The people towards the right care about their family, or their community. The people on the left care about a slightly wider circle.

On the far "right" you get sociopaths that only care about themselves. On the far "left" you get utopian hippies that care about people suffering on the other side of the world.

What this frame of reference shows is how close together the traditional left-right are in a wider view. Someone who wants to tax the rich to help the poor doesn't often mean using money from Americans to help Mexicans or Ethiopians, they mean taxing rich Americans to give to the sligthly less rich Americans.

Right off the bat, never regulating trade means you only create short term wealth. You can't possibly think that no one would ever take issue with trade deals that take advantage of countries participating in human rights violations, or countries whose economic situation means they can offer manufacturing for drastically less and undervalue key industries

I agree that we shouldn't partake in violating human rights.

Your other points aren't good reasons to regulate trade. If other countries can produce goods for drastically less then that's exactly when we should be opening up trade! It's a more efficient use of resources, and it creates more wealth for everyone. Here's a Khan academy economics video on how trade creates wealth: https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microec...

Trade does not produce short term wealth, it just creates wealth. And if anything, "short term wealth" is an oxymoron. If HDDs are $50 cheaper because they're manufactured in Thailand rather than California, then the people who buy those HDDs are never going to have to turn in the $50 they saved at some later point.

We still have trade protections set up from the great depression. That's why our sugar costs 2x what it costs the rest of the world. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/06/us-trade-po... That's bad, and we should get rid of it.

There's a reason why the right is like that IMO, and it gets down to this diagram:

http://33.media.tumblr.com/e1aaee07d8101970433020eee016ff9b/...

It is my opinion that people naturally care mostly about themselves, then the people closest to them, and less about people on the other side of the world. It is also my opinion (referring to the diagram) that the closer you are to being the person with the "need", the more effectively and efficiently you can address the need.

So in general, a person is best able to help themselves, less able to help the people closest to them, and even less able to help others. This can be envisioned as rings of concentric circles, where each larger circle represents more and more people, but less and less sphere of influence or ability to understand the "needs".

Along with that goes trust. The closer you are to someone (literally and figuratively) the more trust you will have. So these concentric rings are also rings of trust. I can count on my wife to be there for me when it's time to have my butt wiped. You, who I've never met, probably won't even offer help out. When my BFF tells me something, I automatically believe it, because after 30 years, AFAIK he's never lied to me. When a stranger on the street tells me something, I'm hard-pressed to even pay attention.

So if someone is close to you, then not only can you assess / relate to that person's needs, but you can also trust that person not to abuse your generosity.

So in a family or among close friends, communism (from each according to ability, to each according to need) is usually the norm and usually works fine. What's mine is yours. Mi casa es su casa. I know you, you know me, we won't hurt each other.

But in the world, capitalism / plutocracy / might makes right is the norm. As distasteful as it is, and as much as I understand that the people on the other side of the world desperately need my money, I'm much more inclined to give it to my wife, or friend, because I have far more trust that it will be used effectively and efficiently. And I have to also consider that, being someone very foreign to me, that you might be hostile to me, and use my generosity against me. So sorry, if I don't know you, you're on your own.

That's why I like to call myself a "micro communist" and "macro capitalist."

Now in reality of course I offer kindness to strangers because I'm not a sociopath.

But let's be honest: the kindness I show a homeless man (a dollar or two, or a meal) is not the kindness I show my wife or child (my kidney, my home, my life).

[1] http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/amf#Cost...

If you're single w/ no dependents and making $54k or more a year, you are already in the top 1% of the global population by income.[1] Makes a lot of the anti-1% stuff come off as extremely hypocritical.

[1] https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i/

~50% of the world's population has a negative, or a zero net worth - I guess the homeless person with two dollars in his pocket is better off then a janitor who owns an underwater house, or a freshly graduated doctor.

That aside, an equivalent USD wage will still provide for more people in a poor country than in a rich one.

This is simply untrue. You'll find that those of us opposed to open borders keep our mouths shut specifically because our opinions make us persona non grata with our peers.

Make no mistake, pro-border-control people are extremely persecuted and marginalized anywhere in the coastal US, just as much as the author of this piece.