In response to Patrick's comeback in the comment section:

Patrick, sorry about the muddy nature of my post overall. Obviously there were some parts that could have been better stated, and some other places where I misunderstood your meaning completely. Let me see if I can clarify a little.

First, about the free market. I actually took your meaning to be the exact opposite of what you were saying. Obviously, I know that you weren't trying to generalize China through racist logic, but I did believe that you were accidentally applying such logic with the best of intentions. I was mistaken, thinking you were arguing for further market protections, worried about China's entry into the market because it poses a threat to American production jobs. Now that I reread your post, that's obviously not the point you were trying to make and I apologize for misinterpreting it.

On the other hand, I think the language of exploitation is perfectly applicable. Whether or not exploitation provides living wages for workers in those countries, the truth of the matter is that "trickle down" economics is always accompanied by an increasingly polarized inequality of wealth distribution. And as long as this is the case, I can't see global capitalism as global philanthropy... maybe exploitation with certain system-wide positive effects. On the other hand, I have great respect for economists; they know exactly how capitalism works and have generally made a decision given damages that they feel accomplishes other worthwhile goals — just don't ask me to share those goals.

I'm not trying to be unfair to workers by saying we're exploiting them. I'm not suggesting we're pulling the wool over their eyes, but that we're engaging them with, maybe offering good wage earning opportunities, at their maximum expense, and our maximum benefit — it's the laws of the market.

I think market principles can help, but the application of economics does not need to mean the opening of all markets. An example from the recent Korean FTA talks: Korean rice farmers want the government to protect their market. You might consider this from the free market perspective and say, "rice will be cheaper if they are forced to compete with foreign rice growers," but the situation is more complicated than that. Korea is a small country, and familial networks are pretty big. There's probably a rice farmer in half of the extended families in the country, and plenty of towns where rice growing is the only meaningful product. To destroy that rice economy, therefore, while it may lower the price of rice in Korea, may not be in the interest of the local economy or the majority of Koreans. Protections in markets have measurable effects, and I don't think that those are always necessarily bad. You're talking about US protectionism, however, and I think in general you're right on the money... we don't have any place being protectionist about our economy as the economically most powerful country in the world.

I realize you don't really want to go into the market issue, so I don't want anyone to interpret this response as negatively representative of Patrick's views. I'm just thinking through the issue for myself.

About which: sorry again for my use of the word "parade." I was making a general statement, and didn't mean to characterize you like that. I think it's great that you are honest and vocal about your views on this blog. I admit I wince, sometimes, at the points you make, but I don't think there's any call to be embarrassed. I know you're not Republican, although I would probably call you conservative or slightly nationalistic, if pressured... But that's fine because it's certainly not knee-jerk party line — I think you really add to the debate (would there be a debate without your posts?). However, I think it's also unfair to generalize the discussion in our classes, on the blogs or boards as "far-left or in conformity with the liberal mainstream media." We are certainly a pretty liberal group of people, but I think you should give people the same intellectual respect everyone deserves. We're all thinking through the same stuff, and learning as we go. On the other hand, devising plans to take others down is indefensible...... unless they're being really stupid, and I'lll be the judge of that (just kidding). I think it's most important that we be flexible with our thoughts, rather than absolutist.

The thing about the Bill of Rights that I'm trying to say, is that the right to bear arms has been attached to the right of free speech and practice of religion, not necessarily by you, and that the gun lobby has worked very hard to keep them inseparable. Therefore, the right to free speech, which I freely recognize as a right that it is important to protect in all free societies on the globe (to some extent), is represented in the Bill of Rights. But the "right to bear arms," which I largely disagree constitutes a real human right (any more than the right to "own anything I want inclusive of weapons, drugs and other people" should be a right), is also represented in that document. Instead of pointing at the "rights" the document represents, people look at those representations and declare them sacrosanct. And the logic usually goes in this order: the right to speech is inalienable, the right to speech is in the Bill of Rights, the right to bear arms is also in the Bill of Rights, therefore the right to bear arms must also be inalienable. Again, I'm not saying that's your choice of legitimizing logic, but it's been used often enough that I'd like to hear more about your view on why the right to bear arms should be inalienable.

Enough with bathtubs. Do you really want to argue that bathtubs should be regulated to whatever extent guns are? Nor does anyone else. Do you want to say that bathtubs purchasers should be subject to a background check? Then, do you want gun buyers not to be subject to one?

Since you ask, in a nutshell I believe (for reasons I won't be able to fully explain here) that even with a right to bear arms, there should be a ban on all small arms and assault rifles from the get-go; that there is a huge problem with gun violence above and beyond other kinds of violence in American society; and I would very much like to see all gun ownership restricted to military and public safety personnel. So, all three really. I think when saying "leisurely violence" isn't a particularly good way of putting it, on my part. "Unprecedented ease with which the modern American can kill is completely unacceptable" is basically what I mean by "leisurely violence." The point about alcohol is well taken; my uncle was killed by a drunk driver, so I know how socially destructive that can be. But the point is that as a society, we try to regulate that kind of activity as well. Do I expect gun deaths to drop to zero in the US if we ban guns? Probably not, but regulation will be effective is reducing them.

If my characterization was inaccurate, please put it down to my misinterpretation of your post. It really didn't come across to me that you believe the right to bear arms is inalienable, and as I said before, I'd love to hear more about your logic behind that. The right to abortion I can get behind, because I happen to agree with you, but I haven't gone through the mental steps to lead me to believe in the inalienable nature of the right to bear arms yet, so it's sort of new to me in a way. As for Katrina, I think that's a prime example of why people shouldn't have guns, although that seems to be a point that we'll disagree on. Personally, I don't worry too much about complete social collapse, since I'd be pretty much fucked if that happened in any case (I'm no Mad Max), but it's also a good example of why small arms make no sense in the self-defense logic. Is having a pistol going to help someone defending their house in the boonies any more than a rifle would (actually, a rifle would be more powerful and accurate)? Pistols are only useful to be portable, concealed and to fire quickly. And if you can't fire a rifle straight, then the chances are you can't fire a pistol when push comes to shove either.

I'm behind Nakajima about allowing the police to monopolize gun violence. I don't apologize for it, nor do I consider it to be hypocritical. Society is a complicated place, and if we're really arguing about what people without government have the "inalienable right" to do, yeah, we can all get guns and set up little compounds. But the nature of our social relationship in a government is that we set up privileges and rights that may be unequal in some respects in the interest of stability. The key is to empower people in different ways, through law, judicial oversight, citizen oversight, etc. And I think all those systems can work without the need for a threat of violence from citizen militias.

I'm sorry you won't share what you think about rights, because I think that's at the center of this argument — what is really an inalienable right and why? But I do want to say a word about being the devil's advocate, something I have a LOT of experience doing. In my opinion it's all well and good, as long as you're keeping another part of yourself off to the side that is growing and learning all the time from your experience. I decided to stop playing the devil's advocate because there was a point I realized that the only way I was growing as a person was that I knew more ways to come back at someone's arguments. That might not be you, or anyone else who decides to push the limit of people's thinking, but it was my experience, so I tend to be pretty disparaging of the practice.

You make a good point about my last paragraph... I actually started writing it and wasn't sure where to go. My first draft was something even more contradictory, and then I thought I caught it. You saw right through me, haha. What I mean is, policy is a socially contingent thing, and what it looks like (rhetoric) isn't always what it means/is (issues), because it is mutually dependent on a multitude of different factors which are not well-represented through that rhetoric.

I don't think anyone wants war, for which reason I don't think this argument is anything to get worked up over... but the issue is hardly ever the desired result, is it? Method is so much more controversial.

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