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Net Neutrality to Win Big on Capitol Hill?
The New York Times has weighed in again on Net Neutrality, this time with a hopeful message of change in the near future due to the shift of power in the House and Senate. The opinion piece takes a look at Ron Wyden in the Senate and Edward Markey in the House who have both promised to lead the charge to pass a net neutrality bill in the coming months. Lessig, on the other hand, has a somewhat more cynical view of the new Congress.
From TFA from Lessig: "Radical" changes in Washington always have this Charlie Brown/Lucy-like character (remember Lucy holding the football?): it doesn't take long before you realize how little really ever changes in DC. The latest example is the Dems and IP issues as they affect the Net. Message to the Net from the newly Democratic House? Go to hell.
This balance of power of course is really what we want to happen in DC, and is just what has been out of whack since the Gingrich led Congress felt they had a mandate. Too much has been done in the name of fear and un-Constitutional powergrabs over the last little while and we need a re-balancing of power.
Years ago, when I grew up in Texas, our legislature only met every other year because every time they met, new laws got passed. This was what the state leadership was like at least under Ann Richards, and we did not have as many professional politicians, but I bugged out before the turn of the tide towards Bush and Co. so I don't really know if that is currently the system in our Great State.
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...as less a commercial/military enterprise and more as a public utility that everyone should have a right to access, just like water or electricity.
It is sad but true that most people dont even know what net nuetrality is or they dont care if they do know. There are a ton of people that all they know is that there are gays out there, somewhere, in some city, and they dont like them getting married. This is a topic that will effect MANY people who are mostly oblivious to the topic.
There is a lot of money AGAINT net nuetrality and not enough for it. On an issue that the average person doesn't care about few senator's are going to give up their potential re-election money just for a few informed techies. I am pessemistic about this like Lawrence Lessig, very fews things change in congress.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
This president has used the veto less than any other president in history. I suspect that's about to change, now that Congress isn't his lap dog but the loyal opposition doesn't have veto-proof majorities. Don't get your hopes too high for massive changes. If anything, the biggest changes are likely to be in Congressional hearings - we might actually see some committees try to hold some of the "deciders" accountable for their decisions.
I don't like to agree with Lessig but in this case I feel I must. Congress will go the way the money and influence leads them, and I fear this will not be in the best interest of the internet user and consumer. Corporations will eventually have things their way - the way that will produce the best quarterly profits and earn them the most power and control.
From TFA A good reminder that every politician is in someone's pocket, regardless of political affiliation.
More signing statements in history than any other president, including gems such as (paraphrased) "I'm signing this bill into law but I don't like it so it won't be enforced"
I'm probably way off on grammar as the statement shouldn't be in quotes as it's not exact. . . but the gist is there.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I would thoroughly support a Constitutional amendment that did something like this for the Federal legislature; there's no reason those people need to be sitting in the same room together more than once about every five years or so. Maybe ten. At least then, by the time they got around to making laws, they'd have a nice thick stack of citizen complaints to work though and problems to solve. The real problems always seem to occur when you have politicians looking for things to do, to make themselves look useful.
It's ironic that although the Founders of this country realized the dangers that having a standing Army presented, they evidently never realized those posed by a sitting Legislature.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
FairTax baby!
It's far too hard to explain to the voting public exactly what's good about network neutralily without making overbroad statements that the telecoms can (appear to) counter. In fact, I very much doubt that most folks in Congress have any idea what it's about except in rhetorical terms: as a matter of profession, politicians have a fine sense of how "net neutrality" plays versus "dumb pipes" or whathaveyou, while explaining source-based throttling or whatever would probably leave them shrugging.
/.) are not going to assume that the telecoms are always wrong because they're inherently evil.
So if they don't feel some simplified explanation of net neutrality will sell considerably better to their constituency, money is likely to make a much bigger difference to them. After all, how are they going to know who's right and who's wrong? I mean, they (contra many on
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
All that is required for Net Neutrality to remain is for Congress to do nothing.
They are remarkably good at that, especially with the divided government we have now: remember, it takes 60 senators to pass legislation, and the dems only have 51.
Oh, yeah, because I'd really rather get my Internet service from PEPCO instead of Comcast. No, thanks. First you subsidize the hell out of the service and grant it a monopoly, until it's the only game in town. Then you ratchet up the rates -- and why not? It's not like people are going to go somewhere else.
At least now I can maybe choose who I get screwed by: the phone company or the cable company; that's more of a choice than I have about my water or gas.
The solution to a dearth of competition is not to eliminate it altogether. It's the special monopoly status that municipalities gave away to cable and telcos that's the root cause of a variety of problems (plus the same companies' bald-faced interference in politics in order to maximize profits and reduce competition).
There is definitely a public interest in developing infrastructure, but just saying "it's a right" and attempting to force companies to roll it out isn't the way to make it happen. There might be some situations where it could be beneficial for a municipality to pay for the deployment of, and subsequently own, the 'last mile' fiber infrastructure, and then allow ISPs to use this to deliver services to customers. However even then, I'd be wary of whether the municipality would actually use its infrastructure as a level playing field that companies could compete on for customers, or whether it would just engage in exclusive sweetheart deals, serving up the now-captive customer base as a burnt offering to a buyer for the right price.
In short, I don't trust Comcast further than I can throw all of their collective corporate assets. But I trust my local municipal government to not fuck up my Internet even less.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Net Neutrality is a solution to a hypothetical problem that could exist. Not one that does exist. And it's not even the right solution to it. The right solution is to increase competition. On the other hand, any legislation will risk unintended consequences.
I am never going to approve of stopping people from doing what we want them to do just to stop them from doing what they're not going to do.
That's who I thought of when I read your last sentence. The only Senator who stood up and said "Hey guys, maybe we should, you know, read this so-called USAPATRIOT Act before voting on it?" Of course he was ignored. He has gotten involved with various committees and bills, like McCain's campaign finance reform bill, but yeah, a single Senator can't really change much.
The enemies of Democracy are
..a bunch of MuMbO jUmBo?
The idea of losing net neutrality is nothing compared to the threat we face from Howard Berman's rise to power as chair of the IP subcommittee. He is fully in the pocket of the content cabal, and I suspect that that subcommittee will see a whirlwind tour of every draconian fair-use-revoking freedom-hating DRM-infested idea ever put to paper.
And to think we were so close to having Berman promote himself to where he wouldn't be able to do any damage by chairing whatever foreign relations committee it was he was looking at. We would have had Rick Boucher chairing this committee, which would have been a serious victory for fair use advocates worldwide.
I wonder how much the content cabal paid Berman not to take the better job.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Pelosi says it'll be a 100 hours of legislation to get the country back on track. What every one forgets is that a) the President can still veto 2) even if the veto is overriden, who will enforce it?
Until we rein in big business we will never get anywhere. I have advocated, for many years, a cap to the size of businesses in the US (and anywhere else for that matter). Too much power consolidated down to any one business is just asking for trouble because it is the nature of business people to do the same things that Microsoft, AT&T, and other businesses do - which is to drive your competition out of business so you have a monopoly and once you've established yourself as a monopoly to mistreat anyone who goes against you in a most unjust manner.
Our government is supposed to be absolutely, positively, without remorse, without regard to anyone - against allowing monopolies to exist. They are NEVER supposed to exist unless they are government run monopolies (like the US Mail originally was). Yet here we are, not much more than 200 years after these rules and regulations were set down on paper - with monopolies and our government is too much of a sissy to put them in their place.
Forget all of the other problems. Forget all of the other laws, the Sonny Bono act - all of it. If we split up our monopolies into multiple companies, then those other companies would fight to repeal most of the stupid laws because they wouldn't be able to exist with them in place. Which is to say that ALL of the major laws written in the last twenty to thirty years have been geared towards one thing - the creation of monopolies.
The idea is - if a company makes X number of dollars a year, then it must split up into two companies to maintain competition. From where I sit - the amount would be a billion dollars a year GROSS. Not net - gross. If this were done we would not have the problems we have now because all of the business people would be too busy fighting for market share to muck around with the government like they do now. The law would also have to be made so that it would require a 3/4 majority of everyone in the United States in order to modify and/or repeal the law.
There are two parts to any problem which infects a society. These are: 1)symptoms, and 2)causes. Everyone is being misdirected to look only at the symptoms and to try to fix the symptoms. Like a bad doctor who doesn't know how to treat an illness, the patient is saying "my head hurts" and so the doctor gives the patient some aspirin not knowing that the person actually has a tumor growing in their brain. The symptom is the headache but the cause is the tumor and if all you do is to try to fix the symptoms, then all you are going to get are more symptoms. Further, it is so much easier to fix a symptom than it is to fix a cause. That is why our government is working the way it does. The members of both houses are just slapping patches on to old problems in an attempt to make the symptom go away. But they do not address the cause of the problem and so the problems never get truly fixed.
It is why our tax system is so complex. It is why the books on taxation here in America takes up entire libraries. Because our government can't bring itself to fix the cause of the problem. Instead, they just keep slapping new laws on to the older ones in the hopes that it will make everything alright. The actual cause is that Congress just needs to say "Everyone has to pay X amount of what they make each year." One, simple rule without any clauses, subclauses, or hidden agendas. But they can't do it because they would rather fixate on the symptoms.
The problems with the net are no different. It isn't that the net has a problem; it is that the corporations want to own everything. That's because our government has said that businesses must make a profit every three out of five years or they are not considered a business. But businesses don't just want to make a profit - they want to make huge profits at your expense. They want you to pay for the water your drink, the air you breath, your usage of the net - everything. From birth to death. But there should be a limit and that (the fact that there are no limitations bein
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Not true. There are certain business practices that are illegal if employed by a company with monopoly power.
So you're basically against economies of scale? Pro work-duplication? I suppose this would be great for middle managers, but for everyone else it would suck. It would actually hobble competition because it would remove the incentive to grow.
One could go on, but I think the main idea is that radical anti-corporate action is neither as justified or as desirable as might seem to those who fear the power of big business. The saying is that Democracy is the absolute worst political system, except for all the others. Similarly, one should think carefully about the alternatives before assuming that some nice-sounding idea would be superior to what we already have, economically and socially speaking.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
If the faggots of the world could stop their degeneracy for just 2 seconds maybe people would focus on real problems. Unfortunately for everybody the queers put their disgusting prolapsing anuses above their country.
(Ignoring some of the other silliness above)
The reason the tax system isn't as simple as just taking a percentage of earnings is because anytime someone suggests such a thing it is met with howls of how it is "regressive" and what is needed is a "progressive" tax system. What that means, most people don't have a clue but it sounds nice.
The folks complaining about simplified tax systems are concerned because they think rich people should support poor people and people with high incomes can afford higher taxation so people with lower incomes can keep all their income. "Progressive" in this case is just a codeword for income redistribution - taking from those that have and giving it to those that have not.
What a simplified tax system would do is certainly put most accountants and tax lawyers out of business. And for the most part, they would gladly go. There is no "tax lobby" that tries to keep a complicated tax code. But there is a serious lobbying effort against any sort of "regressive" tax code that wouldn't redistribute income. Once you give in to the idea that you aren't going to have something all that simple, you get everyone coming out with their pet projects. The National Realtors Association fights for home mortgage deductions so more people can afford houses - supposedly. Education deductions help private schools and universities. Take away the deduction for being blind and people will howl that you are punishing blind people.
Yes, a much better system would be to take 10% or 15% of what everyone earns and leave it at that. The government would likely get more tax revenue this way, or from what I recall of previous studies, it would be at least neutral. Let the employers send it in so there is no more "tax season". But we aren't going to get there in any foreseeable future.
They bow down to different corporate masters occasionally, but their masters are corporations none-the-less. Spare me the rant about how the Dems care for "social issues" more than Repubs, they both want to see our jobs outsourced and our information DRM'd. And no, I'm not a Libertarian either, but those fools are starting to make more sense all the time.
What needs to happen is we need a mesh network for the people, and by the people, but of course the FCC would never allow such a thing to occur, because that would give the terrists a way to communicate safely. Business as usual, maybe some other country will get it right....
Okay, so what will prevent companies from abusing tiered service? The free market? There isn't one in telecom and there simply can't be one. Great example of a natural monopoly, no state required.
No there isn't a true freemarket but there is some things that can be done without a new Net Neutrality law. First the landline telcos are regulated as common carriers and can't discriminate based on who the parties are. Then there's isps' clients such as you and me. If my isp tried to throttle some of the websites I wanted to visit I'd raise hell. I pay for my access and by slowing down any website I try to visit they are breaking their contract with me. Then there's those like Google who own lots of dark fiber, and WiMax. Wimax, Like cellphone service, offers people the option to switch providers. Actually my only phone service is cellphonee service, I pay less for it than I did for a landline. And if you combine dark fiber with WiMax businesses can go around isps who throttle traffic, Google is already setting up a wireless system in San Francisco though not WiMax.
As it is now I see no need for a net neutrality law. We don't need more regulations we need less. If only the FCC were to open up the airwaves even more would be able to offer wireless access. Better yet get rid of the FCC.
That's what capitalism is all about right, dog eat dog, devil take the hindmost, screw the poor and powerless neo-social-darwinism sort of thing?
No it isn't. Freetrade capitalism is all about improving everyone's life. To see what capitalism is about Adam Smith's, the father of capitalism, book The Wealth Of Nations is good.
FalconShould there be a Law?
> The free market? There isn't one in telecom and there simply can't be one.
Agree with the part about a lack of a Free Market. I'm amazed anyone can call two government granted monopolies pretending to fight 'competition.' But you are wrong in that there COULD be competition.
A bold statement, right? Almost every tech savvy type has admitted that telco competition just isn't possible so we are going to have to take it in the pooper from the government, the telcos, big media or somebody. Wrong.
The AT&T breakup was bungled because everyone missed the real monopoly and broke them up into the wrong pieces. AT&T's 'monopoly' on long distance didn't matter. The Baby Bell's monopoly on local calling was an annoyance at best and only because of the limits in the numbering plan. The monopoly was and is on the physical plant, the most importantly, the WIRES.
Imagine a new breakup order that took that reality into account. And we are going to have the opportunity because look out, Ma Bell is back and she is large and in charge again. Break them up into two parts, one part regulated as a utility that would own the wires, poles, right of ways and the central offices. This part would be a boring dividend paying entity, just owning and maintaining the wires and selling access at mandated rates to any and all who wished access. The second half would own the switches, dslams and the current customers and pay the first entity for the wires to get at them and rent for the facilities to house their switches.
Then impose a similar breakup on the other monopoly, the cable companies where once part keeps the monopoly right of way grant but looses the right to put a signal down the wire.
In the world I just described net neutrality would arise as a consequence of the Market because customers would have a choice.
Democrat delenda est
That doesn't happen in every case. The highway system has not been privatized, for example, as many libertarians would like it to be. Thank god they're not and probably never will be in charge.
Not all Libertarians want to privatize the highways, I am one of them. Libertarians want the government to follow the Constitution of the USA and it specifically gives the federal government the authority to run the highway system. There's at least two places it gives the authority, one where it says the government is responsible for postal sytem including postal roads. And the second is the interstate commerce clause.
Arguably, the phone network would never have been built if not for the subsidies and government-granted monopoly.
This is one place where I disagree with some Libertarians, the phone networks. Instead of being owned by companies who have a natural monopoly, I'd have it so the local comminuties own the infrastructure. Whether it be nonprofit organizations or the government, they would own physical infrastructure but would then have the system open so anyone who wanted to offer any services that could be provided are able to.
FalconShould there be a Law?
> Starting at the local level only elect people to office that have done real work.
Good idea.... but if you plan on trying em out a term or two and send the better ones to higher office, by the time you get to high statewide office you are talking about electing people who won't have worked in the private sector for at least a decade. By the time someone 'worked their way up through the ranks' to the US Senate they would have probably been a politician long enough politics would BE their career.
> Start at the state level, get the legislature to pass a Constitutional ammendment that makes the pay for
> members of the House & Senate the median wage of the country.
And that would accomplish the exact opposite of your intended goal. I'd like more doctors, scientists, etc to run for and hold elected office. It is enough to ask them to put their career on hold for a decade, but to also impoverish their family is too much to ask. And we already have countless examples of the idle rich spending tens of millions of their own cash to win a job that pays a fraction of that. So your hatred of those who work hard and earn a good living would simply bar the middle and lower upper class from public service and leave it as the exclusive playground of the idle rich. Even worse than just the blueblood 'landed gentry' patrician politicians of yore.
Nope, the problem isn't in Washington. The problem is thee, me and the three hundred million government schooled morons who elect politicians on the basis of a thirty second commercial slagging their opponent. Solve that problem and the quality of pol in DC will rise to match the better Citizens.
Democrat delenda est
Private highways work well in certain cases. The problem is that they want every road in every neighborhood to be privatized. As in, you need to pay a toll to go from your house to the grocery store. A toll back. Basically, since everything would be private property, you have would have no right to travel unless you could afford to pay.
This actually neatly summarizes the problems with Libertarians in a nutshell. They simplistically assume what's a good idea in one case is applicable to every case (e.g., self-defense is good, therefore, personal nukes must also be good. Low taxes is good, therefore, no taxes must also be good. Etc.)
I don't know where this comes from, I have never heard a Libertarian say all roads should privatized. Can you provide a link, or is this smoke?
FalconShould there be a Law?
It all depends upon if the Democrats are serious about their real job; Restoring Democracy, Honor, and Sanity. Or they sell out indictments for pork.
Barf! I don't expect the Democrats to do anything that's not in their own self interests. Republicans didn't and now Democrats won't.
FalconShould there be a Law?
All that is required for Net Neutrality to remain is for Congress to do nothing.
They are remarkably good at that, especially with the divided government we have now: remember, it takes 60 senators to pass legislation, and the dems only have 51.
That's what I like about the Democrats having taken over congress. Maybe now nothing will get done. I hope we have a lot of gridlocks, and get government out of our hair.
FalconShould there be a Law?
fuck lessig
Google or amazon are not so good examples, since they make money. And they are already there.
The wikipedia is a latecomer, and they have no ads whatsoever.
Time warner argues that the consumer is footing a higher bill than is necesary. The extra money time warner would get would mean lower rates or internet service. But I do not buy it for one second, time warner won't lower their rates, the consumer market is entirely separate from the corporate. If anything it represents a new Market for Time Warner.
I doubt that they would get away with it.
The democrats tend to bend over for hollywood and IP rights, even though it tramples on human dignity. For example some of the software patents are absurd, yet the machine (USPTO) is still handing them out to Microsoft like pez candies. This makes it very difficult for the US to compete...other countries simply ignore or hide the IP while US companies are forced to adhere to the law. There should be a reasonable way to use samples of almost anything, even for commercial use, within reason.
I remain hopeful that drug decriminalization, a scaling back of the police state, a true balanced budget (more like what Clinton did, less like supply side/trickle down/VooDoo economics the Republicans support) will happen, the Iraq failure/debacle will end sooner rather than later.
Hopefully the incoming leadership will do something to reign in the extremist religious fanatics currently manipulating the country's leadership (jews, christians, muslims). America needs less mysticism and more rationality.
60%+ of Americans beleive evolution is false.
50%+ of Americans beleive the earth is only 5000-6000 years old.
These delusions must be dealt with.
www.beyondbelief2006.org
What the platform said was, "ALL public lands and resources, as well as claims thereto, except as explicitly allowed by the Constitution..."
As you acknowledge the Constitution does say "postal raods" and the post office uses many of the roads. What you don't say anything about is the interstate commerce clause, and most US or federal highways are important to interstate commerce, they are how goods are shipped. On top of that the Constitution says nothing about the states, or more local governments, being resrticted from road building or ownership. Moreover the 9th Amendment states that any power, right, not specifically granted to the federal government is reserved to the states or the people. This means states, counties, and cities can own and build roads. As far as I'm concerned this is a prime responsibility of these governments.
If they say "all public lands", they mean ALL public lands
I wonder if in fact that means federal land or includes state and local land as well. In regards to federal land private organizations may be able to manage land better than the federal government. Ever try to buy raw land, land without any structures built on it? In many places it can cost thousands of dollars per acre. Yet the General Mining Act of 1872 allows mining companies to mine stuff like gold and silver on public lands for dollars per acre, and then leave the pollution created left for the government to pay to cleanup. Now, with Representative Nick Rahall from West Virginia chairing the House Resources Committee which is responsible for this, they may sponser one or bills to improve this. Even if so though any bill still would have to go through the senate as well as be signed, or if vetoed have the veto overwritten, by Bush. I'd rather have those like Conservation International be able to purchase and manage national parks than have the federal government do it. Besides, can you guess who's the biggest pollutor in the US? The US government. By far it pollutes more than any business or industry
You think mere neighborhood roads are somehow off-limits?
See above about local governments.
It's the same with private nukes. Nowhere will you find in the party platform mention of private ownership of nukes, but you'll find plenty about private weapon ownership, and nothing about limits. They don't believe in limits -- that's the whole Libertarian philosophy. Either something is allowed in unlimited amounts, or it's not.
Can you provide one stance of Libertarians saying anything about private nukes? Just as with Democrats and Republicans, not all Libertarians believe in the same things. The one belief that holds Libertarians together is the belief in liberty and a small government that exists within the limits of the Constitution of the USA. Otherwise we can go into how Republicans want to privatize the military and control what people do in private. And how Democrats want to nationalize things just like good socialists.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Here's the truth of the matter: Free-trade capitalism serves one valid purpose in our society, and that is to make money for the shareholders of corporations. It has exactly dick to do with improving life, and if success in capitalism comes at the cost of someone else's quality of life or long term wellbeing, there is nothing free-trade capitalism will do about it.
Is that what you really believe? That is NOT freetrade capitalism, what that is is a Corporate Aristocracy! It is what Thomas Jefferson warned about.
You must be one of those pinheads who has been successfully deluded into thinking that Democracy and Capitalism are two sides of some mythical coin, and that more of your quality of life comes from the Capitalism side than the Democracy side.
And you must be one of those who believe communism works! Dispite what history has shown.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I can tell you first hand that there are a lot of military families out there who love America, but despise most civilian Americans as undeserving of their freedom.
I know some in the military and thier families love America, and the military, however many only dispiase or look down on those who deride the military. This is first hand experience too, my family is one of them.
But the founders had it right, as a society in the longer term we are much better off with a smaller standing Army but with a much bigger reservoir of reserves. This promotes defense over offense and prevents an idling Army from getting resentful and ambitious. But most importantly it makes us one people in our nations defense instead of factions looking out for themselves.
Ooh, I agree. I'd rather the US have a citizen's army much like Switzerland's. There would be a small core of professionals but the bulk of the military would be the citizens. Reminds me of a country song though I can't recall who sang is, maybe Hank Williams Jr. He sings about how people support different things like different sports teams and get rowdy but that if the US is attacked we'll all fight together.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm not sure I'd say that monopolies *should* exist. Rather, I would say the interference necessary to preclude monopolies is generally far more dangerous than allowing them in general terms. Simple economics says that any company that abuses its market power too egregiously makes itself a target for other companies looking for new markets to enter. Ceteris paribus, capital doesn't just sit around while someone's making an easy buck - they want to get in on the action too!
Of course, the real world is more complex than that modeled by simple economics. The single biggest barrier to entry of new competition tends to be friendly legislation/regulation. Entrenched companies convince the government to pass laws that make it difficult or risky to challenge their control of the market.
That said, "network effects" can also provide advantages to monopolists that allow them to charge higher prices for shoddier goods than otherwise. This is why I do still support some government involvement through specific anti-trust action. I think we currently have things pretty close to correct, though I will agree that tame administrations frequently decline to enforce anti-trust rules against the companies that are their benefactors.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
The question that Marx raised that is still relevant today is: how do you keep free trade capitalism from devolving into corporate aristocracy? There are no checks and balances, it's a runaway feedback loop. Of course, his proposed solution necessarily leads to dictatorship so that won't work.
A strong court system which is vigirously used serves as the checks and balances. Another is an open market. If they think about it, most people don't think, or know, that Adam Smith was against monopolies including patents. He believed patents stiffle economic activity and that if a person could make and sale something cheaper or better than the inventor could they should be allowed to do so. Personally I disagree with this as I support patents however in today's day and age I would shorten the time patents are enforced. Ths same with copyrights. They are both supposed to encourage creativity and the progress of society, and allowing them to last the life of the patent or copyright holder, never mind until after they've died as copyrights do now, don't encourage creativity, they discourage it if anything. To encourage creativity you want to limit the time these right exists, make them continue to invent or write new things. Long patents also discourage others from making inprovements.
Your use of the "Government granted natural monopolies" is an oxymoron. Natural monopolies are those that aren't granted by the government, but exist because of the very nature of the market.
As many others who use the phrase "natural monopolies", I use it to mean things like how governments granted a monopoly to phone companies, power companies, and broadcasters. Governments gave phone and power conpanies the right of way to lay cables on public as well as private properties. Only one phone or power company is allowed to use the rights of way, if someone else wanted to offer the same service they wouldn't be able to as they can't use the right of way. The same applies to cable operators. Now this could be the big disagreement I may have with some other Libertarians, I'm beginning to think a local organization whether a nonprofit; the government; or the community itself should be who owns the local infrastructure. This would include cable, electrical, and phone lines. But then the owner must allow anybody who wants to, has the expertice and resources to, and has the finances to, will be allowed to offer any and all services the infrastructure can deliver. A good example of this is A Broadband Utopia in northeast Utah. Here a group of communities got together to build a broadband utopia. They created an organization that built out a network then opened up access to it so a business could come in and offer one or more services such as internet access, phone, and cable tv. Internet "service providers there will be offering speeds of 50 and even 100 Mb/s." All that bandwidth allows hd tv for the kids while the parents can watch another hd channel, and there's still enough bandwidth left for broadband access to the net and even for video telephone service.
In my mind, there's a good reason that the libertarians are on the ringe of economics, but you'll have to decide for yourself, and you can't do that until you know both sides of the debate.
One reason Libertarians are "on the fringe" is a matter of why the party started. The first ones were Republicans who became dissolutioned over Nixon's actions, including what he said about one of his own presidential commissions. This commission was setup to study whether hemp, marijuana, should be legalized. He said no matter what they decided he would never legalize it, which after studying it they did decide should be done. It only makes economic sense as hemp is one of if not the most industrially useful plants around. Libertarians saw how Republicans were not for
Should there be a Law?