"The biggest criticism I get—especially when talking to my progressive friends—is that libertarianism isn’t practical. Government already does all these things, and the idea that it’s going to stop doing them is, to them, unrealistic."
This is one I get a lot, too. But, I like pointing to the postal service, and it's something Ron Paul outlines in his book The School Revolution. He talks about the advent of FedEx, UPS, and so many other ways that one can now send and receive packages. He also touched on email. And it shows that the private sector can capture an industry well; something he applied to education.
I love this quote, and hope it’s a trend. Well said, and I’m there as well: “At some point—I don’t know exactly when—I became less concerned about winning arguments and more interested in trying to understand what others think, and why.” We would all be well served to follow that strategy, because endlessly shouting opinions and trying to win arguments isn’t working. A great post.
I’m no economist so my everyman take on his tariffs are:
1) Trump sees a hollowing out of US industrial capacity and feels it’s a national security threat, both within a military context and an economic context.
2) Trump sees huge trade deficits and huge federal debt and feels it’s a national security threat.
3) Trump sees many parts of small town America hollowed out with no future and is trying to encourage not just companies but industries to repopulate America.
4) Trump sees our allies as sucking us dry while supplying minimal financial and non financial support.
5) China is not our friend. China continues to be very aggressive worldwide with acquisitions of land, stealing of intellectual property and secrets, spying, infiltration of the US gov’t and universities. They openly state they are positioning themselves to be the dominant global power in the future.
My opinion: Trump is currently using economic power to push our allies to contribute more resources and look out for themselves more so the US can focus more resources on major threats. Will tariffs work, I don’t know. Will doing the same thing over and over again as we’ve been doing work? We already know the answer is no.
Maybe Trump is trying to encourage manufacturing capacity to move to either the U.S. or friendly countries, and away from China. Trump 1.0 went hard against China so he has a history of challenging them and trying to slow down their economy. On higher prices, his energy and deregulatory moves have already proven to lower prices for transportation and administrative costs for companies to offset the tariffs.
Will it all work, it remains to be seen. But it can’t be any worse than Bidenomics.
> Trump sees a hollowing out of US industrial capacity and feels it’s a national security threat, both within a military context and an economic context.
And his tariffs won't actually solve this problem, they'll just make things more expensive.
This discussion sounds half baked to me. The critics think they can say words like protectionism, point to instances in which such ideas are deemed failures, and we're done. Trump is a fool.
Perhaps you believe you are not getting something you want. Fine, but you might also consider the notion that what other people want is sometimes important.
I want America to make most of what it needs within its own borders. There are good reasons why this is important economically and in terms of national security.
With all due respect, this is the half-baked idea: "I want America to make most of what it needs within its own borders."
The vast majority of Americans welcome trade with others nations. Trade between individuals and nations makes people better off. If Trump continues down this path, he'll go down in history as a worse president than Buchanan.
How are we better off to have shipped our jobs, technical competence, tooling, and the irreplaceable contributions of our workforce into the hands of our economic, ideological, and military competitors?
We are not better off. We are betrayed by bankers, lawmakers, and traitorous industrial executives who care nothing about America or the people who live here.
If America ever has to fight a war of any consequence, it cannot. We no longer have the industrial capacity to convert into war industry.
You make the assumption that most Americans want the same things you do. I do not believe that is true, and I think Mr. Trump's presence in the White House is evidence of that.
Imagine if...in 1787, we had amended the Articles of the Confederation instead of adopting a new Constitution that would inevitably create the behemoth and corrupt government we know today?
What if we could amend Article II to replace the president with a diplomatic post – a secretary of state type position and only support the offices it needs = Limited Government. That would reduce the size of the federal government big time, and then the states could be more sovereign and let the people decide whether they want their tax dollars to create a nanny state instead of the federal government becoming the nanny state.
The federal government could then focus on national defense…and not offense! Maybe we could replace the corrupt supreme court with a 50-state tribunal court system instead, allowing more state sovereignty?
Bravo Rand Paul.
Is he actually standing on a libertarian position here in any way?
I’m asking in interest of clarifying my concept of libertarianism.
Free trade is a tenet of libertarianism.
I personally like the idea of free trade, with a few agreements in place.
Do libertarians believe people, if unfettered, would act for the common good, rather than selfishly?
I think cooperation and altruistic behavior at the community level is the norm, but scaling up to larger geographical areas changes those behaviors.
"The biggest criticism I get—especially when talking to my progressive friends—is that libertarianism isn’t practical. Government already does all these things, and the idea that it’s going to stop doing them is, to them, unrealistic."
This is one I get a lot, too. But, I like pointing to the postal service, and it's something Ron Paul outlines in his book The School Revolution. He talks about the advent of FedEx, UPS, and so many other ways that one can now send and receive packages. He also touched on email. And it shows that the private sector can capture an industry well; something he applied to education.
I love this quote, and hope it’s a trend. Well said, and I’m there as well: “At some point—I don’t know exactly when—I became less concerned about winning arguments and more interested in trying to understand what others think, and why.” We would all be well served to follow that strategy, because endlessly shouting opinions and trying to win arguments isn’t working. A great post.
I'll take Noah's apology seriously if his new found appreciation for libertarianism persists through a Democratic administration.
I’m no economist so my everyman take on his tariffs are:
1) Trump sees a hollowing out of US industrial capacity and feels it’s a national security threat, both within a military context and an economic context.
2) Trump sees huge trade deficits and huge federal debt and feels it’s a national security threat.
3) Trump sees many parts of small town America hollowed out with no future and is trying to encourage not just companies but industries to repopulate America.
4) Trump sees our allies as sucking us dry while supplying minimal financial and non financial support.
5) China is not our friend. China continues to be very aggressive worldwide with acquisitions of land, stealing of intellectual property and secrets, spying, infiltration of the US gov’t and universities. They openly state they are positioning themselves to be the dominant global power in the future.
My opinion: Trump is currently using economic power to push our allies to contribute more resources and look out for themselves more so the US can focus more resources on major threats. Will tariffs work, I don’t know. Will doing the same thing over and over again as we’ve been doing work? We already know the answer is no.
Maybe Trump is trying to encourage manufacturing capacity to move to either the U.S. or friendly countries, and away from China. Trump 1.0 went hard against China so he has a history of challenging them and trying to slow down their economy. On higher prices, his energy and deregulatory moves have already proven to lower prices for transportation and administrative costs for companies to offset the tariffs.
Will it all work, it remains to be seen. But it can’t be any worse than Bidenomics.
> Trump sees a hollowing out of US industrial capacity and feels it’s a national security threat, both within a military context and an economic context.
And his tariffs won't actually solve this problem, they'll just make things more expensive.
This discussion sounds half baked to me. The critics think they can say words like protectionism, point to instances in which such ideas are deemed failures, and we're done. Trump is a fool.
Perhaps you believe you are not getting something you want. Fine, but you might also consider the notion that what other people want is sometimes important.
I want America to make most of what it needs within its own borders. There are good reasons why this is important economically and in terms of national security.
Free trade is a fantasy. Nothing is ever free.
With all due respect, this is the half-baked idea: "I want America to make most of what it needs within its own borders."
The vast majority of Americans welcome trade with others nations. Trade between individuals and nations makes people better off. If Trump continues down this path, he'll go down in history as a worse president than Buchanan.
How are we better off to have shipped our jobs, technical competence, tooling, and the irreplaceable contributions of our workforce into the hands of our economic, ideological, and military competitors?
We are not better off. We are betrayed by bankers, lawmakers, and traitorous industrial executives who care nothing about America or the people who live here.
If America ever has to fight a war of any consequence, it cannot. We no longer have the industrial capacity to convert into war industry.
You make the assumption that most Americans want the same things you do. I do not believe that is true, and I think Mr. Trump's presence in the White House is evidence of that.
> The critics think they can say words like protectionism, point to instances in which such ideas are deemed failures, and we're done.
We can equally point to Trump's various protectionist policies and their consequences.
Imagine if...in 1787, we had amended the Articles of the Confederation instead of adopting a new Constitution that would inevitably create the behemoth and corrupt government we know today?
What if we could amend Article II to replace the president with a diplomatic post – a secretary of state type position and only support the offices it needs = Limited Government. That would reduce the size of the federal government big time, and then the states could be more sovereign and let the people decide whether they want their tax dollars to create a nanny state instead of the federal government becoming the nanny state.
The federal government could then focus on national defense…and not offense! Maybe we could replace the corrupt supreme court with a 50-state tribunal court system instead, allowing more state sovereignty?
Some people call me a dreamer, but am I the only one? https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/a-modest-proposal-part-iv-amending