of it, and it’s possible that no one does.Report
See, this is a tough call for me because I absolutely 100% support free speech and this guy’s right to say whatever sort of things he wants. On the other hand, I watched another one of his videos on a similar topic and, in all honesty, if I was in the same room with him, I’d have taken a swing at him.Report
This is what boycotts are for. Free speech but, hey, I ain’t gonna be buying Ritz Crackers if they keep supporting the moral depravity that is The People’s Court.
Let Nabisco know this and know *WHY*.
Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t. It probably won’t. But it beats doing nothing and nobody’s rights are being violated.Report
See, and that’s totally what I believe. In my rational mind, absolutely, that’s what I’d do. And maybe I will. Boycott and a firm letter. Support civilized discourse and mow my lawn regularly.
But, I’ll be honest, he’s got a video on there about alienating everyone at a party for a theatre troupe by telling one of the party goers that he’s going to hell for being gay. And my first thought was, “Yeah, I’d have probably broken his nose”.Report
That’s one of the thing that pisses me off the most about that particular flavor of evangelical.
Fine! I’m going to hell forever! Let me enjoy this party!Report
He,y you can talk like that now but on judgment day you will remember the gospel that was preached to you and the chances you had. So be it until you: as a man thinketh and speaketh so is he. Doomed to helo ..you have chosen it yourself. You better enjoy the party now for in hell there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth…and oh by the way repentance…but it will be too late.Report
Mag, I apologize if I have offended you. That was not my intent.
Please understand that I am stuck here without mystical experience and am left on the outside looking in on the whole Christianity thing and I am not compelled to change my life based on, what seem to me to be, threats.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not and would not ask you to change your belief system for a second. If it works for you then it works for you. Run with it… and thank you for your concern over the state of my soul.Report
Probably the most gracious response I’ve ever read to that type of comment. For mag, please realize that many, many people are left outside looking in on Christianity and on mystical experience more generally. This is not their fault, any more than you deserve credit for the confidence you have in your own salvation. All of us start life in very different places; most people do the best they can from there. None of us have the knowledge or (more importantly) the authority to pass final judgment on other people, and that is a very good thing.
Many Christians believe non-Christians can be saved – St. Augustine said that many outside the Church will later be found within it, and that many within the Church will later be found outside of it. Benedict XVI was once asked how many paths there were to God; his response was ‘as many as there are people.’ Condemning people whose life’s you know nothing about over the internet is a very poor way to preach the Gospel.Report
I did n ot condem Jaybird! Look at his own comment. He said “Fine! I’m going to hell forever!
Let me enjoy this party!”
He condemned himself. As a man thinketh so is he.Report
Mag, that wasn’t exactly what I was saying. My personal problem is with a particular school of evangelical christianity that attempts to force people to be moral… even at the margins. Look, for example, at the law against a man having sex with his wife during her menstrual cycle. The punishment? That they be cut off from their people.
There are taboos against eating lobster and shrimp in the same book as the taboos against homosexuality are mentioned.
Now, I am not going to say that having sex with a woman during her menstrual cycle is moral or immoral. I am not going to say that eating shrimp or lobster is moral or immoral.
I will say that to use the force of the law to make sure that I follow these rules is wrong.
I am not going to say that homosexuality is moral or immoral. I will say that to use the law to force people to not be homosexual is wrong…
If, indeed, I am going to go to hell for all eternity for such things as having sex with my wife while she is on her menstrual cycle or for enjoying a meal consisting of shrimp and lobster, please *AT LEAST LET ME ENJOY MY MARRIAGE AND MY MEAL*.Report
Rufus, you’re clearly not a libertarian, or, instead of visualizing fisticuffs, you’d be talking about how Mitchell wouldn’t dare say these things if gays exercised their rights to open carry.Report
Yeah, I’ve never been able to go full libertarian, although I certainly agree with them often. Having worked for some time in the theatre, I’m not sure a party full of drunk and armed theatre people would be one I’d want to be at actually.Report
You really only have to worry if you see a gun in the first act.Report
Ha! Good job by you Jaybird.Report
Yeah, that line was a beaut.Report
Applause.Report
The Western media with a liberal agenda scoops only parts of the bill and parrots them to garner opposition. If I may ask, why is it ok to charge a straight man who knowingly infects multiple women with HIV with manslaughter and it is considered an attack on gay people if a homosexual who knowingly infects minors with HIV is sentenced to some punishment? Who is the hypocrite here, people? Homos need help. Period.Report
I don’t believe that anyone said it was okay to infect anyone else with HIV, whether gay or straight. If all that the bill did were to punish all people who knowingly infected others with HIV, I’d have very little problem with it.
But that’s not what the bill does. Not even remotely.Report
Also, if “homos need help,” then tell me — how does it help to throw someone in prison or kill him? Lots of people really do need help — people with cancer, or malaria, or heart disease, or AIDS. Do we throw these people in prison to “help” them? You’ve got a funny definition of help.Report
People, either homosexual or heterosexual, who knowingly infect their sex partners with HIV should be put to death.Report
No objection from me on levying murder charges on people who use HIV to kill other people Bob. So long as it’s levied on anyone who does so I don’t object.Report
I didn’t think you’d object!
It’s Good Friday, for my commie-dem LOOG friends who may be lost in the miasma of drugs and alcohol!Report
Not to change the subject, but I oppose the death penalty in general, and I do not see why I would want to make an exception here. I’ve put aside that opposition and posed the arguments above in a setting that assumes the propriety of the death penalty for at least some crimes. You have to pick your battles.
So let me ask you: Should people who infect others with hepatitis C also be put to death? Like HIV, hepatitis C is a lifelong, treatable, but still often fatal viral disease. It has largely the same transmission routes, and although the body sometimes does rid itself of the hepatitis C virus, this is relatively rare. Why not kill people who spread hepatitis C, too? I’ve never even heard of such a proposal.
I suspect that the urge to kill those who spread HIV stems very much from the 1980s, when death from HIV was much more swift and certain. I also suspect it stems from a moral panic, one which is curiously absent from hepatitis C.Report
Jason, good point!
However, to be honest, I’m rather ignorant of the Hep C thing but I can consult with a pal of mine who advices a certain state governor over communicable diseases and get back with you.
From what you say, knowing one had H-C and engaging in an act that permitted transmission would be, it seems to me, the same as transmitting HIV.
BTW, it’s not about the “urge to kill..” it’s about maintaining order in society and the gallows has a way of making an impression, even on the mind of a derailed commie-dem.Report
Ah, yes. Happy Good Friday to those of you who are inclined to celebrate.
He’s dead. The sacrifice is made. Your sins are forgiven, like it or not.
Even if you are gay.Report
He is not dead! He is very much alive and will come again to appear to all whether they are looking for him or not. And this time He will come as The Kings of Kings and The Lord of Lords..the great judge of all mankind. Until that time He can be your saviour but at that time you will remain as you are..and you will never be able to repent…so repent while there is still time.Report
You’re a day early.Report
Never early. Salvation is for every one every day.
The Bible says “TODAY IS THE DAY OF SALVATION’ IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE Easter DAY. IN dUET IT SAID “CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE”. FURTHER THE BIBLE SAYS “HARDEN NOT YOUR HEART AS IN THE DAY…” SO TODAY IS THE DAY OF SALVATION. CHOOSE LIFE OR CHOOSE DEATH, IT SAYS IN DUET. CHOOSE A BLESSING OR CHOOSE A CURE. CHOOSE OBEDIENCE OR DISOBEDIENCE.
IT IS YOUR CHOICE!
NO ONE CAN DO IT FOR YOU!
JESUS RESURRECTED MORE THAN 2000 YEARS AGO, NOT TODAY.Report
Happy Easter, mag.Report
Uganda’s laws so why do we care. But if we do care then let’s care equally about all those foreign country’s with crappy laws and not just the ones that liberals care so much about. I don’t remember hearing liberals protest that much about the Chinese one child policy and its forced abortions. I guess people only protest when their c=chosen folks are persecuted and not about the sanctity of life in general.Report
Astounding. So if I don’t complain about everything, I can’t complain about anything?
And for what it’s worth, I have indeed complained about China’s human rights record, just not on this forum. Not like it would help, though, because I am sure you would only find some other thing I hadn’t complained sufficiently about, and that would be that.Report
Scott, if Uganda were only some hole of a country in a the corner of Africa I’d reluctantly agree with you. Unfortunately Uganda is a hole of a country in a corner of Africa into which our government pours millions of dollars of direct aid. If my government is going to be directly propping up the countries ramshackle government then I’ll definitely pay attention to what they’re doing with said money. And yes before you ask I also oppose aid to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Dixie and I’m getting there on Israel (though I’m not there yet).Report
The commenters here who tick me off are the libertarians. So now you’re suddenly opposed to states passing restrictive laws limiting the freedoms of the individual??? Real nice, libertarians!Report
The big problem that libertarianism has (certain quarters, anyway) is that they look at intervention in Uganda and mentally re-read Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden”.
It’s not that libertarians are opposed to states passing restrictive laws, of course they are. The problem comes when we ask “well, what ought we do?”
Invade? Maybe we could kill a bunch of them and occupy them until their culture is more modern.
Sanctions?
Strongly worded letters to corporations sponsoring websites that host videos explaining how the proposed laws aren’t that bad? (Here’s that website again: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/04/01/21566 )
What do you suggest be done with Uganda? If you come up with an answer that is stronger than a boycott that doesn’t seem likely to make a libertarian wince, let me know. I sure as hell can’t think of one.Report
I see absolutely nothing wrong with asking American corporations not to associate themselves with foreign governments that commit atrocities, or that seem likely to. I also see nothing at all wrong with asking American corporations not to sponsor American apologists for foreign atrocities.
If this makes me a racist, in the mold of Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden,” then I can live with that. Call me a racist. It will reflect far more on you than it does on me.Report
I’m actually a big believer in the idea that states want to look good to the rest of the world, so even protesting the Ugandan government in, say Paris, would be somewhat effective.
But my only point here was that the League has some libertarian tendencies (no?) so of course there would be complaints about these types of laws. Actually, that point probably applies to “liberals” too.Report
No, that’s not what I was saying, Jason. I am 100% down with a boycott.
It strikes me as *COMPLETELY* appropriate.
It just feels awfully anemic compared to the emotional response that the laws provide. There is very much a part of me (the old progressive) that thinks that we should invade and we should colonize them and we should bring them, kicking and screaming, to enlightenment. For their own good.
Just like Kipling.
And then I look at stuff like Afghanistan and Iraq and notice that India was a long, long, long time ago… and Uganda ain’t India and we ain’t the British and that poem looks a lot like the cobblestones in the road to hell.
And I’m stuck back with a boycott.
What else can we do?Report
Read it again:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kipling.html
Change it to, maybe, “smart man’s burden” and get rid of race entirely for just one reading… and the poem becomes a poem about Reconstruction in the South. Or about Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or prayer in schools. Or Intelligent Design in biology class. It’s about going in and dragging, kicking and screaming, those people to enlightenment.
The poem doesn’t freak me out because it’s “racist”. It freaks me out because, if you get rid of the racism, it’s still a policy we follow. It’s just the “smart man’s burden” now.Report
We can tell the Ugandans that they are free to pass their backwards-retrograde abomination of a bill. And that we are similarly free to shut off all American Government provided aid to Uganda (hundreds of millions of dollars). I suspect that would make them take notice and technically we’d be stepping away from the dreaded “white man’s burden”.Report
“Update: As of this morning, all advertisements appear to have been removed. Apparently this wasn’t a hard call for the companies involved, and good for them.”
This is excellent news.Report
Actually everyone is wrong here. I am an American living in Uganda for almost 30 years now. If you check very carefully what is happening here you will find out that the USA (not America- for Canada, Mexico and South America are also part of the Americas) is still helping Uganda very much. It was just in or newspapers teh other day how the
And the US is still giving help in many ways.
US army is helping train the army and do intervention In Uganda. On many occasions I have seen the US army just outside my door.
Only some in the US want to have sactions against Uganda if that bill is passed.
While as a borned again Christian I am against homosexulality in any form of fashion because I beleive the Bible and the Bible says it wrong and that such people will be condemended to eternal punishment.
But I am also agiainst the bill to kill people for their wrongful acts of sexula choices. In the past, like in teh bible, people were condemened for adultry. Just look at teh story of teh woman who WAS CAUGHT ADULTERY. What did Jesus do? He told them that those without sin should cast the first stone. hey all wlaked away. Then he aks teh woman where are your accursers. She said there are non. And then He siad, “Neither do I iaccuise you. Go since no more.”Report
“Actually everyone is wrong here.”
I have been saying that since I got here.
In any case, you’ve reminded me of a rant that I wrote for Bob Cheeks back in October of last year.
I’ll repost it here for you:
If I assume not only a deity, but a benevolent deity, and not only a benevolent deity but a Christian deity, I come to a handful of conclusions about how folks ought to treat each other from a handful of (presumed) god-given insights.
Let’s say that there are two dudes who are trying to make their way in the world, they’ve found each other. I may disapprove. I may think “that’s a good way to get a UTI”. I may even politely decline to show up at their various celebratory parties (hurray, more Diana Ross songs to get stuck in my head).
At the end of the day, I know that they have probably had a crappy upbringing, a crappy life experience so far, and it is my responsibility to be kind to them because, god knows, they have been fighting a great battle all their lives and if I can be their neighbor who, at the very least, does not add to their burden, then I am treating them the way that I would want to be treated.
I do not have enough willpower to avoid using the whole “woman caught in adultery” story, and I apologize for that.
A bunch of dudes caught this one chick in the act (it was a sting, you *KNOW* it was a sting) of committing adultery and they grabbed her and dragged her to Jesus and said “dude, this chick was totally doing it” and asked what he thought. He started drawing in the dirt. He eventually said “let him who has not sinned throw the first stone”.
This is where the story got really, really interesting, if you ask me.
The older guys in the group left first.
Then, more slowly, the younger guys left.
I can’t help but relate to the older guys, there. I mean, even if the sin of homosexuality is, in itself, up there with adultery (and I don’t know that it is, I mean, if it’s monogamous and everything), I know for a fact that I ought to drop my rocks and go home.
Yes, yes. Jesus finished up by saying “go and sin no more” to the chick, but, seriously. Harping on that and chanting “the point of the story is to go and sin no more!!!” reminds me a lot more of the guys in the story with the rocks than the guy in the story without one.
Indeed, for most of the dynamics that Jesus has with the established religious folk in the gospels, it’s all about Jesus telling them to, effectively, lighten up.
Pray like this guy, not like that guy. Give like this woman, don’t give like that guy. When you find your lost lamb celebrate. When the prodigal son returns, throw a party. The Kingdom of Heaven is WITHIN YOU.
You know. Hippie crap.
It’s hard to read the gospels and come to the conclusion that it’s our job to police the homosexual threat more effectively.
It’s hard to see those who go out of their way to more effectively police the homosexual threat as guys in the Jesus column but it’s easy to see them instead as the types of guys that Jesus talked about as cautionary examples.
But, hey. At the end of the day, I’m a libertine and if you doin’ what you’re doin’ makes you feel good, go nuts.
I ain’t gonna tell you how you ought to live.Report
The answer to her problem was to sine more. Not stoning as the law was to do. And tehose whoo wanted to stone also had sins is their lives. The Bible also said he who has a plank in his eye cannot see teh speck in anothers eye for he cannot see properly. First he must get teh plank out of his eye so that he can help get teh speck out of anothers’ eye. It also says to correct with humility lest he also fall into teh same thing.
The devil is deceitfully wicked.
I JUDGE NO ONE. IT IS LEFT TO GOD TO DO THAT. HIS SON WILL COME TO JUDGE THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE UNRIGHTEOUS. ONLY HE CAN DO THAT.
But we have a choice today. We can choose whom we will serve.
The choice is left up to you for yourself.
No one has righteousness without Jesus. The Bible says “every man’s righteousness is nothing but filthy rags”. It also says that” every man at his best is altogether vanity”.
Now how many of us are at our best?
And when we are at our best were are altogether vanity. So that means we are less than vanity.
The solution: REPENT.
The choice is left up to me for myself.
No one else can do it for you or for me.Report
GO SIN NO MORE!
FOR JESUS SAID “WITHOUT ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING”.
nOW HOW MANY OF US HAVE BEEN DOING MOST, IF NOT ALL THINGS, WITH OUT JESUS?
THAT MEANS WE HAVE BEEN DOING NOTHING.Report
You know, mag, I have been thinking about this.
In the story of the woman caught in adultery, a bunch of things happened in, more or less, this order:
A woman was caught in the act of committing a sin/crime that society said deserved the death penalty.
This woman was dragged before Jesus.
Jesus pointed out that none of those people should kill this woman and they pretty much agreed and they went home without killing the woman.
Jesus then told the woman to go and sin no more.
Now, get this, you are using this story to *DEFEND* the death penalty for people caught in sexual sin.
Let’s say that you found a homosexual caught in the act and dragged him bloody and beaten before Jesus and you, in Uganda, told Jesus “WE FOUND THIS MAN! CAUGHT IN THE ACT! OUR LAWS SAY WE OUGHT TO STONE HIM!!!”
What do you think Jesus would say to you?Report
I’ll be honest, I can’t really tell exactly what Mag is getting at here, but I assumed he was making the case against the death penalty laws.Report
Hrm. I’ve re-read them and, golly, you’re absolutely right.
I suppose that that’s a prejudice that I need to overcome. I was assuming that a Ugandan who was arguing passionately over the state of our souls would also be arguing on behalf of this particular law… and I didn’t even see that he wasn’t.Report
And I quote from what I said above. “But I am also against the bill to kill people for their wrongful acts of sexual choices”.
But an article in the newspaper today made me a little bit apprehensive..though the flesh (natural man) is sometimes at war with the spiritual.
A man was arrested for defiling three young girls, two age 12 and one age11. He is HIV positive.
Now what is fault of those young girls? And what is there future?
And then the official in police blamed the parents for leaving the girls at home alone. (WEll that is what they would say in England. But in Uganda where children are so often left alone…I do not know.)
Oh, by the way Mag is not a he…I am a she.Report
I apologize, mag (I generally assume that everybody on the internet is a guy).
When it comes to issues such as abuse of children, what are the laws in Uganda now? If the man were not HIV positive and he assaulted them… what would the laws do to him?Report
Sorry about that, Mag- you’re the first person I’ve met with that name.Report
WHILE I DO NOT APPROVE OF RAPE, INCEST, SAME SEX UNIONS, SODOMY ETC THE BIBLE TELLS US NOT TO TAKE AND EYE FOR EYE AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.
SO ALL OF TO HOSE WHO THINK WE ARE RIGHTEOUS AND WANT TO CONDEMN AND KILL THOSE WHO COMMIT SUCH ACTS ARE ALSO SINNING AND
NO SIN WILL ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.Report
IN THE EARLY NINETIES I WAS IN AN AFTERNOON CHRISTIAN TEA FOR LADIES IN KAMPALA. THE SUBJECT OF CONDOMS TO PREVENT AIDS WAS BROUGHT UP IN THE MEETING. IT WAS FURTHER SAID THAT MANY MEN ARE USING CONDOMS SO THAT CAN HAVE SEX WITH OTHER WOMEN BESIDES THEIR WIVES. THE WOMEN SAID “NO CONDOMS. IT PROMOTES BAD SEX HABITS” BUT
A WELL KNOW LADY MP WHO WAS A CHRISTIAN SAID “OH BUT WAIT A MINUTE. YES I KNOW THAT SEX OUTSIDE MARRIAGE IS WRONG AND THAT IT CAN BRING HIV/AIDS. BUT IT IS BELIEVED THAT CONDOMS PREVENTS HIV/AIDS. IF THESE MEN WEAR CONDOMS WHEN THEY HAVE SUCH WRONGFUL ACTS IT MAY PREVENT THEM FROM GETTING AIDS. ”
The women began to shout. And the MP lady said. “Yes, sex outside of marriage is wrong. It is a sin.” And the women said then the men need to be preached to so that they can get saved.
But the MP lady continued ” but they are not saved yet. So allow them to wear condoms when they need to. Preach to them at the same time so that they can get saved. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word! Iicannot preach to a dead man!”Report
And you say “Oh you do not know AIDs”.
Yes I do ! I have lost 2 daughters to AIDS. One got it on her own efforts. The other got it by being deceived by a man when she was very young.
It Hurts. It sticks, It pains to see your own children or love one suffer and die with AIDS. But it does not help to kill someone because it happened. Do what Jesus said on the cross. “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”Report
Furthermore, the Bible says “Friendship with the world is enemity against God”.
The carnal (natural and unregenerate d man) is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” the Bible says.
I do not expect anyone who is not born again to understand any thing I have said.Report
An eye for an ey and a toth for a tooth is not even God’s way.
I know a young Christian girl who was raped and later became a lesbian.
Was that her fault? NO! When such acts of rape occur it often comes with infiltrating evil spirits. She is still a lesbian today, almost 20 years later.
Does she need the death penalty? No! She needs Jesus to deliver her from ALL her sin! Just like you and I need.Report
As the national anthem of Uganda says”
Oh Uganda, may7 God uphold you.
We lay our future in your hands.Report
Do you see what I mean, Jason?
The responses that I have force me to choose between libertarian non-intervention and Kipling… and I’m 90% sure that Kipling would not work.Report
I’m pretty sure that strict libertarian principles would probably frown on taxing homosexuals (and others) in one country and then sending hundreds of millions of those dollars to support countries that persecute those same kinds of people. So it seems to me that strict libertarian principles in this real world context do have some serious teeth.Report
Dude, my support for government aid to other countries is non-existent (I do, oddly, support private charity to other countries). If government aid is given, my assumption is that the majority of it is used as bribes or stolen as graft and precious little actually makes it to the people we imagine we’re helping when we see that Crapistan is getting 2 Billion in aid (the peasants aren’t eating wheat because of that aid, the rulers are eating steak because of it).
So if you want me to say “oh, yeah, we shouldn’t have the government give money to other countries”, consider it said (yes, even Israel).
Hell, I don’t think that money from California should go to Mississippi (exception, private charity, so on and so forth).
That still feels pretty anemic to me.Report
Ah okay, well we’re sending hundreds of millions to Uganda. I’d bet diamonds to doughnuts that if the Administration said to them “Dudes, pass this law if you want to but we aren’t going to be able to keep passing the dough over to you if you do,” the legislation would be taken out behind the woodshed in Uganda and finished off right quick.Report