Posted on 01/27/2005 1:31:46 PM PST by Willie Green
"We are infinitely better off without treaties of commerce with any nation."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1815.
ping
I would love it if NAFTA croaked.
One of Rush's few brain cramps!
One of Rush's few brain cramps!
Agreed and good luck to them.
bump
Save an owl! /sarcasm off.
I think it is not possible to challenge. Don't treaties become the law of the land. And just like the constitution, they can't be changed or modified by congress. Unless we repeal NAFTA is it really possible for the SC to overturn it?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought treaties were basically an extension of the constitution.
It is your constitutional right to not have to face trade competition?
By the way, your Thomas Jefferson quote totally contradicts your point. Jefferson didn't want treaties because he wanted trade to be free... he didn't see why we should restrict it, hence no need for treaties.
"I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may."
--Thomas Jefferson to B. S. Barton, 1815. ME 19:223
"The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to establish at home, with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves without regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign dependency."
--Thomas Jefferson to Jean Baptiste Say, 1815.
"I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may."
I stand corrected , perhaps he did become more of a protectionist as he got older. However that quote is pure economic insanity. What if it costs $100 to produce something in the US, but can be bought for $1 if it's imported. It is totally economically inefficient to buy from the US firm.
TRADE IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY. Individuals and Firms only make a trade when it is in their own economic best interests to do so, that is called capitalism, and capitalism is why we are living in times of unprecedented wealth.
Agree, trade is good for the economy. NAFTA may hurt some domestic industries but it helps others...it's just the way it is.
"NAFTA may hurt some domestic industries but it helps others"
From an economic standpoint, the industries geting hurt by it is also a good thing. We operate on a profit and loss sytem, whereby profitable enterprises are created and expanded, while loss-making relatively inefficient enterprises have to become more efficient, become smaller, or dissapear. If you only have the profit side of the system, we would be holding our economy back. Think about this fact... virtually all of the jobs that exist today didn't exist as they are 50 years ago. That means that some companies and jobs had to fail for new ones to arise.
We should drop all such NAFTA like treaties immediately -- and drop our tariffs and any quota systems to zero as well.
Why screw the US consumer?
If other countries want to tax their consumers through trade restrictions like Europe, let them.
Our model should be to beat Hong Kong as the free entrerprise country of the world. Most studies show that the greater the economic freedom of a country, the wealthier its citizens are.
The only requirements we should make on imported goods involve proper labeling of country of origin ("made in China by slave labor") and homeland security ( no e. coli in foods , no explosives, etc.).
There is no such thing as "a level playing field."
Hoppy
Not if they conflict with the Constitution.
I'd love to see NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO bite the dust.
Hope it happens. But...
TRADING DEMOCRACY
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/622674/posts
I'd love to see all the legislators who signed it, without reading it or researching the effects, croak.
You forgot the UN!
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