Putting the data concerns aside, the way China blocks countless American apps and yet at the same time basically gets free rein to compete in America with similar apps is a free trade violation and anticompetitive. It doesn’t make sense to allow from an economic standpoint.
You say democracy but clearly mean libertarian dreamland. No we all do not want to live in a libertarian dreamland.
My definition of free democracy doesn’t mean being forced to act like a chump. You want to do business in America, then we do business on equal grounds in your country. Per the rules set by our duly elected representatives, aka how a representative democracy is supposed to work.
Democracy doesn’t mean a libertarian free for all.
Democratic countries can and should make fair trade agreement to ensure the will of the people is carried out per their votes and elected representatives.
It's not slimy, it's called normal compromise, and it's been a basic building block of politics for thousands of years, but is often seen as slimy by people who are naive about it.
If you and I are arguing and I want X and you want Y, and can only afford one, a logical compromise is to have half of X and half of Y. That's what combined bills basically do -- package together unrelated things, which seperately, would have to be voted down, because the reds would vote down X by a slight margin, the blues would vote down Y by a slight margin, and nothing would ever really get done if you kept issues unbundled -- but by bundling you are able to achieve GETTING THINGS DONE THROUGH COMPROMISE
