People who are still sure that Rand Paul offers a meaningful alternative to Hillary as far as excessively zealous support for the Empire is concerned may need to install the latest version of the software.
This week, Senator Paul introduced legislation to
cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinians unless the Palestinian application to join the International Criminal Court is withdrawn.
Senator, I knew Ron Paul. You are no Ron Paul.
Whatever one thinks of the ICC, or the Palestinian decision to join it, a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind" would suggest acknowledging the right of the Palestinians to join the ICC if they wish. Indeed, the right of the Palestinians to join the ICC has been recognized by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.
Existing U.S. law demands that the Administration cut funding to the Palestinian Authority if it initiates or actively supports an investigation into Israeli nationals at the ICC. But Senator Paul's bill would go further by trying to require a cut-off of aid to the Palestinians simply for joining the ICC.
Sadly, Senator Paul seems to have made a cynical political calculation that a good way to inoculate himself from neocon charges that he is soft in his so-called "support for Israel" is to be "more 'pro-Israel' than thou" in kicking Palestinians.
That is, Senator Paul appears to believe that kicking Palestinians even more thanNetanyahu and AIPAC is a freebie - that nobody worth caring about will bother to complain.
It would be a mitzvah to test whether Senator Paul's presumption is correct in this case. After all, the International Criminal Court has a lot of support among human rights groups. Some of these groups, like Amnesty International, have real troops. If you support the International Criminal Court, it follows logically that you support more countries joining it, and support the right of every country to join it.
What if a bunch of us tried to complain? Maybe, like with the "rebellious peers" in the Milgram experiment who refuse to crank up the voltage on the "learner", it would have a knock-on effect, and the rebellion would spread. Maybe Amnesty International would speak up. "Better to light one candle than curse the darkness." You can add your voice here.
The above originally appeared at Truthout.
Why did you post this Robert. A libertarian should want as many trigger points as possible to cut off government spending. I'm not a fan of Rand and love your work exposing him for who he is, but this bill seems like a very good thing to me.
ReplyDelete"People who are still sure that Rand Paul offers a meaningful alternative to Hillary...".
ReplyDeleteThe point of the original article is to shatter any illusions that may exist among the Rand supporters.
Unless there was a constitutional amendment that slipped by me, it is still a violation of said document to give away the contents of the government's treasury, regardless of the cause's worthiness. Anyone who has any doubt about this can find a story online, usually slugged "sockdolager" about a congresscritter who encountered a farmer who knew the Constitution better than the critter, and was told not to waste his time campaigning there, because the farmer wouldn't ever vote for him again (the sockdolager). The congresscritter subsequently was re-elected after admitting his error to a congregation of farmers, and went on to shoot down future attempts of Congress at giving away money.
ReplyDeleteThe story may be available at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/political_reading_room/conversations/messages/1 if Yahoo is having a good day. If not, you might have to join my read-only group to read it. Either way, you'll probably find other interesting things there, as well.