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"Protectionism is conservative if you don't believe me just read about George Washington and the first congress."

I don't even know where to begin with this statement. If you would like history, then I'll give you one. The Smoot/Hawley act. This was unbridled protectionism and is universally credited with taking America from a deep recession into a full blown depression that lasted for the next 12 years.

"This year, we have it within our power to take a major step toward a growing global economy and an expanding cycle of prosperity: the historic free trade agreement negotiated between our country and Canada. And I can also tell you that we're determined to expand this concept, south as well as north. Our goal must be a day when the free flow of trade, from the tip of Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle, unites the people of the Western Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange."

From Ronald Reagan's 1988 state of the union address....

>I don't even know where to begin with this statement. If you would like history, then I'll give you one. The Smoot/Hawley act. This was unbridled protectionism and is universally credited with taking America from a deep recession into a full blown depression that lasted for the next 12 years.

First off it was the new deal that kept the depression going for 12 years. Recessions/Depressions are deflationary periods from debt bubbles and due to the slow pace of the defaults it took forever to end in the US. Germany by contrast went full protectionism and hyper-inflated away their debts and got back to work in a few short years. Secondly thanks to our massive protectionism we had enough industrial capacity to arm the entire world against Hitler. Lots of people credit the Russians for beating the 3ed Reich, but it was American arms, American trucks, and American airplanes that the Russians won with. We've thrown all that industrial power away.