I agree Marx was full of crap, and will gladly disregard anything he wrote.
You still didn't answer the rest of the post. To refresh your memory:
So...
our industries should go ahead and pay the restrictive tariffs that other nations impose without protest;
we should force our over-taxed and over-regulated industries to compete - without benefit of some combination of tax relief and/or tariffs - with heavily subsidized foreign competition that can hire labor at a fraction of US labor costs;
that because of the cheap working conditions, we should allow America's manufacturing base to move offshore, thereby adding to the unemployment rolls here;
simply accept that since the erosion of American manufacturing is a by-product of "free trade", it's ok (i.e., even though noone will suggest whether, how or why it's a good thing, hey, it's "free trade", so it can't be bad);
and that we should ignore approximately 180 years of American history and tradition and adopt a system that Adam Smith...predicted would destroy the West .
Did I sum up the free trade position correctly?
Is it not an American's choice whether to deal with these markets or not? If other countries want to waste their money on tariffs, why would I care? Sure, I'd like to see them lower their tariffs as well because that will ease things on the U.S. in the short-term, but in the long-term it won't really matter as long as our side isn't wasting its money. But then, NAFTA removed these tariffs on the other side, and you are still opposed to that. So that's just a red herring argument on your part, obviously.
2) we should force our over-taxed and over-regulated industries to compete - without benefit of some combination of tax relief and/or tariffs - with heavily subsidized foreign competition that can hire labor at a fraction of US labor costs
I'm for lowering taxes and restrictive regulations as well. Raising tariffs to counter taxes and regulations? That makes no sense at all. That's like trying to cure your headache by banging your head on the wall even harder.
3) that because of the cheap working conditions, we should allow America's manufacturing base to move offshore, thereby adding to the unemployment rolls here;
In the long-term, the money saved will more than provide for the jobs lost in the very near-term. Always has and always will. Or, we can follow your idea and be like Japan with its banks: just stuck in a terrible situation because we're too scared to do the right thing and let the markets operate.
The problem here is that all your questions are loaded with blatently incorrect economic assumptions. I could answer them forever but you will always have new fears and new worries. Japan one day, Mexico the next, then China, then someone else in a few years, and on and on and on... Luckily the U.S. is still the freest market in the world, despite our politicians having to go along with the bad economics of "the little man" in order to get reelected. So unlike you, I'm not really worried about things until that changes. The economic policies of China, Japan, the EU, and South America (apart from Chile) insure that we will continue to dominate as we have for the past couple centuries. Now, if China ever decides to open its market up to unrestricted free trade, well then I'd be worried. Its funny because all the things the paleos yell at China about (not floating the yuan, subsidizing industry, etc.) are all the reasons that they should rest easy in knowing that China will continue to lag behind the U.S. economically. Only a group that has such faith in Marxist economic policies would be worry about losing to China because of their Marxist economic policies (many of which they have abandoned, leading to their increasing economic success).