The Frugal Libertarian

Obama’s foreign policy is quickly becoming exactly what I expected; a slightly less belligerent version of Bush’s foreign policy.  Sure he signed a executive order to close the prison at Gitmo, but then he ordered drone attacks in Pakistan.  So while he believes we shouldn’t hold prisoners indefinitely without a trial, he appears to have no problem with murdering children.

Even Obama’s Inaugural address sounded eerily familiar as Jon Stewart so brilliantly points out on the Daily Show.

When will people wake up to the fact that liberals and so called conservatives, Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. They all want to expand our empire abroad and expand the power of the government here at home.   Both are incompatible with liberty and neither will make us more safe or secure. Even though it sounds prettier when it comes from Obama’s mouth, it is still as dangerous as when it was coming from Bush.

This makes me want to puke.  That is all I have to say about it.

This is only funny because the solution SNL offers is so obvious, yet many are oblivious to this type of common sense.

I have never really had strong feelings either way on who had the most legitimate complaints, the Israelis or the Palestinians.  It seems to me that if you have been fighting for as long as these two groups have been fighting, then neither group can have much righteousness left to stand on.  The only opinion that I have ever really had is that the United States should stay out of the disputes, which of course is also my opinion for any disputes around the world.  With that said, I am personally saddened by the Israaelis’ recent bombing and invasion of Gaza.  I am also outraged that both Israel and Hamas are targeting civilians.

The argument in support of Israels decision to attack has been that ”they have a right to defend themselves”.  I would agree.  People or their proxies have a right to defend themselves from aggression, but that defense should be proportional to the threat.  If someone was driving by and shooting at my house everyday, it would be morally justified for me to find those responsible and use force to stop the assaults.  But, if I was not sure who was doing the shooting, but knew generally where they lived, I would not be morally justified in blowing up the entire neighborhood hoping I get the people doing the crime.  This is essentially what Israel is now doing. 

The rockets being shot into Israel from Gaza are homemade Qassam rockets.  They are relatively ineffective, killing 24 people in the last decade.  Those 24 people deserve justice and the murderers who launched the rockets should be held accountable, but reigning down  bombs on 1.5 million civilians is not a just way to punish these murderers.  The Israelis are clearly violating the idea of proportionality as it pertains to Just War Theory.  The evil produced from their attacks seems to greatly out way the evil that they are trying to prevent.  You can judge for yourself.  Here are pictures from Gaza (these are very graphic) and here are pictures from the Qassam rocket attacks.

The saddest part of the whole mess is that this war will do little to make Israel more safe.  Most likely it will have the exact opposite affect.  Babies are dying in the street, and for what?   

Since I saw the photos I posted above I have held my baby girl just a little longer and a little tighter before I lay her down to sleep.  I am thankful that I can sleep well tonight knowing that the chance that bombs will fall on her while she sleeps are quite slim.  I just wonder how long that will remain our reality here in the U.S. if we continue to give unconditional support to Israel.