The Old Right Opposed Tariffs

Tariffs are a good thing and are necessary as a counterweight to the imabalances created by unrestricted free trade and concentrated capital, especially now when the American business landscape is so decimated by decades of insolubility. It is a mistake to confuse the dependency on cheap products form overseas as beneficial for American consumers - the same consumers need jobs, or so, this is at least what we used to think, before the socialism took hold.

In a way, the left's calls for a UBI are related, because they are giving up on employment in the private sector, so, their answer is just to print and handout money that finds its way back into supporting the corporations -- who own more and more as consolidation has killed the old local and regional players.

I'm for tariffs, but not only on the national level. I would also support them on the state or even county level, to protect the people and small, family-owned businesses, and the cultural identities of whatever is left in our beleaguered, homogenized country.

They should not be blanket tariffs, however, as some countries enjoy centuries of established superiority in certain sectors, as we do, and those cultural proclivities shouldn't be discriminated against. They can facilitate advantageous trade where the best of both is exchanged for like, and happier outcomes can thrive.
 
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Snowball said:
Tariffs are a good thing and are necessary as a counterweight to the imabalances created by unrestricted free trade and concentrated capital, especially now when the American business landscape is so decimated by decades of insolubility. It is a mistake to confuse the dependency on cheap products form overseas as beneficial for American consumers - the same consumers need jobs, or so, this is at least what we used to think, before the socialism took hold.

In a way, the left's calls for a UBI are related, because they are giving up on employment in the private sector, so, their answer is just to print and handout money that finds its way back into supporting the corporations -- who own more and more as consolidation has killed the old local and regional players.

I'm for tariffs, but not only on the national level. I would also support them on the state or even county level, to protect the people and small, family-owned businesses, and the cultural identities of whatever is left in our beleaguered, homogenized country.

They should not be blanket tariffs, however, as some countries enjoy centuries of established superiority in certain sectors, as we do, and those cultural proclivities shouldn't be discriminated against. They can facilitate advantageous trade where the best of both is exchanged for like, and happier outcomes can thrive.
Click to expand...

Base level tariffs on anything we can provide for ourselves, if the other country is superior enough in some way to sell in our market then good for them.
Higher tariffs on anything vital for our independence.
Higher tariffs on hostile regimes.
 
Swordsmyth said:
Base level tariffs on anything we can provide for ourselves, if the other country is superior enough in some way to sell in our market then good for them.
Higher tariffs on anything vital for our independence.
Higher tariffs on hostile regimes.
Click to expand...

- It's ironic that so many libertarians are automatically opposed to anything that Trump is for, apparently for no other reason than that Trump is for it. The Chase-Oliver-Libertines bring up the "Old Right" but only when it suits them; the Old Right also believed in Sunday Laws, vagrancy laws, traditional marriage, etc. Bringing back the culture of the Old Right in 2024 would create a very uncomfortable situation for rainbow "libertarians".

- There are many things about the Constitution that are not pure minarchy. However, compared to the modern multi-trillion dollar monstrosity we call "the Federal government", a government that actually obeyed the Constitution would essentially be a libertarian Utopia, by comparison, both economically and culturally (small government simply doesn't have the resources to police what you do in your bedroom if it is not a crime of aggression, no matter what laws are on the books.)

- In particular, the Constitution gives the Federal government the power to levy tariffs at the borders. From economics, we know that tariffs impose a burden on domestic consumers vis-a-vis foreign consumers. However, we also know from economics that every form of government resourcement necessarily reduces economic efficiency, so it's always a matter of "pick your poison".

- The most deadly of all poisons is the unapportioned (thus, unconstitutional) personal income tax because it adds to the economic burden the unconstitutional violation of personal privacy (violates 4th amendment protection against unreasonable search/seizure). Everybody is required to "show their accounts" to the IRS on pain of truly medieval punishment should they fail to comply. In other words, the IRS makes the entire Federal government into a protection racket: we must buy protection from the IRS by voluntarily violating our own 4th-amendment protections or face the consequences. Border tariffs of equal magnitude to the income tax (combined with real abolition of the income tax at SCOTUS-level by virtue of its unconsitutionality, protecting against future regressions by Congress) would provide equal resourcement to the Federal government while not requiring violation of the 4th-amendment protections of US citizens. All told, the economic consequences of $X trillion of government revenue drawn from source A or source B is roughly equivalent and will be arbitraged by the market one way or the other. Thus, while tariffs have negative economic consequences, so do income taxes, and $X trillion dollars of tariffs are equally negative to $X trillion of income tax but without the added devastation of constitutional protection of personal privacy in the 4A which income taxes entail. Tariffs have negative economic consequences; for the same total revenue, income taxes have all the same negative economic consequences and they violate our constitutional rights.

Don't just fall for the propaganda, people! Think!
 
CCTelander said:
Not to mention the fact that isolationist societies throughout history have almost always been backward, stagnant societies that usually suffered under some form of brutal, feudal dictatorships. It’s only been after they’ve abandoned their foolish isolationism that they were able to move in the direction of greater freedom and prosperity, although there are certainly no guarantees that the will/would.
Click to expand...

Yup, see North Korea as an example on the isolationist spectrum.
 
Pauls' Revere said:
Yup, see North Korea as an example on the isolationist spectrum.
Click to expand...

Isolationism can be bad, particularly if you're tiny, poor, and communist.

But it can also be very good.

The Globalists have spread the propaganda that isolationism is bad, because it so severely goes against their interests
 
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