Trump’s Trade War Begins: Disaster to follow

My Facebook comments:

Trump has declared world trade war, disrupting business plans, abrigating contracts, upending consumer budgets, rendering $billions of productive investment useless, hammering Americans’ retirement portfolios, and killing jobs. It’s much worse than expected, which was already bad. For the first time, an American Administration is deliberately trying to engineer a global recession—or worse. And it’s based on discredited poverty-inducing 17th Century economics. It’s pre-Adam Smith. It’s primitive. And it’s also based on unimaginable paranoia. What does it even mean when Trump says “other countries have been ripping us off” and other such nonsense? Countries don’t trade. Private individuals do. When a foreign company exports its product to the U.S. to offer for sale, and an American decides to buy it, both sides win. Trade is WIN-WIN. Who's getting “ripped off?” Nobody. 

Economically, Trump’s collectivist premise that this will “make America wealthy again” really means make the government wealthier. The money raised by the tariffs—which will be much less than Trump dreams—will not enrich the average American. It will be sucked out of American consumers to enrich the government. Somebody’s getting ripped off, alright—American consumers, American businesses that depend on global trade, and foreign companies that supply the goods that enrich Americans’ lives. Trump cares about America, in the same sense as a big government Progressive—but he doesn’t care about Americans.

Trump’s trade war is not only economically destructive. It is immoral. It violates the inalienable individual rights of Americans to freely trade with other people. Economic freedom is fundamental to Americanism. Trump is trampling all over the American Dream.

Too many Americans have been flipping out over a few Federal workers losing their jobs and some spending being cut. But this is penny-ante stuff—and in principle positive. The real danger is in Trump’s trade war. I hope Congressional Republicans get a backbone, join with Democrats—as 4 rational Republicans just did on Canada tariffs—and outlaw Trump’s whole tariff scheme, and curb the presidential power to impose tariffs willy-nilly by executive order—a power no president should have. No, it’s not the end of the world—not yet. Perhaps the hope that this is all a negotiating ploy, and things will ultimately work out, is still alive. But we’re in dangerous territory. Make no mistake. Trump has led our country into taking the first step down a road that ends in World War III. Congress must stop Trump on this issue. That would really be Putting AMERICANS First.

At this posting, the stock market is experiencing a massive coronary. 

But there is one potential silver lining developing. Trump’s unconstitutional power grab may be jolting Congress into growing a spine. The Washington Post reported . . . 

A bipartisan bill that would give Congress final approval on tariffs imposed by a president was introduced Thursday by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington). The bill seems to have little chance of passage but underscores the unease among some Republicans with Trump’s tariffs plan, which sent shock waves through financial markets and rattled business owners around the world on Thursday.

I’m not holding my breath. Maybe enough Republicans will join all Democrats in stripping Trump, and the presidency, of it usurped power to impose tariff taxes, which Constitutionally belongs to Congress. Unfortunately, too many Republicans are blind Trump backers, Democrats have their own protectionist problems. But “I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

Related Reading:

Trump just imposed the largest tax hike since 1942 without congressional approval

Trump’s tariffs are a tax by another name, and the power to levy taxes lies with Congress.

If Trump were trying to implement an income tax hike of similar magnitude by executive order, it would be plainly unconstitutional. Everyone knows that only Congress can set tax rates. What’s different about tariffs? On its face, nothing. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.”

The McKinley Tariff that Trump has said he admires was not an executive order signed by President William McKinley; it was legislation sponsored by McKinley when he was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. So, too, the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act — which did much to worsen the Great Depression — was passed by Congress. It was not an executive order from President Herbert Hoover.

The problem is that, since the 1930s, Congress has delegated considerable authority to the president to set tariff rates. But, as in so many other areas, Trump is stretching executive authority beyond the breaking point.

The United States has done much better during the past 50 years than other industrialized economies: U.S. GDP per capita is 2.4 times larger than Japan’s and 1½ times larger than Germany’s. In October, just before Trump’s election, the Economist proclaimed the U.S. economy “The envy of the world.” How is this an emergency?

“This is a shocking abuse of the president’s authority to declare national emergencies,” she told me. “I don’t think that will stand up to a court challenge.” It is imperative that Congress take back the power to set tariff rates. Only elected legislators are allowed to raise taxes, and only elected legislators should be allowed to raise tariffs — which are simply taxes under another name.

Phony Liberation From a Phony War

Hillary’s Cave-in to the Left on Free Trade

NAFTA, Whatever its Flaws, Was a Good Thing

‘Buy American’ is UN-American—Harry Binswanger

The real reason Trump is destroying the economy: Trump is imposing ruinous tariffs because American democracy is no longer strong enough to stop him. [Mostly spot on. But I have to take issue with his reference to America as a Democracy. This reference confuses the issue, and leads to unnecessary contradictions. America is a Constitutional Republic. But the author’s basic argument is correct; Trump is violating the Constitutional checks and balances by imposing taxes without Congress, and is abusing emergency powers—albeit by using powers that he inherited.]

Why is Trump rewriting US economic history? Anyone?

DEI Exposed for What it Means, and Where it Leads

New Jersey Spotlight News )NJSN) has a very revealing piece on President Trump’s war on the Left’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement—Taylor Jung’s ‘Chilling effect’ feared as Trump administration attacks DEI. Here is an annotated review of Jung’s “news” article. Indented portions are direct quotes from the article, with my emphasises.

Escalating federal pressure to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives is raising more questions than answers about the future of anti-discrimination programming in New Jersey and across the nation.

I have observed that NJSN leans strongly Left in its reporting. So right off the bat, incredibly disingenuous! DEI requires discrimination. Only the tribalism of relying on statistical "disparities" rather than actual evidence can justify seeing DEI programs as an anti-discrimination tool.

  

Last week, the Department of Justice signaled it could criminally investigate companies engaged in what it called “illegal” race- and sex-based discrimination under the “guise” of DEI. 

Note the framing. DEI requires race- and sex-based discrimination to achieve its self-described “equitable” ends, which means eliminating statistical disparities. Yet, Jung prefaces its reporting with a “what it called ‘illegal’” preface, and followed it up by referring to DEI as a “guise”—to what end . . . to protect racism? Apparently:

Legal and workforce experts say it could have a “chilling” effect on programs meant to combat prejudice 

How do you combat prejudice through race- and sex-based discrimination? 

and to promote equitable working environments 

"Equitable" means fair and impartial. How does discrimination lead to that? Of course, to the Progressive/Woke Left, equitable means Egalitarianism, the enemy of fairness and merit. 

It is also not clear what criminal laws the Trump administration is citing, those experts say.

“I think that, yes, that is an effort to utilize the kind of mechanism of civil rights law, not in favor of the groups that have been historically served by those laws because they were the impetus for those laws, but instead to say, ‘We believe society has gone too far in the direction of protecting the interest of those groups,’” said Stacy Hawkins, a professor at Rutgers Law School.

Note what's missing from this diatribe—the individual. And the individual is who gets discriminated against—i.e., marginalized, if the Left's favorite term has any meaning—when "protecting the interest of those groups." Groups are made up of individuals. Those who erase the individual from any moral, social or political consideration are not defenders of any group, and the Civil Rights Laws do not and were never meant to protect groups, only individuals. The law should never favor or disfavor any group. It should universally secure and protect individual rights and equal protection of the law. 

In order to systematize sex and race based discrimination, the DEI crowd is totally misrepresenting the Civil Rights Laws. Certainly, the historical  discrimination against black Americans were “the impetus for those laws." But the Civil Rights laws were never a mechanism for reverse discrimination. They insert universal principles meant to protect all groups from the kind of discriminatory injustices that victimized the black group, through the mechanism—the principles—of individual rights.

Workers are protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination based on gender, race, color, religion and nationality. But Title VII is a civil law, not a criminal one.

This may be true. But whether civil or criminal, DEI requires precisely what Title VII prohibits—workplace discrimination based on gender, race, color, religion and nationality (Whether this provision should apply to private enterprise is another discussion).

This should be obvious to any objective person. I can’t believe Jung can’t see the blazing contradiction in his reporting. So, why DEI? 

“It is unconscionable that the Trump administration would coopt the language and vision of the civil rights movement in these executive orders as it attempts to send our nation back to an era of rampant, state-sanctioned discrimination [!!!]

 Which is exactly what DEI does. Biden's "whole of government approach" to systemitizing DEI is new era of rampant, state-sanctioned discrimination. This is exactly what Trump's policy is designed to save us from, as is obvious to anyone with any inkling of understanding capacity. By now, the absurdity and evasiveness of this article can not be hidden. Read on:

Ultimately, these measures drive us farther away from a future when health is no longer a privilege, but a right for all,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is a funder of NJ Spotlight News.)

There you have it. The ultimate goal of collectivist DEI. Totalitarian Socialism. Who would enforce this "right" to health? Slaves, that's who. If someone needs health care as a right, then those with the capability to provide it—the doctors and other health professionals—cannot refuse to provide it. Those who pay for it cannot refuse. The same goes for any economic "right"—a "right" to housing, education, food. Socialism is slavery, and totalitarian Socialism is the ultimate goal of anyone who preaches Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. After all, Socialism requires collectivism, and what better way to condition people to accept collectivism than by systematizing the easiest form of collectivism—racism.

Related Reading:

Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell

The Racism of “Diversity” by Peter Schwartz for Capitalism Magazine

Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’

SEC’s Boardroom ‘Diversity’ Rule Is Racist, Unnatural, and Politically Motivated

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

From 'Diversity Maps' to Forced Integration: Obama's Racist Housing Policy Masks the Real Problem—Lack of Free Markets

This is Rich—a ‘Diversity’ Exec Crying ‘Racism.’

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, the Fed, ‘Diversity’, and Racism

Democracy Wouldn’t Be a Gamble if American Principles are Adhered to.

Theodore R. Johnson posted a thoughtful pre-election op-ed in the Washington Post titled Black voters are joining a coalition. It’s always a gamble. “Black voters,” Johnson writes, “must always wonder whether their partners at the ballot box will remain partners after a victory” :

Black voters keep a watchful eye for these signs. Their trust in democracy — both the system and the people who operate it — is hard-earned. For them, choosing the right coalition partners has not been just a question of policy wins but a matter of life and death. The same system that legislated slavery and Jim Crow became the tool that secured rights and opportunity. This checkered past gives their politics a pronounced pragmatism, rooted in an understanding that Black people in America fare best when the federal government makes civil rights a priority. Their numbers and political solidarity give them electoral power — valuable even to those who might despise them.

My emphasis highlights a crucial philosophical observation that begs the question: “Is the American system both the ‘system that legislated slavery and Jim Crow’ and the system that protects civil rights the same?” Are they even compatible? Put differently, did the Founders create a Democracy, which means unlimited majority rule with our individual rights determined by vote? Or did they create a constitutionally limited republic that limits democratic power and prioritizes individual rights, which means rights are unalienable and thus outside the authority for any electoral majority to infringe? 

I posted these comments:

Democracy wouldn’t have to be a gamble if American principles are adhered to. Yes, democracy can enslave people or subjugate them under segregation. Or it can liberate them, all based on the vagaries of electoral outcomes. Democracy unconstrained by constitutional protections for individual rights is fundamentally totalitarian. That’s democracy. 

But it’s not America. 

America is the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes that fundamental intellectual, political, and economic individual rights to life, liberty, and property are equal and universal, are unalienable, and precede government. A constitution based on these principles protects us from the three basic governmental manifestations of tyranny identified by James Madison; the tyranny of the one (autocracy), of the few (aristocracy), or of the many (democracy). The U.S. Constitution, despite its flaws, is intended to implement these principles and thus secure our liberties by limiting the powers of the government.

That’s why it’s crucial to recognize that America is a constitutionally limited republic, not a democracy. Slavery and Jim Crow—and, now, the steadily encroaching “soft” tyranny of the regulatory welfare state—result when people calling themselves Americans abandon the Founding principles, and declare that America is a democracy. But no one’s rights should ever be determined by majority vote. We must recommit to the principles of the Declaration and the legislative power-limiting intent of the Constitution so that elections no longer have to be a gamble on our civil liberties. 

Related Reading:

America; Democracy or Republic or Both--Why it Matters

Abortion Rights and Majority Rule

Rights and Democracy

Constitutional Republicanism: A Counter-Argument to Barbara Rank’s Ode to Democracy

Mesmerized by Elections, the NJ Star-Ledger Forgot that Tyranny is Tyranny

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur

QUORA: Why does the Pledge of Allegiance say the USA is Republican not Democratic?

Senator Mike Lee is Right: America ‘is not a Democracy’

Harris's Unchanged anti-American Values

Kamala Harris held an August 2024 interview on CNN in which she sought to clarify her “flip-flops” on key issues. But what really stood out for me are two key deeper points: her values haven’t changed, which will define the policies she will actually advance regardless of her “tack to the middle” flip-flops on controversial issues. And her most reactionary—and dangerous—core value, which she hasn’t “flipped,” is her belief that voting is our most important right.

America was Founded on natural rights theory, which holds that man’s individual rights derive from his nature as a sovereign, self-owning, self-governing being. Starting with the most fundamental right, the individual’s right to life, all of the fundamental rights of man, including liberty and property, precede government, and cannot be taken or granted by any governing authority. In the words of America’s Founding legal document, the Declaration of Independence,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . [my emphasis]

Note the hierarchy. Governments don’t create rights. They secure our rights, which are thus unalienable. Note that the right to vote comes into view, implicitly, only after the institution of government, as implied in “the consent of the governed.” James Madison explained the Founders’ revolutionary new orientation between the government and the people’s liberties, reaffirming the principles laid out in the Declaration:

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . .  of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history . . .

[My emphasis]

The Democratic Party holds the opposite principle—that rights come from the government—charters of liberty granted by power—thus canceling America.

When England began violating the colonists’ rights with a coercive series of liberty-infringing Acts, the colonists realized that their “rights of Englishmen,” which were charters of liberty granted by the power of the government, were not as secure as they thought and that the British government could as easily rescind them as protect them. Thus, the colonists—who around this time began identifying as Americans, rather than Englishmen—turned to natural rights theory, especially as espoused by John Locke. In classic reactionary fashion, the Democratic Party rejects Locke and natural rights theory. It reverts back to the pre-Revolutionary totalitarian concept of rights as grants of governmental privilege, being only as secure as the next rights-violating legislation. Out go unalienable individual rights, and thus the fundamental principle of America.

This is not hyperbolic. The Democrats, as always, are very explicit about this. In the interview, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said, explaining her concept of “freedom”:

“The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities and places of worship,” Harris said Thursday. “The freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. The freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. And the freedom that unlocks all the others: the freedom to vote.” 

Thus, Harris reaffirmed her allegiance to the Democratic Party’s fundamentally anti-American orientation.

The emphasized principle conforms perfectly with Biden’s assertion that “The fundamental right to vote is the right from which all other rights flow.” Biden didn’t misspeak. The U.S. Justice Department based it’s lawsuit against Georgia’s election law on the same premise. Attorney General Merrick Garland declared that "The right of all eligible citizens to vote is the central pillar of our democracy, the right from which all other rights ultimately flow.” 

Think about what this means. The Democratic Party was founded on this principle in 1828, led by the pro-slavery platform position that if the majority votes to enslave a minority, the minority gets enslaved. This means the right to life is dependent on election outcomes, and can be taken away, along with all other rights, if the voters, or the voters’ elected representatives, say so. Hence, the Democratic Party.

To this day, the Democrats have not changed their ideological stripes. They have always had, and still have, totalitarian designs on America. Only the details have changed. The Party that once stood for plantation slavery now stands for socialist slavery—which, as Confederate intellectual George Fitzhugh explains in his seminal defense of slavery, Sociology for the South: Or the Failure of Free Society, are fundamentally the same. 

Harris is dead wrong. Freedom is not the right to vote. Freedom is the right to live one’s life by one’s own choices and values, regardless of anyone else’s vote or of the outcome of any election. Any government, including an elected government, that has the power to grant and rescind rights at will is a totalitarian state. The Founders sought to protect individual rights from tyrannical government, whether autocratic, aristocratic, or democratic—or as James Madison put it, from "the one, the few, or the many." Harris seeks to obliterate that ironclad protection. The Founders' miraculous achievement—"the most triumphant epoch in [the world's] history"—gets thrown under the bus. And it’s a premise that dates back to the founding of her party. So much for Harris’s vaunted value of “freedom.” Her values indeed have not changed. She was never, and is not now, a champion of freedom, properly understood. Without inalienable individual rights, no freedom—and no United States of America—would have been possible. Remember that in the United States of America, we’re not free because we vote. We vote because we are free.

It's as if Harris and the Democratic Party don't understand that their policies and values would destroy America as we know it, and what the Founders intended—or as if they do, and intend just that. I have long believed the latter. So, once again, my commitment to never vote Democrat is reinforced. 

Related Reading:

Joe Biden—the Real Protégé of Jefferson Davis

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right. 

The Dangerous Totalitarian Premise Underpinning the Justice Department’s Suit Against Georgia’s New Election Law

Biden Cancels America

QUORA: Why does the Pledge of Allegiance say the USA is Republican not Democratic?

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur

Why I Will Never Vote for a Democrat

America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson