In an earlier post, I advocated voting Hillary Clinton for President in 2008. I did this because John McCain stands for everything I oppose. Except for Iraq, I disagree with him on everything, and I believe he will be a disaster for the Republican Party. Furthermore, I did this because Republicans have a serious backbone problem, and quite frequently fail to stand up to Republican presidents when they are clearly in-the-wrong. I know Republicans will stand up to Mrs. Bill Clinton.
I despise Sen. McCain. I think he is wrong on every question except the war in Iraq. However, I plan to vote for McCain in 2008.
What changed my mind? Was it Iraq? Neither Hillary or Obama is dumb enough to want to be the Democrat who lost the war in Iraq. They've said so, themselves. Was it judges? Given his past words and deeds on the issue, I don't believe he'll appoint any judges that agree with us.
I want to see him in office because he will unify Republicans against him.
We need to see Republicans retake or make real gains in the House and the Senate. Furthermore, we need to get ourselves ready for the fight ahead. If McCain wins, we have to be ready to monitor every bill and to write our Congresspeople and Senators on a weekly basis to urge them to oppose McCain's leftist policies, and filibuster his proposals if necessary. So, a few thoughts on the operation:
1.) Congressional staff tend to stack and ignore postcards and form-letters. Make sure your letter is unique.
2.) Write early. With the post-anthrax/ricin security measures in place, it takes quite some time to actually get mail to your representatives.
3.) Write with passion, but not with threats. Obviously, threatening your Representative's life is illegal, I am referring to threats that you will never vote for them again, that you will switch parties or never donate money again. Write your entire letter in a calm, rational tone and avoid profanity. When these threats are made in a letter with an emotional tone, the staff does not believe them. If they are made too-frequently, they will ignore it entirely. Save it for big issues, like global warming and amnesty. When you do make the threat, make it sound like you are reluctant to make the threat.
4.) Hand-write your letter. I know, in an age of computers, this is stupid. However, congressional staff still take letters that are hand-written more seriously than letters that are typed on a computer. Why? Because it's Congress. If they weren't dangerous lunatics, they would have real jobs. Make sure you write legibly, and if possible, print rather than use cursive.
5.) Include a complete return-address. Without a return-address, they can't respond. If they have to respond, they have to dwell on your letter longer. When there are thousands of responses they need to make, this can overwhelm them quickly, and they are just as likely to urge their candidate to fold to avoid more mail as everybody else.
Please, vote this November. Please, vote McCain. Please, please, get ready for the biggest intra-Party brawl we have ever seen. It will be rough, but it will force the Republicans to finally grow a backbone.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Free Trade Cures Poverty: Unless You're a Democrat
Imagine that you are a poor child living in some Third World hellhole. If you haven't been sold in to slavery, prostitution, or kidnapped and forced to serve as a child soldier, chances are that you make a living in the fields or digging through city dumps for bits of metal. You probably live on less than $2 a day. (See Chart) Your family is just barely able to eat, and starvation is never more than a few days away. Since you have to work to eat, you couldn't go to school even if there was one. Your best chance at a decent life is probably joining a gang or the army, if you can tell the difference between the two. Education is not even a possibility. Your future is pretty-much hopeless.
Suddenly, a company from the United States decides to open a factory in your city. What to do? True, the hours are long. True, the wages are not what an American union member would expect. However, the hours are shorter and the money better than scrounging for metal in the dump or breaking your back in the fields. If they weren't better jobs than the ones people already held, why would they switch? In fact, these jobs offer the opportunity of a substantially higher-than-average wages to the workers who get them. In other words, they offer security against starvation, they offer the possibility of a better life where no possibility previously existed.
Now, imagine that the company in the United States faces protests from well-meaning liberals who oppose "sweatshops," like these idiots. They rant and rave about "the children" and how the Western Imperialists are exploiting the poor brown-peoples of the Third World, and demand the companies either abandon their sweatshops or pay their workers what their Western counterparts would receive.
Why did the American company want to locate a factory in your area in the first place? Certainly not because of stability. Why risk bombed buildings, riots, inflation and government takeovers in the Third World if you have to pay the same wages as you do in America? The single most-popular reason for any company to relocate abroad is for reduced labor costs. If the people in the Third World cannot offer their labor services cheaply, then they have no way of attracting jobs to their countries.
In other words, the anti-"sweatshop" protesters are condemning the Third World to poverty and starvation in the name of saving it from poverty and starvation. What's worse, the anti-sweatshop campaign has expanded to become the idea of "fair-trade." Fair Trade is the idea that buyers in the West should not only purchase products from impoverished nations, but pay more than the market price for it, make sure the producers are unionized, pay for the producer's education and the development of their homelands. Not surprisingly, the main backers of "fair-trade" are unions in the West. After all, when the cost of manufacturing here at home is the same as manufacturing in Ecuador, nobody will manufacture products in Ecuador, and the unions gain massive numbers of new members.
This movement will fail, fundamentally because the products are far-too-expensive. Take the example of Just Garments, a Salvadoran company founded specifically to serve the "fair-trade" market in 2003, which closed it's doors in 2007 because of a lack of sales. Liberals love to protest "corporate greed" and "exploitation," because it gives them a warm, fuzzy feeling of moral superiority. Unfortunately for the residents of El Salvador, they don't seem very warm and fuzzy about the prices they have to pay to see their demands met.
Unions overwhelmingly give their money (97% for AFSCME and the AFL-CIO,) to Democrats. It shows in the current Democrat Presidential candidates' positions on trade, with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama opposed to NAFTA and CAFTA.
Libertarians and Republicans are both unquestionably on the side of free trade. The Democrats, on the other hand, demand "fair-trade" and protectionism. I've discussed the similarities between Libertarians and Republicans on economic issues before, but I want to emphasize it for a reason: Our ideological enemies are diametrically opposed to everything we believe about capitalism, property rights, free-markets and free-trade. Pick any economic (rather than social,) issue and there is absolutely no agreement between Libertarians and Democrats. Democrats don't share our belief in the value of trade, and the value of the free-market.
Economic freedom is more important, in my mind, than most of the areas where Republicans and Libertarians differ: Drugs, prostitution, abortion, etc. You will have to decide for yourself if you agree, but realize that if you vote for the Libertarian Party this November because of policy differences on crack or hookers you might be electing by default people who have no faith in free-markets, and an endless belief in the power of government.
UPDATE: Hot of the presses from the Drudge Report, Starbucks' stock price is tanking in the face of cheaper competitors. Hmmm... could it be because of multiple price increases in the wake of adopting
"fair-trade" coffee?
Suddenly, a company from the United States decides to open a factory in your city. What to do? True, the hours are long. True, the wages are not what an American union member would expect. However, the hours are shorter and the money better than scrounging for metal in the dump or breaking your back in the fields. If they weren't better jobs than the ones people already held, why would they switch? In fact, these jobs offer the opportunity of a substantially higher-than-average wages to the workers who get them. In other words, they offer security against starvation, they offer the possibility of a better life where no possibility previously existed.
Now, imagine that the company in the United States faces protests from well-meaning liberals who oppose "sweatshops," like these idiots. They rant and rave about "the children" and how the Western Imperialists are exploiting the poor brown-peoples of the Third World, and demand the companies either abandon their sweatshops or pay their workers what their Western counterparts would receive.
Why did the American company want to locate a factory in your area in the first place? Certainly not because of stability. Why risk bombed buildings, riots, inflation and government takeovers in the Third World if you have to pay the same wages as you do in America? The single most-popular reason for any company to relocate abroad is for reduced labor costs. If the people in the Third World cannot offer their labor services cheaply, then they have no way of attracting jobs to their countries.
In other words, the anti-"sweatshop" protesters are condemning the Third World to poverty and starvation in the name of saving it from poverty and starvation. What's worse, the anti-sweatshop campaign has expanded to become the idea of "fair-trade." Fair Trade is the idea that buyers in the West should not only purchase products from impoverished nations, but pay more than the market price for it, make sure the producers are unionized, pay for the producer's education and the development of their homelands. Not surprisingly, the main backers of "fair-trade" are unions in the West. After all, when the cost of manufacturing here at home is the same as manufacturing in Ecuador, nobody will manufacture products in Ecuador, and the unions gain massive numbers of new members.
This movement will fail, fundamentally because the products are far-too-expensive. Take the example of Just Garments, a Salvadoran company founded specifically to serve the "fair-trade" market in 2003, which closed it's doors in 2007 because of a lack of sales. Liberals love to protest "corporate greed" and "exploitation," because it gives them a warm, fuzzy feeling of moral superiority. Unfortunately for the residents of El Salvador, they don't seem very warm and fuzzy about the prices they have to pay to see their demands met.
Unions overwhelmingly give their money (97% for AFSCME and the AFL-CIO,) to Democrats. It shows in the current Democrat Presidential candidates' positions on trade, with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama opposed to NAFTA and CAFTA.
Libertarians and Republicans are both unquestionably on the side of free trade. The Democrats, on the other hand, demand "fair-trade" and protectionism. I've discussed the similarities between Libertarians and Republicans on economic issues before, but I want to emphasize it for a reason: Our ideological enemies are diametrically opposed to everything we believe about capitalism, property rights, free-markets and free-trade. Pick any economic (rather than social,) issue and there is absolutely no agreement between Libertarians and Democrats. Democrats don't share our belief in the value of trade, and the value of the free-market.
Economic freedom is more important, in my mind, than most of the areas where Republicans and Libertarians differ: Drugs, prostitution, abortion, etc. You will have to decide for yourself if you agree, but realize that if you vote for the Libertarian Party this November because of policy differences on crack or hookers you might be electing by default people who have no faith in free-markets, and an endless belief in the power of government.
UPDATE: Hot of the presses from the Drudge Report, Starbucks' stock price is tanking in the face of cheaper competitors. Hmmm... could it be because of multiple price increases in the wake of adopting
"fair-trade" coffee?
Saturday, March 1, 2008
The political spectrum: Line or circle?
My earlier post about the composition of Democrat voters seems to have attracted a lot of email and argument, primarily because I use the straight-line political spectrum (shown below) to illustrate my point:
<================================+===============================>
Democrat...............................Centrist............................Republican
This spectrum, as I point out in the post, is totally useless. Moving to the left does not win Republicans elections, making a clear and distinct case for conservative policies does. Democrats can win using this strategy, but only because moving to the right makes them look less like socialists.
A more disturbing criticism of this straight-line political spectrum is that the spectrum should be a circle. The idea is that when you move too-far in either direction, you arrive at dictatorship.
This idea is total nonsense. Conservative philosophy suggests that the government should stay out of our lives unless we are hurting someone else without that person's consent. It also suggests that we should be armed and ready to overthrow our government if it becomes tyrannical. Liberals argue that the government should be used to redistribute wealth involuntarily, that the government should be used to force an end to discrimination through law, and that the government can ignore laws of supply and demand and pass rent control laws and declare "gun-free zones" and that these silly ideas will work. Which one of these ideas brings us closer to fascism? Limited government or the mystical state?
The only vague similarity between fascism and conservatism is that conservatives believe in the defense of their country. Carrying conservative ideas to their extreme results in more freedom, not less.
What we need is a Statism index. At one end you will find Republicans, anarchists and libertarians. At the other, you will find John McCain, Democrats, communists and fascists.
<================================+===============================>
Democrat...............................Centrist............................Republican
This spectrum, as I point out in the post, is totally useless. Moving to the left does not win Republicans elections, making a clear and distinct case for conservative policies does. Democrats can win using this strategy, but only because moving to the right makes them look less like socialists.
A more disturbing criticism of this straight-line political spectrum is that the spectrum should be a circle. The idea is that when you move too-far in either direction, you arrive at dictatorship.
This idea is total nonsense. Conservative philosophy suggests that the government should stay out of our lives unless we are hurting someone else without that person's consent. It also suggests that we should be armed and ready to overthrow our government if it becomes tyrannical. Liberals argue that the government should be used to redistribute wealth involuntarily, that the government should be used to force an end to discrimination through law, and that the government can ignore laws of supply and demand and pass rent control laws and declare "gun-free zones" and that these silly ideas will work. Which one of these ideas brings us closer to fascism? Limited government or the mystical state?
The only vague similarity between fascism and conservatism is that conservatives believe in the defense of their country. Carrying conservative ideas to their extreme results in more freedom, not less.
What we need is a Statism index. At one end you will find Republicans, anarchists and libertarians. At the other, you will find John McCain, Democrats, communists and fascists.
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