Dear Uganda,

Bayesian in reply to Scott says:

Well, since as you noted upthread, it’s their country, I should think we should let the Ugandans stave or not according to their own choices, laws, etc. Perhaps the Ugandan constitution has an amendment protecting the right to bear staves, or for that matter to stave bears (bears of the ursine type are not native to Africa; surely applying staves to bears of the homosexual type is fully in keeping with traditional Ugandan family values).

If, on the other hand, some poorer Ugandans find themselves starving as a result of the hypothetical aid cutoff, starving is of course a traditional Ugandan value and I’m sure the Ugandan starvers will be much reassured by the fact that nobody will dare be aggressively homosexual around them while they starve.

Seriously for a moment, I’m not sure what the point of your original comment – “who cares?” – was, beyond trollery and/or subtly/deniably expressing your support of the proposed laws. North expressed disgust at his (I think you’re a guy, North) tax dollars slightly funding what he considers an abominable regime, rather like many on the right have worked hard to (try to) ensure that their tax dollars don’t slightly fund abortion. And isn’t your (=Scott) own point that it should be up to Ugandans to make their own choice about whether keeping those horrible gays in the closet is worth giving up whatever aid they get from the US govt? Besides, assuming Uganda actually does pass something resembling the proposed laws (I don’t have an informed opinion about how likely that is), I fear the chance of the Democrats discover that they actually are vertebrates and having the US Govt expressing anything stronger than mild peeve is pretty miniscule. And if somehow that were to happen – fat chance – Uganda should then find itself awash in (American) private sector contributions supporting its brave stand, right?

It’s not as if, in the original comment at least, North is calling for invading/bombing Uganda, or launching a coup there, or even calling for a trade embargo. Pretty mild stuff compared to how the modal chickenhawk responds to a regime he really dislikes.Report