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To: Puddleglum
Let's see, I've forgotten: the Chinese don't have a Bill of Rights or basic human freedoms, do they? They re-educate Christians, right? How is sending them so much capital different from buying cotton from the antebellum South?

Jimmy Carter had the same feelings. So he proposed restricting trade with countries who don't govern themselves the way we do.

Which is, of course, always a personal option.

65 posted on 07/11/2005 8:47:10 AM PDT by Protagoras (Now that the frog is fully cooked, how would you like it served?)
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To: Protagoras
Jimmy Carter had the same feelings. So he proposed restricting trade with countries who don't govern themselves the way we do. Which is, of course, always a personal option.

I think a country that proclaims its goal to be 'promoting democracy' should have this sort of thread in woven into its trade policy. We would not have the argument that 'American workers can't compete against China (in term of labor costs)' if this were the case.

I don't think it's right to expect American workers or businesses to compete against what amounts to slave labor.

And yes, individuals can reflect such a belief in their own purchasing decisions. But foreign policy and trade policy can do a little something to help ensure that individuals have access to affordable alternatives to slave-labor produced goods. If we allow our markets to be flooded with slave-manufactured goods, local alternatives vanish.

I admit it's a fine line between protecting US industry and protecting the apathy of some industries/workers, but the matter of promoting civil rights abroad ought to be one clear test. Otherwise we should get out of the democracy business and pry it off as the hood ornament of US foreign policy.

71 posted on 07/11/2005 9:03:06 AM PDT by Puddleglum (Thank God the Boston blowhard lost)
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