"A HOUSE DIVIDED" - Pukin's FReeperversary Rant

It is getting somewhat strange around these parts when not only the President, but yesterday the First Lady was personally attacked by someone claiming to be a ‘Conservative’. Can there be any doubt that there are forces among us looking to drive a wedge between us?

A few weeks ago, this forum’s owner attempted to remind all of us of the big picture, that regardless of any personal animosity towards the President or Republican Party over their adherence to Conservative principles, that they are still a clear choice over the alternative Democrat Party rule. At that time, I assumed that FReeper-sanity had been restored, and that some of the negative rhetoric aimed at those in Washington D.C. would be dialed back.

Free Republic is a political forum with a proud history and vision, responsible for dragging Dan Rather from his post, and providing countless radio-talk shows with their daily talking points. FReepers are unique in their determination and energy towards protecting and defending the goals of our Founding Fathers.

We are also quite a powder keg of emotion and anticipation, expecting our Republican majorities to take advantage of this opportunity to make permanent gains in our Conservative agenda. Some might argue that this opportunity has been squandered, but those persons would be ignorant of history, lacking understanding that change cannot occur overnight in Washington, and that this is the way our Founders designed our Republic.

In frustration, impatience, and ignorance, we have allowed this forum to become a haven for those who do not share our Conservative goals. I do not blame our enemies anymore then I would blame a scorpion for stinging me. If anger and stupidity were one’s nature, I would expect the trolls that infect this forum to be angry and stupid consistently, which also makes them somewhat easy to detect.

The trolls are not the problem, though. The problem is that so many of us are allowing ourselves to be taken in by those who seek only to prevent us from going to the polls in November to keep their stinking hands off our government for another term. There can be no doubt, that no matter how disappointing our current government has been in promoting the Conservative agenda, that the alternative, enabled by our staying home will be MUCH worse.

The way to deal with Republicans who have actively worked against our goals is to defeat them in Primary elections. We do not even have to defeat them all, only enough of them to send the message that we will indeed target them if they work against our agenda. It should be the goal of EVERY conservative to see that Lincoln Chaffee is defeated in November. His seat is one we can afford to lose. Were I a Rhode Island resident, I would vote for the Democrat if only to send a message to Snowe, Hagel, Collins, Graham, and especially that bastard Specter that their primaries just got a lot tougher.

We only need to get one of them, and Chaffee is the one to get. It does not really matter if a Democrat takes his seat; he will be junior and mute as long as we maintain our overall majority in the Senate.

The one thing that bothers me here like nothing else, is the simple disrespect of the President. Am I am Bush-Bot? Damn straight I am. If you want to know why, click on my handle to read Southack’s excellent list of Bush’s accomplishments in office. But if Bush had done almost nothing in office, it would be no excuse for some of the slights and disrespect he has received from some of us on this forum.

Some of the things I have read here this past week match in tone what one can find on our favorite Democrat sewer site. Someone calling himself or herself a FReeper was promoting shooting aliens at the border until they stopped coming. Is that what we are about? Obviously not, and that so-called Conservative has been eliminated from this forum.

I think it is important to remember that you and I have just as much responsibility as George Bush does in changing our culture to better reflect Conservative values. Right now, this very moment, Conservatives have the government they deserve. We put them there. They are not our mommies and daddies sent out to bring home our Conservative bread. That responsibility lies with all of us. These Republicans represent us, they don’t serve us. Our job is to pick the best individual and send him/her to Washington in the hope that their CHARACTER will see them through.

This is why it is such a nutty thing to consider punishing the Republican party, when we should be letting them know that we’ve got their back, but if they cant do the job, we will replace them with ANOTHER Republican, instead of handing the reigns of government to the party of anger, hopelessness and despair. We sometimes like to think that those people we send to Washington are different from us, that they are capable of meeting our every need and desire.

I want every one of you to think about what you would consider to be your perfect mate. Maybe some of you think you have found that person. If you are married and totally in love with another person, that is great. Now I want to ask you to think about the last time that person you love, who is PERFECT for you, completely pissed you off. Remember, this is your perfect mate, your one true love. Do they do everything you want them to do? Obey your every desire? If you answer yes, I am going to put you on my troll list.

Those people in Washington do not even cut your lawn, yet you expect perfection. Get over it.

I am issuing a challenge to every person who considers him or her to be a Conservative; why don’t we all commit to a return to HONOR? Do we honor our Conservative agenda when we comport ourselves in disgraceful ways? Is it an honorable thing to suggest that our President is a moron, as I read here a few days ago? Is it honorable to attack Laura Bush or any other person representing true Conservative values?

Some of you might argue that George Bush is not representing Conservative values to your liking. I would remind you that the first thing Bush said upon taking office, is that he was going to be President of ALL the people, not just some. You know that if you followed Bush from the beginning that he campaigned of the very immigration platform he is defending right now. Did you vote for him? Yeah?

If you have ever had a steak at a Ruth’s Chris restaurant, you know that sometimes they bring that wonderful steak to your table with a sprig of parsley on it. I hate parsley. Hate it. If I were to treat my steak the way some of us want to treat our President, I would have to throw out the steak, due to that nasty parsley that comes with it. I can deal with the parsley to get the steak, and that is what I am asking FReepers to do.

Expecting perfection from any person, group or team is a recipe for disaster. George W. Bush is my president. You can disagree with him, you can blame him for your problems if that is your desire. If you disrespect his office, his service, his risking his life to be with our troops in Iraq, his steadfast desire to bring a new tone to Washington, or if you just like the way he keeps Democrats so pissed off they lose their minds on a regular basis, I ask you to treat him and his wife with respect and cut the personal attacks. If you call him ‘Shrub’ or ‘Jorge’ consider yourself my enemy.

Right now, our real enemy are the Main Stream Media, the Democrat Party, and all who follow and support them. If you want to jump-ugly on someone, why not start with those leaky bastards and give our side a break?

You posted: "Good Post."

Thank you.

You wrote: "Again you are debating the Living Wage argument that everyone around the world deserve a Living Wage as you determine it"

I am not.
I have not discussed the wages of the rest of the world, only those of America and Americans. While I do believe, as a general philosophic and indeed Catholic principle that everyone working in the world deserves a living wage (not as I determine it, but objectively determine by the needs for civilized subsistence), I have nowhere advocated any policies with that aim. I have focused exclusively on what is good for American workers alone, judging that the proper sphere for American government's concern. Indeed, were the rather modest things I advocated in my posts actually put into law, conditions would WORSEN for 3rd World labor outside of the United States, because the labor-cost equalization tarriff I have suggested would harm employment abroad while helping workers in the United States. My purpose is not to harm foreign workers, but to prevent substandard foreign conditions from dragging American workers down to their level in a race to the bottom. We do not govern the world, but we DO govern the United States. Accordingly, our laws should be protective of the people of the United States. We should not intentionally aim at harming other people in the world, but to the extent that harm is inevitable, and it is merely a matter of chosing the unfortunate group upon which the harm will fall, I believe that it is the sworn duty of American officials to do their best to make sure that the harm is deflected away from Americans.
My proposal was not idealistic, aimed at making the whole world better and giving everybody in the world a living wage. Maybe someday if we rule the whole world that will be our responsibility. But for now, our responsibility is to Americans first and foremost, and my considerations of labor costs and proposal of a labor-cost equalization tarriff was aimed solely at protecting American citizens, not in advancing a Utopia that cannot be achieved at the present time.

You wrote: "That is not the way Capitalism, which is by far the greatest form of Economics works."

You write of an economic theory as though it were a religion. I suppose we could debate economic theory, in the abstract, but I don't see much use in it because nowhere in the world is there anything approaching pure capitalism. Heavy regulatory, legal and national security regimes limit all economic activity. Economies are some of the operations of people, but people are primarily citizens and family members, and economies are regulated by nations and laws, not the reverse. There is brand of capitalist theory that believes that states themselves are nuisances and impediments to some sort of idyllic borderless worlds in which capital flows and efficient production are the primary determinants of social structures, power and law. This is not the actual state of the world, and to many people - myself included - is a highly undesireable objective. For great capitalist enterprises are NOT organic bodies. They are, rather, shell organizations in which individual people wield enormous power. Currently, that power is subordinate to the power of the state and, in democratic states, the voting public at large. A pure capitalist regime would reverse the order of priority and place the greatest economic actors at the center of all policymaking. This is a fancy modern version of feudalism, with the greatest lords (in this case of industry) commanding the greatest power. That's not the American system, at all, and is not desired by most people in America (or anywhere else). Economies serve people, not the reverse.

You wrote: "You earn what the market will bear, nothing more."

Not in a Christian society such as ours. We have decided, democratically, that if what the market will bear is not sufficient for you to survive, we will augment your market income to the extent necessary, with retirement benefits, health insurance, and welfare, so that nobody perishes from want merely because his marketable skill set is insufficient to support his continued existence in our highly organized economy. This is a choice, a democratic choice. We make our economy less brutally efficient, and choose not to allow literal starvation or death from untreated disease to be an economic goad. Rather, we have limited the goad to better housing, consumer goods and entertainment options, and perhaps better education and influence. We do NOT, however, allow the logic of the market to get anywhere close to the sentence I quoted from you. Old, sick people are economically worthless, a pure economic burden, and they will not recover from decrepitude to become economic actors ever again. We tax the whole economy to provide for them, because the alternative is to push them out on an ice floe and be rid of the burden...and if they didn't provide for themselves in their working years, tough. Certainly those who do not provide for themselves do not live as well as those who are dependent on just Social Security and Medicare or welfare, but we choose to tax the economy quite heavily, and restrict business and individual options, in order to provide a substantially effective minimum floor beyond which the most improvident old person simply is not permitted to fall. Economic considerations are completely overruled by humanitarian concerns.
We have made this choice democratically.
The problem is, if we have an absolutely unregulated free trade regime, we compete with a world in which 3 billion people will be allowed to starve on the street in their old age unless the charity of family or friends steps in. We cannot maintain our own choice to care for the old and sick if we engage in a race to the bottom with the Third World. Because going to the Third World standard is morally unacceptable to most Americans, and this is a democracy, perforce we must erect various barriers so that we are not put out of business and simply FORCED into the Third World regime by wages with which we cannot possibly compete.

You wrote: "Workers are just like businesses in that to enter a market they will take less and work towards higher prices later."

And yet workers are fundamentally different from businesses. Businesses do not have bodies, or nerve endings. They do not suffer, love, raise children. A corporation is a FICTION - a USEFUL fiction, to be sure, but a fiction nevertheless. A man is a real thinking and feeling thing. We can callously let corporations that are not economically viable die and blow away. If men were just like businesses, we could do the same to them to. And in the Third World, they DO. But men are not just like businesses in this sense. We cannot simply let them die if they are not economically viable during a certain period.
Or rather, we COULD, as they do in the Third World, but we are Americans, in a country with a Christian tradition, and we CHOOSE not to. Through the democratic process, we have enacted our moral values, which most of us believe to come from God Himself, into our law. We have CHOSEN to place the survival of even old and poor and useless men over perfect economic efficiency, because we think, as a society derived from Christians and Jews, that men are more important than money, in the end.
Having made that fundamental moral decision, the sole question is where we draw the line. We do NOT draw it anywhere close to the idea that starvation and death are goads for business to drive men into jobs. We draw the line well above that. To maintain that line where we have drawn it requires regulation and taxation of business and trade at a level far, far exceeding laissez-faire. I happen to think that what we have, with all of the regulation and social welfare safeguards, IS capitalism. Call it Christian Capitalism. It is not Chinese Capitalism. And in head to head economic competition in manufacturing, Chinese Capitalism will win, economically (so would fascist corporatism) unless the power of the state is harnessed to make laws that do not allow the Chinese to unmask their full batteries within Christian Capitalist economies. We have that now, and we should maintain it.

You wrote: "So a Mexican takes what he can get until a better job comes along and so forth. Many who have been here for years are making very decent wages compared to where they started. A healthy economy will always need entry level laborers."

This is so. We have laws that don't allow ANY worker in America to be unprotected by the legal minima. Illegals are unprotected by the minima. And that is a problem. Business interests do not have the right to subvert the public will of the people of the United States duly expressed through our constitutional structures. Business is made of Americans, and all Americans are subject to law. Illegal Mexicans don't have the right to be here at all; and businesses don't have the right to hire them. That's the law, and I think the law is right.
You apparently don't, which is your prerogative.

You wrote: "Labor intensive industries such as Farming, Landscaping, Saw-milling, etc are high volume low profit industries. You assume that the $1 an hour the owner saves goes into profit when that may not be true. He may have to lower his costs to enter the market or compete with the guy down the street. He does what he has to do to get the job and feed his family. If he raises his price the customer will just go to the next one that does have lower prices."

Yes, the consumer will. The point of comparative-wage equalization tariffs is to remove from the consumer the option of saving any money by leveraging off of unprotected foreign labor.

You wrote: "As for China, they have entered the capitalist society and they have an advantage now but as capitalism takes over their labor will go up just like everywhere else."

To a point, over the course of a century. We do not have to allow the bottom tier of Americans to be unemployed for a century while waiting for China to "catch up". Our duty is in protecting Americans, not protecting Chinese development. The choice is between shifting the profits to China and letting China develop more rapidly while more Americans at the bottom suffer, or shifting the profits to the lower tier Americans so they don't suffer so much, but inevitably slowing down Chinese development. And the duty of our policymakers is to the Americans, not the Chinese.
Or their duty SHOULD BE to Americans, at any rate.

You wrote:" Your tariffs idea will only damage the economy as higher costs are passed on to consumers."

Which damage will be offset by a precipitous drop in unemployment, welfare, Medicaid, social security and probably prison costs. Employ Americans and you don't have to tax the economy to feed so many unemployed ones.

You wrote: "You are talking about Billions of taxes on millions of consumer goods."

That's right.
I am talking about tarriffs that balance out the cost advantage of third-world labor pools.

You wrote: "You are asking for gummit to control the economy. I believe that is called Communism?"

No, I am not asking for any such thing, or anything resembling any such thing. What I am asking for is most certainly not Communism in any form.

As a Commodity trader it is easy to see labor as a commodity. We are all Commodities when it comes down to our value in the marketplace. Whether your picking apples or operating on a heart or owning your own business you have a certain value to the Market which is reflected in your earnings. A truly free market will pay you what you are worth just as it will value any other item such as a diamond or a gallon of gas. The ultimate worker commodity is the Union worker who is told exactly what he is worth depending on an agreed upon value for a certain scale. The rarer your skill set the more precious a commodity you become to the Market

Like the old saying goes, if you don’t want to become a millionaire, join a Union. If you want to become a millionaire, run a Union. This represents two truths of worker value, one is a strictly negotiated value and the latter isn’t. The Union boss not only is a rare commodity, he enjoys the hidden benefits of corruption and graft.

The Market will reward any commodity that is rare which brings a positive cash flow to the capitalistic society. Whether the person is picking lettuce or making cars the market determines the value of that worker. A Mexican speaking illegal alien who can only do manual labor has no leverage in the marketplace and is valued at $20-$30 per day since there are millions of equally unskilled Mexicans to keep his price down. At the other end of the spectrum is Rush who there is only one in the entire World which means zero competition. There are lots of copies, but only one America’s Anchorman who can make wonderfully obscene profit margins from the marketplace. This allows him unlimited leverage. The less the competition the greater the profit margin and higher the wages.

Within the Mexican labor pool there are levels of skill which is reflected in wages. Basic labor such as hoeing a field or picking lettuce is going to pay a lower wage than someone who can bring certain skills or talents to the market. Anyone who has picked apples or cherries knows that there is definite skill in reading trees and racing up and down ladders. This will garner a higher wage well into the $100 per day range. The fact that this only lasts for a week or two before migrating to the next farm which eliminates this as a career for most Americans.

Mexicans are a necessary commodity and problem that has been ignored due to convenience. Nobody should fault the farmer because he is using this readily available labor to keep his expenses at a level that is required by the marketplace. Finding dependable hard workers for low wages is a difficult hole to fill for a labor intensive employer. If his costs are too high the buyers will buy from a farmer who can meet their demands or buy off shore. The margins for farming are so small it is required that farmers maximize every acre and cut every penny to continue their God given livelihood.

This example is farming however the same is true for every labor intensive industry. Until we address all the issues of Mexican labor and the cheap commodity that it brings to the workplace we are never going to solve this issue. In a full employment red hot economy, employers need this valuable asset to meet market demands.

Likewise a Mexican who is living in Mexico earning $50 a month looks at the Shining City on the Hill and realizes he can make 10 times that and is motivated to cross the border. To us it is below a living wage but to Manuel Mexical this is the promised land. No matter what we put in place including a fence, Manuel will find a way across to earn a living he cannot make in Mexico just as Rush will move to Florida to avoid oppressive income taxes. Both should be legal and managed. Until we have an enforceable guest worker program anything we put up will be just trying to empty the ocean with a holey bucket.

There is no simple solution is and anyone who is honest will admit the same thing. To ignore the forces of supply and demand is to ignore basic economics. To try to form a bill that ignores these forces will be as worthless as SSI for those under 40. We can reach the point where we can talk about this issue in a respectful manner to get to a point where there is a solution. Using thugish tactics will only cause people run away from it making the situation worse. This is the most important issue in the Country and until we can get the Mexicans to come across in an organized and secure manner we will never have control of our borders. One answer would be a guest worker program with no chance of citizenship.

Give President Bush credit for addressing this issue rather than crucifying him, since it is a net loser to anyone making that attempt. No matter how strict the guest worker program is the demagogues are going to call it amnesty regardless of the truth. Mexico has a commodity besides Oil that we need to exploit for our economy. Closing the border is the goal which all sides must be pointed while name calling only widens the divide to eliminate free exchange of ideas.

Pray for W and Our Amazing Troops

Your post is difficult to answer, because we are speaking from the perspective of two fundamentally different views of the world and how it works.

You seem to really believe, at the core, that economic flows explain (and determine) the course of the world. I think that economics are part of the overall sphere of human activity, that we do not currently allow economics to drive all of our decision-taking processes, and that we shouldn't because the results of doing that are morally unacceptable.

You believe that if a nation imposes an economic law, that "the market" will simply get around it by going outside of the nation. I think that certain economic players may try to do that, but that well-constructed laws can make that difficult and that other things more important than economics drive the final decisions.

You gave the example of Rush Limbaugh moving from high-tax New York to low-tax Florida in order to broadcast and keep more of his money. Yes, he does just that. But why, then, does he not take the additional step and move from low-tax Florida (which still gets socked with the Federal Income Tax) to no-tax Guernsey, or Monaco, or the Cayman Islands, and broadcast from there. There is no TECHNICAL barrier to doing that, and the economics of doing so make utter sense. 40% of income going to federal taxes is a lot to save.

So why doesn't the logic of economics and dollars drive RUSH offshore?
The answer has nothing to do with economics, but all of those OTHER things that affect human decision-taking, which economics alone do not explain - and which are why we can, in fact, impose laws that are economically sub-optimal but which achieve more important social goals. Most Americans don't want to live outside of the United States even if they can save a lot of money doing it. Abroad is tricky and untrustworthy. Abroad has different sovereign risks. Abroad doesn't have the medical resources. Also, other Americans don't like to do business with you so much if you are abroad and outside of the reach of their laws and system. Who would listen to Rush Limbaugh talking about American politics if he himself opted to be a Cayman Islander broadcasting into the US? He has to pay 40% of his top dollars in taxes and remain in the US, because people are not emotionally willing to engage with a foreigner. Economics are not driving the equation; emotions are.

My point about wage-equalization tarriffs is that American purchasers CAN'T simply "go abroad" for cheaper prices to get around the tarriffs. People live here. They have to buy and consume the goods here. Europeans pay $7 a gallon for gasoline, but they don't try to import gas from the USA: it's illegal. Likewise, a wage equalization tarriff will drive up the cost of goods somewhat, but there isn't a legal solution to get around it. You can't just buy from someone else, because whoever has cheap labor gets the tarriff slapped on him when he ships the stuff into the USA.

Now, as far as agricultural labor goes, it may well be that we do need third world berry pickers. But if we bring them in, we should not do so with the stipulation that they have to leave. They should be on a track to remain and become citizens.

I guess the fundamental difference comes down to the view that labor is simply a commodity. Yes, it is, but it's a very special type of commodity, because it is human beings. As such, it cannot be treated in the same cold fashion that iron ore and pork bellies can be treated. Human concerns do not allow full efficiency in the labor markets. We have to have considerably inefficiency in labor markets because people are not machines, and human needs are constant and permanent. The full commodification of human beings and labor is not where democracy is willing to go.

As far as Mexicans simply getting here somehow if there's an advanced system erected, my answer would be: not 2 million a year. A few would get under or over the wall, and a few would go around by boat, but if you can't just walk into America, the fact of a barrier makes it harder and more expensive to try, and many, many will not make it or will not even try. We are not working in a world of absolutes, but speaking, rather, of relative positions.

Interesting discussion.

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