Generous hands, or leaky pockets?

Chatted with J-Merm on a number of subjects today, one of them being Ron Paul and the fact that his media presence has virtually none of the penetration of the "major" candidates. That being said, Josh mentioned seeing some coverage of Barack taking a dump on the principles of the Founders shooting hoops for about 10 minutes. So, there's that.

Tying into another discussion about Africa and wondering how many *insert random noun*-Aid tribute CDs it will take to get those folks fed (I guess Sally Struthers keeps eating it all), I wondered aloud about the reasoning behind our so-called foreign-aid obligations.

Philosophically, what's the justification for foreign aid? Humanitarianism? What, aren't there enough "underprivileged" citizens Stateside? Sound-bite viability? As a voter, I'm much more inclined to care about getting domestic problems solved than I am international. Liberal credibility? Ah; that's probably it.

I cannot figure out why it makes sense to drain billions of dollars into 3rd-world countries - just to see it get misappropriated by local thugs - when our currency is devalued every day in the global economy because of our mind-blowing national debt.

One of Ron Paul's core directives is fiscal responsibility; fixing our economic problems would pretty much...fix our problems. As a country. Done. Instead, we're inundated with insidious plans for more spending, more bureaucracy, more expansion, more debt, more obligation...

I guess the best I can hope for is to have fiscal responsibility in my home, no matter what economic direction my country takes.