Free Trade Madness

Well there's a sort of a feud going on between NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, which you can read all about here.

At the heart of the conflict is the debate over Free Trade. Free Trade is a complicated issue and like many complicated issues the loudest arguments are heard from the extremes. Friedman is 100% behind Free Trade and seems to have dedicated the last several columns to proving the outsourcing is great and doesn't hurt anybody (despite the obvious fact that it does. Tom Tomorrow's position is a bit more nuanced, but I can't recall a time when he was pro-free trade.

Let me stop for a moment and admit that I am combining several issues into one under the blanket term Free Trade, and I know it. Outsourcing is the current fulcrum for Free Trade discussions, as the WTO was a couple years ago.

I think that this issue is one in which the Moderate Liberal has an occasion to shine. On a lot of issues the moderate liberal inevitably looks like a watered down version of a "real" liberal. In this issue, however, the moderate liberal can take the more viable middle path. One that accepts free trade as part of the world, but one that rejects the laissez-faire head-in-the-sand approach of the conservative. Free Trade needs government oversight to ensure that it works for everybody and not just guys with corner offices in Manhattan.

Here's a fun conversation to have with Conservative Free Traders.

Bryant: So if I understand correctly, all the poor people are poor because they are lazy and have poor family values?

CFT: Yep.

Bryant: And that therefore we need to cut welfare and food stamps and unemployment insurance and so on?

CFT: Yep.

Bryant: And you favor companies moving their operations overseas and throwing their employees out of work in mass layoffs?

CFT: Yep.

Bryant: And you don't see any conflict between these views?

CFT: Nope.