Re: Are there too many conservatives on this forum?
Wow, you guys have way too much free time, I think.<br /><br />As far a liberals vs conservatives, I think JB has it absolutely right. You can't really figure out who is what in real examples, so you have to make up pretend liberals, and pretend conservatives, and talk about them.<br /><br />Like the liberal whiners and outsourcing of jobs. There may well be some, but there are just as many conservatives that feel the same way, while maybe expressing it differently. And we have lots of examples of it, like the imposition of steel tariffs againt the EU (among many others) Everyone wants simple answers to very complex questions, and it simply does not work. And Clinton, by the way, championed the notion of Global trade and things like NAFTA, which many conservatives on this board rail about.<br /><br />China is the new hot button issue...with their cheap labor and cheap imports. But it is simply more complex than that.<br /><br />Just last week I toured a factory outside of Toronto, where they package auto parts for GM for shipment to GM factories in Venezuela and China. The cars built in Venezuela probably end up in North and South American market, but the Chinese factory produces autos directly for the Chinese market.<br /><br />And they make these autos out of Canadian made parts, and they package it with American made plywood (ours), using approximately 13,000 4x8 sheets per month.<br /><br />Now while I don't particularly like taking a little anecdotal evidence and creating some great truth out of it, still world trade is a great thing. <br /><br />And far and away the best part of world trade, and little mentioned, is that countries that are developing economically and growing rarely cause, or want to be a part of, wars.<br /><br />Sure circumstances change, and some jobs disappear due to this trade, but others appear, and helping manage the change is the challenge of our government and our educational system--while there are rarely simple answers that work, still on balance this change is a net good thing, and the emphasis should be put on managing the change, as opposed to stopping it.<br /><br />Clinton understood it, as many other "liberals" do, and many others don't understand it--liberals and conservatives alike.<br /><br />BTW, I had a meeting with a Canadian business executive yesterday, where he agreed that the softwood issue would not be solved before the election--and he asked me whether there was any chance Bush would be reelected--I told him it was a definite possibility, and he just shook his head incredulously...The rest of the world is simply not very impressed with this man.
