[steve86]

why didn't President McKinley outlaw automobiles so that buggywhip makers and blacksmiths would not lose their jobs

False analogy. The outsourcing issue is not about replacing an obsolete technology with a better one. It is about replacing American labor with foreign labor. Why do people adopt facile arguments with no moral compunction?

[Beck_isright]

"Why do people adopt facile arguments with no moral compunction?"

Because in an election year, people become politically and morally blind to the real issues by trying to create an aura of perfection around their candidates. The reality is that the reverberations of 9-11 are still being felt and the economy has not improved or recovered dramatically.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Why do people adopt facile arguments with no moral compunction?

You know why.

[lelio]

Why do people adopt facile arguments with no moral compunction?

Ah, you're one of them book readers aren't you?

I'll also add in there "Why do people think nothing can go economically wrong in the US under a Republican president?" Its like people drank the kool aid and now accept that offshoring R&D jobs is okay if its replaced with a new WalMart supercenter employing the same amount of people.

All one has to do is look to England's and France's fall from world powers thinking that they can maintain their wealth through offshoring their industries to the new world or to third worlds. This shell game is good for a couple of years but eventually the new economies either realize they're better off without you (the US to England) or just want you the hell out of the country (Vietnam to France).

[Mike Darancette]

The outsourcing issue is not about replacing an obsolete technology with a better one.

I would submit to you that many of the IT jobs being outsourced are obsolete at the wages they command in this country, else they wouldn't be outsourced.

There is not some "evil" cabal that wants people to starve the but pure economics.

But a good stiff dose of Buchananite/Kerry protectionism could cure that.

[KC_Conspirator]

That "buggy whips" argument is a canard. Can someone please tell me how being a doctor of radiology or a Cold Fusion programmer is obsolete? Fact is that its not.