The Globalism Canard: Globalism is here to stay no matter what. Those who fight against it or try to wish it away fall into thre camp of those who would legislate against bad weather. The globalism canard is akin to the capitalism canard -- the mindset that says capitalism is an ideology, one espoused by the wealthy, those who stand to gain by the capitalist system. Unfortunately, that idea relies on the myth that capitalism is a system or ideology, though it is neither. Capitalism is simply what happens when people are free to spend their own money. Capitalism is the absence of ideology, if we accept the definition that an ideology must be an affirmative policy. And that's not much of a stretch, since capitalism is found in the most laissez-faire places -- that is, the places that do the least to interfere with economic freedom. Thus, globalism is the very economic freedom of capitalism, but with one more ideological restraint lifted: borders.

Sympathy for those who "lose their jobs to globalization" (to coin a nonsense phrase) is natural, but no more logical than the would be sympathy for the horse-drawn-buggy maker put out of work by the automobile; or sympathy for the carmaker put out of business by the assembly line. To get weepy over that is to romance the past, and to romance higher prices. And I'm aware that you weren't getting weepy, Flyer, but the difficulty you mention, of looking the laid off worker in the eye and telling the truth, is obviously why politicians take the easy way out through tarriffs and other short-term solutions.