CAFTA Should Be Rejected, Just Like the EU Constitution

Eco Logic Powerhouse ^ | 15 Jul 05 | Phyllis Schlafly

[hedgetrimmer]

but fully support them giving billions of taxpayer money (corporate welfare) to inefficient and rich sugar beet farmers

I have never said this.

But since you brought it up, why did you use the adjective "rich" to describe sugar beet farmers? The democrats,leftists and communists like to create class schisms when they are pushing their agenda, why would you?

Why do you call a price support program 'corporate welfare', but you don't call "spending to increase trade" corporate welfare, when corporations are the beneficiaries of the 'government spending'?

It doesn't matter how much the government spends on trade capacity building. Its just plain wrong. The USTR is lying to the American people, because trade capacity building is foreign aid. They have tried to hide the unconstitutionality of this program from the American people by giving it a different name. Its becoming more and more clear just how think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the CFR have corrupted our system of government and hijacked it for their own purposes.

[n-tres-ted]

Well there's absolutely nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to allow anyone but them to negotiate trade. That means no USTR doing it, no president with fast track authority and no WTO, NAFTA or CAFTA or FTAA, or AAFTA or any other TA.

Congress passes the statute that provides for fast track negotiations through a trade representative. If Congress doesn't pass the statute, it can't happen. I support the fast track approach, because it is the only efficient way these important agreements can be carefully evaluated and negotiated. I do not believe originalist interpretation of the Constitution requires otherwise.

[hedgetrimmer]

Congress passes the statute that provides for fast track negotiations through a trade representative

Congress really doesn't have the authority to violate the separation of powers, any more than the president or the supreme court does.

Their statute is null and void in the constitutional interpretation of their authority.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Thanks for the factual information.

There is also one other hidden beneficiary behind the high tariffs on sugar besides the sugar beet and sugar cane farmers. That is Archer Daniels Midland who benefit by many government protections and subsidies. Specifically relating to sugar, tariffs keep the price of sugar so high that most volume users like the soft drink and candy makers use corn syrup instead. Who is the largest producer of corn? Not the dear old family farmer. Who is behind the uneconomical insistence on ethanol in gasoline? Not your friendly gas station operator. Why does milk cost twice as much as gasoline? Not because of the small dairyman.

These trade agreements eliminate the influence of many special interest groups.

[hedgetrimmer]

The codex Alimentariu is an example of our loss of sovereignty.It is not metioned in the NAFTA because it was chartered AFTERWARDS to be the global food sanition regulatory body. It was created by the WTO (which describes itself as a subsidiary organization to the WTO), to "harmonize" sanitary and phytosanitary food regulations. "Harmonization" means standardizing US rules downward to the lowest standard country in whatever FTA we sign. It is an UNELECTED committee that answers to the UN and the WTO. The only way the US has representation here is to send people as parts of "working groups". In the old days (before the WTO) our FDA and congressional subcommittees determined food safety standards. The private individual could always contact their congressional representatives and have input. The people who are assigned to "working groups" are almost always industry professionals or employed by NGOs. This fits the model for "civil governance" developed by the United Nations to take power away from individual citizens and sovereign nations and give it over to the groups I mentioned earlier-- corporations and NGOs who are much more amenable to the interests of the United Nations.

Do you see how this affects our constitutional right to elected representation and our right to SELF government? Do you see how "civil governance" is a power transfer from citizens and nations, to corporations and NGOs?

CAFTA anf the EU: Codex Alimentarius

The UN/WTO Codex criminalizes vitamins, supplements and herbs (Take Action)

The CODEX/CAFTA documentary - We Become Silent

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Along the line of our earlier exchange, we hear a constant litany of complaints about lost jobs, outsourcing, trade deficits, increasing national debt, cheap goods from sweat shops and slave labor, jobs being lost to illegal immigrants, and on and on. There seems to be no recognition that the facts bely that. Our economy is booming, unemployment is at a near record low, the national debt is going down, the dollar is climbing, and the "cheap goods" are rapidly out selling and out lasting our own homemade products.

The people who complain the most are the ones, or are effected by the propaganda of the ones, who put us at a competitive disadvantage to start with - the leftists unions and economic policies put in place by the same Congress they now want to save us. Add to that the trial lawyers who are the enforces for said group.

Without the competition from outside we will drown in the same anti-business and anti-freedom policies that have been growing for seventy years.

[hedgetrimmer]

See #85

[Cultural Jihad]

Our economy is booming, unemployment is at a near record low, the national debt is going down, the dollar is climbing, and the "cheap goods" are rapidly out selling and out lasting our own homemade products.

If that is the sky falling, I hope it continues for a very long time. ;-)

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I don't find anything to dispute in what you say.

I, in turn, agree with all you say. We are a majority of two. :-)

I am not sure about the steel tariffs either nor did I like the idea.

A problem we have is that we must maintain enough heavy industry for national defense. As I have often said, we would be competitive and would not be losing these industries but for our own self-inflicted wounds. We must harness the labor unions and anti-business, anti-American leftist in our midst in order to do that. Otherwise all is lost anyway as the perps are more friends with the enemy than with us.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Thanks to the links but I have gone to that site before and I simply have no confidence in what they say and, shades of Karl Rove, I would advise you not to drink the Kool Aid either.

I think our FDA standards and many others should be loosened and can be done so without any danger to our health. The same with environmental and safty standards. Many are not only unnecessary but they do more harm than good. If you would like a little education along that line, as well as a good read on free enterprise, get John Stossel's new book, "Give Me a Break". He sites many examples he has run across in his years of reporting on such things.

That is another benefit of these agreements, the break the bonds with which our own leftists have shackled us.

[hedgetrimmer]

I think our FDA standards and many others should be loosened and can be done so without any danger to our health

You are completely missing the point unless you think that the Codex Alimentarius should be making the changes for us. That would put you squarely into the anti-sovereignty full on globalist class.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I simply believe that we will not enter into, nor if we did, stay in, any arrangement that will take our sovereignty. That is unless the Democrats regain power. That is right down their ally. Otherwise, any attempts at that we would reject.

I don't believe all this Tri-Lateral Commission, Committee of Foreign Relations, Bilderberg, Jewish bankers, etc., secret cabal running the world and this sounds a lot like that.

As I said in a post just above, look at the facts of today's economy and compare that to all the naysaying about GATT, NAFTA, the WTO, etc. It just ain't true. If you guys want to go around fretting over boogymen behind every rock, have at it. I don't see them.

[inquest]

As I figured. No mention of the EU anywhere in that post. I brought it up for a reason, but the fact that you didn't even respond to it illustrates how uncomfortable you are with that example.

[inquest]

I simply believe that we will not enter into, nor if we did, stay in, any arrangement that will take our sovereignty. That is unless the Democrats regain power.

So you believe that our politicians (unless they're Democrats) are always looking out for our best interests. Do you think that the EU has infringed on the sovereignty of its member states? Are you aware that the "Conservative" party in Britain has also been part of the push for European integration, along with Labor? I don't understand what makes you guys think the letter R somehow makes politicians more noble and more willing to scrupulously serve the public interest.

I don't believe all this Tri-Lateral Commission, Committee of Foreign Relations, Bilderberg, Jewish bankers, etc.

Only the fourth item on your list has no basis in anything. Obviously you just threw it in there as a way of tarnishing the believability of the other three (a very common Leninist tactic, by the way). The other three exist as a matter of public record, and they do have members high up in both parties (as well as in the media and corporate worlds), and they do conduct meetings in secret. This isn't just a "theory"; it's plainly acknowledged fact.

Whether or not they actually do engage in any sort of conspiring is of course anybody's guess, but the opportunity certainly is there.

[Mase]

The Constitution was written in plain language so everyone could understand it.

So your answer would be that there is no settled or pending legal challenges to fast track. Should tell you everything you need to know.

[n-tres-ted]

As I figured. No mention of the EU anywhere in that post. I brought it up for a reason, but the fact that you didn't even respond to it illustrates how uncomfortable you are with that example.

I'm just not sure which path the EU is on these days. I don't like the EU constitution, that's for sure. But at least the various governments have permitted people to vote on the issue, rather than just impose the new government. All of that shows again the great good fortune we have inherited from the contributions by Hamilton and others in the form of our Constitution. Yet our Constitution survives only to the extent the S.Ct. permits it. We have to fight hard to keep it. But EU is not the worst situation in the world, and it has actually improved the monetary situation in Europe with a more stable euro. I just don't think it is the only inevitable pattern we have to follow in America.

[Paul Ross]

I simply believe that we will not enter into, nor if we did, stay in, any arrangement that will take our sovereignty.

How about the Law of the Sea Treaty? And when was the last time any politicians took credit for implementing NAFTA? What about the factual examples of the WTO running roughshod over explicit U.S. internal policies? WTO Overrules U.S. Environmental Law

Another Blow from the WTO

[Mase]

I have never said this

If I wanted to take the time and look I could find numerous threads where you have strongly defended price supports (welfare) for sugar beet and cane farmers.

But since you brought it up, why did you use the adjective "rich" to describe sugar beet farmers?

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the price-support system will pay $2.1 billion during the next 10 years, or an average of $351,170 for each of the 5,980 sugar-beet and sugar- cane farms listed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's more than $35,000 a year of your tax dollars for every farmer producing sugar from sugar beets which is by far the most inefficient method of producing sucrose in the world.

Every year each farmer receives an average of $35,000 in payments. You're going to have a hard time pleading a case that sugar beet and sugar cane farmers are not rich when they sell their product at two or three times the world price and are protected from all competition..

Why do you call a price support program 'corporate welfare', but you don't call "spending to increase trade" corporate welfare,

For the record, I am opposed to any use of taxpayer money to support businesses. I will however, make the distinction between what is welfare and what I consider investment spending. By spending to increase trade, there will be a return on that spending in the form of increased business, jobs and tax revenue. There is no such return with price supports. With price supports the taxpayer gets screwed twice.

If what you're concerned about is government waste, you should be campaigning against the vast entitlement programs that take a larger share of the pie every year.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

So you believe that our politicians (unless they're Democrats) are always looking out for our best interests. Do you think that the EU has infringed on the sovereignty of its member states? Are you aware that the "Conservative" party in Britain has also been part of the push for European integration, along with Labor?

That is called extending the premise, a logical fallacy and "common Leninist tactic". Just because I don't think the Republicans will give up our sovereignty doesn't mean I believe all that other stuff.

I don't understand what makes you guys think the letter R somehow makes politicians more noble and more willing to scrupulously serve the public interest.

That's an easy one. In this present crop they simply are. Conservatives by nature are honest and liberals by nature are liars. Period.

Only the fourth item on your list has no basis in anything.

If you aren't aware that the idea of a cabal of Jewish bankers secretly running the world has been around almost as long as banks and Jews then you are either very young or are very sheltered from conspiracy theories.

Obviously you just threw it in there as a way of tarnishing the believability of the other three (a very common Leninist tactic, by the way).

Obviously you just threw that in to try to discredit me personally, a common Leninist tactic.

The other three exist as a matter of public record, and they do have members high up in both parties (as well as in the media and corporate worlds), and they do conduct meetings in secret. This isn't just a "theory"; it's plainly acknowledged fact.

Yeah, well I happen to know that the Masons run everything and plan it all in their secret meetings. Those other three are just misdirection.

Whether or not they actually do engage in any sort of conspiring is of course anybody's guess, but the opportunity certainly is there.

Look how adamant you were at first, even accusing me of Communists affiliations, only to wimp out at the end and admit you really don't know what the heck you are talking about. You could have saved us all a lot of time by lurking.

[Mase]

These trade agreements eliminate the influence of many special interest groups.

Excellent points! ADM, price fixers to the world, and Cargill have a heavily vested interest in keeping the price of sugar high and driving sales of their corn syrup products. Dumbing down the quality of so many food products was another unintended consequence of these absurd supports.