Op-Eds

The US and the “Refugee Crisis”: Three Complaints, One Solution

1 Comment
Syrian refugees arrive on a dinghy after crossing from Turkey to Lesbos island, Greece, Sept 9, 2015. (Public domain image from Freedom House)
Syrian refugees arrive on a dinghy after crossing from Turkey to Lesbos island, Greece, Sept 9, 2015. (Public domain image from Freedom House)

I oppose president Barack Obama’s plan to import and re-settle 10,000 Syrian refugees at American taxpayers’ expense. But hey, I’m a libertarian. It’s hard to find a government program I DO support.

On the other hand, as the old saying goes, “you break it, you buy it.” Sort of, anyway. The warmongering politicians (of both parties — yes, I’m looking at you, Mrs. Clinton) do the breaking and stick us with the check, then we spend money cleaning up after them too. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria … make no mistake about it, the “refugee crisis” is THEIR mess.

And finally, yes, it sticks in my craw to hear those same “bomb’em all, let God sort’em out” demagogues turn on a dime and grandstand on an over-hyped danger fantasy over letting a handful of their victims escape the American-made carnage and make a fresh start in America itself. If God is just, there’s a very warm corner of hell for that particular variety of hypocrite.

So there are my three complaints: The US role in creating the problem, the hypocrisy among the foremost cheerleaders for creating the problem, and running the additional expense of making very small amends for the problem through those same warmonger tax-and-spenders.

Enough complaining, Tom — how about a solution! Hey, as it happens, I have one.

Let’s assume reasonable expenses for helping 10,000 refugees get to the US, settle in and become productive immigrants. How about $100,000 each, just to be on the safe high side? (Note: I’m omitting the cost of security theater “vetting”  — let the War Party nutjobs pay for that nonsense out of THEIR own pockets)

$100,000 times 10,000 is, lemme hit my calculator … one billion dollars. Call it $3.50 per American citizen.

The US Department of “Defense” spends more than that EVERY DAY busting up the places these people are fleeing from, so it really wouldn’t be a major budget item, would it? But I still think letting the government handle it is a bad idea.

We’re a giving nation. I don’t see any problem with rounding up a billion dollars through our churches and other charitable institutions. That would come to $14 from my family of four. Heck,  we’ll go $21. Donald Trump’s and Marco Rubio’s shares are on us, just to deprive them of excuses for more drama queen antics.

So how about it? Who else is in?

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Campus Carry: Will Florida Legislators Do The Right Thing?

Leave a comment

Woman Being Stalked (stock photo from Pond5)

Florida’s “campus carry” bill, approved by the state’s House Judiciary Committee on November 19,  would allow students who are 21 or older, and who possess special government permission slips (concealed carry “licenses”), to go armed on the state’s public college and university campuses. Pretty weak tea, but better than nothing. The legislature should pass the bill as soon as it hits the floor in January, then come back to improve it (by eliminating the age limit and the “license” requirement) as soon as humanly possible.

Yes, I just said that the bill, as written, is too restrictive. Neither violent crime, nor the inalienable human right to self-defense (which happens to have been recognized in the US Constitution for 224 years now as the right “to keep and bear arms,” with no mention of “licenses”), magically disappear when one crosses the line separating a college campus from the rest of the world.

And yes, I know some people disagree. But this issue is not suffused with nuance. One side is clearly right, the other is clearly wrong. Supporters of victim disarmament (they call it “gun control” to avoid the public shame and embarrassment involved in saying what they actually mean) offer a number of supposed arguments for their position. All of those arguments boil down to this claim:

“It is better for a University of Florida co-ed to be mugged, beaten, raped and strangled to death with her own pantyhose than for her to carry a hunk of metal that triggers irrational fear on my part.”

Did I say that one side here is clearly right and the other side is clearly wrong? Pardon me while I correct myself: One side here is clearly good and the other side is clearly evil, or insane, or both.

This isn’t complicated, folks: You can support the right to self-defense, or you can support letting rapists and murderers have their way with the innocent victims you’ve disarmed for their convenience. It’s one or the other, and there is no in-between.

If the legislature passes this bill, Florida will become the ninth state to partially and imperfectly step out of the fantasy world in which victim disarmers would have our children live — or, more to the point, die — as the price of pursuing their educations. Florida should have been first. Florida should go further. And the other 41 states should follow.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Paris: No Grave Too Warm for the Political Class to Dance On

Leave a comment

Arc De Triomphe

For a columnist or pundit, there’s no greater temptation than to get something written — Quick! Now! — about the latest, greatest, deadliest catastrophe. After all, if it bleeds it leads.

I felt that urge the night of the Paris terror attacks. For once, I resisted. I wanted more information. I wanted to see how the usual suspects responded. I wanted to see whether or not my own immediate assumptions and predictions would hold up before I held forth.

Unfortunately, my assumptions and predictions turned out to be spot-on. The American and European political classes didn’t bother waiting for the bodies to cool — or, for that matter, to even be counted — before commencing their triumphant dance on the graves. The attacks may have been unexpected, but they certainly weren’t unwelcome. The political class immediately pivoted from a pro forma parody of normal peoples’ heartfelt condemnation to special pleading for more power.

Within hours, prominent War Party mouthpiece (and former US ambassador to the United Nations) John Bolton rushed out a piece on “four important lessons we must learn” from the attacks. Predictably, “never trust John Bolton with any decision more consequential than ordering pizza, and even then be watchful lest ye end up with anchovies” didn’t make the cut.

CIA director John Brennan and his predecessor, James Woolsey, blame whistleblower Edward Snowden for the attacks. Snowden crashed the US intelligence community’s illegal surveillance party. If only state apparatchiks had all the unaccountable and unlimited power state apparatchiks wanted, we’d all be safe, see?

Who should we blame for the murder and mayhem in Paris? Of course — OF COURSE! — the evil individuals who planned and carried out the attacks.

But when the prescriptions of an identifiable American ideological tendency  — call it “neoconservatism,” call it “hawkishness,” call it “interventionism,” call it whatever you like — can irrefutably be observed to have culminated in the horror of 9/11, the quagmire in Afghanistan, the debacle in Iraq, the fiasco in Libya, the rise of the Islamic State and innumerable other evils, at some point we should stop clapping in unison with their blood-soaked boogie-woogie and cease trusting to their highly questionable wisdom for solutions.

Americans and our European cousins face a stark choice: We can stop letting our political classes try to run the world, or we can keep letting the innocent pay in blood for our politicians’ hubris.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY