McCain on Net Neutrality, Copyright, Iraq

An anonymous reader writes "Sen. John McCain kicked off the All Things Digital conference Tuesday night with some interesting comments about net neutrality among other things. His take: there should be as little government regulation of broadband as possible. The market should be allowed to solve the Net-neutrality issue: 'When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.'"

Comments

Anti french

[Anonymous Coward]

From article:

"internet is so simple even a frog could use it."

Why must article discriminate againt the French ? We are good people. Too much now in the US is anti-French feeling, like "freedom fries". Without France, its hards for US defeat Hitler, and France is a leads computer industry, with programming languages like OCAML, which win most programming contest.

Re:Anti french

[Old Benjamin]

Well us formerly French hating Americans are now pleased to say we no longer hate France. You can thank Sarky for that.

On a side note, I laugh that all these groups who advocate democracy and peacful resolution riot when the wrong person gets elected.

Re:Anti french

[dbIII]

I really can't understand it. Perhaps it's something about the foundation myth of ragtag civilians freezing in the woods winning a nation against a mighty empire. The fact the French made this possible and it wasn't just a small band of heroes must really annoy some jingoistic "patriots".

Ahhhh The Free Market

[MightyMartian]

When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment

By using extortion. Why don't we legalize the mafia? After all, they control the drugs, whores and gambling, and they deserve to profit from their investment.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[homer_s]

After all, they control the drugs, whores and gambling, and they deserve to profit from their investment.

Exactly. If the govt makes those things legal, the prices for drugs, whores and gambling would come down significantly. Just goes to show that in a free market, the prices of goods will come down.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[MightyMartian]

The government's job is to assure that the market actually functions correctly. In a situation where you have a small number of large carriers who basically hold both consumers and content producers in their grips, you do not have a functioning market. Since no one is really advocating cutting the big pipe holders down, the only other reasonable alternative is the big R; Regulation. In a perfect marketplace, the government would have little or no role at all, but come on, living just a few years after a century which saw huge monopolies and markets that simply were nonfunctional in the laissez-faire notion of a well-functioning marketplace.

If there were a thousand independent large pipe providers in the US, then net neutrality wouldn't even be an issue. But because the large bulk of it is concentrated, they can get away with what can only be seen as extortion; give us money or we'll strangle your bits. That's clearly predatory and monopolistic behavior, and a properly observant government would lay it on the line "Fuck with a market that you already have too much power over, and we will make sure your powers are greatly reduced". All it would require is Congress to even mutter this, and I think you would see the market corrected in a fashion that is to the consumer's benefit. After all, the whole point of the market is consumers, and they should be the prime concern of both the government and the players big and small.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[MightyMartian]

Only if the market is truly free. If it is concentrated into a few very large interests, I'm afraid you don't get an ideal marketplace.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[Opportunist]

In a free market economy, the governments ONLY job is to make sure that competition thrives. They got NO other business in the economy. Their sole and only influence is to make sure that nobody can use undue leverage against competitors and that competitors don't form a cartel to cooperate against competition, customer and supplier.

Currently, the governments in so called "free countries" are doing pretty much everything to work AGAINST these requirements, passing laws that benefit large corporations at the expense of smaller competitors, customers and suppliers.

That's anything BUT free market.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[morgan_greywolf]

Why don't we legalize the mafia?

We already did. They run the movie industry, the record industry, ClearCh^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthe radio business, and, of course, the cable and telco industries.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[badboy_tw2002]

But only the bits set to 0. Those are the naught-y bits.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[packetmon]

The government's job is to assure that the market actually functions correctly.

Incorrect... It's job is to keep away from business affairs but set laws to keep the playing field level.

"Fuck with a market that you already have too much power over, and we will make sure your powers are greatly reduced".

In that perfect market of yours sounds groovy, you would have to have congresspeople that wouldn't bow to contributor pressure but the fact remains, politics have become the root of all business evil in this country... Politicians right about now will say anything to swing a vote and McCain is no different from any one of the other vampires running for office

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[Original Replica]

do you perhaps mean withholding their product from people who do not pay for it?

Just how much did the major ISPs pay the major internet content providers last year for making the internet worth accessing? Without content the ISP don't have much to sell. Come to think of it, I've never paid Google a penny, and I use their product several times a day. There are lots of people who could justify putting prices (or higher prices) on their contributions to the internet, but it would quickly cease to be the resource that it is if everyone did so. Just as there is a difference between fishing and overfishing, the is a difference between profiting and exploiting. The ISPs need to be careful not to overfish their investment.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[dangitman]

In a free market economy, the governments ONLY job is to make sure that competition thrives. They got NO other business in the economy.

If that's true, then free market economies should be avoided at all costs.

But I don't think it is. Why shouldn't a government not be able to participate in a free market economy? I suppose you think that the government should not build roads or hospitals. By your logic, a government should also not look out for the rights and well-being of citizens. Its only role should be to support private competition. So, why have a government at all if that's the case?

I think government should be there for more reasons than to benefit business. It is there to serve its citizens' needs, not profits.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[flyingsquid]

In a free market economy, the governments ONLY job is to make sure that competition thrives. They got NO other business in the economy. Their sole and only influence is to make sure that nobody can use undue leverage against competitors and that competitors don't form a cartel to cooperate against competition, customer and supplier.

Oh, bullshit. Look at Iraq. You can go ahead and try to set up a business in Baghdad but you won't get very far, because there's no security, so insurgents, militias, and jihadists can threaten, kidnap, and murder your staff and customers, and blow up your building. Even without those problems, you'd be hard pressed to run a business without reliable access to fresh water and power. And how are you going to distribute goods throughout the city without passable bridges? How will you find managers for your business when many of the educated people have fled to Jordan and Syria? How can you run a business without a reliable court system to settle disputes if one of your contractors doesn't provide goods, or one of your customers doesn't pay?

It takes a hell of lot for a marketplace to function. You need infrastructure, like roads, lights, power, and electricity. You need security: armies to keep out foreign threats, and police and firemen to keep the populace safe. You need courts, to enforce laws and settle disputes so that business can be conducted. You need schools for an educated workforce. Yes, some of this stuff can and perhaps should be be done by private industry, but the idea that if the government stops doing everything, private industry will naturally step in and take up the slack is just a Libertarian fantasy. Yes, when you're standing in line waiting for hours to get someone to look at a stupid piece of paper, it's easy to think that government is a great big bloated, inefficient waste of time, money, and human effort... and undeniably, much of it is. But even a bloated, inefficient government is superior to the virtual absence of government, which is what we have in Iraq. The idea that anarchy+capitalism = Libertarian paradise is appealing, but it's wrong. Anarchy+capitalism = anarchy, because free markets can't function without a government setting up all the infrastructure that those markets require.

Libertarians always whine that they could make things better if only they were given the chance to run the show. Well, they finally got the chance when the Libertarian-influenced Neocons took over the rebuilding of Iraq, and all they've done is show just how vital government really is. There are worthwhile elements to Libertarianism, but it's an unrealistic and unworkable scheme, a failed ideology, just like Communism.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[The One and Only]

I think the government has other, far more important work to do than simply maintain competition--protect and keep track of property rights, prevent fraud and violence, and maintain physical infrastructure, for instance, are important too.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[dangitman]

I didn't talk about the social responsibility of a government, only about the economic influence.

How can you possibly separate the two? Having social responsibility means having an economic impact. Enforcing laws against slave labor affects the economy, and means that companies aren't free to compete by using slavery. Enforcing consumer safety laws to protect people means there are a bunch of products that companies can't make.

And what about the other aspect I mentioned - public roads? They have a huge impact on the economy. Do you think companies would be able to compete as well without roads to ship goods and materials on? Do you propose that all road building become privately-operated?

Also, where does the land that companies "own" come from? Isn't that ownership granted by the government, and dfoesn't the land come from conquest of lands by the armies of people? I fail to see how these companies, and the economy itself would exist, without governments and people creating it in the first place. It didn't just magically appear. One of the reasons that the US economy is so powerful, is that the government once protected social rights and freedoms.

Re:Ahhhh The Free Market

[falconwolf]

Oh, bullshit. Look at Iraq. You can go ahead and try to set up a business in Baghdad but you won't get very far, because there's no security, so insurgents, militias, and jihadists can threaten, kidnap, and murder your staff and customers, and blow up your building.

Bullshit, it's government, the US government that created the problems in Iraq. Insurgents and al Quada wasn't in Iraq before the US invaded. Weapons of Mass Destruction? I'm still waiting to the first WMD found in Iraq after the invasion. And those were the publicly, and quite laudly, stated reasons for the invasion, Bush even mentioned "mushroom clouds" in the skies. Regime change? It was US presidents Reagan and Bush Sr how supported Saddam, even while he was using those WMDs. US support only ended once he had Kuwait, a Sheikhdom, not a democracy, invaded. And a reason for his invasion of Kuwait? He accused Kuwait, and it was later confirmed, of slant drilling into Iraq thus "stealing" Iraqi oil. Prior to the Kuwaiti invasion Saddam could use whatever WMDs against Iran, Kurds in northern Iraq, March Arabs, and Shias along with others without a peep from Reagan or Bush Sr. Actually as stated before they both supported Saddam when he was using WMDs.

Falcon

What he didnt say...

[gentimjs]

Its what he didnt say that should be worrysome ... while few would disagree with "when you control the pipe you should be able to draw profit from it" I noticed he didnt mention "consumers should have a good choice of more than one pipe to attach too" .... yay for pipe-side economics!

Re:What he didnt say...

[Notquitecajun]

You've hit the real issue - allowing competition and not subsidizing the dang companies. Many anti-capitalist and anti-right-wing arguments fail on this account - there are a good many companies which the free market WOULD work out a better choice were there an actual level playing field - no subsidies (farming), everyone getting the same/similar tax breaks (pick your favorite billion-dollar corporation), no legislated monopolies (cable), allowing actual consumer input (health insurance).

Free markets typically work themselves out well.

Re:What he didnt say...

[JesseMcDonald]

Anyone who's been subsidized in any way should be forced to be neutral. Period.

Ever hear the saying, "two wrongs don't make a right"? Don't force anyone to do anything -- just end the subsidy. The solution to intervention isn't more intervention.

Re:What he didnt say...

[NickFortune]

Ever hear the saying, "two wrongs don't make a right"?

Yes, and it makes an excellent maxim when trying to teach children to behave in a civilised manner.

On the other hand, as a principle of government, it would require us to repeal the laws against highway robbery, since it would be wrong of us to incarcerate armed robbers just because they were doing something wrong themselves. So maybe it isn't terribly useful in this context.

Let The Market decide!

[qwertphobia]

The market should be allowed to solve the Net-neutrality issue: 'When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.'"

Yeah, the market will indeed decide. I can only get one high-speed provider in my house, and I'm sure that provider will make excellent decisions on my behalf.

Re:Let The Market decide!

[dgatwood]

Satellite broadband, assuming a geostationary orbit, has, by definition, high latency (more than a half second round trip even if both you and your ISP were directly under the satellite at the equator and if there were zero additional delay from routers, etc.). For web browsing, you might not notice this too much if you have a good local caching DNS server in the satellite router. For most other uses, though, it will seem very, very slow, and VoIP is right out.

With that in mind, you don't have to be in the middle of nowhere to have only one choice. Just outside Santa Cruz, CA, I've been looking at land. Nearly every piece of property that does not have a structure on it is outside the range of DSL from the CO, which means that unless you can convince the local telco to put in a remote terminal, your only option is cable. In fact, there are places in the heart of the Silicon Valley where DSL is not available due to distance limitations. Granted, I've seen one wireless ISP that serves some of those areas, but at their prices, it is no wonder that people don't see it as a viable option.

By most estimates, only 60-70% of the U.S. population lives within range of DSL. That means that 30-40% of the population has at most one real choice for broadband (and that's assuming that their cable provider offers broadband). It is not at all uncommon to have only a single choice in broadband providers.

"You should be able to make a profit from it"

[Chas]

And they are.

The monthly fees paid by service subscribers. The people paying for unfettered access.

What they're trying to do is double-dip. They charge you to receive content, then charge the sender as well.

It's not our fault if they've priced their subscription service in such a way they cannot turn profit.

Re:"You should be able to make a profit from it"

[MightyMartian]

The worst part about it is that without that content which they seem to think is poison traveling through the precious (and often monopolistic) pipes they wouldn't have a damn thing to sell. Blaming Google from stealing revenue from you while you actually profit because Google is a big reason to even use your pipe is about as faulty a line of logic as I can imagine. Perhaps we should have a Logically Flawed Business Model Law, which fines companies based upon how stilted and awkward an argument they make for taking other peoples' money.

Re:"You should be able to make a profit from it"

[speculatrix]

good point, but you slightly missed what they really want do do... e.g charge Microsoft for preferential treatment, so they can take a slice of MSNs revenue, because people would use the nice quick MS search in preference to the slow Google... and then of course Google want to get back on top so they bid more to get best network transit.

so yes, it's double-dipping, but by dipping into the content provider's revenue by marginalising access to the customer.

Sorta Agree

[endianx]

For those who want the government to move in and enforce neutrality, consider whether you really want the government getting involved in such things. Net neutrality may be ok, but when they want a tax on email, site censorship, or other such evils that result from government involvement in the Internet, you will be wishing they had stayed away.

Who controls the pipe?

[smooth wombat]

'When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.'

Since the taxpayers of this country have been saddled with tens of millions (billions?) of subsidies to those who we have to go through for our net connection, it only seems fair that either:

A) All those who now control the pipes and who received these subsidies, now give that money back

OR

B) Those who now control the pipes and who received these subsidies have to keep things as they are and not control whose information gets preferential treatment.

Sorry John, you didn't have my vote before and this so-called "free market" idealism isn't helping your cause.

Yes, free markets are a good thing but when business has been receiving, and still receives, tons of money in subsidies, you can't now claim that you want the free market to decide what the outcome will be.

Re:Who controls the pipe?

[Penguinshit]

"Libertarian" == "I failed PoliSci".

Government exists to protect the rights of The People, not business masquerading as an individual via Incorporation. If that means regulation to ensure people's rights are protected, that's what government is MANDATED to do; not the predatory dreams of the current crop of pseudo-elected fascists and their hordes of mindless self-defeating supporters.

Re:Who controls the pipe?

[corbettw]

Government exists to protect the rights of The People, not business masquerading as an individual via Incorporation.

One of those rights is the right to own property, and to do with it what you want. And since corporations are owned by people, and corporations own property, by extension the owners/share holders of the corporation own that property. So when you start regulating what a business can do, you're trying to regulate what people can do with their own property.

If you can't understand that, you'll never understand liberal thinking from the 18th century to the mid-20th (when the definition changed), and you're not anything close to being a libertarian. This goes to the "libertarian" who replied to you, too.

Re:they are making a profit

[lugannerd]

Don't forget the cost of DSLAMs, ATM aggregators, Operational support systems, engineering, marketing, fiber deployment, union salaries, advertising and then equipment goes manufacture discontinued (MD) and the whole thing starts all over again. Not much profit and not forever!!!!!

Re:Spectrum

[Kadin2048]

Why the hell don't these free market aficionados also become interested in efficiency.

Who says he isn't?

This is clearly the most efficient way possible of getting a lot of campaign contributions from the big telco/cableco monopolies.

What does Iraq have to do with all things digital?

[Paradoks]

Finally a technology conference where there's a presidential candidate present, and it's quite reasonable to grill him about all the pressing topics of interest to the Slashdot crowd, and half the article is about Iraq?

Geez. I know it's important, but McCain has answered the exact same questions hundreds of time. And this article is the first time I've heard a question that involved copyright. Why, oh why, do we have to read the same answers about Iraq in every situation, despite it being wildly off-topic?

But the FCC has already broken the free market...

[kbonin]

As long as the FCC props up access "right of way" monopolies, the free market cannot function. Between DSL distance constraints, spectrum auctions to the highest bidder, everybody overselling bandwidth, [nearly] everybody traffic shaping, unlimited service provider consolidation, and [nearly] every access provider requiring strict "you will be a consumer only" contracts, where is the free market? Net neutrality is just a bastion against unconstrained traffic shaping. The government has already sold off most of our other rights...

Net Neutrality will emerge naturally.

[Bongo Bill]

It might take a year or it might take twenty, but as users become more sophisticated in what they want to use the Internet for, they will become dissatisfied with providers who won't give them the access they demand to the sites they want to use. There's no need for Uncle Sam to saddle us with more rules and regulations. If there's something keeping newcomers out of the market, existing antitrust laws should be applied.

Follow the money

[Scrameustache]

JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ)
Top Contributors

1 AT&T Inc $39,500

Re:Follow the money

[Apotsy]

Wow, that's pretty cheap. Shit, I could afford to buy a senator. I think I'll have someone introduce the "Apotsy doesn't have to pay taxes anymore" bill. That would be cheaper than actually paying taxes for real.

(You might think I'm joking, but this is exactly what big business does.)

Re:Vehemently Anti french

[Captain Splendid]

2 cents,

I want a refund.

McCain has lost all credibility

[eebra82]

There is no chance in hell that McCain will win the race. In my opinion, he has lost all credibility for being the war monger he is.

Does anyone remember when he paraded down the streets of Iraq, protected by a whole infantry of U.S. soldiers (therefore also endangering them greatly), and then claim that it is a very safe and a lot better than a few years ago? He is on par with Rudy.G; both are utterly clueless of the real cause of 9/11. Every time I hear that "them hating us for our freedom" makes me want to puke. Ironically, Bush's stance on freedom is quite the opposite.

It will be interesting to see what Ron Paul will do to the upcoming republican debates. It will also be interesting to see what Hillary, Obama and perhaps even Gore can do in the presidential elections.

Re:McCain has lost all credibility

[Achromus]

the guy is a loon. Have you heard his latest theory on 9/11? Total crackpot, not even worth "debating."

That's a Rudy Giuliani level of ignorance there. The idea that there is blowback from American interventionism in the middle east is supported by the CIA's own reports. Ron Paul is absolutely correct when he says that our intervention over there has raised bad sentiment.

Re:McCain has lost all credibility

[eebra82]

What exactly is an "infantry" of soldiers? How many soldiers are in one infantry?

Would it matter? Skip the terminology and get to the facts. Needing one soldier is enough to consider it not safe.

Well, strictly speaking, it was much safer for a U.S. Senator to be in Baghdad than just before or after the invasion. So in that sense, he was right, at least. You are incorrect. If a US senator was walking downtown during the Saddam era, he would probably be invited to the palace since Saddam did not want to provoke the Americans. Also, as quoted on CNN, McCain considered the 'green zone' that he was in to be a safe passage for Americans. If so, why was he surrounded by American soldiers?

[..]the jihadis in the world hate anyone who doesn't follow their brand of Islam. If by "our freedom" they mean "our way of life" and "our values", then, yes, the jihadis do hate us for those things.

That is just nonsense. They hate that their holy lands are invaded by troops and that the Middle East has been occupied by the "free world" (as you would refer to it) for quite some time. If they really hated freedom, they would very likely turn to the Hindu countries and the majority of Asia that does not practice Islam. Why go halfway around the world to state a point when you got non-Islamic neighbors? Your argument is the typical war mongering propaganda that Bush has deployed on the U.S., because if you are correct, you can only fight them by killing them. Thankfully, you are full of it.

Not a damn thing, the guy is a loon. Have you heard his latest theory on 9/11? Total crackpot, not even worth debating.

First of all, I did not say anything about what he said. I only commented that he would probably cause another upset (WHICH HE DID). Secondly, you have fallen under the false GOP propaganda. What he said was highly accurate. In fact, his argumentation was based on previous experiences, but most vitally, the CIA report that was conducted after 9/11.

You should always take everything with a grain of NaCL when watching FOX, unless you already fully agree on everything Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Coulter say.

Re:McCain has lost all credibility

[Copid]

If so, why was he surrounded by American soldiers?

Photo-op. Duh.

Seriously? Do you really believe that he wanted a photo op with more than 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk and two Apache helicopters? Let's see here: the day after he left 21 people were abducted from that market and murdered. The snipers have returned to the market after taking a quick break while McCain and the entire US Army paraded through. And you seriously believe that all these guys were there for a photo op? No, they were doing their jobs putting themselves in danger so another self-interested politician who couldn't care less about them tries to mislead his people into keeping them in harm's way.

McCain was there for a photo op, but not with the soldiers. He was there to show us how amazingly safe the market was--the market where locals say they lose about a person per day to sniper attacks. Of course, he says that he didn't want any protection, but General Petraeus wanted to send them. If only he'd gotten his wish, the American people may have a better idea of what a clusterfuck the whole operation has been. I didn't have a huge amount of respect for McCain going into the incident, but it's all gone now. The single worst thing for our leaders to do in a time of war is to lie to his people about the costs and make them unable to make informed decisions about policy.

Re:McCain has lost all credibility

[toddestan]

That's because you're a numbskull!

In case you haven't been informed, "freedom" and "democracy" goes against Sharia law from the prospective of the Islamic extremists. Ergo, they HATE western civilization. It doesn't matter if you're Christian, Jewish, or practice Buddhism. These radicals want you dead if you don't convert.

Pay attention to the world around you. You might learn something.

Someone should have told the current administration that before they decided to go and "liberate" them. Anyone with a clue could have predicted the current mess in Iraq. But really, the reason why these radicals attack the US is because the US is constantly over there meddling with stuff, including supporting Isreal. If the US left them alone, they still would frown upon western civilization, but would likely spend their resources blowing up each other instead of attacking the US.

Re:Nothing interesting here. A summary:

[Caiwyn]

As if it's such a huge problem that I got my whole house painted for $500.

I guess it's not, if you're a proponent of what is, for all intents and purposes, slave labor. Documented immigrants get paid a fair wage, at least. Illegal immigrants are always paid under the table.

I'm sure you'll find a way to call me a racist and xenophobe because I don't support illegal immigration. But at least you got your house painted on the cheap, right? You certainly are a paragon of humanity.

Re:Vehemently Anti french

[azav]

And if it weren't for the French, there would be no USA as they bailed us out when we were seeking independence from British rule during our Revolutionary War in the late 1700's. Or maybe you forgot that part of history?

Cheers.

Own the pipes or the content, but not both

[JeffL]

None of the companies would ever let the lawmakers do it, but I think the regulation that is needed is something to disentangle the ownership of the actual wires, fibres, spectrum, etc. that carries data from the data itself.

Companies who carry the data, and deliver it to all kinds of end users (home users, businesses, etc.) would be required to be completely agnostic as to what the data is they carry. They would be like the post office, who don't own the mail they deliver, they just deliver it. Perhaps even completely transparent non-neutral prioritization of traffic (like the post office, with airmail, first class, media rate, etc.) would be acceptable. Any VOIP provider could agree to pay the tariff for high priority packets, and Verizon (for example) couldn't block their traffic because they compete with Verizon's local phone service.

Separating the data carrier and the content provider is just my thought for preventing vertical monopolies. Time Warner owns your cable line, and forces their traffic on you, and only lets in their and their "partners" VOIP or video on demand traffic, for example (they don't do this now, but I'm sure they'd love to if given the opportunity).

Simply, you can own the wires or the data, but not both.

s/pipe/MONOPOLY/

[RedHat Rocky]

'When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.'

When you control the phone lines, you should...er no. Regulated industry and for good historical reasons (antitrust).

When you control the electrical lines...er, no again. Hmmm

When you control the oil...NOW WE'RE TALKING!

McCain doesn't get Capitialism

[Anonymous Coward]

The Telecom 'Market' was never Free. The government helped subsidize it, gave it public land to use, etc. It is *NOT* private property that the Telcos have a right to profit from. Don't give them the ability to do whatever they want and pretend it is Capitalism when the government propped them up and helped them get started.

While we are on this subject, "Intellectual Property" and Capitalism are mutually exclusive. Copyrights and Patents are merely state imposed monopolies meant to provide incentive to invent and create, and are in no way similar to actual, physical Property. With property, there is exactly one instance of any given item in existence, and in order to acquire said property, the original owner would no longer own the item in question.

"Intellectual Property" refers to abstract concepts which are limitless in number and availability; therefore, it is absurd to claim that someone stole an idea, or "stole music from the Internet". Unless you have been deprived of that idea (which is impossible to do), nothing has been stolen.

I won't mind his stances if the market was open...

[Fallen Kell]

The problem we face is that the market is actually closed. There is no free market in the telecom or cable industries. Almost all towns, counties, and even states have laws in place restricting the number of cable providers and forcing a monopoly in the state, county, etc., etc.

In an open market, things would work out for the consumer, as they would have the choice to go to a different company if they were not getting the service they want or even expect from their current providers. Yet, where I live, I can not even start a rival cable company if I wanted let alone have a choice between different ones because the law forbids me from being able to use anything other then Comcast, as they have an exclusive deal with the county to be the only licensed cable tv provider, and the county will not license any other competition. So, since I have a choice of them or nothing, it isn't like I can do a whole lot when I am upset about a change in service or experience poor service, etc., etc. In a free and open market, I would go to someone else who didn't do X or Y to me, and isn't speed throttling different network connections, etc., etc., and that is the idea of the free market, and in that case, the free market would make sure that the consumer got what he or she wants, not what is forced on them.

Office of Management and Budget - fy2006

[CrazedWalrus]

Since the taxpayers of this country have been saddled with tens of millions (billions?) of subsidies to those who we have to go through for our net connection,

I've seen this claim before, but where is the proof? Can anyone actually quantify the amount of money and how big a percentage of the whole it represents? I'm sure there's more, but here's one I found in 30 seconds on TheGoogle:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/agricu lture.html

Rural America is home to one-fifth of the Nation's population. The needs of this population are as diverse as those of the populations in large towns and cities. Communities in rural America rely upon many of the same things as urban areas, including good paying jobs, access to critical services like education, healthcare, and technology, and strong and safe communities. One specific utility that many growing businesses are relying on for further growth is broadband, which allows high-speed data transmission.

[...]

In 2004, President Bush announced an initiative to make access to broadband technology available to every American by 2007. While broadband has begun to penetrate rural America, rural areas still lag behind urban centers. The Rural Utilities Service delivers one of the Department's programs designed to increase access to broadband for rural residents and businesses. This program provides loans to companies that are willing to provide broadband in rural communities. Since the beginning of this program in February 2003, USDA has approved over $658 million in loans. The 2006 President's Budget provides funding that will support an additional $359 million in loans.

I don't know what sort of percentage this represents, but I'm sure you'd agree that it's a significant amount of taxpayer money involved, regardless.

How many markets are perfect?

[vlad_petric]

According to Nobel prize laureate Stieglitz: "Whenever there are "externalities"--where the actions of an individual have impacts on others for which they do not pay or for which they are not compensated--markets will not work well. But recent research has shown that these externalities are pervasive, whenever there is imperfect information or imperfect risk markets--that is always."

Honestly, the perfect market argument is just as good as any "in a perfect world" arguments.

Ted Stevens?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how smart does that make his fellow Republican, Ted Stevens?

On a more serious note, it looks like we have another naive libertarian type here. Let the market take care of the government-created monopolies! I mean, *obviously* the market would duplicate all the existing infrastructure, without the benefit of billions of dollars in government money*, if there were a profit in it! And a monopoly would *never* be rent-seeking, so we should just let it sit there with no government regulation, because we sure as hell won't help out any potential competitors dig up the roads to install fiber and such!

Oh, and wireless? First, we sold all the good wireless spectrum to companies that aren't even using it, but that's okay, because we auctioned it to ensure that those with the most money got it, rather than the startups who might make good on it. And community driven wireless ISPs? Tools of the devil! A community has NO place in using THEIR tax dollars to make it a better place! That's evil, because they have no incentive to exploit their customers for greater profits!

How can libertarians NOT see this? "Regulation isn't the answer," so what the hell DO you do? You can't just undo billions of dollars in infrastructure at the public expense. Duplicating the infrastructure is incredibly wasteful, not to mention just plain stupid. The free market is supposedly good because it's *efficient* after all. Oh, and they don't want to open access to the infrastructure because the pipes are "theirs" even though WE paid for them!

It's to the point where, whenever someone even says "libertarian" I read it as "corporate whore" because they apparently have no common sense to see what is happening when it's not what "should" happen in a Perfectly Free Market[TM]. To be fair, there ARE libertarians who are more sensible than that, but they're apparently a lot quieter than the nutjobs I see trumpeting it. Personally, I still wish that a few of them would take game theory. Cooperation trumps selfishness in absolute terms, but you have to punish selfishness or be taken over by it. It seems like they want to convince people to stop punishing selfishness, but they don't seem to realize how that harms cooperation or that the benefits of cooperation outweigh the benefits of selfishness. The world doesn't need self-proclaimed John Galts.

So I don't care if McCain is from my state. I don't care if I'm still technically registered as a Republican because I never bothered to change that to "none of the above." He's NOT getting my vote. Asshole.

* Telecoms always talk about "their" pipes, but WE paid BILLIONS (that's on the order of 10e9 dollars for you Brits) on infrastructure and we still don't have the fiber we should, like almost every OTHER first world country. Honestly, I don't really consider the US first world any more; it's like watching the Titanic sink the past several years. I've gone from flying the biggest damn flag I could get my hands on right after 9-11 to wanting to wipe my ass with it because I'm so ashamed of our country's actions. Torture especially was inexcusably criminal.

Re:Ted Stevens?

[Doc Ruby]

McCain is neither naive nor libertarian. He's a liar. He wants to be president so bad he's embraced Bush, even as Bush tortured prisoners the way McCain was tortured, and says we never should. McCan embraced Bush, even though Bush's 2000 "dirty tricks" stole a likely Republican nomination from McCain, by sliming McCain's adopted daughter.

Now McCain is ignoring the telco cartels that want Net Doublecharge, because they're paying him to. With McCain so deep in bed with Bush, is there any surprise that McCain is just lying through his teeth to appear "libertarian" now that Republicans are the party of the biggest, most invasive government ever, that provides the least protection from corporate attacks on consumers?

Come on. After so many years watching McCain and his Republican Party lie us into war, unsupportable debt, corporate serfdom, and just an endless stream of lies that get people killed and broke, what is the point of listening to them on any single point? They can be trusted only to screw us.

Re:Ted Stevens?

[Copid]

Eh, I just saw that as depressing pandering to the religious nutjobs that make up a huge portion of the Republican base.
I gave up on him after his little trip to Baghdad in which he endangered American soldiers by making them act as his personal armed guard so he could safely go to a market to show us how safe(!) it is. Anybody who has lost friends to war and can still bring himself to unnecessarily endanger soldiers for the sole purpose of tricking Americans into keeping them at war will never, ever have my respect as a human being, much less my vote.

Re:Ted Stevens?

[Stradivarius]

If Clinton gets credit for the dot-common bubble's budget surplus, he ought to get the blame for the crash that followed too. It's one and the same phenomenon, he just was fortunate to get out of office right before the inevitable bursting of the bubble.

Besides the bubble, and the fact he had to deal with an opposition-party Congress, the other major factor that led to surpluses was Clinton's massive cuts to military spending. But among the many lessons Iraq has given us, is that the cuts went too deep. We simply don't have enough personnel anymore, and the strain on the Reserves and National Guard is the result.

Don't get me wrong - Clinton did a decent job as president overall. I just think you have to account for the minuses of his decisions along with the pluses.

And don't get me started on fiscal responsibility and Democrats - Congressional Democrats have traditionally been the worst of the lot when it comes to wasteful government spending. It's only recently that the Republicans have arguably taken over that dubious distinction. We'll see if either party starts to feel enough shame (or at least political calculation) to actually clean things up. Despite the campaign rhetoric, from what I've seen so far, I'm not too optimistic.

Re:Ted Stevens?

[misanthrope101]

But among the many lessons Iraq has given us, is that the cuts went too deep. We simply don't have enough personnel anymore, and the strain on the Reserves and National Guard is the result.

Bullshit. The purpose of the US military is national defense, not nation-building, and not an indefinite occupation of an entire country. We are using the military for things militaries aren't for. Hell, I don't even know what our objective is (do we have one yet?) but the DoD brass warned before we even went into Iraq that it was a bad idea, with a poorly-defined mission and open-ended committment. Clinton's military did what it was supposed to do--defeat someone (Saddam, in our case) in battle. Warships and planes drop bombs, not the magic blessings of sweet democracy.

Re:Ted Stevens?

[complete loony]

"But among the many lessons Iraq has given us, is that the cuts went too deep. We simply don't have enough personnel anymore, and the strain on the Reserves and National Guard is the result."

Why the hell do you need to maintain an army large enough to invade a country under false pretenses? Or was that the whole point of the invasion? To give a reason to increase their budget.

Re:Vehemently Anti french

[MightyMartian]

The French lost their right to have an opinion in world affairs for all time on the day they surrendered to Hitler. The general reason for surrender was that you didn't want your artwork bombed. "Sure, Mr. Hitler, come on in and kill all of our people. Gypsies, Jews, Catholics, who ever you want. Just don't hurt our art. It's waaaay more important than our populace."

I hope you're trolling, because if you're not, then you're what I could best describe as seriously historically retarded, and very likely just plain mentally retarded.

Re:All aboard the Bullshit Express

[Kohath]

How is he a "maverick" that annoys the right when he's lock-step with them? That may have been true ten years ago, but somewhere along the way he started sounding and acting just like them.

You are completely ignorant.

He annoys the right when he refuses to support tax cuts, fights for the new immigration bill, and censors political speech in the McCain-Feingold bill.

Re:All aboard the Bullshit Express

[Random832]

or a Republican for higher taxes and more government regulation.

Yeah, we have a word for those - we call them "Republicans".

Holy crap

[Dachannien]

'When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.'

Who thought John McCain would be in favor of legalizing crack cocaine?!

Re:Vehemently Anti french

[SatanicPuppy]

It wasn't WWII that broke the French, it was World War I. Their casualties were literally in the millions; they fielded the majority of the allied land forces, and most of the war took place on their territory. They held back, literally, the best army in the world. Fought them to a standstill for years in the face of obscene casualties.

After the war was over they hunkered down into a defensive posture, and then when the next war broke out, the French government dithered for months while the German's prepared (the so-called "Phony War" period), basically annihilating the morale of the troops.

So no, the French as a whole didn't make a great showing in WWII. It would have been more surprising if they had. It was very easy for us to talk; our WWI casualties were a joke compared to what had happened in Europe.

Re:What does Iraq have to do with all things digit

[Paradoks]

Maybe because most people don't get chances every day to ask presidential candidates about issues they care about? Does this mean I'll pick up the Thursday Wall Street Journal and see a Mossberg column dedicated to the war in Iraq, because it's an important issue to discuss? No? So why can't I expect him to be on topic at an "all things digital" conference?

rather than asking about whether or not some geek has to pay a bit more for the bandwidth to wank off to porn? How about, "Do you think campers should be required to clear rights before singing songs around the campfire?" or "What are your opinions about the RIAA suing thousands of people, and tens of millions of kids evidently committing felonies every day?" or "Do you think it's fair that Fox will not allow citizens to use video from presidential debates?" or "Is DRM a good thing? Even though it restricts competition?"

The thing is, while the Iraq war has killed off roughly 3,000 Americans, each year there are over 2 million American deaths. Hundreds of thousands of non-Americans are dying in wars around the world that we don't care about. Millions are dying from AIDS in Africa. Millions of abortions happen each year. Stem-cell research has the potential to save millions of lives.

Do I want to talk about any of those things? No. Are they important? Sure. What do they all have in common? A complete lack of anything to do with digital stuff.

And, as I pointed out earlier in this comment, there are plenty of serious, non-porn-related questions to ask a major presidential candidate, and it's likely that he's never answered them before.

Iraq? Again, just google parts of the questions, and you'll likely find other examples of him answering the same question.

Re:All aboard the Bullshit Express

[moderatorrater]

To repeat a sig that I love, "I'm a fiscal conservative, too bad there's no party for us..."

McCain is completely clueless about tech.

[smellsofbikes]

Given that this is the same guy who doesn't seem to realize that condoms reduce the risk of contracting AIDS why would we expect him to understand the first thing about net neutrality? As lots of people point out, it's incredibly difficult to get someone to understand something when he's being paid by AT&T to not understand it?

Re:Vehemently Anti french

[Old Benjamin]

You're entirely right. What happened to French people like Napoléon?

Sounds familiar...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.

I heard the same thing from my gf as she was telling me the various gifts I would be getting her for her birthday.

Re:Vehemently Anti french

[Anspen]

1) They didn't know that. As far as they knew surrender might result in the kind of thing that happened to Germany 22 years earlier: decommissioning of the armed forces, very heavy war payments, maybe some loss of territory. Remember the final solution didn't really gather steam until years later.

2) They didn't exactly surrender at the first sign of fighting. Some villages changed hands dozens of times, large parts of the French military where destroyed or captured before the surrender came and it's only ally, the UK, had already given up the fight on the continent (wisely probably, but still devastating for morale. Also by then a significant part of France industry and Farmland had already been conquered.

3) As others have noted you can't understand the situation in 1940 unless you look at what happened between 1914 and 1918. They lost literally millions of people. And not as casualties (e.g. death and wounded) but in deaths. For four years hundreds of thousands of men died without much effect on the opponent.

In 1940 the French simply lost to a better trained opponent. If there had been a land bridge at Calais I doubt the UK would have lasted much longer. The only thing you can accuse the French government of the time of is that they didn't flee and continue the fight. To call them cowardly or weak ignores the reality of the time.

The man is nuts

[iminplaya]

To even give him a second thought is ludicrous and a complete waste of time, and really quite a shame. It's more than obvious it will be business as usual. And his non-answer on copyright was exactly that. Nice cop out! As if I should expect any different from him. My translation on that and immigration, We must reform the institution of slavery, at the same time respecting the owners' property rights. I'm for allowing slaves to become citizens, but not the runaways. They must follow procedure. We can't just let them cut in front of the line of those who have. Note that we have moved the plantations outside the borders. That's the only difference between then and now. Slavery is alive and well. On the republican side, Ron Paul is all there is, but he doesn't get my vote either for the same reason.

Re:Vehemently Anti french

[BakaHoushi]

Well put. Very well put. I'm not a historian, but I'd like to add, that there is a large difference between a government surrendering and its people surrendering. As a government, surrender makes sense. The German war machine was on your border and could burn you to the ground in an instant. The country, as you said, had lost millions already, and did not wish to do so again. Add to this the historic and cultural value of the country, and it makes little sense to fight a hopeless battle that will only end in ruination of many areas. At least in surrender, people, especially the non-soldiers, may have better chances of surviving than if artillery was bombarding their homes. Courage and bravery isn't always to throw everything away to die a meaningless death.

On the other hand, the French Resistance, from what I have read of them, were not particularly the type of people you wanted to be on the wrong side of a rifle with.
And this is AFTER the brutal initial assaults before the surrender.

As an American, I have noticed we don't tend to talk about our more embarrassing military times (1812, Korea, Vietnam) but maaaaaan, did we ever kick that Hitler's ass with one hand tied behind our backs whole the girly French fell down and cried, amirite? This notion is sadly prevalent, but it's just not true. (Let's face it. America didn't "win the war." The Russians did much of the grunt work, and we came in late. Did we help? Most certainly. But it wasn't exactly "America shows up and the Nazis flee in terror")

France and America are tied in many ways. We are a people of a shared history, and should respect each other for that.

Re:Vehemently Anti french

[misanthrope101]

Yes, but all this historical analysis, though accurate and insightful, misses the point. The USA makes fun of the French because the French didn't want us to go into Iraq. Germany, China, and Russia also opposed intervention, in fact most of the world opposed intervention on the grounds that Saddam was not an imminent danger to anyone.

But we can't/won't ridicule and mock Germany, China, or Russia, all for various reasons (money in the first 2 cases, and Russia is a bit touchy), and we can't thumb our noses openly at the whole world while we're building an ostensible "coalition" and gabbing about the will of the free world. So France gets to be the proxy for everyone else who opposed us.

As French as the smurfs

[GuerreroDelInterfaz]

> It wasn't WWII that broke the French, it was World War I. Their casualties were literally in
> the millions; they fielded the majority of the allied land forces, and most of the war took
> place on their territory. They held back, literally, the best army in the world. Fought them to
> a standstill for years in the face of obscene casualties.

      With a little BIG help from their little Belgian friends... It was the Belgian king Albert I who, by not allowing his relative the Kaiser to enter Belgium to take the French by surprise, put his country as a buffer against the powerful german army. Then it was the decision to flood Belgium and the courage of its little army that stopped and held the ruthless Prussians (in Visé, Dinant and many more places they simply executed all Walloon civilians and destroyed their houses). And this involvment of Belgium in this war was crucial for that war to become the first "World War" and not yet another french-german war.

      I guess it is yet another case of famous "french" stuff like the "frites" ("french" fries), the Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Tintin, Hercules Poirot, etc.

--
El Guerrero del Interfaz