When you have to read it twice

Farah on Buchanan:

I believe foreign aid is immoral and unconstitutional. I believe it is wrong to redistribute money confiscated by force from U.S. taxpayers to any foreign government. As a freedom-loving constitutionalist who still believes in limited government as envisioned by our Founding Fathers, I believe it is wrong to confiscate money by force from U.S. citizens for the purpose of redistributing it – even inside the United States. I’m incredulous, frankly, when any so-called “conservative” – neo or paleo – attempts to justify such a thing. But for someone who calls himself a “conservative” to suggest that it is appropriate to give away U.S. taxpayer dollars to a terrorist quasi-government of a non-existent state that hates everything the United States stands for defies reason.

But that’s just what Pat Buchanan did yesterday in suggesting Hamas should be placed on “probation” with U.S. aid continuing to flow to the barbarian thugs and murderers who now control the Palestinian Authority – an entity, by the way, that has always been controlled by barbarian thugs and murderers.

It is flip-flops like this on matters of absolute principle by conservatives that has forced me to distance myself from all conservatives.

I’m completely with Joseph on this one. I like Mr. Buchanan, I think his Death of the West is one of the most important books to have been written in the last decade and I think his call for continued financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority – probationary or otherwise – is totally insane.

Americans should not be funding any foreign government, and of all the foreign-governments in the world, the Palestinian Authority should be near the bottom of the list.

On the other hand, I thought it was equally ludicrous for Clinton and Bush to be forcing American taxpayers to fund Arafat and Fatah, so I don’t see why funding for Hamas should be considered inherently more outrageous.