[Tokhtamish]

What we will probably see is the return of divided government. Bush might well be reelected but if he is it will be by a public that wants no more wars and more attention to the hemorhagging of America's capital base at home. He will have a Democratic Senate and House.

The fascinating thing about free traitor types is their obliviousness to anything but libertarian doctrine. The collapse of America's ability to maintain superpower status, a widening gulf between haves and have nots, net downward social mobility, a huge and growing underclass, hey that's AOK so long as free trade reigns supreme. Sacrificing the lives and well being of the living to an ideal of a pure society in pure indifference to real world consequences is a very European thing to do. Americans judge a policy by results.

[bluejay]

Tokhtamish wrote:

"...The fascinating thing about free traitor types is their obliviousness to anything but libertarian doctrine. The collapse of America's ability to maintain superpower status, a widening gulf between haves and have nots, net downward social mobility, a huge and growing underclass, hey that's AOK so long as free trade reigns supreme. Sacrificing the lives and well being of the living to an ideal of a pure society in pure indifference to real world consequences is a very European thing to do. Americans judge a policy by results."

America is an undisputed superpower in all respects - military, economically, and culturally.

US military power is unmatched.

In the last 20 years US economy has far surpasses both Western Europe and Japan. We averaged 3%-4% growth every year; Europe has been doing about 2% and Japan about 1%. Both Europe and Japan are examples of what happens if excessive trade restrictions are allowed to smother the economy - presumably we do not wish to imitate them. Let's look at a couple of examples:

1. Prices in Europe are (best case) 2X prices in US. Salaries in Europe are comparable to US salaries. In some cases, in fact, they are far lower - my boss in a Western European Bank had to get a special permission from senior manager to be able to higher me at a competitive US salary.
2. Our IT industry has no significant competition either in Europe or Japan. (India is providing some competition in the narrow field of IT consulting.)
3. The majority of biotech/pharmaceutical industry is now in the US - this was not the case 20 years ago.
4. Japanese economy has gone completely anemic with no recovery in sight. (A poster child on protectionism!)

In general, looking over the past 20 years, US prospered tremendously by having fewer trade regulations then our competitors. The "giant sucking sound" has resulted in huge number of high quality new jobs and tremendous boost to US economy both in absolute size and relative to our nearest competitors.

[templar]

The fascinating thing about free traitor types is their obliviousness to anything but libertarian doctrine.

I'm wondering how many of the French elite didn't realize anything was wrong till they were being led up the gallows steps?

[HiTech RedNeck]

The fascinating thing about free traitor types is their obliviousness to anything but libertarian doctrine.

The irony is specially rich when they want to open the doors to exploitation of said trait (er, trade) by gummints that are the furthest thing from being libertarian.

[GOP_1900AD]

They are adicted to the tepid and shallow optimism of shopkeeperdom. Antidote - read Von Clausewitz.