Presumably the parent meant “atrophy” and not “apathy”. Seems like the kind of shit my phone’s autocorrect is likely to pull.
> The alternative is to raise taxes or tariffs to pay for keeping unneeded production lines active, which means hardworking Americans in the rest of the country take home or keep less money. Which might sometimes be the right tradeoff for national security, but you only ever really know in hindsight.
The parent wasn’t talking narrowly about keeping defense supply chains maintained (although that’s probably a good idea) but about maintaining our manufacturing industry in general so we have the equipment and experience to build. This requires a policy shift, but an eminently sensible one for reasons besides military policy: we (the US) should reduce our dependence on a reliably oppressive dictatorship (particularly with respect to critical supply chains like defense) and bring those jobs and ingenuity back home (or at least to friendly shores).
To wit, middle class Americans would bring home more money (although not so much for the American managerial class, which has enriched itself by outsourcing American middle class jobs), but there would be less cheap, disposable plastic junk on our shelves—things would cost more but they would last longer and we would repair our goods rather than disposing of them.
Apart from reasons of global and national security, economy, etc, why should we allow products on American markets that were made with labor and environmental conditions that we would never tolerate here? Why should we be complicit?
> The alternative is to raise taxes or tariffs to pay for keeping unneeded production lines active, which means hardworking Americans in the rest of the country take home or keep less money. Which might sometimes be the right tradeoff for national security, but you only ever really know in hindsight.
The parent wasn’t talking narrowly about keeping defense supply chains maintained (although that’s probably a good idea) but about maintaining our manufacturing industry in general so we have the equipment and experience to build. This requires a policy shift, but an eminently sensible one for reasons besides military policy: we (the US) should reduce our dependence on a reliably oppressive dictatorship (particularly with respect to critical supply chains like defense) and bring those jobs and ingenuity back home (or at least to friendly shores).
To wit, middle class Americans would bring home more money (although not so much for the American managerial class, which has enriched itself by outsourcing American middle class jobs), but there would be less cheap, disposable plastic junk on our shelves—things would cost more but they would last longer and we would repair our goods rather than disposing of them.
Apart from reasons of global and national security, economy, etc, why should we allow products on American markets that were made with labor and environmental conditions that we would never tolerate here? Why should we be complicit?