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That is fine, you are therefore willing to accept higher, in some cases much higher, prices for what you buy. The bottom line is your standard of living will decline and so will mine.

Please make sure you get everyone to agree to this before we start enacting any laws.

The answer is not protection, the answer is to compete.

Compete? Ya'll didn't get anyone to agree with you before this crap was trotted out on us. The majority of americans is against free trade at this point because they've seen what it means in action.. getting screwed so some US companies can profit from slave labor, devalue the currency, destroy income levels, put countless citizens out of work or at least knock them out of middle class income levels they worked just as hard as you to achieve.. of course none of this is sinking in. And the answer is protection. because the kind of competition you're advocating is us competing against .50 cents a day labor rates in third world countries. That is not competition, that is a rigged opportunisim seeking profit at the cost of the rest of the system. And Congress is already on record in disgust over how the Visas have been misused to create the same situations that free trade is fostering. Bottom line - Bush fixes this or he's a one term president. And you can shout to the heavens about being treated so unfairly as to not be able to put americans out of work, offshore their jobs and sell their product back into our economy under the fraudulent notion, as Congress has been misled to believe, that American workers were not available to fill the jobs. Not nice to lie to Congress. And I wouldn't blame Congress if they strapped you guys to cover the costs of those who's lives you've ruined by doing an attempted end run around equal protection. You should count yourselves lucky right now that nobody has yet pressed a class action lawsuite against all of you for violation of equal protection and demanding restitution.
From what I've seen so far, a pretty good case could be made.

79 - "The bottom line is your standard of living will decline and so will mine."

That's already happening, and has been happening for a number of years now, as wages have remained steady while prices have risen (unless you happen to be a rich CEO SOB).

The answer is not protection, the answer is to compete

Evidently you are not aware that the USA has the very best manufacturing technology in the world.

Given that, exactly on what basis do we "compete?"

Cost of labor.

Not a politically smart solution, and it defies the principles of Western civilization which just happens to value the worker---unless you agreed with those who opposed Lincoln's move to free the slaves.