Ohio voters are stupid.

Voters in Ohio are stupid. Of course I'm not sure they are dumber than voters in other states. But I can attest that they are dumb. Exit polls of voters in the Democratic primary showed that 80% of these individuals believe that U.S. trade with other countries destroys jobs in Ohio, while only 10% think trade creates jobs. The rest either have no opinion of think trade has no impact on jobs.

Of course both Clinton and Obama played up the "trade is evil" mantra, even though I suspect neither one of them actually believes it. And Obama's people have all but told Canada that this is merely political campaigning and not to worry. I still contend that fear is the primary tactic used by politicians to control the voters and that includes real or imagined fears. Obama just outrightly lied when he claimed that "entire cities... have been devastated as a consequence of trade agreements". Both he and Hillary promise to withdraw from NAFTA unless the treaty puts more restrictions on trade.

The reality is, that before NAFTA passed, the unemployment rate in Ohio was 6.5%. It is now 5.8%. So unemployment in Ohio is lower today than it was before the free trade agreement. On what evidence do these wanna-be presidents declare things are worse? If Hillary and Obama were anymore dishonest they could write scripts for Michael Moore.

Dan Griswold pointed out, in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, that the Ohio Department of Development says that 283,500 Ohio workers owe their jobs to trade exports. And the two biggest foreign trading partners with Ohio are Canada and Mexico. These are jobs that would be negatively impacted by any anti-NAFTA moves. Griswold also notes that since "Nafta took effect on Jan. 1, 1994, the U.S. economy has added a net 26 million new jobs. The average real hourly compensation (wages and benefits) of workers has climbed 23%. Real median household net worth has increased by a third." He isn't say this is all due to NAFTA but he notes this disproves the "getting worse" theory of the candidates.

Griswold points out the blatant hypocrisy of Hillary on this matter. She campaigns as a member of her husband's "White House". Hillary says that under the Clinton regime the economy was doing well. But, one of the major pieces of the Clinton economic proposal was NAFTA, which Clinton pushed for rather strongly. So which is it, Hillary? Is NAFTA the wonderful plan Bill said it was, and which helped create an economy, which you now point to with pride? Or was it a disaster leading to unemployment?

I can't see how Hillary can have it both ways. NAFTA was a key part of her "White House" experience. How can that experience be good for America if she is saying they pushed for a measure which destroyed jobs?

If trade from Ohio with Mexico destroys "jobs" then why isn't this true about trade between Ohio and Indiana? Why isn't it true between Columbus and Toledo? Would we create more jobs by preventing companies in Ohio from doing business with people in Kentucky? Would workers be more prosperous if we prevent business in Toledo from buying goods or services from businesses in Cincinnati?

There is no inherent difference between trade with Mexicans and trade with Hoosiers. If cutting down the number of trading opportunities we have is good for us, then the citizenship of the trading partners is of little relevance. Of course the fewer trading opportunities you have the worse off you are. Having one theater in town limits the sort of film you can see. Having one restaurant to pick from limits what you can eat. Every time you cut off trade with one group of people you make them, and yourself, worse off. If there is one utterly stupid opinion that people hold it is the idea that trade destroys jobs.

More evidence: Republicans are stupid.

Republicans are stupid. That wasn't always the case. There was a time that they were fairly reasonable people, but that was a prior lifetime. There was actually a time that they read serious authors, often wrong, but still serious thinkers. Now they lap up the likes of Coulter and Limbaugh and O'Reilly. They have become intellectual bottom-feeders.

And the result is the disaster sitting in the White House instead of sitting in the dock where he belongs.

The most recent evidence that Republicans are stupid is a recent poll that shows that 60% of Republicans think free trade is bad. Considering that free trade is one of the easiest positions to understand, this shows a real effort at stupidity. Perhaps they are waiting for Jesus to tell them what to think. But he just didn't concern himself with such mundane things as productive labor and free exchange.

If free trade is bad for you, then is it bad across the board? Or is it only bad if the people you trade with are a different color? And if the trade is bad then precisely why are you doing it?

I'm a recovered Republican, someone who once thought the party believed in freedom but I have since seen the light and realize they are actually worse than the Democrats -- and that took some effort. But I know that if I'm faced with an exchange, where I'm worse off, I don't make it. You have to mind-numbingly dumb to go ahead with an exchange that you know will make you worse off.

Even children understand that. Ten minutes on a playground will show you that they simply aren't going to exchange something of higher value for something of lower value. Children are smarter than Republicans. No surprise. I've met some plants with higher IQs. Every since the backwater revival tents emptied out, so that the Boobus Americanus could follow Jerry Falwell's advice (get saved, baptized and registered to vote), the intellectual level of the Republican Party has gone about as low as is possible, without given credence to a new theory of reverse evolution.

People don't make trades that make them worse off, at least not regularly, and certainly not over an extended period of time. So how is free exchange of goods, over imaginary lines, a bad thing? And, if it is bad to trade with Lower Fastigonia, then isn't it bad to trade with Alabama? If we are supposed to be self-sufficient -- an old Mercantalist fallacy -- then why is trading with people across the continent good, but trading with Canada bad.

It makes far more sense for someone in Arizona to trade with Mexico, which is a short skip away, than it does to trade with Maine or North Carolina, which take several days transit. If free trade is bad wouldn't our lives improve if we restricted trade between the states? Or even between the cities?

Why not go for broke and have the ultimate self-sufficiency plan and forbid all economic exchange whatsoever. If you can't grow it yourself that's just too bad. It's good for you to have fewer choices. What sort of Neanderthal comes up with this sort of logic?

I suspect that the Republicans, who have reincarnated the Know-Nothing movement with such genuine lack of knowing anything, would argue that when they themselves trade it is good. But when others trade it is somehow bad. It's like a curse or voodoo. If they do it then we will be harmed. This logic is big with Republicans these days. It's the argument against gay marriage: "If gays get married it will destroy our marriages."

These Republicans say they would vote for any Republican who promised to restrict foreign goods coming into the United States.

Well, any idiot, even a Republican, can stop foreign goods from coming into the United States right now. Just don't buy them! The only reason people sell us things is because we buy them. If no one went to McDonald's it would close. If no one bought foreign goods then no one would import them. If you want to make yourself poorer that is your right. No doubt you will earn a place in the Kingdom of Heaven through your self-imposed poverty. More luck to you. If you want to chop off fingers or poke out your eyes I wouldn't stop you. You have the absolute right to inflict as much harm on yourself as possible -- right up to suicide. What bugs the hell out of me is that you are so damned intent on dragging everyone else down with you.

Why is it that something so simple as freedom just can't make its way through the thick skulls of the drooling cretins that besmirch the party of Goldwater and Reagan? It really is simple. If you don't like a TV channel, change channels. These days you don't even have to get off your fat ass to do that. You can use the remote. If you don't want to buy foreign goods, then don't buy foreign goods. Why is it necessary, when you don't want something for yourself, you then assume that Big Brother must step in to prevent other people from having that choice?

It really isn't hard. It is called freedom. Think back, try real hard to remember. It was a word that Republicans once pretended to believe in. But that was before the "Christian nation", "war on terror", "compassionate conservatism" bullshit arose. Freedom is a really radical idea. Let me try to explain how it works.

If you don't like same sex marriage then marry someone of the opposite sex! Wow! Talk about simplicity. Just leave other people alone who differ with you.

If you don't like what an author writes, don't read it! Don't ban the book. Don't burn the books -- or the authors either for that matter.

If you don't like what is on the TV then turn it off. I know it is your only source of information. You can do without. And if you really want to be uninformed turn on Fox News. You'll love it. But leave the programs of other people alone. Just because you wallow in ignorance doesn't mean everyone has to.

If you don't want to buy foreign goods then don't. If other people want to purchase such things leave them alone.

In the end it comes down to two things. The first, is mind your own damn business. The second is leave other people alone. Radical isn't it. Just stop sticking your ugly puss into the affairs of other people. Your constant nagging and nannying of others is boring, intrusive and offensive. And if you keep it up then don't be surprised if the reaction is to slap restrictions on your liberties and choices. At some point the person who keeps nagging gets smacked in the jaw and they deserve it. If you don't want my preferences imposed on you (and I already know you won't like them) then don't impose your preferences on me. Fair enough.

And for those of you who can still think, the remnant, the few -- I suggest reading The Four Bonehaded Biases of Stupid Voters. You do remember reading, don't you?

Why are they reviving apartheid?

Most people have heard of the odious system of apartheid: the series of laws in South Africa that intentionally stripped black citizens of their rights. But what exactly was it?

If someone asked you to point to apartheid to what would you point?

It would be difficult to single out any one specific thing since apartheid was a series of laws, regulations, controls and attitudes that permeated South Africa. At its core was a philosophy of separation—the idea that people of various races should have as little to do with each other as possible.

It was established to keep separate the cultures, ideas, values, and economies of the various races. One justification that was given by it’s architects was that it was necessary to “protect” the uniqueness of each culture.

One of the most obvious ways it did this was by restricting trade between the races. For instance whites could not establish businesses in black areas and vice versa. In rural areas where there were white farmers with black farmworkers the law required separate businesses to serve the races. Whites could not purchase from a black shop and blacks could not purchase from a white shop. Somewhere in my photo collection is one I took while driving out in the countryside. It was a sign over a country store that said "nie blanke winkel" or "non-white shop".

Certainly when I was living there opposition to apartheid was almost universal even among whites. The big question was not whether aparthied should go but how to get rid of it. But if this segregated form of living was evil in South Africa then why are so many people trying to revive apartheid on a global scale?

There are organised forces that rally around the idea that the peoples of the world should be kept economically separate. They don’t want us to trade with one another. They don’t want us to buy one another’s products or hire one another for specific jobs.

They argue that the nations of the world should be kept independent of one another. They even claim it is necessary to do this to “protect” the cultures of the different nations. They call themselves anti globalisation activists. I call them advocates of global economic apartheid.

It’s true they don’t go as far in violating individual rights as did the apartheid regime. But in other ways they are worse. The apartheid governments didn’t try to stop various ethnic or tribal groups of the same race from dealing with each other. The Afrikaner could still sell to the Englishman and the Zulu could still trade with the Xhosa or the Tswana.

The anti-globalist wants to restrict trade to only those people who live within the confines of the borders of your nation. Borders which are more often than not accidents of history, rarely drawn with any sensibility behind them.

Apartheid made people poorer. We know that. It was one reason that so many people condemned it. By restricting trade between people of different races it limited the number of potential trading opportunities. By reducing the number of trades possible it reduced the likelihood that any one trader could make the optimal trade possible. It limited the jobs you could take and the number of people you could hire. It said where you could sell your products as well as from whom you would be allowed to buy goods or services.

Every person regulated by apartheid’s economic laws—and that was everyone—lost out. South Africa was poorer because of it.

Global economic separation does the same thing just on a bigger scale. Globalisation is simple the freedom to trade with the rest of the world regardless of the nation in which my trading partner lives. I’m allowed to seek out the best opportunities to buy or sell.

That means I can make trades that make me better off. Often I don’t even realise that I’m doing this. I may not know that the banana I’m eating came from Ecuador or that the book I’m reading was published in the UK. I just know that I wanted that banana and that book.

I wanted them because they made me “better off” is some way that I considered important. At the same time it made farmers in Ecuador and publishers in the UK a little bit better off as well.

Apartheid was a system of barriers that kept people apart. Economically it prevented voluntary exchanges between people of different races. Protectionism, the philosophy of the anti-globalist movement, is the same thing. The only real difference is that where apartheid reduced exchanges between people of different races the anti-globalist wants to prevent exchanges between people of different nations.

That difference is relatively minor. The results will still be the same. Like apartheid protectionism makes us all worse off.