[Storm]

Even if legalization would be a more efficient way to fight drug cartels, that doesn't negate the fact the trade agreement isn't being done to please drug cartels.

[larkin]

	Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	That's the statist argument - that the right to work, create, build, grow and trade is only granted by government, as these are not themselves inalienable rights. I sharply disagree.

And here I thought it was only statists who claimed positive rights. So in addition to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you believe (sharply!) that you're guaranteed unfettered access to cheap t-shirts, too, huh? No matter the cost to the government to make that possible? And on top of that, the U.S. government has to promise Colombians they can sell whatever they want wherever they want, no matter how it was made? (And Colombians have to do the same with U.S. goods, of course.) They could have made it with soylent green (or in the case of the Chinese and children's toys, lead paint) for all you care?

Nah, I think you know that the right to work, create, build and grow might be free, but the ability to make that trade possible over many thousands of miles in some difficult places with different laws and standards isn't. You're just mouthing some cheap Ayn Rand talking points that I doubt you even believe in, much less ones that apply.

I mean, that's why there had to be a treaty guaranteeing trade in the first place. Because both sides had their reasonable concerns about all these "rights" that apparently should just come naturally.

[Polk]

	Originally Posted by Storm To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Even if legalization would be a more efficient way to fight drug cartels, that doesn't negate the fact the trade agreement isn't being done to please drug cartels.

Meanwhile its main purpose surely isn't, it leads nonetheless to easier exchange of goods of all kinds.

---------- Post added 04-24-2012 at 02:16 PM ----------

By main I mean official.

[Daoist]

	Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Entitled to compete and to trade with me on a voluntary basis. Not entitled to demand that there can be no competition for their shitty, overpriced products.

They sure can so demand, for a variety of reasons. If their competition has a lower price due to harm to the environment, corrupt relationships with global suppliers, or any other of a variety of reasons, then there are very good reasons why we shouldn't trade with them. The main question is, can we add worker protections to the list?

[Causa Mortis]

	Originally Posted by larkin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	So in addition to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you believe (sharply!) that you're guaranteed unfettered access to cheap t-shirts, too, huh?

Trade is party of liberty.

	No matter the cost to the government to make that possible?

The government has no rights. The government exists to serve the people. The machine serves the individual. The individual owes the machine nothing.

	And on top of that, the U.S. government has to promise Colombians they can sell whatever they want wherever they want, no matter how it was made?

The US government should do nothing to violate the liberty of Colombians. Trade is a part of liberty.

The US has no business in the internal politics of Colombia. It has only to not actively harm others, as in the case of restricting trade.

	Nah, I think you know that the right to work, create, build and grow might be free, but the ability to make that trade possible over many thousands of miles in some difficult places with different laws and standards isn't.

Says who? The gobblement, ergo it must be true!

	You're just mouthing some cheap Ayn Rand talking points that I doubt you even believe in, much less ones that apply. I mean, that's why there had to be a treaty guaranteeing trade in the first place. Because both sides had their reasonable concerns about all these "rights" that apparently should just come naturally.

Rand is a huge statist, and statist in two of the most harmful ways: in intellectual property and in desiring a lot of defense spending. Both are among the worst types of government intervention, in my book. I despise her.

---------- Post added 04-24-2012 at 06:20 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by Daoist To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	They sure can so demand, for a variety of reasons. If their competition has a lower price due to harm to the environment, corrupt relationships with global suppliers, or any other of a variety of reasons, then there are very good reasons why we shouldn't trade with them. The main question is, can we add worker protections to the list?

Worker protection ~= preventing competition. So no, no worker protections. Unemployment insurance and retraining subsidies, sure. Worker protections, not a chance in hell, the whole goddamned idea is to get people competing. That there are losers in these competitions is granted, that there are real human costs are granted, that we should help these losers is granted, that we should prevent competition is not.

I can see an argument for a form of pigovian taxation on countries with excessive CO2 emissions, with the strong potential for CO2 emissions to be causing global warming and therefore a variety of actual problems in the US. But if they want to ruin their own rivers and such, that's our business how?

[Daoist]

Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Worker protection ~= preventing competition. So no, no worker protections. Unemployment insurance and retraining subsidies, sure. Worker protections, not a chance in hell, the whole goddamned idea is to get people competing. That there are losers in these competitions is granted, that there are real human costs are granted, that we should help these losers is granted, that we should prevent competition is not.

To take an extreme example, you don't have the rights to the product of anyone's slave labor.

	I can see an argument for a form of pigovian taxation on countries with excessive CO2 emissions, with the strong potential for CO2 emissions to be causing global warming and therefore a variety of actual problems in the US. But if they want to ruin their own rivers and such, that's our business how?

Huh. If they really do want to ruin their own rivers:

1) They have to actually be their own rivers. If they want to ruin Brazil's rivers, then Brazil has to be in on the negotiations.

2) The government has to actually have the authority to act on behalf of their people.

[Causa Mortis]

	Originally Posted by Daoist To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	To take an extreme example, you don't have the rights to the product of anyone's slave labor.

Except there is no slave labor in Colombia.

	Huh. If they really do want to ruin their own rivers: 1) They have to actually be their own rivers. If they want to ruin Brazil's rivers, then Brazil has to be in on the negotiations. 2) The government has to actually have the authority to act on behalf of their people.

If they're Brazil's rivers then Brazil would have a right to leverage them. We only have a right to leverage them if they're harming us. They're not.

[Daoist]

	Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	If they're Brazil's rivers then Brazil would have a right to leverage them. We only have a right to leverage them if they're harming us. They're not.

There are any number of ways that a US-Columbia FTA could harm third countries. Rivers - as with the atmosphere - are a commons resource, and they don't respect national boundaries. There's no way to say that a certain portion of a river belongs to Columbia and another belongs to Brazil. That's like the story of splitting the baby in half between fighting parents.

Part of the problem is this notion of resource utilization - pollution sort of different from really leveraging something, or using it. It's more a matter of public hygiene, extended to the industrial level.

[Polymath20]

Originally Posted by Daoist To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

There are any number of ways that a US-Columbia FTA could harm third countries. Rivers - as with the atmosphere - are a commons resource, and they don't respect national boundaries. There's no way to say that a certain portion of a river belongs to Columbia and another belongs to Brazil. That's like the story of splitting the baby in half between fighting parents. Part of the problem is this notion of resource utilization - pollution sort of different from really leveraging something, or using it. It's more a matter of public hygiene, extended to the industrial level.

The same problem happens between states. Usually, some sort of inter-state or inter-national agreement has to be made.

[larkin]

	Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Trade is party of liberty. [...] The machine serves the individual. The individual owes the machine nothing. [...]The US government should do nothing to violate the liberty of Colombians. Trade is a part of liberty. [...] Says who? The gobblement, ergo it must be true!

What a stupid, useless bunch of cliches. Do you honestly believe trade with a foreign country is a negative liberty? I mean, it's easy enough to mouth that cliche, but in reality, there are a million and one things that both governments would have to do to make that trade possible, much less profitable.

So let's be clear: putting fewer restrictions on trade for protectionism's sake is a good thing. But your naive expectations, which become demands, that trade being "free" is an innate right (a line promoted by corporations; they've got you saying exactly what is needed, how useful a tool!) is exactly how the U.S. government sees a creeping mandate to get involved in a shadow war with Colombian drug cartels and paramilitaries, and hide the real cost of things from the public. Obliviousness to the real cost of things, to the corporate-government nexus required to provide the positive liberties you like - while you live under the delusion that those positive liberties are negative ones, that all trade is inherently free! - perpetuates exactly the drug war that libertarians would rightfully rail against.

Kinda ironic, isn't it?

	Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The US has no business in the internal politics of Colombia. It has only to not actively harm others, as in the case of restricting trade.

Yes, governments can only restrict trade. They don't need to do anything to promote it or make it possible. [/sarcasm]

And hell yes, the government can act on behalf of the public and say we'll only buy goods from you if you can make a reasonable effort to make sure they're not covered in toxic chemicals, made by slave labor, or by companies dumping chemicals into the water supply. ("Colombia doesn't have any slave labor" - right. Just when we thought the arguments couldn't get any more naive. There's sweatshop labor in the U.S., but you think there aren't any and worse in Colombia?)

Unless you think that asserting that governments can at least theoretically act on behalf of their people - you know, the idea of believing in a government in the first place, i.e. not being an anarchist - makes me one of those dreaded statists. Used as an epithet, by people who aren't anarchists no less!

[Polymath20]

Originally Posted by larkin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

So let's be clear: putting fewer restrictions on trade for protectionism's sake is a good thing. But your naive expectations, which become demands, that trade being "free" is an innate right (a line promoted by corporations; they've got you saying exactly what is needed, how useful a tool!) is exactly how the U.S. government sees a creeping mandate to get involved in a shadow war with Colombian drug cartels and paramilitaries, and hide the real cost of things from the public. Obliviousness to the real cost of things, to the corporate-government nexus required to provide the positive liberties you like - while you live under the delusion that those positive liberties are negative ones, that all trade is inherently free! - perpetuates exactly the drug war that libertarians would rightfully rail against.

So are you for or against lifting trade restrictions with Colombia?

	Originally Posted by larkin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Yes, governments can only restrict trade. They don't need to do anything to promote it or make it possible.

Wrong, the government can subsidize certain imports/exports with things such as tax breaks.

[Arcanist]

States don't trade, individuals do. If I come to some mutually beneficial agreement with an individual in Columbia, you've no right to hinder that transaction for your own gain. God, you're such a collectivist larkin. "We", "state", "states trading with each other"... Jesus, it's embarrassing.

[INTJRyan]

	Originally Posted by Arcanist To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	States don't trade, individuals do. If I come to some mutually beneficial agreement with an individual in Columbia, you've no right to hinder that transaction for your own gain. God, you're such a collectivist larkin. "We", "state", "states trading with each other"... Jesus, it's embarrassing. A corrupted mind.

Commerce Clause disagrees, like that will matter to you.

[Polymath20]

	Originally Posted by Arcanist To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	States don't trade, individuals do. If I come to some mutually beneficial agreement with an individual in Columbia, you've no right to hinder that transaction for your own gain. God, you're such a collectivist larkin. "We", "state", "states trading with each other"... Jesus, it's embarrassing. A corrupted mind.

I would argue that no man is an island.

Your ability to trade with me relies upon workers and systems and a large apparatus of human effort much larger than either of ourselves.

[Arcanist]

	Originally Posted by Polymath20 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I would argue that no man is an island.

Never said that.


To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[larkin]

	Originally Posted by Polymath20 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	So are you for or against lifting trade restrictions with Colombia?

I'm for lifting trade restrictions with Colombia that are strictly for protectionism's sake, and in general working to make trade more free. I think some health, safety and environmental provisions might make sense, but as I said the devil is in the details. I am absolutely in favor of the right of the government to negotiate those provisions on our behalf.

	Originally Posted by Polymath20 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Wrong, the government can subsidize certain imports/exports with things such as tax breaks.

Sorry, seems like both our sarcasm meters are broken.

	Originally Posted by Arcanist To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	States don't trade, individuals do. If I come to some mutually beneficial agreement with an individual in Columbia, you've no right to hinder that transaction for your own gain. God, you're such a collectivist larkin. "We", "state", "states trading with each other"... Jesus, it's embarrassing. A corrupted mind.

You know what's embarrassing? Your fundamental failure to understand the prisoner's dilemma. Falsely believing that your well-being doesn't rest, in large part, on mine. For better or worse, the better you do, the better I do.

Some don't want to believe that because a.) it feels like it compromises our own individual agency (of course it doesn't) and b.) people are idiots. The idea of my well-being resting on the rest of them is troubling, to put it mildly. But it does, and the sooner we accept and move on, the better off both of us will be. That would as true if there were a tsunami (or economic collapse) tomorrow as it is in our very fragile, sheltered little world today.

Oh, and good luck coming to a "mutually beneficial agreement with an individual in Columbia (sic)" without public goods to facilitate it.

	Originally Posted by Polymath20 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Your ability to trade with me relies upon workers and systems and a large apparatus of human effort much larger than either of ourselves.

To say nothing of our ability to progress, to move forward as human beings. I know, I know, sooner or later the sun will explode. So quality of life is all just a moot point to some.

[Arcanist]

I don't know where you're getting this idea that I think I'm an island or non-cooperative. I'm all for voluntary interaction. Afterall, this is the ethically superior way.

[Causa Mortis]

	Originally Posted by larkin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Do you honestly believe trade with a foreign country is a negative liberty?

Just as I believe I should be able to love or have friendships or intellectually engage with Colombians without any sort of government intervention, so too should I be able to exchange economic goods.

	I mean, it's easy enough to mouth that cliche, but in reality, there are a million and one things that both governments would have to do to make that trade possible, much less profitable.

They'd have to get out of the way. No doubt that a tiny fraction of what government does actually facilitates trade, but most of it does more harm than good.

	(a line promoted by corporations; they've got you saying exactly what is needed, how useful a tool!)

You wind up having to either run with megacorps or the gobblement. I prefer megacorps without government backing - in order to sustain themselves, it sustains itself with voluntary exchanges, not with the barrel of a gun.

is exactly how the U.S. government sees a creeping mandate to get involved in a shadow war with Colombian drug cartels and paramilitaries, and hide the real cost of things from the public. Obliviousness to the real cost of things, to the corporate-government nexus required to provide the positive liberties you like - while you live under the delusion that those positive liberties are negative ones, that all trade is inherently free! - perpetuates exactly the drug war that libertarians would rightfully rail against.

The argument that I support the drug war because I support negative freedoms in trade is just silly.

	Yes, governments can only restrict trade. They don't need to do anything to promote it or make it possible. [/sarcasm]

Why promote it? Its a good thing if its a voluntary exchange between individuals, otherwise its not a good thing. The amount of trade that's optimal is the amount that's spontaneous, provided you have pigovian taxation on transport for CO2 emissions.

But if I'm in Cuba and I have the world's best beaches and cigars, I will build hotels and export cigars and trade them for everything else I need. Gobbelement won't help.

	Unless you think that asserting that governments can at least theoretically act on behalf of their people - you know, the idea of believing in a government in the first place, i.e. not being an anarchist - makes me one of those dreaded statists. Used as an epithet, by people who aren't anarchists no less!

Government is a very, very dangerous institution. You're talking about the implicit use of force to achieve an aim. Its warranted in some cases, but you need to be very careful when supporting government intervention.

[Ray9]

Free trade agreements are inherently bad because they are part of the globalist model that has lowered the standard of living in the United states and a few other first world countries. It should be obvious to any clear thinking individual that in order to facilitate workable globalism, things like high living standards and human rights must be sacrificed in order to adjust them to a median point acceptable to all parties involved. Columbia is essentially a narco state and the United states is one its leading customers so the the joke that is called the war on drugs will continue in its present form as a "Sargent Shultz" enabler while the drug flow will actually be enhanced so as not to offend the trading partner and jeopardize the agreement. The real danger here is not that the US is making agreements with narco states with horrible records of human rights, it is that the American citizen is so uninformed, misinformed and malinformed as to not realize what is happening.

[Polymath20]

Originally Posted by Ray9 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Free trade agreements are inherently bad because they are part of the globalist model that has lowered the standard of living in the United states and a few other first world countries. It should be obvious to any clear thinking individual that in order to facilitate workable globalism, things like high living standards and human rights must be sacrificed in order to adjust them to a median point acceptable to all parties involved. Columbia is essentially a narco state and the United states is one its leading customers so the the joke that is called the war on drugs will continue in its present form as a "Sargent Shultz" enabler while the drug flow will actually be enhanced so as not to offend the trading partner and jeopardize the agreement. The real danger here is not that the US is making agreements with narco states with horrible records of human rights, it is that the American citizen is so uninformed, misinformed and malinformed as to not realize what is happening.

The standard of living would be lowered even more if America didn't balance the trade deficit. As it stands, we're hemorrhaging money and jobs due to importing more than we're exporting. Free Trade Agreements are only a tool to slow down the leak.

[Causa Mortis]

	Originally Posted by Polymath20 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The standard of living would be lowered even more if America didn't balance the trade deficit. As it stands, we're hemorrhaging money and jobs due to importing more than we're exporting. Free Trade Agreements are only a tool to slow down the leak.

Trade deficits raise standards of living for the country as a whole. There are individual losers in the process, but on a macro level its trading 1's and 0's for real goods.

[eagleseven]

	Originally Posted by larkin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	These rights may exist, but not for long without enforcement.

Without an armed human stopping you, why can't you speak freely? Why can't you worship whatever you please? Why can't you travel wherever you desire? Why can't you trade whatever you can find for sale?

Natural rights only need protecting when there are significant numbers of armed humans willing to take them away.

[Daoist]

	Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Trade deficits raise standards of living for the country as a whole. There are individual losers in the process, but on a macro level its trading 1's and 0's for real goods.

I didn't know there were still people who thought that. Those 1's and 0's are called debt.

[Causa Mortis]

	Originally Posted by Daoist To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I didn't know there were still people who thought that. Those 1's and 0's are called debt.

Or with asset swaps...durr.

And that oh-so-serious debt is financed at negative real rates of interest and denominated in a fiat currency. Serious business, that trade deficit.

[Ray9]

Trading national identity, nationional soverignty and dismantling the Constitution are the just the broken eggs neccessary to make the omlette that guarantees a cheap electric drill at Walmart for the grateful citizens.