Rethuglicanism
Updated below
Yesterday evening I was watching some newsish program on TV, possibly Hardball, when suddenly I almost couldn't believe my ears. Some guy was seriously arguing that the government had no legitimate role in regulating the import of dangerous and defective Chinese goods. The main argument he was making seemed to be that a) the Chinese have a right to sell anything they want, defective or no, and b) if Americans don't want their children to play with dangerous Chinese products or eat dangerous Chinese food, they simply don't have to buy those things, c) the products are cheap, and when you buy cheap products, you should expect low quality, so it's your own fault if you got one of these defective things, and d) the market always works so this probably didn't even happen to begin with. As a collateral argument, the guy was saying these products weren't really that dangerous to begin with (toothpaste laced with antifreeze is really quite good for you, I suppose), and if a few kids died, so what.
This is wrong on so many counts I can't begin to enumerate them, but I'll take a stab at a few. First, until very recently, nobody knew the Chinese were shipping us dangerous, defective products. If you don't know it's happening, you can't very well be expected to stop buying their products. Second, a large number of people in this country simply don't pay any attention to the news, so I suspect there are still a large number who don't know about the defective Chinese products. Now, I suspect a Republican would then say, "If they are that ignorant, they deserve to get screwed." But, with the toys at least, it's not them but their kids who will suffer, and I don't think anyone would say that a two year old child should look at the label, and avoid playing with toys labeled "Made in China." Finally, when it comes to food products, at least, Republicans continue to criticize efforts to force products to be labeled. Without those labels, you couldn't possibly avoid Chinese imports even if you wanted to.
Update:
In response to Kissweb's comments, I went to examine the Hardball transcripts and found the guy's name was Stephen Moore, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Yesterday evening I was watching some newsish program on TV, possibly Hardball, when suddenly I almost couldn't believe my ears. Some guy was seriously arguing that the government had no legitimate role in regulating the import of dangerous and defective Chinese goods. The main argument he was making seemed to be that a) the Chinese have a right to sell anything they want, defective or no, and b) if Americans don't want their children to play with dangerous Chinese products or eat dangerous Chinese food, they simply don't have to buy those things, c) the products are cheap, and when you buy cheap products, you should expect low quality, so it's your own fault if you got one of these defective things, and d) the market always works so this probably didn't even happen to begin with. As a collateral argument, the guy was saying these products weren't really that dangerous to begin with (toothpaste laced with antifreeze is really quite good for you, I suppose), and if a few kids died, so what.
This is wrong on so many counts I can't begin to enumerate them, but I'll take a stab at a few. First, until very recently, nobody knew the Chinese were shipping us dangerous, defective products. If you don't know it's happening, you can't very well be expected to stop buying their products. Second, a large number of people in this country simply don't pay any attention to the news, so I suspect there are still a large number who don't know about the defective Chinese products. Now, I suspect a Republican would then say, "If they are that ignorant, they deserve to get screwed." But, with the toys at least, it's not them but their kids who will suffer, and I don't think anyone would say that a two year old child should look at the label, and avoid playing with toys labeled "Made in China." Finally, when it comes to food products, at least, Republicans continue to criticize efforts to force products to be labeled. Without those labels, you couldn't possibly avoid Chinese imports even if you wanted to.
Update:
In response to Kissweb's comments, I went to examine the Hardball transcripts and found the guy's name was Stephen Moore, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
posted by walldon | 8:40 AM
2 Comments:
Can you wrack your brain to come up with who it was? This is the kind of thing that can be used against Republicans.
The only characterization has to be totally irresponsible and inhumane. But, that sounds like a Republican.
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