November 9th, 2006
Go to Common Cause and petition Congress to require paper trails and better auditing. I know distrust of electronic voting is not just a partisan Democratic issue, so my challenge to the conservative and independent readership (who will no doubt want to avoid Common Cause) is to find a like-minded organization that’s lobbying for the same thing, and support similar initiatives through them. Let’s show Congress that all Americans care about fair, legal elections.
If you know of a conservative/libertarian/independent lobby that’s on this issue, let me know, and I’ll post a link.
Categories: Politics |
10 Comments
November 9th, 2006
Guilty as charged:
Categories: Doggie Bloggin', Holiday, Humor, Pets |
7 Comments
November 9th, 2006
Brutal Hugger, in comments here:
I don’t see the Dems blowing it by shifting hard left. I see them blowing it by a complete lack of vision, ideas, and plans.
Here’s hoping he’s wrong.
UPDATE: Commenter Brooklynite posts this run-down of the proposed Democratic legislative agenda. If they stick with this, lack of vision won’t be a problem. Of course, this must be an incomplete list, because I don’t see “free abortions for everyone” or “confiscate all the guns” anywhere on the list…
Categories: Politics |
16 Comments
November 9th, 2006
This is an odd little article by Jacob Weisberg. In it, Weisberg laments the fact that several Democrats won on rejecting the free trade notions of our elite consensus. Weisberg is convinced that this is a Bad Thing and will lead to Ruin and Despair. But he never says why. Not once, in the entire article, does Weisberg actually make an argument for why his position should be supported. He only addresses the question obliquely, and never engages the critics case.
For example, he says the new anti-free traders want to attack the world’s poor, not the corporations:
Nationalism begins from the populist premise that working people aren’t doing so well. But instead of blaming the rich at home, it focuses its energy on the poor abroad.
… For some reason, economic nationalists never seem to complain about job-killing Dutch or Irish competition. The targets of their anger are consistently China and Mexico, with occasionally whacks at Dubai, Oman, Peru, and Vietnam.
Weisberg’s tone suggests that anyone who questions free trade is a horrible, horrible person who wants to oppress the poor of the world. But he knows that is a gross distortion of anti-free trader positions. He provides no evidence that people want to focus its energy on the poor abroad except for their opposition to free trade agreements, as if they were a panacea for the ills of the poor abroad. Except, of course, that they are not and have never been. At a minimum, it is debatable as to whether or not free trade agreements help to third world workers more than they hurt them. And Weisberg knows that the reasons free trade agreements with Third World nations are more troublesome is that because fully industrialized nations have the same kind of legal, environmental, and worker protections that the US does, if not better. And that, in turn, means that competition is based on wages only at the margins, meaning that free trade with similar economies will not drag all wages down across the board.
Weisberg also ignores the primary question: why must helping Third World poor require that American workers be pauperized? In his contempt for people who would question his love of free trade agreements, he never faces that question directly. He barely even admits that it si a valid concern, mentioning it only at the end:
Clinton’s argument was always that government should address the negative consequences of open trade through worker retraining programs and by providing benefits not tied to employers, like health care and portable pensions. But that human-capital part of Clinton’s globalization agenda never went anywhere, which partially explains the current backlash.
Weisberg admits that there is a need to mitigate harm to workers and he admits that such mitigation is absent. But he never takes the next step and shows why Americans should approve of more free trade agreements when those agreements are going to put them in the poor house without help that Weisberg himself admits doesn’t exist.
Weisberg is not making an argument with this piece. He is just wagging his finger and scolding anyone who would dare to question the elite consensus on free trade agreements. People have legitimate questions about free trade, starting with why should American workers — people whose hard work has built the physical, legal, and economic infrastructure that now allows companies to offshore their jobs — consent to free trade agreements if they are going to be ruined by them? Even if free trade agreements are the best route for lifting the world’s poor out of poverty — something far from proven — Weisberg would be better off trying to explain to American workers why they and they alone should pay all the costs for that uplift. The fact that he spent hundreds of words doing nothing but wagging his finger in the faces of those who raise those questions is strong evidence that he doesn’t have a good explanation.
Worry less about those with legitimate concerns about their future, Mr. Weisberg, and more about helping them secure their future and I think you will see the end of your dreaded “economic nationalism” as a political force. Keep pretending that a scold is the same as a reasoned argument, however, I can guarantee that you will help usher in the very era of protectionism that you seem so fearful of.
Categories: Economics, Politics |
3 Comments
