Not hardly.
You simply believe that the U.S. can dictate the terms at will, and all others will oblige us. You may be correct in the very, very short term; we're pretty powerful right now.
We can control access to our markets 100%. We can control our own tax policies 100%. We can recast both and there is not a thing that the globalists can do to stop us if we as a People decide to do it.
Victoria's England thought the same thing, and thought it would last forever.
Wrong. England went whole-hog for Free Trade...and thought their economic supremacy would last forever. The Free Traders were proven definitively wrong. Free Trade destroyed their advantages. Some telling observations therein:
"The decline of England has always been a favorite for this kind of analysis. As the prominent commercial lawyer and judge Lord Penzance warned in 1886, "The advance of other nations into those regions of manufacture in which we used to stand either alone or supreme, should make us alive to the possible future. Where we used to find customers, we now find rivals....prudence demands a dispassionate inquiry into the course we are pursuing, in place of a blind adhesion to a discredited theory." The "discredited theory" to which Lord Penzance was referring is "free trade." England had adopted this doctrine when it had a substantial lead in the Industrial Revolution and wanted to open foreign markets for its exports. But as conditions changed, its leaders clung to policies that no longer fit world affairs.British historian D.C.M. Platt [Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy 1815-1914, Oxford University, 1968] has argued that the leaders of Victorian England were so devoted to "free trade" that they were willing to sacrifice their direct interests to this intellectual ideal. Another British historian, Keith Robbins [The Eclipse of a Great Power: Modern Britain 1870-1975, Longman, 1983] has written, "To a few contemporaries, this devotion was perverse. It seemed obvious that the world was not following Britain's Free Trade example. Germany introduced a measure of protection in 1879, France in 1882 and the United States in 1883 and 1900....But there was no British retaliation."
The failure to adapt in a dynamic world is a central weakness of thinking bound by ideology; i.e., the belief that some doctrine is so perfect that it fits all times and places. Such blind faith can lead people to reject another idea they know will work, because it does not fit their misplaced "values."
Empirically, these are just unassailable facts. I further commend to your attention Kicking Away the Ladder: The “Real” History of Free Trade by Ha-Joon Chang (Prof. Econ, Oxford University). Now on to your other points.
As I said:
I can only assume from this screed that you oppose enforcement of our intellectual property laws that protect our inventions, trademarks and writings. Admit it. You do. Such opposition by you is definitively unamerican.
You said:
Don't be ludicrous. What you are to infer from this "screed" is that knowledge is fungible. You can't recork the genie and you can't unring a bell. You cannot rely on the U.S. retaining control of knowledge in the public arena, so basing our assumed superior position on our knowledge base is a house on sand. Patented ideas in the hands of a foreign power last a nanosecond longer than it takes to reverse engineer them.
So I was right to surmise your position, not ludicrous at all. You don't believe in enforcing our intellectual property. And, hence, you don't believe in our country or its future...because you don't believe in our Constitutional Rights to protect our Intellectual property, or the right to control our own market access or regulate trade.
Age of Reason seemed to think we could maintain superiority over the "primitives" be leaving them mired in ignorance. That is an impossibility in an internet linked world or one that has international trade.
No trade that violates our laws protecting our own Intellectual Property needs be permitted. Especially if a nation wants access to the U.S. market. The Big Enchilada. Not China. The U.S.
I said:
Telecommunications and ideas are no threat to the U.S. Invasions of culturally unassimilables, forward deployments of sleeper cells and WMDs on our own soil, and economic predations by foreign governments are the threat...and they don't happen at lightspeed. They travel at footspeed for the former...and container ships for the latter.
You said:
Uh huh. Look up EMP sometime and imagine what it would to to the NYSE. Say, just outside the 12 mile limit.
Yes. But your example is precisely the thing I have been warning about since day one on Free Republic. And it supports my positions on trade structures, not yours. It's A Bona Fide MILITARY threat. One that we need to be spending dollars on hardening for. With SDI. With nodal-hardening of infrastructure. Of creating and restoring critical U.S.-industrial-capacity to rebuild and replace quickly damaged infrastructure. U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Az) has been repeatedly urging the Administration to spend a measley $15 billion to encourage and coordinate the hardening that needs to happen. And it appears to be falling on deaf ears. Homeland Security doesn't want to do anything about it. [Gee, where have we heard that before...? ]
So. Got any more examples of threats you want to venture that in fact fail to support the advantages of Globalism?
I said:
Yes you can. It's called regulation of trade and commerce and immigration...and its called Rule of Law. I'm sure you regard these as quaint ideas. I don't.
You said:
I think they are great ideas. Now explain how you can have them, let alone enforce them, without dealing with foreign powers.
Who said you don't "deal" with foreign powers? It's really simple. It's called Bilateral Trade Policy. No more multilateralism where the U.S. national self interest and sovereignty are abdicated to third parties and foreign control.
The trouble doesn't come from dealing with foreign powers to decide trade regulations, etc. It comes from letting them get away with cheating on the agreements.
Which they can do with WTO blessing currently. And are.
Let's say China decided to churn out a few billion copies of Windows Vista and sell them in India. Exactly how were you planning on forcing China to honor US patents, since you have ruled out the US government aiding US citizens abroad? What "big stick" do you have that doesn't violate your strictures not to get involved in other nation's business?
Simple. Revoke MFN status to both nations. They would both be instantly subject to the automatic imposition of 50% import tariffs, and restrictions on U.S. citizens FDI in those countries. Or if really necessaary....outright Ban BOTH violators. Ban both China and India from selling anything into our markets...and you would see some changes...especially by our own companies which have been the only real engines of both countries growth.
See, that wasn't so complicated. It won't be easy or without pain. But it wasn't complicated.
Bump. Forgot to include you in a ping since your points are under discussion as well.
Empirically, these are just unassailable facts.
It is a fact that these men have written those words. The words themselves are just opinions.
So I was right to surmise your position, not ludicrous at all. You don't believe in enforcing our intellectual property. And, hence, you don't believe in our country or its future...because you don't believe in our Constitutional Rights to protect our Intellectual property, or the right to control our own market access or regulate trade.
You seem to have a great deal of difficulty separating facts from opinions. You also have trouble with the logical fallacies of False Dilemma and Strawmen. Go back and read it again without your predecided answer. You might discover that what I said was that "intellectual property" cannot be protected, in spite of what you or I would wish. Protection is different from punishment; one occurs before violation, the other after. You can attempt to impose sanctions for violated agreements, but once an idea is "in the wild", it cannot be protected from copy by anyone who has the knowledge and resources to do so. The question becomes, what punishment works without punishing us more than them?
No trade that violates our laws protecting our own Intellectual Property needs be permitted. Especially if a nation wants access to the U.S. market. The Big Enchilada. Not China. The U.S. ...
Simple. Revoke MFN status to both nations. They would both be instantly subject to the automatic imposition of 50% import tariffs, and restrictions on U.S. citizens FDI in those countries. Or if really necessary....outright Ban BOTH violators. Ban both China and India from selling anything into our markets...and you would see some changes...especially by our own companies which have been the only real engines of both countries growth.
See, that wasn't so complicated. It won't be easy or without pain. But it wasn't complicated.
So, you would grant the Fed Govt. full control over with whom or where its citizens may trade. And to punish China for violating MS's patents, you would disallow, say, Mattel, General Electric and Mom and Pop Mfg. from trading with them?
That isn't simple, it's simplistic. You slap a 50% across the board price increase on huge sectors of the economy via tariffs, and you have just caused instant inflation. Everything that used to cost $1.00 now costs $1.50. Manufacturers can't pay for components without raising prices. Retailers must pay more than 50% as supply chain problems inevitably occur. People stop making purchases. Other people who make and sell those things lose their jobs. An U.S. government that did it would find itself voted out on its ear in a flash.
What is needed is a method of enforcing trade agreements that doesn't gut us in the enforcement thereof. Cutting off trade only works if you have an alternate source to replace it at near the same cost.