FREE TRADE vs. AMERICA

I will not be on the air this evening. I am very sick. Liz may be doing the program on her own, but I am not sure.

ANOTHER JOB BITES THE DUST

A dear friend of mine just informed me that her husband lost his job. What kind of job? Manufacturing. What state? Michigan. Typical, all too typical.

Free trade advocates may wish to minimize this as mere collateral damage in the pursuit of some globalist utopia, but it was what put bread and butter on the table for this Michigan family. Hope the worker in China, India, Mexico, or any other beneficiary to free trade trade policies enjoys the work and wages this Michigander once did... well, at least the work.

THE RON PAUL SPECTER

The more stupid the Republicans are, the more intense becomes the populist rebellion.

Sam Francis, Populism and the future of American Politics

I friend of mine recently asked what I think will happen in the instance Ron Paul loses the Republican nomination. Will he run third party? Will he endorse another candidate? These questions and many were at the forefront of his mind. This wouldn't be of any real significance were he to be a Ron Paul supporter, but this individual supports Fred Thompson. This wasn't the concern of a supporter wondering what to do once all is said and done. This was the legitimate fear of what will happen once all the votes have been cast.

This election is rather unique. We have an outsider ahead of Thompson and Giuliani after the first three states have staked their claims. While he is only hovering at around 8%, his influence on the upcoming general elections are looming. What will happen with that eight percent? Will they go third party or will they endorse the Republican nominee. These questions, more so than what Congressman Paul will do, ought to worry the frontrunners.

Fact is, most of Ron Paul's supporters are die-hard. They have become disenchanted with run-of-the-mill Republicanism. They believe that his ideas are the only thing that will save America. As far as they are concerned, the Democrats are flying off a cliff at 70 mph while the Republicans are cruising at 65. Both are going in the wrong direction, one just happens to be going 5 mph slower. This leaves the lesser of two evils in a different context than elections passed. And I am not at all sure that the traditional "X democrat is going to throw America to hell in a breadbasket" tactic will work on these people.

So what will happen? Well, I believe that the vast majority of Paul supporters, though certainly not all, will vote third party. Whether it is the Libertarian Party of the almost defunct Constitution Party, you will see a surge in their numbers. I do not predict that they will win, but their existence should strike fear in the heart of the Republican frontrunners. This voting block may end up being the Ross Perot and Ralph Nader of days gone by. People who spoke their mind, and voted their conscience, even when it could cost the lesser of two evils a stay in the Oval Office.

FOR THE COMMONWEALTH

Aquinas: The Treatise on Law Qu. 90. The Essence of Law

2. Is the law always directed towards the Common Good? A: Every part is ordered to the whole as the imperfect to the perfect. The individual is part of a perfect whole that is the community. Therefore, law must concern itself in particular with the happiness of the community.

Many may decry Aquinas of proposing Communism. This would be a rather unfortunate rendering of what he had to say. He was far more concerned with law than economics, and he saw community in the form of a commonwealth rather than a communitarian utopia. He was, after all, quite aware of the flaws of man and the reality of inequality.

While many may wish to toss Aquinas to the wind, I think America would do well to consider his insight. There was a time when America understood the idea of a commonwealth. There was a time when America understood the idea of a nation. To be quite frank, there was once a time when America knew what America was! All of this has fallen to the wayside. Americanism - not the heresy - has become as elusive as a three-legged ballerina. To say that this is a tragedy would be a gross understatement.

America must regain its sense of identity. This requires common heritage, common traditions, a common religion, and common values. It takes Americans realizing, and accepting, that while the promises of "you can do anything you want" are nothing more than empty platitudes, they can most certainly do what they do best. And only they know what this is and how this is to be done.

But it is here where the individual and the common meet. It is here where we find a tension between what is good for the one and good for the many. This has been the trial of our times. Thankfully, we are not left to wander on our own. Those who came before us faced the same questions, and dealt with them in ways that we shouldn't take for granted.

These saints and sinners balanced out these two extremes with an archaic form of fusionism. On the one hand, they insisted on private property. On the other hand, they wished for the owner to feel a familial commitment to those around him. Likewise, they saw in man the right to elect a statesman. Still, they held them accountable to the wellbeing of the commonwealth. They also saw man's desire to pursue happiness as a great goal to be achieved. But they never mistook liberty for license. It was a balancing act, but one they did fairly well.

The cult of radical diversity, led by the Diversicrat ayatollahs, is tearing this country apart at the seams. Laissez faire tolerance of moral deviancy is eating away at our culture. It is long overdue for the people to rise up, to stand for God and country, and fight back the tide of degeneracy dominating this once great nation. Until we can balance our cultural institutions upon the tightrope of the one and the many, we will continue down this road. Unfortunately, this road is one that has been traveled by all great empires that once were but are no more.

THE ILLS OF FREE TRADE

Forrest Research projects these being the top-10 jobs in demand over the next 10 years:

1. Waiters and waitresses
2. Janitors and cleaners
3. Food preparation
4. Nursing aides, ordinaries, and assistants
5. Cashiers
6. Customer service representatives
7. Retail salesperson
8. Registered nurses
9. General and operational managers
10. Postsecondary teachers

As Lou Dobbs rightly points out, only three of these require a college degree.

BETWEEN WALL AND MAIN

As much as I hate to say this, I fear that the influence of special interest groups and lobby firms is radically disproportionate in light of the number s of people they actually represent. Wall Street has more influence than Main Street, and K Street has more power than Middle Class Boulevard. I sincerely believe that this has been problematic, regardless of the benefits such enterprises may occasionally benefit us.

Then again, this conundrum is very familiar to me. It is a tension I have lived with for a long time. I have wandered for many years on the dividing line between paleolibertarianism and paleoconservatism. Whether it be free trade or tariffs, open or closed borders, localism or nationalism, populism or federalist, capitalist or agrarian, I have found myself between a rock and a hard place. Good arguments all around, heroes and villains in both camps.

So why is this? I think that a large part of this has to do with my upbringing, both where I lived and the family values cherished within the home. As a middle-class Michigander I also see things from a middle-America perspective.

Take agriculture as an example. On the one hand we understand that farming tends to be work very few wish to do. On the other hand, we have seen corporations destroy family farming and jobs that were once offered to those with little immigration go to those with no documentation of citizenship.

Then we have trade. As middle-class people we certainly enjoy our Meijer's and Walmarts. We like the fact that what we buy doesn't cost us too much because we have seen our incomes go too far down. Then again, most of us in Michigan have our incomes go down because our jobs are being offshored and outsourced. NAFTA, CAFTA, and other so-called free trade agreements have assures that Michigan's number one export is manufacturing jobs.

This has resulted in a rise in populist sentiment. People are beginning to see that the real war going on is the one between corporatist and the Johnny Q public, capitalists and economic nationalists, as well as between foreign interests and the jobs over at local UAW.

The war is really between the abstract and that which we personally experience every day. It is a war between idealism and realism. More importantly, it is a war between a vision of what a minority hope the world may become over against a perspective that sees the world as it has been and how it ought to remain.

So here we are, between Wall St. and Main. We stand between the rock of special interest groups and the hard place of the realization that our nostalgia for things past may be nothing more than a phantasm. Where should we go? I am not sure. One thing I am certain of is that I don't enjoy this ride, and fear that we may be traveling the road to national ruin.

THE RISING TIDE OF POPULISM

Populism has gotten a bad rap over the years. It is used in a loose fashion by those in the media. Many have gone so far as to identify it with fascism, and a fascism grossly defined. Populism is as rich as fascism is awfully misconstrued by equating that particular philosophy with the tragic figures of Hitler and Mussolini. While I don't intend to justify fascism, I think that politicians and journalists alike would do well to reevaluate their understanding of its philosophy. Same goes for Populism. It is with the latter that I am concerned here.

Populism is rather broad. One can be right-wing, centrist, or left-wing, and still be classified a populist. At its core, it is little more than a view of society in terms of rivalries. It recognizes the reality of class distinctions, unjust inequalities, and the will to power. Typically, populists (at least in America) have taken aim at the social and economic injustices being done by a small group of people over against the general populace. They see a danger in oligarchy and plutocracy. They acknowledge the threats that a powerful and wealthy elite have on a people who lack both the political tools and financial resources to defend themselves from the onslaught.

This is especially seen when discussing trade, immigration, and multiculturalism. It is here that the will of the few appear to be imposed upon the public at large. Whether it is the damaging cost of free trade upon American workers, mass immigration (both legal and illegal) changing the culture, or mandatory multicultural sensitivity training, we see the minority elite imposing their ideology upon an unwilling and resentful populace.

Whether or not one likes those most commonly identified with populism (i.e., Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, Thomas Flemming, Ralph Nader, Theodore Roosevelt), they cannot deny that much of what they say has roots in political and economic realism. The ideologues may see populist economic nationalism and a rigid non-interventionism as things of the past, but the numbers, both of lost jobs to so-called free trade and lost lives to imperialist adventures around the globe, speak for themselves. Numbers never lie, and the numbers are there for all to see. We don't need Ross Perot's charts, we need look no further than our paychecks and the ever growing number of those who have lost well-paying jobs to people in China, Mexico, and India.

However the political tides turn, one this is for certain, populism is on the rise. Some may call it reactionary, and they may be right. But it isn't a blind knee-jerk reaction to political phantoms and economic illusions. The reaction is a gut feeling that what they see and feel is very real, and that what they see and feel is reflected in the language of the populists.