Trading Places

Via Indusrtrial Workers of the World.

I dared to address Loomis on this subject, for the first time since the TPP debacle, when he started suggesting that Democrats might be protesting against Trump's proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum for the wrong reason:

Does it strike you how etymologically bizarre that is, objecting to the way "liberals" "start" to defend "free trade"? I thought the simple problem with tariffs on solar cells and now iron and aluminum was that they'd clearly cost far more jobs than they saved, but.....

— YastronomicalOdds (@Yastreblyansky) March 3, 2018

With the thought that whatever "liberal" has meant from the 1850s until now has some kind of connecting thread in it, like the idea that there's an intrinsic value in generosity and offering others latitude, whether it's in poor relief or encouraging people from other countries to try to sell stuff in yours (Hayekian liberalism or neoliberalism in the strict sense being about being generous and latitudinarian with yourself, and the hell with other people).

E pluribus multum

"Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do." But little England couldn't ever imagine it. #pecksniff

— (((Yastreblyansky))) (@Yastreblyansky) June 24, 2016

I'm literally grieving. This should not have happened. If the European Union isn't democratic enough, the point ought to be to democratize it, not to retire into your island fastness.

Western pond turtle, via Aquarium Tidings.