The thing to remember about freedom is that it is not given, it is taken

CAFTA is not bad for the USA (in case you don't subscribe to our ideological belief that free trade is good in and of itself).

The problem with CAFTA and NAFTA, and all the other alphabet soup of agreements and pacts designed to promote "free trade".. .is that they are not free trade at all...but rather managed trade, as they create new bureacratic bodies which are designed to oversee and watch that free trade is taking place. Its a contradiction! How can you get free trade by create a new regulatory agency?

If you want free trade...all one needs to do is drop all trade barriers. You don't need to create an 8 billion page agreement with other countries to create "freedom".

I am a staunch advocate of free trade, All-things Free Market.... and I am opposed to NAFTA and CAFTA.

Jason, I am failing to see how NAFTA and CAFTA are bad.

Even granting the points you make (see similar at Cafe Hayek, Ron Paul), it is still true that free trade is good and barriers to free trade are bad. For all of the bureacratic baggage, this still lowers trade barriers.

From a practical standpoint, we aren't going to see true laissez faire economics in this country. I would love it, but we simply won't have it. In light of that reality, I will accept practical, realistic steps in the right direction for what they are.

I am not arguing from the same place as Daniel Drezner or Donald Rumsfeld. I am arguing from more the point of view of Cato. I just want free trade, and we are not helped to that end by opposing CAFTA.

I will accept practical, realistic steps in the right direction for what they are.

Me, too. However, my criteria is that they should indeed be steps in the right direction. Working to make government bigger is not a step in the right direction.

I don't think we can get to _free_ trade by supporting _managed_ trade. If you want free trade, I think the solution is to work to remove barriers to trade, rather than work to create consolidated power centers in distant locations to oversee the process. Let's work to make government smaller...not bigger.

I would love it, but we simply won't have it.

One other thing...we won't ever have it if we don't start asking...demanding...it.

A timely article:

http://www.mises.org/story/2001

And a quote that pertains to our discussion...

"There are several problems with this passage. First, NAFTA is not a free trade agreement, just as the PATRIOT Act was not about patriotism and the Social Security Act was neither social nor secure. The NAFTA is over 1,000 pages, detailing all sorts of environmental and labor regulations and establishing supranational boards to rule on disputes. If NAFTA really did nothing but establish free trade, it would be the size of a postcard, and there would currently be no tariffs between Mexico and the US."

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