Why Foreign Aid Should be a Conservative Priority

It has always struck me that one of the constants of rural conservative anti-Washington beliefs has been foreign aid is wasted tax payer money and should be ended.

Yet, looking at the Year in Review pictures of 2015's events I was struck by the widespread sourcing of refugees on the move: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Central African Republic, miscellaneous other African countries, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Jamaica and no doubt I am missing some other significant sources.

Of course, what made America great is the movement of people in search of a better life and American welcoming them.  As the grandchild of 3 people born in Europe, 2 who migrated here as adults, I am very welcoming of anyone so courageous as to be willing to learn a new language and start over at the bottom in a new society with the belief that life here will be superior to life in the old country.

But as Europe has found out, there is a limit to how many people even a large society can absorb, and I know conservatives types will see a smaller number than I do as what that limit should be, but it cannot be zero unless the developed world uses diplomacy and foreign aid to help these source countries preserve a hope of economic opportunity in a peaceful setting.  If you don't have that, people will migrate from chaos to a rules based society.  That, after all, is the original purpose of religion.  Religion is how leaders 5000 years ago developed rules for society.  When there are no rules, chaos reigns and people want to live in a rules based society.  It is in our basic metaphoric DNA.

So, if you are a conservative person, and you want less rather than more human migration, you should be supporting more diplomacy and more foreign aid because that is how you will reduce human migration.  I realize, foreign aid can be wasted by corruption and that is why you cannot have an open check book for foreign aid; but borders cannot control millions of people who want to migrate with humane processes that respect the human condition if there is chaos where those people originate.

So, preventing chaos everywhere in this world should be a goal of developed world diplomacy and foreign aid.  That should be a basic tenant of any set of political beliefs.