Dar al Islam
 

Fear not.

SF is so damn looney you guys hardly count as Americans. I don't see this wave sweeping our nation.

S_A_M

Dar al Islam
 

We can only hope. But even in the cradle of our country, stupid changes are continually being made, such as the following (first story):

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,230612,00.html

eta: It's 100 years, not 60. And here is another story with more historical background.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...JiNjZlZWFiY2E=

And the goofy Republicans, too
 

I've been too busy watching Mitt Romney get all excited about his near comical campaign trying to ban gay marriage in Massachusetts. The sight of Mitt with a bunch of Christian right nuts chanting on the steps of the Statehouse is priceless. Especially for those of us who remember when he made pandering to social liberals a cornerstone of his Gubernatorial campaign.

Slave, you're the big Mitt fan. What do you think of making pandering to the religious right the cornerstone of his Presidential run?

free trade
 

Yeah, fuck those rich, complacent Americans and their desire for economic security. This country would be a lot better off if it were more like the places where those people on the boats come over from. So we could all stay hungry, like.

Penske is a lefty creative type?

Reason #412
 

To hate the women's christian temp . . . er, MADD


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061120/...nken_driving_1


A bigger threat to civil liberties than W.

And the goofy Republicans, too
 

Didn't he get the memo? Pandering to the right is so pre-Nov. 7.

And the goofy Republicans, too
 

pandering is necessary up to the nomination. McCain went anti-abortion, and he'll probably go anti-gay- this from a guy who spent 4 or 5 years in stir.

free trade
 

In fairness, I have no problem with programs like welfare or Medicaid, which provide necessary base necessities every person, regardless of station, ought to have. I just can't wrap my arms around this "economic parity" argument people like Webb throw out there. They point to the New Deal as some glorious watershed moment where all learned that collective programs could overcome economic disparity. I didn't read the same textbooks those people read. I thought the New Deal was a lamentable road out of the Depression. And I thought its programs were still unproven experiments of sorts, that have provided on the balance solid results, but the sustainability of which have yet to be tested.

Bush's push to have personally directed accounts was a good idea because it introduced the notion of self control to the equation. It's not a bad thing at all to introduce a lot of the people in this country to the market and individual money management. Sounds like a good educational program to me. Why is anyone who suggests self-reliance or self-responsibility such an ogre in this country?

BTW, why shouldn't our workers be forced to compete against foreign labor? Are we special? Why do we have a duty to sustain a standard of living for massive amounts of people which the world market has already made impossible? If the ultimate result will always be American workers losing (since there is nothing that can be done to avoid globalization's effects), why not get the convulsive societal change over with now? I hear so many Democrats talking about passing debt onto our children, but they're conspicuously absent when the debate changes to taking our globalization lumps now versus defering them to our children by with protectionist measures.

free trade
 

As i have proven (I believe it was wins 168 and 278), the American workers themselves made the choice to ruin their ability to be overpaid relative to the rest of the world. That did that when they all bought Japanese cars starting in the 70s and 80s.

free trade
 

I think the question is not should they compete but instead what should the playing field look like.

For example, our companies adhere to child labor laws. Other countries do not.

Do we say, hey, that's free trade, and it saves money, so let's let Walmart bring in all the products made with child labor? Or do we either restrict those goods or impose duties to reverse the benefits of using child labor?

free trade
 

By all means, you try to avoid the products of a slave labor producer like that. But that's not addressing my point. I was talking about protectionism.

Nothing like sliding down the ole' slippery slope!
 

But of course child labor as an issue is just a set-up. You've conceded that we should tie restrictions on imports of some nature to achieving social goals, so you've abandoned the pure free market approach to the world.

We have laws protecting rights to organize. Do you accord the same status to such laws as to our child-labor laws? Or is there a reason these laws don't have the same status (I know Spanky's reason - unions are all evil).

Likewise, the cost of goods sold by US companies incorporates the costs of the social security system -- other country's goods do not include such costs. Should we do anything to equalize this disparity?

In principal, you're ready to restrict trade for certain purposes. How do you draw the line between different purposes?

Or, are there free-marketeers out there ready to advocate for a pure free market?

Nothing like sliding down the ole' slippery slope!
 

I'm willing to advocate for free trade combined with other mechanisms of persuading countries with "backwards" labor restrictions to come along. E.g., we spent years negotiating environmental restrictions (not that we joined the kyoto protocol), why not similar discussions re child labor?

I'm not troubled by moving labor-intensive industries to places where child labor is cheap and plentiful.

Nothing like sliding down the ole' slippery slope!
 

Don't hurt your arm patting yourself on the back. If it was your aim to "set me up," all you had to do was ask point blank. I'd have told you I agree that child labor is deplorable and we should avoid trade with countries that use it.

Avoiding child labor and protecting social security are not at all like one another. BTW, can you privide me the bridge you use to make the quantum leap that we need trade protectionism to protect SS? And I'm also missing the significance of comparing the right to organize with child labor laws. Looks to me like you're engaged in debate tactics rather than actually addressing the simple issue, which I've already conceded. Yes, I think the free market has limits. If your aim was to cast me as a less than pure libertarian, congrats on uncovering the obvious.

I don't think protecting a middle class entitlement is at all comparable to working to avoid the expansion of child labor beyond our borders. Technically, allowing tariffs that stem child labor does place me on a slippery slope, but we're all on slippery slopes, save the hypocrites among us. What was your point?

BTW, was your best argument to my position that protectionism is not warranted to protect entitlements to point out the insincerity of my belief in free markets by forcing me to say I disagree with child labor? Perhaps you can ask me my feelings about the Third Reich or cannibalism. You'd have done better just agreeing with me, or not posting at all.