Re: Idiot Bush

Robert Sturgeon wrote: 
On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 19:34:03 -0800, Stuart Grey
<stuart.grey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(snips)


You're ignoring the tragedy of the commons in your free trade protests. 


No, I'm not.  The "tragedy of the commons" is an argument
AGAINST the commons.  People will abuse property they don't
own themselves.

There is always a commons. In this case, the commons are good jobs for all the nations citizens, the commons is clean air and water.

Your argument is that it is fair and good to export jobs from places where these costs must be paid for, to places where they don't have to be. For example, you move a job from the United States, where you have to meet OSHA laws and pay disability to injured workers, to Vietnam where if the worker gets her hands cut off in one of your machines, you can fire her and hire another pair of hands.

You want to move the factory from where it cannot polute, to a country where it has no restrictions on polution.

You call this good, I don't.

We have built a fine society and a powerful economy that enriches us all by protecting our enviroment, making laws to prevent the expolitation of our children and to educate them. Your "free trade" ignores the cost of doing that and assumes it to be "good". 


My "free trade" recognizes that trade results in a net gain
by the people involved, since free trade only occurs when
the parties to the trading both (or all) see an advantage to
doing it.  If there is no advantage to doing a trade, sane
people don't do it.


You're not addressing the issue, you're repeating idealistic theory.

No, we the people have the natural right to shut our borders to the unrestrained free trade, export of American jobs, and exploitation of child labor that you advocate to be a good thing.


Other than that "exploitation of child labor" bit,
unrestrained free trade IS a Good Thing. Exploitation of
child labor? We've banned it because we can afford to ban
it. Who are we to try to force poor foreigners, who can't
afford to ban it, to ban it?

Interesting justification moving jobs from the US to places where child labor can be exploited.

What if the other country where you were exporting American jobs simply kept slaves? Is free trade still okay? Would you, for example, move your factory to one of Stalin's or Hitler's death camps? Lots of free or very cheap labor there.

When they're more successful,
they'll ban it, just as every other successful economy has
banned it.  As for "American jobs," it is a myth.  There is
no job OWNED by any American.  We no longer do some jobs we
used to do, and we now do jobs no one used to do, because
those jobs didn't exist.  The net result is that we are
better off than at any time in the past.

So, now you justify destroying the American economy. That, too, is okay. Freedom, who needs it when you can make a buck?!

Yes, we can shut ourselves off from foreign trade and
foreign competition.  By doing so, we would be shutting
ourselves off from export opportunities and all the rest of
the advantages to be had trading with the rest of the world.
We would end up much poorer - a backwater with high
unemployment and a stagnant economy - like Bolivia or some
other such damned place.

This country was built and became a super power mostly in isolation with a small amount of trade. Our civil war was fought not to free the slaves, but to keep foreign goods OUT of the United States.

We would not end up poorer, but richer. This is what history has proven for the last 200+ years.

I notice that many of the same people who rail against
illegal aliens also rail against the free trade that would
allow those illegal aliens to make a living in their home
countries.  What do you people want?  To force them to
starve by not allowing them to work anywhere at all?

I don't give a rats ass about the poor little brown people in Mexico. I care about the United States, as I should, being an American. I would encourage the Mexicans to build their country, just as I encourage Americans to build the United States. Mexico and mexicans are NOT my concern, and the day that the United States government is more concerned about Mexicans and the welfare of Mexico is the day we pack those bastards up and ship them off to Mexico, and get a government by Americans FOR Americans.

.