inignoct wrote:
] ] It's "not possible" to fix him on the
] ] liberal-conservative scale, he said. "Where I am on the
] ] political spectrum is a convenient way to avoid talking
] ] about issues."
]
] A brief article in the Washinton Post about Howard Dean...
] the quote above is my especial favorite.

Well, I've got to say this is the first interview with Dean thats made me think maybe he's not such a good idea after all.

Should countries that trade with the US have the similar human rights and environmental ideals? In general, yes. You don't do business with people who do things that you think are immoral.

Can we decide tommorow to stop doing business with everyone who doesn't conform to our exact standards. Absolutely not. This issue is way more complex then that.

1. This isn't a case of linear maturity of human rights and environmental standards. In some cases, the US is seen as the laggard. For example, the US is one of the few countries in the world where minors can be executed. Why do we assume that our standards are the bar to which everyone else ought to be held?

2. These countries are not the same as the United States, and the rules that apply here do not always make sense there. Can China have the same minimum wage law as the US? No. There are too many people there for that. Such an action would cause massive unemployment. Can India conform to the same clean air standards? No. They are in a different stage of industrialization and they cannot afford the kind of clean industry that we engage in here. If you force third world countries to obey first world emmisions standards, then those countries absolutely will not industrialize. This is well understood. Countries that industrialize have a massive increase in emmissions before those emmisions start to drop back down (as they are in the United States).

3. The economic chaos caused by such a radical action would plunge world markets into depression and damage the standard of living for everyone on the planet.

Yes, we should have standards that we expect people to meet, and we should have timeframes in which we expect them to be met, and we ought to use our weight in the marketplace to keep that progress on schedule. Furthermore, we SHOULD (and frankly, do) stop trading with countries that we beleive are acting immorally.

However, to simply stop trading with everyone who has not reached our level of sophistication and expect them to adapt overnight is to give in to the oversimplified rhetoric of the most radical socialist elements in our society.

I won't vote for that.

RE: Defining Dean (washingtonpost.com)