… upon seeing at home (accurately or inaccurately) what he believes to be market-distorting taxes imposed, or subsidies dispensed, by an ignorant or cronyist government, mysteriously trusts that very same government to impose yet further taxes, or to dispense yet further subsidies, in ways that ‘correct’ the alleged distortions. Why an ignorant government would become intelligent enough to ‘correctly’ further intervene in these ways is never spelled out. Also never spelled out is why a cronyist government would become public-spirited enough to further intervene in these ways.
Protectionists are hypersensitive to all the many ways – real and imagined – that they are harmed by government policies. Yet these same hypersensitive folk are strangely apathetic about the harm that the policies that they demand inflict on others.
