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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.
Years ago, when I grew up in Texas, our legislature only met every other year because every time they met, new laws got passed.
It's still that way, it's always been that way, and for the foreseeable future I think I can safely say that we're still not going to trust them enough to let those rascals get together any more often than that.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Did it ever occur to you that net neutrality legislation is also a power grab and is being done in the name of fear?
Please explain to me how legislation to protect equal access and prevent multi-tier implementations that favor big business and big government are a un-Constitutional power grab. After all, conceptually, net neutrality goes far back in US history to the mid 1800's to preserve equal access to telegraph lines with the only exception being made for war or emergency purposes. The purpose was to encourage impartial use of the new resource and promote economic development in a democratic manner. I think that perhaps you are confused about the status of the current proposal to break up limits on net neutrality.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Wikipedia says you're wrong.
FairTax baby!
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.
Until more than a century after its founding, America had no standing army. The closest we had were state and local militias. I believe the major changeover happened around the time of the civil war.
Actually, things in the Senate aren't as partisan as all that. It still only takes 50+1 votes (possibly including the VP's) to pass legislation in the Senate. You only need 60 senators to stop a filibuster by a "lunatic fringe" minority of one or more (which can vary depending on the issue), and often times some of the same senators who vote to end debate don't vote for the bill in question. They just don't believe it's an issue worth filibustering over.
I'm sure you'll see plenty of legislation passing this new Congress (if any does at all) with less than 60 votes in the Senate.
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?
Right from the Party Platform [lp.org]:
...
Ah, neither on the snippet you provided nor on the actual page of the link you provided appears either "highway" or "road". I went ahead and searched the LP website using "road" and "privitize" and all I found was a post in a forum wherein a poster writes:
But, many of our critics like to accuse us of not living in the real world. They say, "You crazy Libertarians! You guys probably want to privatize the roads!"
Indeed, we do. Or at least I do. Privatizing the roads is one very important and under-appreciated step we can take toward liberty.
That's one person's belief, one I disagree with, but it is not the party platform. On another page another writer says: privatizing the roads along with other things is only going to make Libertarians look like loons.
FalconShould there be a Law?