The difference is that when free trade causes somebody to "lose" it is because the governments are deciding not to interfere and choose who wins and who loses. They are only choosing (in this case) to not make barriers that give a group of manufacturers a shortage over their labor and which consequently allows them more market power over the sale of that labor than there otherwise would be in a worldly competitive market. You can say that is a chosen trade-off or the governments are picking for them to lose, but I see it more as the government deciding to let individuals do their own thing without further interference. So what is happening with a proper free trade agreement is that the government is getting out of the way and is not choosing winners or losers, even if the effects are that there will be winners and losers. People instead win or lose based on the accumulation of desires and trade-offs that we call the market (the decisions of every other person whom interacts with this "winner" or "loser".) That is desirable because it is less corruptible (although not uncorruptible), and allows for a more even/predictable playing field, albeit still a flawed one (there is no utopia.) Regardless of the utility argument that might arise, I think I prefer this to a central body of a few people who are solely able to decide things. And I never said nor implied that this would, "make everyone better off everytime ".  Not being able to pick winners and losers isn't the same thing as there not being winners and losers. In capitalism, there needs to be losers just as much as winners because otherwise none of us has an idea which resources and jobs are valuable and which are not. This depends on prices which in turn depend on supply and demand. When the supply or demand is controlled, the prices are controlled, and this causes false signals which inelastic consumers and producers can't keep up with in turn creating an unpredictable economic situation and instable environment. I'd rather an impersonal spontaneous order arise to decide who wins and who loses rather than the choice of which special political group should win and which should lose via the mind's of human beings in power out of voting interests. I support the trade deals because they remove the ability of the state (through tariffs or other barriers) to manipulate who sells what in the market and for how much. Then I consider the utility arguments as well, as it is much more palpable than deonotoligcal ethical dillemas and abstract concepts of organization. If Bernie believes that the government has no place in demanding that individuals should or should not trade with individuals in other parts of the world because of the political apparatus that is present there is not in the direct control of these individuals then I guess we are in agreement. But I don't think he believes that. He seems to be one for democratically deciding economic decisions through politics - which I think is vastly more influencable and corruptible than letting natural emergent orders decide how somebody wins and how somebody loses, but also less efficient. 

Having spoken with many friends from China, it is not perfect and change is happening very slowly, but it is a much better politcal landscape than it was in the 70's. They have hope for the future because most of the Chinese abroad learn liberalism in their universities and return to China modifying it as best they can within the context of the Chinese culture. My roommate in college was from Hong Kong, but his parents were born in mainland China and his grandparents still live there. He is in mainland China often when he is back home. His grandfather was a member of the communist party and a mid-level politician in the 70's, with a reasonable amount of power. My friend told me a story about how his grandmother decided to hoard a chicken from the collective farm to cook for the family, and was consequently paraded down the street with a sign around her saying "I support capitalism" only to be alleviated from harsher punishment because his grandfather pulled some strings. Or the constant struggle his grandfather would go through to keep the hardline communists and the reformists from killing and manipulating each-other and himself. His grandfather was even jailed for some weeks in this struggle. Also, with the internet the Chinese government knows that it still can't be doing things how they've done them in the past, but is slowly trying to maintain their power. My friend is quite frustrated with how slowly change has happened, especially recently with Beijing's involvement in Hong Kong, but that does not mean it isn't happening, and the China today is at least measurably less corrupt and dangerous to the individual freedoms of its people than 1970 China, even if it is not perfect.

You can't really separate economic freedoms and social freedoms anyway. What you enjoy, eat, think, say, do, etc all requires economic means of procuring, distributing, or achieving. It is often times through economic control that other rights can be controlled. So it does a lot toward other freedoms to be able to trade and to trade with whom you want. China today is still not there yet even economically, but as things loosen in all spheres: political, social and economical it will compound. Right now, this same friend says people in China are scared to rock the boat too much because it is doing so well compared to the past, but everyone realizes that China is in for some recessions in the very near future yet they blissfully ignore it, and the state tells them it is fine. Like with any other country, they are sorting things out, and it seems prudent to not make ourselves scapegoats for this very government to place all of their problems on. Totalitarian states do much better when they have reason to blame other countries, in particular the United States. North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, the Soviet Union, radical Islamist states, and even China have done it, and continue to do it. I can easily imagine what they would propogate to their populations if there were tariffs and trade restrictions right before a round of recessions, and the Chinese businessmen and their families are all going to know some anecdote in which they lost because of these tariffs. It would be much like how the American politicans (Trump in particular) fuel xenophobia and anger towards China (and Mexican immigrants) today, but worst because there are no/few strong dissenting opinions and alternative views. As long as the West shows them we're open to interacting with them and as long as we do interact with them, the Chinese government can't believably blame anybody but themselves when the boat does rock and the people want reformation. 

Sorry for the dense walls haha. These topics are quite interesting and complex. I think this is an example of a good exchange of ideas. I definitely reframed my views, even if they didn't change entirely, and better understand Bernie's (and your) position. 

American Libertarianism is not libertarianism, it's more like a redneck version neo-liberalism.

Also, in an Anerican style electoral system, voting for a third party IS a waste of a vote. Only votes for the top two parties count, because they're the only two who are contesting. In other words, if you are interested in stopping Republicans, you vote for Democrats. If you vote for another party, that is a vote that is going to a lower party instead of going against the republicans.

Now, in normal countries, your vote will much more likely count towards someone, you vote for the candidate you like in your area, and then you vote for your party of choice, and if that party gets above 5 percent of the popular vote, they can appoint chairs in the government.

The intellectual founders of American libertarianism were mostly urban-born, lower-middle class Jewish men (Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, etc.)  I don't know where you got the redneck conotation from, but most non-Americans don't even know what a redneck is anyway, so I am not surprised. Anyway, they took a bunch of ideas from American classical liberals and expanded upon them with a combination of modern economics (mostly monetarist and/or austrian with some neoclassical.) Economics is generally the divide among American libertarians, but ethics is another divide (consequentualist/utilitarian vs. deontological.) It is a bit more specific though than "neoliberal" which is an umbrella term which includes many non-libertarians. 

As for the etymology of the word libertarian, syndicalists/social anarchists did not originate the word nor did they solely use it ever. That was a myth perpetuated by Noam Chomsky (among other syndicalists.)  Here you go: 

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=libertarian

1789, "one who holds the doctrine of free will" (opposed to necessitarian), from liberty (q.v.) on model of unitarian, etc. Political sense of "person advocating liberty in thought and conduct" is from 1878. As an adjective by 1882. U.S. Libertarian Party founded in Colorado, 1971.

None of the second paragraph addresses the points I made in the OP. Winning is not the only value of votes. 

One thing I just noticed: "Sorry, the last five presidents have done the same thing. Increased the national debt, restricted rights, started wars." Do you realize you just said the national debt increased on Clinton's watch?

Yes, I used the word debt, not deficit. Depending on the accounting measurements you use and the type of debt we're talking about it slightly increased to moderately increased. Clinton did at least bring the deficit to nearly zero for many years, and then Bush increased it again. 

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth

Fiscal Year	End Date	Claimed Surplus	Public Debt	Intra-gov Holdings	Total National Debt
FY1997	09/30/1997		$3.789667T	$1.623478T	$5.413146T
FY1998	09/30/1998	$69.2B	$3.733864T  $55.8B	$1.792328T  $168.9B	$5.526193T  $113B
FY1999	09/30/1999	$122.7B	$3.636104T  $97.8B	$2.020166T  $227.8B	$5.656270T $130.1B
FY2000	09/29/2000	$230.0B	$3.405303T  $230.8B	$2.268874T  $248.7B	$5.674178T  $17.9B
FY2001	09/28/2001		$3.339310T  $66.0B	$2.468153T  $199.3B	$5.807463T  $133.3B

edit: 
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/23/bill-clinton/bill-clinton-says-his-administration-paid-down-deb/
This also explains it well. 

sc94597 said: Depending on the accounting measurements you use and the type of debt we're talking about it slightly increased to moderately increased. Clinton did at least bring the deficit to nearly zero for many years, and then Bush increased it again.  http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/ http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth Fiscal Year End Date Claimed Surplus Public Debt Intra-gov Holdings Total National Debt FY1997 09/30/1997   $3.789667T $1.623478T $5.413146T FY1998 09/30/1998 $69.2B $3.733864T  $55.8B $1.792328T  $168.9B $5.526193T  $113B FY1999 09/30/1999 $122.7B $3.636104T  $97.8B $2.020166T  $227.8B $5.656270T $130.1B FY2000 09/29/2000 $230.0B $3.405303T  $230.8B $2.268874T  $248.7B $5.674178T  $17.9B FY2001 09/28/2001   $3.339310T  $66.0B $2.468153T  $199.3B $5.807463T  $133.3B edit:  http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/23/bill-clinton/bill-clinton-says-his-administration-paid-down-deb/ This also explains it well.

Thank you for this information!  I wasn't aware that the national debt didn't decrease by every measure in the late Clinton years.  Although reducing public debt is probably the more important measure, since then the gov't only has to pay back itself (isn't losing money to other entities), I [edit:  admit that it can be useful to use] the other number, by which measure the debt increased even in that period. 

It's not obvious?

Plus I read what Americans think libertarianism is all the time, especially that Ron Paul guy from a few years ago. It is neo-liberalism, not libertarianism. A good example is American libertarians seem to be very anti-estate tax, which is one of the core issues that actual libertarians fought to have implemented in the first place.

And yes, my post addresses your topic perfectly. The US electoral system is not set up to accomodate multiple parties very well. If for example, Democrats had 52% of the vote, and Republicans 48, if 5% of the Democrats decide to vote for a third party to stop Republicans instead, then you have Democrats at 47% and Republicans winning at 48%. Those 5% votes are as valuable as if they were thrown in the garbage. Only the two leading parties matter, there's no room for a third to do anything other than to make a minority party win a majority government. The only way third parties can reasonably integrate is if they have regional dominance; For example, the Texas party, and maybe Texas and the surrounding Texas-like states overwhelmingly support them, then they could win some territory and have a meaningful impact. Otherwise they're just garbage cans for votes. The US needs to have a real electoral system if they want multiple parties to matter.

Harsh but true most of the time.  However, it should be remembered that every few decades a third party gets real national attention with some platform or other.  What I believe usually happens is that one of the two main parties changes itself to accomodate the third party's platform and thus win over voters who were voting for that third party.  I believe this happened in the aftermath of the 1992 election (Ross Perot's budget reform proposals). 

Perhaps the most famous example is the several third-party candidacies in the mid-twentieth century that got electoral votes.  I refer to the various political parties representing the segregationist South in its opposition to efforts to end segregation and other discrimination against blacks.  The 1948 election literally saw two different candidates running under the Democratic ticket.  (In some Southern states, Strom Thurmond was able to run under the Democratic Party name but in most he was obliged to run under a third party ticket instead of using the Democratic name.)  Pro-segregation third parties also got electoral votes in 1960 and 1968. 

It is common political knowledge that these voters were in general successfully courted by the Republican Party ("the Southern Strategy"), and many Southern Democratic politicians of the time defected to the Republicans as well, including the aforementioned Strom Thurmond, whose long tenure as a Republican US Senator lasted until 2003. 

Should have seen the Republicans under FDR, the Democrats during the 80's, and the Republicans in 2008. These parties have been far closer to "dead" than they are right now, and that's just recent history.

That said, it IS clear that there's enormous discontent among voters with their respective parties, and if it weren't for the Democrats' use of superdelegates we may have two men running for president that neither party wanted.

These things tend not to last, though. The two parties will realign themselves however they feel they must to appease the voters, and they'll soldier on just fine.

Again, you don't know what a redneck is. They were poor white rural farmers and/or coal miner's who mostly voted for syndicalist groups and unions. It wasn't until the 1960's that rednecks started to vote Republican, and that was mostly because the Republicans at the time abandoned (classical) liberalism. Rednecks don't like economic liberalism, nor do they like libertarianism in general. The Tea Party movement is not a libertarian movement, even if it started tangentially so. Like I said, libertarianism in the U.S started from urban Jews who learned economics and natural rights theory.  By the way, I can post pictures of redneck Democrats just as easily. In fact here was one. He also happened to be a KKK member. 

Redneck

"The term characterized farmers having a red neck caused by sunburn from hours working in the fields. A citation from 1893 provides a definition as "poorer inhabitants of the rural districts...men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks".

By 1900, "rednecks" was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South. The same group was also often called the "wool hat boys" (for they opposed the rich men, who wore expensive silk hats). A newspaper notice in Mississippi in August 1891 called on rednecks to rally at the polls at the upcoming primary election"

Also, you failed to prove that the etymology of the word "libertarianism" can't include liberals. I already showed you the etymology pertained to any  "person advocating liberty in thought and conduct" which would include liberals, obviously. 

Again, you failed to address my points. You just keep making assertions without any substantiation nor context to what I said, like  " Those 5% votes are as valuable as if they were thrown in the garbage. " You can't just make assertions without substantiating them.