No. of Recommendations: 2
Why? Because there's no single "you" that's "handing" anyone anything. The situation arises from the free market transactions of millions of people and countless firms. And there's no political will to have the government intervene to override those choices.
And that's what leads to the race to the bottom syndrome, which is what the left argues is the central feature of capitalism itself, where with no protections all things flow to the lowest wage centers and those that used to do a thing are out of luck.
Think about it - what could you possibly have had the government do in, say, 1967 that would have been material enough to have blocked the negative effects of the OPEC oil embargo?
You mean other than drill for oil in the United States and not create a dependency on unreliable sources?
You think that's getting past Chip Roy and the Freedom Caucus...much less survives Elon Musk's manic twenty-somethings who are looking for "waste" to "delete, delete, delete"? A massive subsidy program for companies to make gloves and masks and all the things that go into them in the US for gazillions of dollars per job?
This is like arguing against buying earthquake insurance in California. It's not like we'd be stockpiling tea doilies in the event of a massive state visit by King Charles. Everyone understands that certain stockpiles of certain goods - or the ability to make them yourselves in a hurry - are sometimes necessary. Do Chip Roy and the others also dislike the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
There's a name for people who want the government to significantly intervene in free market outcomes in order to pursue some broader public good that is different from what the market participants would do if left on their own: liberals.
That's not who liberals are and what liberals do. liberals fundamentally do not believe that individuals are capable of making their own decisions, trusting instead in a cadre of "experts" to be Wise Enough to know what to do. Conveniently these "experts" are fellow liberals who, once in government, proceed to assume control of everyday life. The problem is that the "Experts" oftentimes tend to be anything but.
There's nothing inherently "liberal" about wanting certain strategic industries located in your country. Let's say Vietnam emerges as someplace that could make steel for 5 cents a ton. Would you outsource 100% of US steel production to them?
Which faction of which party does that sound like to you?
I've always viewed Republicans as ants and liberals as grasshoppers, if you recall the old parable. So strategic planning is very much in line with the Republican view of things.
