No American ever became popular defending Chinese manufacturing. But purchases of less-expensive foreign goods free comsumers and communities to invest and spend on higher-end American products. That’s why I’m opposed to Rep. Jorgensen’s proposal to limit Wisconsin communities’ purchases of infrastructure goods produced in China (or anywhere else).

Protectionism is the wrong direction for the 43rd, or anywhere else.

I’m sensitive that people are legitimately worried about their jobs, and that those who have lost jobs are scarcely optimistic about free trade. It’s still a good policy.

Forcing communities to buy American, at higher prices, limits their ability to purchase other American goods or services.

(China is unpopular, and there are two reasons that she should be. Her government oppresses political dissenters, and so is a threat to her own people’s safe, free expression. That same government also bullies its immediate neighbors, and threatens their freedom of navigation in the South China Sea with wildly excessive territorial claims.)

But that’s not a policy of Chinese businesspeople, and we’ve no reason to respond to the Chinese government’s actions with policies that limit purchases by American cities, businesses, or consumers.

Rep. Wynn wrote in reply to Jorgensen’s proposal that, after all, it may be a violation of existing trade treaties.

Perhaps, but that’s not half of why the proposal’s a mistaken one. It’s a mistaken one – a bad idea that will make prices and costs higher – as a fundamental misunderstanding of the benefits of free trade. Really, it’s a misunderstanding of the benefits of free exchange with anyone, whether here or abroad.

One sees that almost everyone – Pres. Obama, Gov. Romney, U.S. Senate & House candidates, Wisconsin legislative candidates, one and all, etc. – wants to show a strong hand against Chinese manufacturing.

What’s American, By the Way? When someone buys an iPhone, she buys something ‘Designed in Cupertino, but Assembled in China.’ Is that American or Chinese? Apple’s an American company that rose to the top of the tech world by developing mutually productive relationships with foreign manufacturers.

No one forced those arrangements on them – Apple and FoxConn, for example, freely chose to transact business.

What’s Infrastructure? Roads, bridges, etc., one hears. Sure enough, that’s true. But is that infrastructure any more important to America than the computers, phones, or cars that are often assembled abroad? They’re critical to our success and prosperity, too: we’re richer and more productive and happier for them.

Infrastructure sounds important, but so are all those other goods Americans enjoy.

A Little Candor About Trade and Outsourcing. What most candidates at the federal, state, or local level won’t say, but libertarians will:

Trade policy’s reached all the way to the WI 43rd Assembly race. No matter how pressing the topic for voters, an approach that limits purchases from abroad is short-sighted and expensive for Americans.

Wisconsin discussed, debated, protested for or against, and saw legislative & gubernatorial recall elections over Gov. Walker’s collective bargaining changes. It was, in fact, a national and international story. These changes were easily the biggest political issue for Wisconsin in a generation – with protests and recall elections unprecedented in our history.

How odd, then, that of the two candidates running for the WI 43rd Assembly District, only one even mentions clearly and expressly on his campaign website restrictions placed on workers’ collective bargaining.

Andy Jorgensen – but not Evan Wynn — refers plainly to these changes on the ‘Issues/Where I Stand’ section of his campaign website?    Perhaps Rep. Wynn doesn’t remember what he was doing on April 6, 2011.  Allow me to refresh his memory:

I hold an AP license to this photo, as it speaks a thousand words, while about collective bargaining on his website (as of this post, so very close to the election) Rep. Wynn still provides not even one direct, clear word.

(See, Jorgensen’s issues page and Wynn’s issues page and budget highlights. I’ve saved screenshots of the candidates’ respective campaign websites, as of this post, which any American may do of any campaign site as fair use. It’s a right worth exercising and defending.)

Although I support significant and permanent reductions in the size of government, I did not support reductions in (to my mind) all workers’ legitimate rights of association. Some libertarians supported Gov. Walker’s enacted, collective bargaining restrictions, others opposed them. (A solid summary of libertarian view of workers’ union rights, recognizing the competing needs and interests involved, is available from Jacob Levy in a post entitled, ‘Thoughts on unions.’)

To Gov. Walker’s credit, when he ran in the 2012 recall, he ran on all his programs, including express mention of his reductions to workers’ bargaining rights. He held this position throughout the recall elections, and espoused it both in Wisconsin and across America. For his open and express defense of Act 10, he gained loyal Republican supporters in Wisconsin and places far beyond. He might have said the same before the 2010 election, but he was certainly upfront in June 2012.

Although I disagree with his restrictions, I respect that he ran on them plainly in 2012, and I think most Wisconsinites do, too.

In the end, one doesn’t win with people, but on issues, forthrightly stated.

Tomorrow: China and the WI Assembly Race.

Most legislators send newsletters, at taxpayers’ expense, to constituents. Although I know that some residents don’t have computer access, it’s still a lot of paper, sent to a lot of homes. Many of these so-named newsletters are no more than thinly-disguised campaign flyers. Republicans, Democrats, the few independents who might be in a state legislature somewhere: they all send these newsletters. We’d be better off if they did so at their own expense.

Embedded below is a newsletter that Rep. Evan Wynn sent to constituents after the 2011 legislative session.   In format and style, it’s representative of many others.   I’ll off a few remarks, after the embed.

What’s Inside?  Four photos of Rep. Wynn, an introductory letter, three selected initiatives inside the newsletter (concealed carry, the biennial budget, road repair), contact information, and a summary of other proposals on the back cover.

What’s Not Here?  I saved this newsletter after I received it (as I am a resident of the 43rd), because it struck me as so very odd for what it didn’t include.  If you were a Wisconsin resident in 2011, you didn’t just hear about an effort to balance the budget: you heard, and debated, over the means by which Gov. Walker intended – and did – balance the budget.  He and the Republicans who supported him balanced the budget – by Gov. Walker’s on account – by changes to longstanding collective bargaining laws, affecting public-sector employees in state and local government.  

They might have done it other ways; they did it one way.

All America watched the debate in Wisconsin over Walker’s effort (Act 10), the protests of thousands it spawned, the recall of a few legislators it sparked, and the successful defeat of a recall of Gov. Walker, himself.  

(Readers know that I am a libertarian, and not a supporter of Gov. Walker.  Nonetheless, Gov. Walker wasn’t merely successful in overcoming the recall, he did so by a greater margin in 2011 than the one by which he was elected governor in 2010.)

For Walker, it wasn’t merely the ends, but also the means, by which he balanced the budget that mattered.

Why wouldn’t Rep. Wynn proudly tout a record that expressly described the means that our governor and Rep. Wynn’s own party believed were essential to their goals?  Why omit from mention the very actions of which Gov. Walker and other straightforward Republicans are so very proud?  

I believe that Gov. Walker should have run on the changes he later proposed after he was elected. He deserves credit, however, for being direct and unwavering in support of those proposals once he offered them – he was willing to run on those sweeping reductions to collective bargaining rights in the June 2012 recall.

Why wasn’t Wynn as direct and clear in his newsletter?  To write about the Wisconsin budget while omitting mention of historic reductions in collective bargaining rights was hardly a stand-up effort.

The Other, Odd Omission.   Rep. Wynn lives in Whitewater, a multi-ethnic city, with an increasingly diverse population.   How very odd, then, that among his list of ‘Legislative Proposals, Initiatives, and Ongoing Work,’ he omits mention of his co-sponsorship of Assembly Bill 173, a bill that would have brought Arizona-like immigration restrictions to Wisconsin, of all places.  

The bill failed to pass only in March of this year.  He introduced it as  co-sponsor on 6.8.2011.

What possible credibility is their for a legislator to say that he’s fighting for people if, in fact, the legislator conceals the very things for which he’s fighting as a sponsor?

That’s not direct and forthright representation for Whitewater.

Tomorrow: The Collective Bargaining Changes of Act 10.

Every election brings flyer after flyer in the mail, tree after tree chopped down in the hope that at least a few voters will change their minds, or go to the polls despite earlier plans otherwise. Most people are clear in their convictions, and would vote for or against a candidate without a single scrap of paper being printed.

Many mailers are conventional, like these, for Republican Evan Wynn and Democrat Andy Jorgensen. One may click on the embedded image for a larger view:

It’s not those conventional flyers, but a comparative one, that’s of greater interest. In the mailer below, reproduced front and back, Rep. Wynn draws a contrast between himself and Rep. Jorgensen. After the photos, I’ll offer a few remarks.

Military Service. There’s nothing wrong with an ad that touts a candidate’s honorable military service, and veterans still receive less attention and after-service care than they deserve. Of all the myriad services the federal government provides, veterans’ affairs are underfunded, in favor of countless other projects directed to those who don’t truly need or want them.

One may have significant disagreement with parts of our current foreign policy, yet still see that military service is dangerous, generally difficult even when not dangerous, and necessary for America in both instances.

A Military-Civilian Contrast, Two Years On? Wynn’s mailers borrow themes from his last campaign, when he was a challenger to incumbent Rep. Kim Hixson. As Rep. Wynn has now been in office for two years, the election in which he’s engaged is hardly a battle between a former solidier and an incumbent legislator. It’s a contest between two civilian incumbents.

Military service is a significant accomplishment, but the accomplishments that should matter most are the civilian, legislative ones of the last term. The Wisconsin Assembly neither has, needs, nor would by law be able to have, an independent foreign or military policy.

Neither Wynn nor Jorgensen were fighting abroad these last two years: they’ve been members of a Midwestern legislature, working in civilian roles, of law and politics.

Supposedly “Shameful and Out of Control” Conduct. Oh, brother. Andy Jorgensen has been in the legislature for years, he’s known to countless people in the area, and no one thinks he’s out of control. That he wore an orange t-shirt and once protested vociferously against changes to collective bargaining laws doesn’t mean he was out of control.

One would have to be a low-information voter to think Jorgensen was truly uncomposed.

But what of this, really? It says much about how narrow Wynn’s view is – or how narrow he hopes yours is – that non-violent protests at the Capitol, including of elected legislators themselves, were somehow shameful.

Over several weeks, hundreds of thousands protested in total, and still more thereafter voted in recall elections, without the sky falling. We’ve become fussy and prissy about these things, worrying needlessly over nothing more than people gathering to speak and carry signs.

American has a long and proud history of protests, and civil disobedience, about which a few only squawk when the protests aren’t to their ideological liking.

Wynn received considerable support from Tea Party groups, and without them he probably wouldn’t have been elected. Those groups were formed in protest; it’s ironic that once in office some of those they’ve helped elect have become among the most squeamish about counter-protests.

There’s you’re challenger-incumbent transformation: from a Tea Partier’s legitimate exercise of protest to an incumbent Republican’s starched shirt of conformity.

Move On, or the Tea Party: I respected these groups more when their advocacy for free speech was more than someone’s calculated means to incumbency.

Democrat, Republican, or Bipartisan? Democrat Jorgensen tells people that he’s a Democrat; Republican Wynn tells you he’s bipartisan. Wynn might consider himself such, but he’s still a Republican. Why not say it? One presumes Wynn is more than uncommitted, uncertain, unaffiliated, or ambivalent. Is it so hard for a Republican to call himself… a Republican?

Unless, perhaps, Wynn thinks that calling himself a Republican is somehow… shameful. Other Republicans in the area running for the Assembly and Senate typically have ‘Republican’ proudly listed on their mailers. There are Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, etc. One might just as well say what one is. (It’s just a practical dodge to say that we’ve non-partisan elections – Wisconsin lines up blue and red.)

Funny, about this, too – it’s hard to see how far Wynn’s supposed bipartisanship will take him when he thinks that the biggest political division in the Legislature in the last two years effectively leaves everyone of the opposing party (of which Jorgensen was just one part) as out of control or shameful. So much for a conciliatory spirit.

Tomorrow: A Newsletter for the 43rd.