>goals of the act can be met in other ways
American merchant fleet is all but gone by now. Yet you're suggesting that we keep this act, pretending that doing the same thing would yield a radically opposite result?
PS: PATRIOT Act has a few goals, that have nothing to do with a lot of the content.
My original quote said "better outcomes for the country." Yes, a lot of people were pulled out of poverty, but their gains came and the expense of middle-class Americans.
Maybe you're a globalist and you think this is a good outcome. I just hope you never have a nation state-level problem, e.g. unfair competition in the market place. The help you receive from the Chinese government, despite all of their gains, is likely to be quite minimal if you're not a Chinese citizen.
If I were a nationalist and tech world was, I would probably be working in a low paid job. Because I'm not from "the default country"... and there are plenty of annoyed IT specialists in US that would kick me out(and blame me for driving down salaries), to "spite their face".
Being anything other than a globalist on a tech forum - is schizophrenic. Meritocracy is by nature globalist.