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Obama & McCain Conflicting On Net Neutrality
longacre writes "For all their incessant bickering in the first two presidential debates over conflicts of interest and government regulation, PopMech columnist Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics: Net neutrality. John McCain and Barack Obama have stated elsewhere their opposing views on the issue, with McCain being opposed to Net neutrality and favoring light regulation of the Internet, while Obama is in favor of neutrality and seeks Government involvement. In any case, since there is no standard accepted definition of 'network neutrality,' until the candidates elaborate on their positions (which they both declined to do for this piece, nor anywhere else so far, for that matter), 'both sides can make a credible case that they're the ones defending freedom of innovation and open communication.'"
Obviously. Both sides refuse to clearly state their positions so that they can define them... after the election.
"Of course we mean X. We always meant X. Why, did we ever say otherwise?"
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
This is a minor issue, not a vital one. I'm glad they don't waste debate time talking about it.
I personally am on the fence on this issue. As a libertarian, I am against government regulation and pro-free market and net neutrality seems to me to be a regulation against the telecom providers to do what they want with their lines. But on the other hand freedom of communication and open networks are definitely positive things, so I do wonder how an unregulated free market would handle this issue. It's somewhat off topic, but would be interested in your thoughts, especially if you also consider yourself libertarian.
Even if both of them were to give an answer it would be so vague that it would probably make no sense what so ever. Now if you go back and look at their advisors you may get a better idea.
McCain I blieve has former RIAA lawyer as his Tech Advisor
Obama has a professor from MIT as his
source from a prior slashdot article but it is to early and I haven't had my caffiene yet.
There was a slashdot article on the changes made to Obama's IT page after he joined up with Biden, who's a bigger opponent of Net Neutrality than anyone.
Damn, man get your facts straight before you post this crap.
Pax Vobiscum
Politicians typically utilize the most self-serving interpretations of their policies after the election, but my interpretation was pretty fluid on this subject.
I think this will play out as McCain wanting to shake down the pornographers and pedos, but also clamp down on anti-amerian sentiment on the net. Free speech has already taken a huge nosedive with the Bush administration at the helm. Many more years of that and everyone, not just the USA, is in trouble.
Obama seems to approve of funding to enforce net neutrality, something that maybe hasn't been considered. You have to pay people to go after those that would try to strip public privacy away or try to curtail democracy. Obama appears to want the USA to compete freely with other countries, but in a positive way. You can't enforce that unless you put money towards it.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Please, stop with politics. With all the radio and TV adds, I just can't take it anymore. Just send the 25% undecided their share of the campaign money, the highest amount wins. The older I get the more cynical I become.
Conservative, mod down for violating
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What's the Constitutionality of network neutrality legislation?
IANAL, but I think it would be a hard sell to Constitution-following legislators (oh, how scant their numbers are these days). I think there could be some applicability for the Interstate Commerce clause (Art. 1, Sec. 8: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes), however intrastate networks would and should be unfettered by Federal law. It would be up to the several states themselves to enact neutrality legislation if they so desire.
Personally, I'm against Federal legislation for network neutrality, partially on principle, partially on the the grounds that I fear/know that the Federal government listens to lobbyists and corporations more than citizens who designed and currently use the thing.
I would prefer to see an easily-joinable coalition of Internet-based companies and ISPs which democratically--one vote per entity--chooses regulations in an RFC-like manner and punishes with disconnection/shunning any entity which violate these regulations.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Posting anonymously because I modded in this thread.
You seem to misunderstand what Net Neutrality is. Net Neutrality is the principle that telecoms can't favor one type of net traffic over another. Since the telecoms are in a sense the gatekeepers of net access, then they have the technological power to do this.
The ONLY way to keep a business from doing something within its power is (obviously) to pass legislation against doing that thing.
Guess what? Legislation = "government involvement"
I'd be interested in knowing exactly how you'd MAKE Comcast stop downthrottling bittorrent without, you know, making them. Care to elaborate?
Where I work, these are the primary concerns of your typical voter that is calling in:
Net neutrality? Huh. Not even on their radar.
This issue is difficult because it is about the freedom of people to exchange information vs the freedom of the market. But in the current situation I think it is one of the very minor points; ensuring that not too many people lose their livelyhoods is the big issue now and will be so for some years.
Supporting net-neutrality involves supporting the governemnt oblying the ISP to give it to you. The no-governemnt option is the current one, where the ISP collude and destroy net-neutrality.
That said, I have no idea if any of them support it or are lying.
Rethinking email
Typical...article going too far to look "balanced"...unfortunately, our standards for journalistic objectivity now require MSM to throw out all analysis and simply ask dimwitted questions and repeat the candidates talking points.
In this case, the article is really bending over backwards to make the false point that:
by saying that:
That statement is simply false. Of course anyone could quibble over the definition of any word ad infinitum, but the general idea is no tiered service.
This is where everyone who is in favor of John McCain flames me with how my links and definition of 'net neutrality' isn't exactly right..blah blah blah...I used to work in IT, and everyone...I mean everyone I worked with in our rather large company had the exact same basic understanding of 'net neutrality'...the wiki definition is as good as any and represents the general idea as it is understood in common usage
It's blatantly obvious that when it comes to net neutrality issues, Obama is the one who favors an internet unfettered by tiered service "packages" that do nothing more than deliver less for the same or more $$$. Why do we have to pretend that "net neutrality" is some nebulous, undefined thing that the candidates haven't talked about in enough detail...if you want more specifics, just look at the list of laws that have tried to promote net neutrality and failed, then look who voted for or against them
Obama is best for net neutrality by a mile...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Don't be absurd and call Obama a socialist, you'll offend real socialists.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
Considering that most voters don't even know what net neutrality is, and considering the other major issues that do make the headlines, it's very unlikely that either of them will spend any time on the issue now.
There are other serious issues of a technical regulatory nature that also deserve attention.
Decisions made by the Federal Communications Commission affect such things as diversity and competition in ISPs, cellular providers, and broadcast stations.
The ownership consolidation that has taken place in broadcasting has reduced stations' serving local community needs. The F.C.C. even did a study proving that and then buried the results.
Much of the questionable behavior that our elected officials engage in is tied to campaign contributions. Most of that cash ends up flowing to broadcasters.
If broadcasters were required to provide political time for free, as part of their trustee of the public interest license responsibility, much of the corruption-fueling money could be removed from the equation. Of course details on how time would be given out would need to be worked out to ensure fairness and to ensure that the LOCAL community voices (from the communities of each license area) are heard. As with news coverage, fair-balanced political coverage is also more likely with increased ownership diversity.
Open and fair media are essential to the proper functioning of a Democracy. We should all press for improvements in this area.
While it's interesting to know where they stand on the NN issue, do you really wanna tell me *that's* what will determine to whom you're voting?
So explain to me how their positions are actually different?
because that might give something for an undecided voter to hold against them. And the news media is aiding an abetting - they can get more words out of a vague question than one that can be answered.
For instance, one of the topics where the candidates differ greatly is on firearms and 2A issues. But it has flat-out been ignored in this campaign. The liberal interpretation of this is that guns just aren't all that important with everything else going on; the conservative interpretation is that gun issues can only hurt Obama - there's a lot of pickup trucks out there with gun racks and union stickers - so the debate moderators aren't bringing it up. The more realistic interpretation is that guns have become like abortion - folks on both sides have hardened and are sure votes, and the general public has settled on a "fundamental right with restrictions" stance and just don't really care right now. They may care on an individual basis later, when Susie gets knocked up or Johnnie gets mugged, but as a whole the populace has reached equilibrium.
Or Net Neutrality is just too obscure for Jane "I just captioned my first lolcat!" Doe.
(Yes, that's an actual quote from my daughter. I died a little bit inside.)
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Clearly you simply have no idea wtf you're talking about.
Net Neutrality == the idea that if I visit a website, that website won't get preferential treatment (in terms of bandwidth or latency priority) because they've paid my ISP for the privilege. Or: all content is created equal. Note: this does *not* rule out QoS to, for example, reduce latency for real-time applications, at the expense of increased latency for bulk transfers, as per Comcast's recent announcement, as that prioritization is not based on the source or destination of the data, but instead on the protocol being employed.
This definition says *nothing* how this fairness comes about. However, given the stances that telecom companies have taken recently, my belief is that the government may need to step in and impose regulation in order to ensure that net neutrality is preserved. And this just so happens to be Obama's stance. McCain, however, would prefer to leave private industry to sort things out on their own. 'course, given how that's worked for the financial world... well, colour me skeptical.
Exactly. The number one priority of being an informed voter is making sure we are never exposed to the other side.
</snark>
you were right about that, what you were wrong about was which one was contradicting himself (I won't say lying about his position, because they are probably both doing that).
McCain claims he is against net-neutrality, but for regulation - they are the same thing. Of course, that could still be non-contradictory if you assume he is for regulation, but not the same type that net-neutrality would imply.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
This is what it says in his tech policy: "Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others." Go read it yourself: http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/technology/Fact_Sheet_Innovation_and_Technology.pdf
"You seem to misunderstand what Net Neutrality is. Net Neutrality is the principle that telecoms can't favor one type of net traffic over another. Since the telecoms are in a sense the gatekeepers of net access, then they have the technological power to do this."
Thereby perpetuating the myth the Telecoms have been trying to spread.
Net Neutrality is NOT about discriminating against types of traffic, it's about discriminating based on the SOURCE of that traffic. It has it's seeds in comments made by ATT and others about how they own the pipes and how Google and other heavy producers should pay them for the privilege of their content traveling over ATT's lines.
Since this is nonsensical in it's face, the telcos and cablecos have spun it so that Net Neutrality is about "types" of traffic and managing QOS. This gave them natural allies in the **AA's, and set up the straw man where people who are arguing against net neutrality are just Bittorrent users pissed that their speeds are down.
And you've bought into it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
PopMech columnist Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics: Net neutrality.
Hm, what a coincidence, I'm puzzled that they have yet to be substantively challenged on any vital issue.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
If voting could change the system it would be illegal.
What happened in the financial markets is a result of government interference with free market capitalism, not a failure of self regulating private industry. Ideally we would have more choices for broadband providers, in which case regulation would not be needed because competition would keep the providers honest and the consumer would win.
His website echos what I've seen him state several times, that like most other issues, he isn't a fan of government regulation in business. I've yet to see him say he is anti-net-neutrality, or that he wants government regulation.
Obama was very pro-net-neutrality, so he gets points for that, except the stance disappeared from his website, so the promise is less clear. This is also a guy who promised to vote against the FISA bill over and over again, even the day before the vote, and then voted for it.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide, and whose anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html
Futurist Traditionalism
I'd be interested in knowing exactly how you'd MAKE Comcast stop downthrottling bittorrent without, you know, making them. Care to elaborate?
By demanding they stop their anti-neutrality practices, then switching to a different provider if they don't.
And, don't give me that "but where I live there are no other options". If that's true, start petitioning other companies to provide service in your area, and start educating your neighbors about net neutrality and get them to support your demand for competition.
McCain favored such de-regulation that lead to the collapse of our financial markets. Now he favors the least regulation possible of the internet. Already the telecom companies have too much power and control. They can arbitrarily declare what content we can and cannot get to. They can arbitrarily throttle competitors. The internet should remain neutral and such laws need to be passed to ensure this. Sorry, Ma Bell, you cannot get an extra million out of us for a tiered service.
McCain isn't really against Net Neutrality (NN) per se, but rather against the idea of the government telling telcos what to do. Now, the consequence of that may be a temporary loss of NN, but that is where either an anti-trust case or a brave new provider (with $$ backing) steps in and suddenly we have choice again. Maybe. OTOH, regulate it now, and eventually we have government-controlled ISP. Wanna get taxed on your bandwidth usage? Personally, I don't know which is worse, but I don't either is better.
(off-topic wanring) Another approach to this issue is whether one thinks of Internet access as a right or a privilege. That's dissertation fodder right there. Access has become ubiquitous, so people expect it to remain that way. But that is a learned behavior. But given time some psychiatrist will find cause to label it genetic, and then they will be prescribing Internet access. Or 250kb of e-mail. twice daily until thoughts of cave-dwelling subside.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
We need standardized testing for candidates followed by day long situational tasks: give each candidate 8 hrs to review the same 10 proposals as if were a cabinet meeting. The candidate would have to prioritize and respond to each and the voter could get insight to their decision making process.
Evaluating a president on the ability to come up with 1-2 minute responses using a set catalog of themes prepared during debate prep does little to help an undecided voter.
We have a better process for college entrance exams and job interviews.
I think that the theory of allowing an unregulated free market to operate a public service has been pretty much tossed into the dustbin. "Run it like a business" is not really a positive thing to say at the moment.
therefore obama > biden. just like how JFK was, when he got the candidacy. the top guy.
policies and vision will be held by obama.
Read radical news here
one of the founding principles of the entire internet, the principle which allowed grad students to set up multibillion $ companies everywhere around the world, is a 'minor' matter ?
it is not. it is a foundation of the future. future is digital.
your vision is minor in contrast, apparently.
Read radical news here
I would say that it is more evil to trick people into supporting what they do not wish.
Like by associating a word that has a negative connotation with someone you do not support when it is not accurate.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
No. Government regulation is NOT the only way to keep businesses in line. Many service providers have area wide monopolies, which makes them the ONLY providers in the area. Introduce a large variety of competitors and if one internet provider fails to live up to the customer's expectations, the customer has a wide variety of other providers to choose from which suit his needs better.
Without customers Comcast would not have much incentive to downthrottle torrents because their torrenting users would switch over to the nearest torrent-allowing ISP. The same goes for anonymity and all sorts of other considerations. (cost, uptime, speed, etc...)
Instead of introducing legislation to keep watch over the ISPs, it would be far more beneficial to promote incentives for other ISPs to enter the area, increasing the competition, and thus better quality of service.
To be perfectly honest, NN is on my top 6 list of issues I consider when selecting the candidate to vote for. I'm not saying it's my first or only factor/issue, but it's up there. So to answer your question... yes, and no.
Reply to That ||
This regulation was in place since the first (and hopefully the only) Great Depression because of that collapse, and stayed in place until it was repealed in the late 1990's.
2. Ideally we **would** have more choices for broadband providers. But broadband requires a big infrastructure, and the big players are already in place. I don't think that Net Neutrality will matter enough to a larger customer base, that passing OR not passing Net Neutrality will give us more choices for broadband providers. Which means that, without something like Net Neutrality, the entire free nature of the Internet could be degraded and most users would never know - while our entire means of communication is fully at a few corporations' mercy.
Don't get me wrong - I want corporations making money. I just don't think that they can be depended on to always do right by consumers, without the government being able to enforce some restrictions on their power.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
As a libertarian, I favor completely unregulated network infrastructure in general. But there's one big exception: infrastructure that was built with, or is otherwise funded or supported, through government action.
Some ISPs exist only because they have franchises with government and competitors are simply not allowed to exist, by government. Some (most? all?) have easements through private property that weren't negotiated with the property owners. Some have received immense public funds.
On top of that, there's already huge amounts of various types of regulations, and even special taxes in place.
The overall situation is already heavily non-libertarian and non-free-market.
When something already exists in defiance of the free market, it doesn't make a lot of sense to selective apply free market principles to a tiny aspect of it. Maybe if we were to nationalize these ISPs and then auction them off to private parties, and also repeal all the various laws that impose restrictions (and grant perks!!!) to these networks, it would then make sense to avoid regulating their neutrality.
But until there is a fair level playing field, and for as long as the owners of these networks are receiving special privileges from the government that a competitor would not also receive, I think it's perfectly fair to demand concessions.
We already have a situation where there is a hugely complex quid-pro-quo deal between these private parties and the government, so the net neutrality debate is mere haggling over the details of the existing deal. Completely canceling the deal is a valid approach and would bring us to a libertarian situation, but nobody is talking about doing that.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
But with Obama, you can actually watch him support Net Neutrality. Especially if you actually vote for him for president. With McCain, all you'll get is the short end of the stick: he's never even offered anything else.
I seem to recall that in the run-up to the primaries, Barack Obama pledged to filibuster any bill that included retroactive immunity for telecom companies. Now, I guess I must have the details wrong, but I was under the impression that he was a Constitutional law professor. What kind of Constitutional law professor mixes up "filibuster" with "eagerly voting 'Yea' after winning the nomination"?
This is an election year. Believe nothing that emerges from the mouths of Tweedledee or Tweedledum. If you want change or some form of improvement of our system, vote for a third party. They might not win this year, but if they pass various thresholds in this election, they'll have fewer barriers to entry in the next election. Who knows, some day we might have a better choice than the lesser of two evils.
From John McCain's website: "John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like 'net-neutrality,' but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices. John McCain has always believed the government's role must be rooted in protecting consumers."
From Barack Obama's senate website: "So here's my view. We can't have a situation in which the corporate duopoly dictates the future of the internet and thatâ(TM)s why I'm supporting what is called net neutrality."
John McCain has put forward an excellent bill in the Senate called the Community Broadband Act of 2005, which Barack Obama has not yet signed on to. Interestingly, this bill is supported by EDUCAUSE and more than 40 education and trade associations, public interest groups, etc. This bill would protect the ability of local governments to provide Internet services to their communities.
(See another great Educause article entitled A Big Blueprint for Big Broadband
Though Obama hasn't signed on to the McCain community broadband act, he has stated that "Every American should have the highest speed broadband accessâ"no matter where you live, or how much money you have. We'll connect schools, libraries, and hospitals. And weâ(TM)ll take on special interests to unleash the power of wireless spectrum for our safety and connectivity."
When McCain voted for the bailout, it was like eating a live rattlesnake. When Obama voted for it, it was more like a eating an unseasoned potato.
There's no difference between them.
R2.0 (532027):
You didn't follow the ball.
Netneutrality.ca on the subject of Net Neutrality:
Obama will support funding to go after companies and organizations who would try to disrupt the freedoms of American citizens on the internet. That's my interpretation, at least. :)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Sorry, but you are over-simplifying the argument. There is not just one definition of Network Neutrality, but three commonly-held definitions.
The main topic link to Network Neutrality on Wikipedia is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Definitions_of_network_neutrality The links you provided are to the sub-topic of Network Neutrality in the United States.
The three definitions are:
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Barriers To Entry
(that's assuming anyone is motivated enough to start an ISP so they can get a good Internet connection)
But you libertarians (I'm judging you by your response) say "But we'd remove the barriers to entry by doing away with all regulations!"
The problem is that when you turn the market into a free-for-all, the bigger and better-established companies rapidly outcompete the smaller ones, monopolies or cartels form, and they use their newly found free reign on everything to create new barriers to entry (say, heavily throttling inter-ISP traffic) which can't be broken down because there are no laws or regulations...and you're worse off than ever before.
Honestly one of the few political ideologies I just can't wrap my head around is libertarianism. One basic premise is good - minimize market regulations - but it's like you guys just want to do away with them all willy-nilly and you either don't think through the ramifications or have an incredibly simple and naive idea of what they will be.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics
Perhaps the candidates and their supporters are distracted by their retirement investments disappearing in the post-free/greed market meltdown?
Free market, to me, gives me the impression that I have a choice among many competitors. Unfortunately where I live this isn't true.
<cynic>There is a free market in real estate. Exercise your right to move your family to a location where those competitors operate.</cynic>
The ONLY way to keep a business from doing something within its power is (obviously) to pass legislation against doing that thing.
Learn to boycott. You'd be surprised what a loss in sales of just a few percent will do to a company.
But you are right. It is easier to send guys with guns to force your opinions on others.
Actually, I think the gun issue is unimportant simply because neither side is going to have much room to work with it. Between the Heller Decision and the beating that the Democratic legislators took after the assault weapons ban there isn't going to be much traction for wide regulation.
Obama is likely to win at this point, he's going to have his hands full of other crap and if he plans on having a hope as a second term president he's going to keep his head low on the issue of 2nd Amendment rights until he gets re-elected. And even in that case he has to hope for a serious Democratic majority in the legislature or it's going to be a moot point. I don't really know if that will happen as it seems that neither party seems to be able to keep a solid hand on both the presidency and the legislature at the same time.
And even as pro-gun as McCain is I don't see him pushing any agenda he may have either. At this point gun control is fairly moderate compared to the days of Clinton (and even Bush Sr if you want to get into the technical elements of it all). Even if he does push in some direction it's likely to be considered too technical for the mainstream to ever get a hold of. It would make for good campaigning banter but the people on the street would likely never see the difference and it will be hard for the anti-gun culture to embrace as an issue between rampant misinformation and lack of knowledge.
I often vote based on the candidates outlook on the 2nd Amendment as a major point of interest and, while I'll be voting 3rd party this election, I don't really see a threat from the Obama camp unless he's looking to have an ineffective administration. McCain simply will not have the power needed to open up regulations further without being seen as an extremist.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
With everything going on seeing a post here about net neutrality makes me feel like I am a member of the NRA. Like this matters worth a spit at the moment.
So they can only answer what the left-wing moderators choose to ask or have asked.
The article makes no sense to me. Not only doe it contradict McCain's own website, but why would a party (Republican) that opposes adding regulations and promotes free, unrestrained markets everywhere, want to implement anti-NN laws? Am I just being too naive?
I'm a Republican and I shouldn't be making this joke, but...
You know, its sounds like McCain is doing such a super job in the US Senate that we should keep him there.
This is my sig.
In the future you should consider a more composed response when you are participating in a rational debate. Attempting to belittle my argument by chalking it up as a conservative talking point or assuming I wouldn't bother reading a link brings nothing to the discussion. It was also not safe to assume I had any idea who you were or that I had previously read your official opinion on the CRA, so the attitude was unnecessary.
,as someone already stated in other posts on this thread, that is due to the high barrier of entry. Since our horribly inefficient government is going to be allocating our tax dollars towards this issue, perhaps they should be trying to solve the problem rather than regulating it.
That being said, your original argument made an off hand comment laying the blame for our financial crisis on private industry. My argument was that the government should not be involved in the private market. That they turned to Fannie and Freddie for stability only strengthens that argument. Nobody reading the comments on this thread (myself included) truly has a grasp on the machinations of our shadow banking system, and to somehow compare the financial crisis to net neutrality is nonsensical.
The reason net neutrality is even an issue is because broadband providers have virtually no competition, and
Actually, I think the gun issue is unimportant simply because neither side is going to have much room to work with it. Between the Heller Decision and the beating that the Democratic legislators took after the assault weapons ban there isn't going to be much traction for wide regulation.
Yes I agree it has become a "dead issue" for both parties. With the Heller decision, the right has largely won the debate. But I don't think the Republicans are going to want to press it anymore than that. Even the Bush administration was telling the Supreme Court that the wording of the decision should not go so far as to open the door for challenging the federal automatic weapons laws passed in the 80s under Reagan, and it didn't. Pushing for overturning those bans would kill McCain at the ballot box, since most people while they think handguns, shotguns, and some rifles are OK aren't going to want your average citizen to be allowed a .50 cal or an RPG. Only extremists (such as myself), would agree with that position.
Obama is likely to win at this point, he's going to have his hands full of other crap and if he plans on having a hope as a second term president he's going to keep his head low on the issue of 2nd Amendment rights until he gets re-elected. And even in that case he has to hope for a serious Democratic majority in the legislature or it's going to be a moot point. I don't really know if that will happen as it seems that neither party seems to be able to keep a solid hand on both the presidency and the legislature at the same time.
The gun issue is something Obama doesn't want to touch. It will only hurt him. But actually I think it would hurt McCain if he calls out Obama on it. Even if most Americans agree with his position, he would be seen as ignoring the countries most pressing problems (economy, war) in favor of an issue that has largely been settled anyway.
In the future you should consider a more composed response when you are participating in a rational debate.
And in the future, you should try and respond to my counterpoints, instead attacking my debating style.
Incidentally, the nature of my response is a consequence of frustration at having to constantly debunk what are, absolutely, simple republican talking points. You may not realize that's what you're parroting, but it's the truth. The "blame the CRA" and "blame F&F" lines are pure, unadulterated lines straight out of the Republican playbook, in an effort to shift blame away from the real culprit: financial deregulation.
My argument was that the government should not be involved in the private market.
Right. And you supported that argument with faulty evidence. So unless you can provide other evidence that government intervention caused the financial collapse, or can somehow counter my points, I think it's safe to say your argument is bunk.
and to somehow compare the financial crisis to net neutrality is nonsensical.
Bullshit. My argument is this: there are situations in which the market fails, such as the financial industry, where regulation is necessary in order to protect consumers, and in some cases, the nation at large.
My contention is that telecom is also one of those industries.
The reason net neutrality is even an issue is because broadband providers have virtually no competition,
Hardly. Local ISP competition won't solve this problem, as eventually, all traffic must travel over the large backbones that exist today, backbones operated by a small number of entities who may choose to charge Google for preferential service. So, unless you plan to have competition between various, separate Internets, regulation is the only true solution to the problem.
You have done nothing to debunk those Republican talking points other than to quote a Clinton Administrator, a member of the Fed, and a CRA compliance counsel, three parties that would love to distance themselves from this crisis as much as possible. Neither you nor I could lay out step by step how we got in this mess, so it is a waste of time to keep discussing it. If you think the root cause is "financial deregulation" why don't you go ahead and call up some free market think tanks, I'm sure they'd love someone to explain it to them.
As for net neutrality.. If these large backbones are subject to competition then consumers themselves would have the power to make sure they play nice. Nobody is going to pay for access or advertise to half of the internet. As long as the government prevented collusion and promoted competition then regulation would not be necessary. Again, this is another issue that is not going to be solved on slashdot, so to state that regulation is the only true solution is rather naive.
And before you jump on it I did not mean a member of the Fed board
You have done nothing to debunk those Republican talking points other than to quote a Clinton Administrator, a member of the Fed, and a CRA compliance counsel
No, I cited numbers. Here, let me quote them again:
That means that CRA loans account for no more than 20% of subprime loans. Maybe. And in case you forgot this part:
According to Janet L. Yellen, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, independent mortgage companies made "high-priced loans" at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts
None of this is opinion. It is pure, hard fact. You may not like the facts. You may ignore them because they don't match your own opinions. But they are facts. And thus, the fact is, the CRA had little to nothing to do with the subprime crisis.
Neither you nor I could lay out step by step how we got in this mess, so it is a waste of time to keep discussing it.
Okay, so now you're saying that government involvement may or may not have been the cause, but you really don't know. But since those opinions I cited don't match yours (even though they're back by actual numbers, you're gonna go with an ad hominem attack instead.
Well, I guess that's a start... sort of.
As long as the government prevented collusion and promoted competition then regulation would not be necessary.
Umm... that bit about preventing collusion? Yeah. That *is* regulation.
It's those strange lapses that are put off as "jokes", such as the "My Fellow Prisoners" gaffe that was on the tubes last night. It's the glassy stares, the "thanks for the question, you little jerk" moments that I am beginning to worry are more symptoms of someone who perhaps ate too much pasta from aluminum pots over the years...
Sometimes jokes are just jokes, but in pressure situations they're more often kind of indicative little insights that go past a person's conscious censors. For example, during the "you little jerk" moment on YouTube he said that his kids accuse him of being able to "hide his own Easter eggs".
What this tells me, the oldster, is that there may be a grain of truth to the fact that the race isn't really Obama vs. McCain any more -- the question I ask is "who would be the better President, Obama or Palin? Because that's what the race would resolve to if McCain really is running out of puff. I'd honestly worry about myself if I were in his situation, and my grandmother died at 112.
John McCain is thirteen years older than me.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
most people...aren't going to want your average citizen to be allowed a .50 cal
I don't know where you live but 50s are legal in the state of Pennsylvania.
But yeah, I feel that the gun control issue is going to be pretty calm for sometime to come.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
there is no guarantee that a person will live long, but live sanely. there are people who are going senile at a relatively young age, there are people who are living with sharp minds until the end of their long days.
but, this is presidency. noone can take risks. thinking that 'hey there are people living long and sharp' and voting for mccain, i guess would be a bit gambling. if he flips over in a few months, then a major country in the world will be in a position to be led by a woman who thinks that whole world will come to an end with catastrophes soon, but only alaska will escape the cataclysm and will be the refugee destination for survivors. this is a typical trait of doomsday cults. not good. definitely not. and thats without talking about how raw and clueless he is about anything serious.
Read radical news here
I am using the term regulation in the sense of enacting and enforcing legislation specific to a particular industry. Explicit collusion is already illegal in the United States and isn't going to require some new government entity. The Internet is not owned by the people and should not be treated as a public service, and if the government is dictating how a private company should run it's business with no regard to profitability then it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. You will have nobody to complain to when the government starts prioritizing traffic on behalf of special interest groups.
The entire American financial system is far from a free market. My original argument was that the financial crisis is not due to an unregulated free market. No objective postmortem will ever come to the conclusion that free market capitalism caused this crisis because it is a purely academic argument.
There is a disconnect between risk and consequences across America. You used to have to invest significant capital in property up front, and a downturn in housing prices was unlikely to wipe out the equity already built into your house. Government regulation obviously did not prevent institutions from making subprime loans, and when housing prices started to decline people had no incentive to honor their debts. The statement "most CRA loans were responsibly made" means nothing and is not backed up by any kind of number. The whole purpose of the CRA is to force a bank to give loans it otherwise would not give due to credit concerns. You think these people are still paying their mortgages when their principle is more than the value of the house?
When the government starts dictating how institutions should behave you have a bunch of crooked politicians in Washington imposing their will in domains they have absolutely no knowledge of. There was no risk management over at Fannie and Freddie, and why would there be when the government gave them an implicit guarantee against their risk? They were free to focus on cooking their books to make shareholders happy. You cannot downplay their involvement in the crisis regardless of when they got involved. When institutions don't worry about their counter party risk then they should be allowed to fold and the shareholders get stuck with the bill. When Enron went down their executives were burned at the stake. Why hasn't this happened with Freddie and Fannie? The consequences of their failure are much more severe.
Nader. He is the cure for all things unspecified. .....Sorry I musta dozed off because I was in a parallel universe where I am employed, I don't hate everything and a real women wants to have sex with me.....theoretically.
The liberal interpretation of this is that guns just aren't all that important with everything else going on; the conservative interpretation is that gun issues can only hurt Obama - there's a lot of pickup trucks out there with gun racks and union stickers - so the debate moderators aren't bringing it up.
As is usually the case, take the opposite of the wingnut viewpoint and you have reality. If the media thought Obama would be hurt by it, they'd be beating it over his head like a drum, not ignoring it. This is because the media loves a horserace, and since Obama passed Hillary in the primaries they've been highly negative towards him. All the while the 2nd place candidate gets a free ride - like Hillary's Bosnian Sniper Fire fable, or McCain's association with John "the Catholic Church is the Great Whore" Hagee.
No, the real deal on gun control is that: 1) gun control is tied hand in hand to violent crime rates, so as crime has fallen, so has gun control as an issue 2) the NRA is a hack organization. They fought against Gore, Kerry and to some extent Obama for supporting gun control, yet gave a complete pass for George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani.
"If the media thought Obama would be hurt by it, they'd be beating it over his head like a drum, not ignoring it. This is because the media loves a horserace, and since Obama passed Hillary in the primaries they've been highly negative towards him."
I'm not sure what media you are viewing, but most of what I'm seeing is that most of the media is fully in the Obama camp - I don't even think they are trying to hide it anymore. For instance, yesterday on NPR, Obama "revealed" his plan to change bankruptcy law, while McCain "trotted out" his plan to buy individual mortgages - and then proceeded to beat on McCain for his plan, while not even making commentary on Obama's.
As for the NRA, you say "to some extent Obama". Have you been following the election at all? The NRA is beating on Obama mercilessly, including TV ads which the Obama campaign threatened to sue TV stations over.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
"I don't know where you live but 50s are legal in the state of Pennsylvania."
Actually, Cal. 50's are legal in most states, I believe California being the only exception.
True story: Ronnie Barret, maker of the most popular .50 Caliber rifles, attended a hearing for California legislators where a State Police rep held up a Barret firearm as an example of the types of weapons that should not be allowed into civilian hands because there is no purpose for them other than blah, blah, blah. Barret gave his testimony, but the rifles were banned anyway.
Fast forward a few months - Barret receives a rifle into his shop for repair from the California State Police. It happens to be the very same rifle held up by the rep at the hearings. Yes, the police were holding out one of their own weapons as an example of items that should be banned.
Ronnie kept the rifle (I think - he may have returned it since) and wrote an open letter to the SP stating that he would not do business with a state agency that would deny it's citizens the very same firearms that the police find so effective. He has not sold or repaired another rifle for he State of California since.
Oh and the standard military "sniper rifle" is a Remington Model 700, of which there are millions in teh hands of deer hunters all over the US. Have fun banning those.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Thanks for the story, that's the first I had ever heard it. It gave me a chuckle.
But I agree with Barret in this case. The police are strictly a peace keeping force. Why should they have more/better firepower than I do as a civilian who also has the right to self-preservation?
And the term "sniper rifle" is such a hard one to get people to get their heads around in the proper context of the art of a legitimate sniper. Any sniper who's worth the title is going to be effect with just about any functional rifle once they get to know the ins and outs of it. It's not the tool, it's the body behind it.
Maybe that would be a good idea for the banners to do sometime (taped, of course, for public consumption): Give them these evil weapons and see how well they can do with them and then give commonplace or third rate weapons to trained individuals and see how much more effective they are. It's always nice to have the best tools but it's nothing compared to having the best training.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
"And the term "sniper rifle" is such a hard one to get people to get their heads around in the proper context of the art of a legitimate sniper."
Another favorite is "high powered assault rifle". By definition, "assault rifles" fire low to medium powered cartridges. It's like accusing someone of being a criminal mastermind on the basis of their status as a "high functioning" Down's syndrome victim.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I'm not sure what media you are viewing, but most of what I'm seeing is that most of the media is fully in the Obama camp
As I said, take the opposite of the wingnut viewpoint and you have reality - your talking point was fully debunked months ago. More recently, look at the debates - viewer polls show blowout losses for McCain and Palin, yet the pundits try and spin them as some sort of tie, same as they did in 2000 and 2004.
For instance, yesterday on NPR, Obama "revealed" his plan to change bankruptcy law, while McCain "trotted out" his plan to buy individual mortgages - and then proceeded to beat on McCain for his plan, while not even making commentary on Obama's.
The fact that McCain has no idea what the hell he's doing might have something to do with that. "Hey, I'm gonna spend my campaign to to to Washington to help out. Except I actually keep campaigning for a day before strolling into the Senate. Then I don't say a word throughout the meeting, until wrecking it at the last minute with an "alternative proposal" from House Republicans. And I still haven't read Paulson's plan four days after I've received it, even thought it's only three pages long. Then I'll flip flop on my statement that I wont debate until a bill has been passed."
As for the NRA, you say "to some extent Obama". Have you been following the election at all? The NRA is beating on Obama mercilessly, including TV ads which the Obama campaign threatened to sue TV stations over.
Yes, the NRA. In 2004, gun nuts would talk about how they couldn't vote for any candidate that supported gun control. Kerry was obviously out, but so was Bush for saying he "supported existing gun laws and would resign the assault weapons ban". NRA members either stayed at home in droves or voted 3rd party, throwing the election to Kerry.
Oh wait, you mean they voted for Bush en mass like the pathetic hacks they are? Like how Giuliani even spoke at the NRA, which should have been like Dick Cheney speaking at a peace rally?
Ah, yes, I forgot - Obama is perfection incarnate, so any criticism of him is by definition "bias". Likewise McCain is evil on a stick, so unless the media is crucifying him 24/7 they are coddling him.
Keep singing, canary - by the time you stop, others will have figured out who Obama really is, but you'll already have been thrown aside, you purpose served.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Translation: all your talking points have gone down in flames, so you just blather some random bs and declare victory. You didn't even notice that I hadn't linked the right "Cenk on CNN" clip.
I don't think clicking on advertisements from candidates and reading their propaganda^W websites is going to help anyone become an "informed voter". I agree with your sentiment though.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
No, no, no... I know network neutrality is one of the internet's most important quality.
But don't we all want AS LITTLE GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT AS POSSIBLE (at least in terms of technology)? We want a FREE internet, and laws (by definition) restrict freedom. Laws make things more complicated, and I KNOW there's a market for non-neutral internet, as seen with "family-safe" isp's.
There really should be an independent board for certifying isp's as net-neutral -- think "Certified Organic" food, but only "Certified Net-Neutral ISP."
This would define "net neutrality" once-and-for-all and help consumers like myself, who would NEVER pay for non-neutral internet.
I can't find anything like this, so I think I'm going to create it. I just bought 'net-neutral.org' but I can't afford to grab the similar domains (I'm starving college student studying abroad with a 2:1 currency conversion). I also (for the same reason mentioned above) don't have much time.
So if anybody would be interested with helping or heading this project, or could tell me I'm wasting my time and the government IS the right place for this, I'd really appreciate it.
My email: bumgutts@cox.net
PS: sorry if this is considered spam... just trying to help