If you can shred something to pieces then maybe it shouldn't be signed? And if it was good then they wouldn't be able to shred it to pieces.

Sounds like you'd be afraid of public discourse.

That is unbelievably naive, or immature. One of the two, I'm not sure which.

Public discourse isn't the same as what happens when the media spins a narrative about a piece of legislation. You and I both know they don't need truth to make a story.

And small-time politicians looking to make a name for themselves will always impede the process, regardless of whether or not it's a good process.

Having the public voice their dissent is good. Letting a piece of legislation get ripped to shreds because some small-name representative has a hard-on for one of the bill's co-creators is not.

So? Let the publicity stunts happen. You don't have to pay too much attention to them. You can take valid critizism on board.

Look, the thing has to be made public to be voted upon anyways and at that point the small time poltician with a hard-on as you put it can also start his show.

You shouldn't be afraid that some idiots talk crap about something you work on if you really believe in it. Just follow through and see if it gets public support in the end or not.

This is not meant as an insult, really. You genuinely don't understand how politics works at all.

It's not just some idiot talking crap about something you're working on. This isn't a college project. It's someone putting your entire past, present, and future on television and the radio making false claims about you. It's someone making your personal information known publicly so you can receive threats. If you don't have the same dollars as the other guy, it's someone controlling the public narrative to paint you as Satan himself.

It's so much more in depth than taking valid criticism. YOU don't have to pay attention to them, as the person fronting the bill. But the 300,000,000 other people in the US will.

And then, right or wrong, good or bad, you lose. Again, not an insult, but yours is an unbelievably naive view of how politics works.

What you've described is the case about any law or policy. And yet people debate them. Details of them. On the floor of congress, around the dinner table, on talk radio, on TV news, all the time. In public. And people don't whine and cry and complain about how mean voters are. Why should the corporate policymakers who write the TPP/TPIP get a special shield? Are they particularly sensitive and fragile as a class? Or are they writing laws that wouldn't survive a fraction of a second in public because they are corrupt and anti-citizen?

If you think people would get upset about trade policy, maybe you should look at issues that ARE debated in detail like abortion, gay marriage, gun control. People are murdered over these issues. Trade policy barely registers on the scale.

Really? People debate the negotiation of international treaties? Can you point 2 or 3, please, since my memory is not what it used to be.

Again -- "People currently do not do this, ergo they should not" is not an argument.

You just completely ignored how the real world works. It might seem sound and logical in your head - and to be honest, it is - but it is just not how it works out in reality.

You seem to think we live in this perfect world where only rational things happen and everyone is well read and educated. Unfortunately, we do not and please open your eyes already. Thank you.

So can you tell me with some proper arguments why what I said doesn't work? I'd be more likely to believe you if you said more than "this is not how the real world works". Thanks.

If you have a proposoal that is so vulnerable and weak that it can't handle being in the public eye, or (in this case) the process that crafts it ensures it is so obviously corrupt and blatantly anti-citizen, then it shouldn't ever be allowed to become law.

The bill being "torn to shreds" is a feature, not a bug -- the citizenry of every involved country would all be a lot better off if the TPP and TTIP were subject to the same scrutiny as any other law and invariably torn to shreds.

I don't think you've read the comments you are replying to.

Negotiators make proposals which might seem outrageous. Nobody thinks they will get drafted. It is a step towards getting a concession from the opposing side. Just like in the movies. One side starts at 4000, the other at 1,000 and they meet at 2,500.

If they had to negotiate in public, they would no longer be able to argue this way, you are correct. They would also be unable to make concessions and compromises which are bad for the voting citizens of the country. And they would have to be clear about what their policy objectives are.

You keep saying "but... but... it would be different from how it is now!" all over this thread (and are frequently rude and condescending). And everyone else is saying "yes, exactly, that's the point". Different is not bad. You need to go a step further and explain why transparency would /not be better/, pointing out that having our laws drafted by corporate interests with near zero citizen input in secret is the way we currently choose to do things is not good enough.

No, this is not what I am saying. I'm saying that you have unrealistic expectations. You expect the general populous, the media and the opportunistic politicians to act in a perfectly rational way. In this world of yours, taking things out of context, twisting them, playing on people's emotions, narcissism and fear cannot block the ALMIGHTY logic.

Taking the condescending approach is much saner than the alternative when everybody is very naive.

If you don't treat people with respect in a discussion they won't respect you. If you act childish as you have people will treat you like a child, as we have.

The community's general response to you has been very kind considering how you are acting, I think to its credit.

I have of course said nothing of the sort about rational actions and neither has anyone here. I expect nothing of the sort from any of those groups, of course, and neither does anyone. It must be convenient to be able to tell everyone you disagree with what they are thinking and then argue against the position you've invented. What you've done is typically called a "straw man" and is generally associated with arguing in bad faith.

It seems you've decided you have the answer (and surprise, it's the status quo) and anyone who disagrees with you is naive and stupid, so there isn't much point in continuing this discussion for either of us.

> taking things out of context

Who gets to establish the context in the first place?

I would rather have naive Carter than condescending Kissinger represent me.

Perhaps your opinion will change when you try to negotiate something of significance, on a large scale.

Perhaps you would like to answer my question rather than make a snide remark about President Carver?