To Rescue the American Dream from Bully Corporations, We Need Better Trade Policies

 You need to watch the entire 40 minutes of Chris Bedford at The Federalist entitled Can We Rescue the American Dream form Bully Corporations. Here is the money quote:

Bedford argued the need to focus on tax and trade policies.

“Why corporations are treated better than partnerships and family businesses. Why capital is treated better than labor, our labor. Why Brazil and Canada are given preference to American ranchers. Why Chinese manufacturing is treated the same way we are. Why Facebook and Google can say we’re global companies, not American companies while benefiting from all of our order, all of our systems, all of our education,” he said.

“Why any other company can benefit from every single aspect of us and all of the trade and then move all over their manufacturing abroad, overseas, choose foreign slave labor, and then use our Navy to get those products shipped back safely on freights to sell to us at lower costs to buy welfare and food stamps,” he said.

Look, many of these policies amount to nothing more than legal theft. When the government uses its taxing power to take from you and me, and give those funds to others to buy votes, that is theft. When corporations are treated better than the American people by the government, as Bedford says, that is also theft. The United States Navy, for example, costs taxpayers billions of dollars. Having corporations using that to get their goods back from China is theft. Then there is the idea that American corporations using slave labor in China to circumvent higher American wages. When these companies get their stuff made in China by what they know is slave labor, and then sell that back in the United States, they are breaking the antislavery laws, if not in fact, then certainly in spirit. When American businesses push for open borders because illegals will charge less for their labor, that is also if not directly slavery, certainly exploitive.

Interestingly, I have had a very real change of heart over the years. 20 years ago, I had more of a libertarian ideology. I would have been very comfortable with Ayn Rand's philosophy. But Ayn Rand was an atheist, and her philosophy is souless.  And I looked at the idea of having countries that had cheaper labor performing labor intensive work as making sense.  And it does in a purely logical way of thinking,

But I am a Christian, and the God of creation loves people, not money. Money of course is necessary as a means of exchange, as a tool, in other words, but what is important is people, always. And more specifically, it is individuals. The greatest good for the greatest number of people is not our God's concept. God is not collective.  Rather, God, who knew each of us before the world began, wants the best for each of us, which we achieve by following his Laws. This makes slavery and exploitation of people immoral. Indeed, the Bill of Rights reflects as well as any document the essence of a governing document that follows God's plan for us. It was truly an inspired document.

Update: Please also watch Tucker Carlson Today. Tucker Carlson seems to be a moral conservative, and interviews interesting people.