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GOP Senators Move To Block FCC On Net Neutrality
suraj.sun writes "Seven Republican senators have announced a plan to curb the Obama administration's push to impose controversial Net neutrality regulations on the Internet."
"The FCC's rush to take over the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect consumers," says Sen. Jim DeMint, who I'm sure truly only has the consumer's needs at heart — since his campaign contributions list AT&T in his top five donating organizations.
The FCC's rush to takeover the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect consumers.
The FCC is trying to protect consumers, you fuck. Honestly, do these people believe that anyone will swallow lies like that?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
That's what happens when you put Clemson grads in the Senate. :-)
I like that the FCC is trying to ensure net neutrality but I have two problems with it.
First and foremost, if you're being honest with yourself, these kinds of decisions are too important to leave up to people in non-elected positions. Just because I agree with the decision they made doesn't make it right to try and do an end run around the politicos to get their way. Imagine if the FCC were doing the opposite, and trying to encourage a non-neutral net.
Secondly, this wouldn't be a law on the books. All it would take for this policy to change would be a new management at the FCC. That means both that businesses couldn't count on it staying the same for any kind of long term and that the next election cycle could see it thrown out the window without so much as a vote in congress.
Put it through congress the way these kinds of policies were always meant to be. At least give the American people the chance to pretend that they can still influence their congressmen and make it a bit more difficult for the policy to be overturned when the political winds change.
huh ? especially when these and 2 other companies hold almost all american backbone infrastructure in their own hands ? and for some reason, they are acting in unison. gee. i wonder why that is.
really. who will protect the consumer from their stranglehold ? 'invisible hand' of the market ? fairies ? what do you do when 4 companies hold an entire nation hostage, act together ? wait for 4-5 years for a new backbone provider to come up ? do you have that time ? and dont bullshit me about 'competition' by the way - it has never been a reality in between mega companies at the very top. they always act in conjunction.
Read radical news here
Noting that an evil republican has AT&T (the PAC and its employees on their own) be #3 on his donors list makes him bad... but the fact that both the Telecom Services & Equipment AND Telephone Utilities (just to name a few industries) overwhelmingly has been giving to Democrats makes them... good? Or is that just not worthy of mentioning?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
"Freedom of Consumer Choice" implies that most consumers have a choice when selecting a broadband provider. Lots of folks are stuck with good ol' Comcast because they're the only provider in the area.
Any problems caused by the telcoms would be dwarfed by problems caused by gov't regulators.
and keeps the internet like it is today.
All the broadband companies interest is just protecting themselves to a constant stream of income without regard to the health of the internet. The Internet to them is just a revenue stream. Their interest is shaping the internet to maximize that stream. "Protecting the Consumers" is just a phrase used to blanket the problem of broadband trying to shape the internet into cable.
Don't you know? According to Ane Rand, praise be upon Her Holy name, the invisible hand of the Free Market will sort things out! If the evil government left the corporations alone, they'd do the right thing. AT&T and Comcast, really, really, really want to do the right thing, but the Muslim feminist atheists nazi Marxists won't let them!
The same people that granted them a municipal monopoly.
People get pissed at the government, and after the economy crashes and we have the biggest loss of freedoms this country has ever seen we vote out the brain donor bush, and bring in Obama. Then people get pissed that the economy still hasn't recovered, and both wars are still on-going, so we will vote out the democrats and bring back the same ignorant moron party we had before. Somewhere in there is a lesson - its not the parties that are broken, its the entire system, and it isn't going to change. And until some country like Iran or China gets far enough ahead that they can successfully invade and take over the US, we are stuck in this life sucking loop.
It shouldn't take much longer, with the republicans again in charge they can replace all education with bible schools, and deprive everyone of the internet, thus providing the total mind control they so desperately seek, making the country ripe for attack (again).
I have given up arguing with people in my area. The Republicans make some of the stupidest talking points, and my town soaks it up like a sponge, the weak minded bunch that they are, willing to be lead to any demise, because Jesus will save them.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
"The FCC's rush to takeover the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect big cable companies".
There, fixed that for you Jim (Sen. Jim DeMint)
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
It's ok to oppose gov't regulation of the internet, unless a republican opposes it too, then it must be bad?
Oh yes, they believe that people will swallow them. I'm making a kind of personal anthropological study of the changes to the US right (which, to most of the Western world, is becoming the "far right", or possibly "So far right, it's in danger of wrap around"). These people truly seem believe that *any* kind of government is an evil threat to liberty (how these people can draw a salary as a government employee is an excellent example of living with cognitive dissonance - *my* government job is OK, *my* farm subsidy is an exception to the rule of free markets). There seems to be a growing group who would prefer that the sum total role of government would be to issue all newborns with a bible and a gun, then vanish for all eternity.
I caricature, of course. Not all republicans are this far gone. Unfortunately, It's getting hard to find any vocal examples who are not.
The Republican party needs to be disbanded; forcibly if necessary. Whenever there is the potential for doing something suicidally stupid, totalitarian, or both, the Grand Old Party can be counted on to lead the charge. Truthfully, if we could just get rid of the Right in general, it'd be a major step forward, I tend to think these days.
The older I get, the harder Left I get.
What amazes me... absolutely amazes me... is how people can honestly be so stupid (yes, stupid ) as to believe that Bush III^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HObama would actually go for genuine network neutrality, openness and freedom (or even an approximation of those).
This is a nothing more than a second attempt at a power grab. There is only 1 thing worse than the current system, and that's the current system backed by force of law and convoluted regulation from the FCC which will only entrench the established players even more.
Sounds like the programmable senator couldn't "reform" his way out of a paper bag. All i read is "AT&T really doesn't want the FCC to take away their ability to rape and sell the internet by the pound(Or Mbit, however you want to see it.)" [Sarcasim] Clearly socialist commie bastards are plotting to conquer the internet and enslave the american population. Lets entrust the internet to the telecomm giants that way they can completely enslave us! [/Sarcasim] For the love of god let the obama administration do their job to give the internet back to the people.
The real form of customer protection these guys are advocating for is protecting customers from having too much money or choice. What do I have to do to stop them?!
Unfortunately lies are in the ears of the beholder, and this is about fundamental political ideology. In the long run Big Bucks will kill Net neutrality. Just like it is killing the public airways. Free is not a source of revenue for big industry. If file sharing could not be stopped by DRM .. well we will just throttle any un-trusted / unregistered connection to 75 Baud. I truly believe this is where this is going, and it Sucks
Are DeMinted.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Wasn't it just a couple years ago the GOP was trying to get net neutrality passed. Net neutrality specified as a tiered cost based internet.
WTF happened, we traded one bunch of asshats leaning right for a bunch of asshats leaning left.
Hard to tell the good from the bad these days except the old method of: "You must be lying, your lips are moving"
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Fucking hell. What about the need for fundamental reform to protect citizens?
I'm glad my elected officials feel they need speak up for consumers, and not constituents.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
And READ THE -~=*FRIENDLY*=~- ARTICLE. All of it.
DeMint's received contributions from ATT: $37,500. Total Funding Received: $6.33M
As far as Candidates receiving funds from Computer and Internet Industries: DeMint ranks #35.
Telecom Services & Equipment: #20.
Both of those rankings are WELL below several names of Democrats.
If DeMint's in anybody's back pocket it's Old People. Retirement. Insurance. Real Estate. Securities and Investment.
Quoted:
"In theory, many Democrats favor Net neutrality. President Obama recently reiterated through a spokesman that he remains "committed" to the idea, as have some Democratic committee chairmen.
But theory doesn't always mesh with political practice. More than 70 House Democrats sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski instructing him to abandon his Net neutrality plans. A majority of Congress now opposes Genachowski's proposals. "
I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?
in the united states, you have people who will vociferously fight even legislation that is good for them and increases their rights, like common sense healthcare reform, because they would rather believe demagogues on the radio and propaganda outlets on the television that report "the news"
behind these demagogues and propaganda outlets are big business concerns, who have realized they can pay to have opinion swayed in their direction by demonizing brain dead obvious common good legislation that costs corporations money. they have convinced the idiots to fight for the reduction of their own rights. they call legislation in the name of the common good "socialism," "liberalism," or any number of demonized words whom those who oppose "socialism" or "liberalism" don't even really understand
all they know is "socialism is a bad word." well, what does socialism mean? "its means bad stuff." could you define it ideologically please? "it's anti-american." would you like to know the 19th century american history of labor rights- "shut up you communist fascist terrorist"
this is what intelligent americans are up against: corporations whipping up the low end of the iq curve into a rabid hysteria
americans: go to europe. ask a european about socialism. you will find out the word is boring and just common sense. europeans have a much higher standard of living then you, dear propagandized low iq americans. they also have much higher taxes... but they DON'T PAY FOR SERVICES YOU PAY A LOT MORE FOR
truth, idiots: you're still taxed, whether for health care or oil or broadband, but by corporate boardrooms instead of uncle sam, and you are taxed a heck of a lot more! idiots: you are being manipulated by trolls in the employ of big business to think things against your own self-interest, and you are too stupid to see it. wake the fuck up
rest of the world: i apologize that the american experiment in democracy has been warped by corporate influence. there are still americans who recognize the threat and would like nothing more than to remove that corporate financial influence from our democracy. unfortunately, it is very difficult to fight billions of dollars in lobbyists and media buys. but we're trying. wish us luck. if we fail, then the usa becomes nothing more than a slave state to corporate interests, and any slave who dare suggests big business should pay more for the care of their slaves is "unamerican." unbelievable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What is wrong with the way that Internet has been run for the last 20 years? Nothing, and when something did go a little awry they got hit with a civil lawsuit and it got fixed real quick. The FCC is the same organization which fines stations for saying words that are deemed inappropriate and finds the showing of skin offensive. What is to stop the FCC from imposing those same standards on the Internet? So the FCC gives us net neutrality, but at the same time starts censoring the web the same way it does public airwaves. Is that really what you want?
Im usually not pro regulation, but in this case I cant see how doing nothing is pro-consumer. The arguments about regulation stifling innovation would have made more sense 15 years but today its usually just small companies creating stuff that gets bought up by the big companies. The costs are already passed to the consumers so its not like regulation would make that any different, if anything it would encourage the companies to actually become competitive and put some effort into support and network quality rather than just sitting back and enjoying their monopoly knowing that in many areas you have no choice.
In the area I live, I have 2 choices for Internet access, Time Warner or AT&T, i can opt for 3rd parties for DSL but have to pay local loop and access charges that make 3rd party solutions more than twice as expensive. Many parts of town have one or the other but not both. The rural areas south of me have no choice other than hughes net since the cable and phone companies don't feel expansion out that way is worth their time and money. Both the cable and phone company bundle their services to the point where the "cheap" access ($30 a month) is barely better than dial up. The area is so over subscribed and even on a good day in the off peak hours I rarely get half the advertised speeds. I support my clients via vpn connections and regularly do offsite backups, etc. I was forced to move from a residential connection to a business class because according to the cable company I used too much bandwidth. I now pay around $100 a month for a slower connection than I had 5 years ago and each year sees an increase in prices of at least a couple bucks.
I was involved in a project years back to attempt to bring municipal wifi to our downtown area, the cable and phone companies pitched a fit and managed to block it. 3 years ago a second cable company tried to expand into the area, it too was blocked.
The US model of telecommunications is extremely flawed IMHO, between locked carriers, subsidized phones, local carrier monopolies, and free reign to change the "rules" at any time the current model is a mess and as is there is absolutely no hope of it getting better.
The biggest problem I see is that the carriers want the best of both worlds, they want us to pay for their buildouts and upgrades through tiffs and tax incentives, but then want to be the sole provider as well. Rather than spend money expanding capacity, they throw in caps to artificially increase capacity while at the same time advertise streaming media, online gaming and other bandwidth intensive things as the reason to get them in the first place. I cant see things really improving until something changes.
There is the Geek way of defining it: "No filtering, blocking, or censoring of content going across the wire." (simplified, but you get my point)
The other is the politician way of defining it: "all speech on the Internet must be neutral and balanced". Essentially, the equivalent of the "Fairness Doctrine" that was imposed (and revoked) on the visual and audio media years and years ago.
Unfortunately, this distinction is lost in a lot of these discussions. Do not assume that just because it says "Net Neutrality", that it is defined as you think it is.
For the record, I am for the former and against the latter.
the government is not an alien entity come here to turn you into a duracell battery or a food source for their eggs
your government is A REPRESENTATION OF YOUR WILL
read the FIRST FUCKING SENTENCE:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
WE THE PEOPLE
get it you paranoid schizophrenic?
corporations, meanwhile, genuinely do not have your interests in line with them at all, and they are actively corrupting your government and lying to you about YOUR OWN GOVERNMENT because they want MORE PROFIT and LESS REGULATION and LESS TAXES (taxes that pay for your services, like roads, braodband, and yes YOUR HEALTHCARE, moron)
and you would rather believe the propaganda outlets and the demogogues in their employ, actively convincing you to disbelieve the ONLY ENTITY WHICH CAN PROTECT YOU (which is YOUR GOVERNMENT, moron: YOUR. GOVERNMENT.)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Won't someone think of the children?
Can you give me an example of government regulation that did not end up favoring entrenched incumbents in the industry more than potential competitors or consumers?
Honestly. There are loads of regulations that end up favoring the industry over individual consumers.But if you can't think of a single example... Hell, if you can't think of a lot of examples... where government regulation favors consumers, you have stuffed your head pretty far up your ass (probably by listening unhealthy doses of right wing propaganda).
I'm not sure who should be allowed to choose priorities for network traffic. Is there one entity who has the omnipotence to know which data streams are "good" and which data streams are "bad"? It depends on the viewpoint.
To consumers, packets containing their streaming movies are the most important. Those nerds with their WoW or CoD movements are less important.
To the ISP, their goal is to serve packets as cheaply as possible over existing infrastructure. They would flag streaming movies as less important, because of the volume of packets, or because it competes with their own streaming movie offerings.
My problem is I can't trust the capitalists to make decisions favoring the consumer, because of their devotion to quarterly profit (build less infrastructure), nor can I trust a government agency beholden to Congress (and their campaign fund contributes) to make decisions in favor of the consumer.
So far, the solution has been to treat (most) every packet (mostly) equal. (Try sending RIP or IS-IS packets to your ISP -- they're rejected.) If more infrastructure was built, would internet traffic move faster? Would the additional bandwidth fill with more spam and ads, or would the proportions remain equal, just more of it?
We have laws to use against spammers, but they're hard to track down, and the software that generates spam lives on consumer's computers (usually without their knowledge). The ISPs implemented changes to how email is handled (no SMTP access except to your ISP's server), but that was decisions on their own, private network connected to the Internet. What I don't want are changes at core routers to favor one type of traffic over another, or to just drop packets they don't like.
Now, a real fix would be to give companies an opportunity to provide choices to consumers, instead of the physical duo-opoly (cable or DSL) we currently have. Is there a WiMax option? Can we get real speeds via mobile phone and tethering? Maybe point-to-point meshes for remote locations? The taxpayers subsidized a humongous infrastructure build-out to the baby bells, did any of that get built? Cable companies cry about the cost of running coax as the reason they need the physical monopoly, but I don't see them running new cables to existing service areas. Those costs should have been recouped decades ago.
The current version of "net neutrality" has loopholes in it that allow ISPs to continue the behavior that got us to this point in the first place.
These aren't the regulations you are looking for.
how about the CSN Philly mess. I don't want nbc to end up like that.
Issues of net neutrality in either way seem far too slippery of a slope. I like my internet to remain relatively unfettered, so I can completely understand wanting to place limits on ISPs traffic shaping. However, as a libertarian I believe the government should keep it's nose out of everyone's business. The free market solution would be to encourage more competition between broadband providers. In my area, for example, you're pretty much locked in with either Time Warner or AT&T. If we installed a municipal fiber network between housholds and a central office, broadband providers would have a centralized location to deliver their services to. Then all the different ISPs can battle it out for your dollar based on price and type/quality of service they offer. "Where do we get the money for this fiber infrastructure?" I hear everyone asking. Sounds like the FCC has a bit too much budget on their hands.
Called my Senator's office and gave my opinion. I keep their numbers in my phone so this kind of thing is easy to do.
Everybody (US Citizens) should call theirs to shoot this bill down. The FCC has been doing a good job so far to protect consumers. There's no need to limit them like this. You can find your senator's contact information here: http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
When you call the number, just tell the person who answers that you'd like to give your opinion. They will ask for your name and address and what message you wish to pass along to the senator. You might get a letter back in the mail concerning your opinions and what actually happened with the bill. You can hang these letters on your fridge and any ladies passing by will be impressed with your official correspondence with the government.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
That's really not true. There is fierce competition between companies at the top in many industries. Microsoft vs Apple anyone? Or are you going to try to claim that they are acting "in conjunction"?
You really have a couple of problems here. One, because of the longtime regulation of phones and networks and treating them like utilities, you only have one choice for your connection in many areas. You are lucky if you have two choices. Two, there are huge barriers to entry when it comes to new players entering the market, as well as regulations in some areas that impose monopolies because they don't want multiple utilities coming into the same house (i.e. - one set of water pipes, one set of electric wires, one set of cable, etc).
So it's not really that capitalism or competition don't work, it's that you don't have any capitalism or competition due to longtime government regulation and government imposed monopolies, and now due to the barriers to entry it's too late to get any competition. You talk about there being four companies acting in conjunction and not competing, but that's because they are split geographically. They don't compete because in the geographic regions they cover there most likely is no other competitor. In my part of Ohio, Time Warner Cable is the only game in town... I couldn't get service from Comcast or some other large carrier even if I wanted to. Each is a monopoly in their given area and each therefore acts like a monopoly, which is why they appear to be in conjunction. Contrast that with Microsoft, Apple and Google. Because they all compete in every region and market, you see actual, fierce competition.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
This is government saying "If you claim to provide access to the internet at certain speeds, you aren't allowed to throttle users' access to sites that don't pay you protection fees". Would you please elaborate how that is controlling the internet?
It would seem many don't want the help because it's coming from the GOP. I wonder how many would refuse a cure for cancer because some right-leaning, private university discovered it. Partisanship has truly become idiotic. I know, I know, "It's all their fault!"
Until the US does something to curb this blatant BS that Fox, Rush L. and the other ultra conservative groups put out, the US will continue to spiral into hell and eliminate the dream that every American lives for.
That is quite bold statement! But interesting one!
Tell me more about this dream that I live for. I've sometimes felt unsure about my goals, etc. and hearing more about this dream of mine might...
Or it might be that you are using rather extreme and inaccurate rhetoric here. Which is quite ironic considering that you call for more balance, facts, etc. in media. Not that I didn't agree with you: I would love to see Fox go down in flames. But one of the reasons why I dislike them is statements like "american values", etc. that really mean different things to different people and are there for no other purpose than to invoke strong emotions at the expense of critical thinking.
It's neither THEIR data, nor THEIR Road. So they can get the fuck out of it. Don't like it Comcast? Then pay me rent for use of my land and the land I pay for out of MY taxes.
It isn't THEIR network, 'cos I FUCKING PAID FOR IT. Give me back the trillion with interest and THEN we can talk about how much the infrastructure I PAID FOR will be sold to you to BECOME "your" network.
Add these guys to your "people I will not re-elect" watch-list...
Jim DeMint of South Carolina
Orrin Hatch of Utah
John Ensign of Nevada
John Thune of South Dakota
Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
John Cornyn of Texas
Jeff Sessions of Alabama
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Seriously. If they only hear from corporations they will conclude you don't really care.
unless you want state-run Internet services, it is unworkable to break up these Internet "monopolies" (actually oligopoly), because it is basically a "natural" monopoly (or oligopoly, anyways). No mom/pop/shop can afford the $10B+ required to build out a nationwide network.
The FCC cannot protect the consumer from X without the power to regulate X. The EPA cannot protect the environment from pollution without the power to regulate/punish/whatever polluters.
You are arguing in a dishonest fashion and, in my opinion, from the childish position that all government is bad.
Blar.
It makes a hell of a difference. Slander? Libel? If you're offering OPINION, then you're safe. If you're offering it as FACT, you're in deep shit, kid.
And that's the point. Fox is LYING OUT ITS ARSE. The post all you nuveau-libs are bitching about is getting the FACT that Fox is spouting OPINION ***properly labeled***. This is CENTRAL to the free market and the liberties humanity aspires for. ***NOT*** that Fox should shut the fuck up, but that if Fox wants to continue to spout OPINION, then they should SAY it's OPINION.
Or do you want to be lied to by anyone?
China lies to their people.
I guess you're OK with that, because it's just China governments' OPINION they're giving their people. Just not saying it's opinion.
I'm so tired of that sentiment.
Blar.
really. who will protect the consumer from their stranglehold ? 'invisible hand' of the market ? fairies ? what do you do when 4 companies hold an entire nation hostage, act together ? wait for 4-5 years for a new backbone provider to come up ? do you have that time ? and dont bullshit me about 'competition' by the way - it has never been a reality in between mega companies at the very top. they always act in conjunction.
So your plan to fix the "stranglehold" problem of 4-5 parties deciding what to do with a single monopoly who is more concerned with political decisions than what makes business sense?
I trust bureaucrats very little but I trust politicians not at all.
I live in New Jersey... I KNOW better.
A promise is something a politician breaks at the first smell of a dollar bill waved in his tax fattened face.
We'd do a lot better without elected officials (who owe favors and/or money to the people who paid for 'em.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Summary: The US private sector has already proven itself incapable of creating the internet. What makes ANYONE thing that in managing it they won't make the same type of mistakes that prevented them from creating it? What makes anyone thing that given a free hand, they won't simply destroy it, or at the very least cripple future growth.
There are certainly some grey-haired ones here on Slashdot. Think back a bit... a bit further. Go back to those prehistoric days before 1995, for a moment. Better yet, back a bit further still.
There was an internet. It existed in some universities, DOD installations, and DARPA contractors. It had email and ftp. To exchange information there was this thing called Usenet, which was actually useful before Green Card and AOL opened the floodgates. To publish information there was this nifty thing called gopher. Something called a web might have just barely been starting. Oh yeah, bang-paths, too. I almost forgot about those.
Then there was the private sector. Compuserve, AOL, GEnie, Prodigy, TheSource, home-grown BBSes. People on Compuserve talked to people on Compuserve and accessed information Compuserve made available or partnered for. Ditto for AOL, GEnie, Prodigy, TheSource, etc. NONE OF THEM WERE ANYTHING LIKE THE INTERNET!! ALL OF THEM WERE VYING FOR THE WHOLE PIE!! Now I'll quit shouting. In the private sector, many of those home-grown BBSes networked with each other. Modems dialed modems late at night when rates were low, and moved information from island to island.
My point is simply this in the US the corporate sector plays a winner-take-all game, cooperating only when necessary. They had several years in which they could have bridged their networks together, (peering?) and they didn't. They all wanted to be the Winner, they all wanted to take all.
It's even worse than this, because NONE of those prior networks were terribly versatile. They all fielded what the corporate business plans called for. They supported applications, they supported functions.
This is also really key. The corporate networks were essentially fixed-function - they didn't support simple transport.
The internet came along, and not only was it built on cooperation, so EVERYONE could play, it was built on transport, not function. Who thinks that when they sent the first email from node to node, they were thinking about p2p, streaming video, TOR, bittorrent, MMORPG, skype, SETI and Folding @Home, clouds, grids and the like? They were thinking ahead though, and realized that things could come beyond their current imagination.
From what I can see, business interests haven't learned SPIT in the intervening 15-20 years. They want to erect walls so they can extract more money from under any rock they can turn to find it. They want to give preference to their content over any other. They know what they like, and make sure it can happen, they know what they don't like and hinder it as they can get away with it, and they neglect what they don't or can't imagine, or perhaps hinder it out of caution.
In the US, the government has no monopoly on stupidity.
In the US, the marketplace is so messed up as to be virtually incapable of addressing corporate stupidity.
In the US, the campaign process is so messed up as to be virtually incapable of addressing government stupidity.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
You do what several other countries have done before. You tell the corps that the free ride is over and forcibly split the infrastructure from the service provided over it. Infrastructure gets regulated up the wahoo, the ISP's that run over it do whatever they damn well please and if the market doesn't like it there's room for 20 competitors ready and willing to get a piece of the action.
Good luck getting that done when the corps own your "elected" representatives though, but that's a different story.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
dpolak said nothing about censorship. You, however, are twisting his words.
Blar.
And then there is which group of citizens benefits the most from that corruption and power. Always an important concept. Who's your favorite third party?
Blar.
I''ve arrived to the conclusion that I want the elected bodies to have as little power as possible. I'm not joking here.
Nearly all committees, etc. consist of many different kinds of people (ie: They tend to be bi-partisan). The people deciding these issues are most of the time experts of the field in question (Definition of "expert" may differ... But on average, a bureaucrat committee looking in to any given thing tends to know the subject a lot better than any political body does). There aren't TV cameras or the like there so they don't need to play either "Republican" or "Democrat" role. They don't need to think about the next elections. While there are some internal politics at any workplace, they don't really need to "win the other side". They just need to come up with a solution that works as well as possible.
I prefer dealing with bureaucrats to dealing with politicians. Because I believe that the committees do - on average - know the things they deal with better than the general public does, I'm completely fine with the knowledge that this does hurt the democratic process (which I don't find important in itself. Only as a tool for improving the quality of our lives. If something else does the job better, fine). The main problem in societies where the officials have too much power (Obvious examples would be china and USSR but really, it's the same situation in a LOT of "free market" countries in africa, south america, etc. too... So it isn't really "a socialist thing") is corruption but at this point I don't think that elected bodies have any better track record on that area. Corruption can be avoided only by making the government more open... And I haven't seen elected bodies in any country fighting for that. (Many CLAIM that they do, though)
I'm not saying that I want to get completely rid of democracy. There are a lot of things - whether to join a war, etc. - that people should get to vote for. But I don't see the point in electing a government that really doesn't know that much about anything, can still be corrupt and just votes on laws that they didn't have time to read anyways.
(Why yes, I do happen to be a far left activist in an european country which has quite little corruption on international standards)
i'm condescending to 150M:
the lower half of the iq curve that are apparently easily manipulated by radio demagogues and television propaganda outlets in the employ of corporations trying to avoid taxes and regulations, to agitate against their own self-interest
look behind the fucking curtain, you fucking slaves
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Found on CNET: I'm sorry to burst the GOP's bubble, but Net Neutrality is already on the books. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated $7.2 billion for broadband implementation (w/ a 20% match in funding provided outside the federal government for each project) (connecting to backbone, local infrastructure, creation of local public computer centers, sustainability programs) in the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Take a look at H.R. 1-4 Division A, Title I under the heading "Rural Utility Service"/"Distance Learning, Telemedicine, and Broadband Program"; Look under Title II, heading "National Telecommunications and Information Administration"/"Broadband Technology Opportunities Program"; and especially look at Title VI. Sec. 6001. "BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM" for more details. That set up the program. Language specifically addressing net neutrality can be found in the Notification of Public Funds (NOFA) in the July 9th 2009, Federal Register, Vol. 74, No.130:33104-33134, in which you find statements concerning "neutral traffic routing" (p.33132). From the text; net neutrality is needed because "[w]ithout a non-discrimination condition, network operators could give preferential treatment to affiliated services, or charge some application and content providers for 'fast lanes' that would put others at a competitive disadvantage" (p.33132-33133). Net Neutrality, as defined for BTOP/BIP, also entails "application-neutral bandwidth allocation" (p.33133); one implication is that BTOP/BIP projects cannot throttle connection speeds based upon the program in use. The beauty of it all is that all awards (117 projects) for round 1 have been awarded and awarding funds under round 2 is well underway. These projects must be completed (according to initial agreements, thus net neutral) starting around the beginning of 2012. All this means, there is $7.2 Billion going into massive increase of broadband infrastructure required to be net neutral, many places (including homes) where net neutrality is ensured by law, and money making sure that these things stay functional. And, a lawyer needs to back me up on this, the legislature can't nullify the net neutrality inherent in these programs, rather they would have to attack net neutrality through the judicial branch. Oh, also monopolies aren't protected- unless there is competition with 2 or more providers already in place, a BIP/BTOP program, giving the qualifications of the law (the area needs to be unserved or underserved), cannot be challenged on grounds that one provider already covers the area. This optimally creates competition; telco's can still lie as much as they want, but now they have to put their money were their mouth is; at least, whatever $7.2 billion (+ ~20%) buys. The FCC's doings (what the GOP can touch) are separate, regulate either technology on the wain or the new FCC Broadband program w/ ~$800 million/year, reviewed each year (thus can change as regulation changes). So, when you boil this all down, the implication is that the GOP 7 pushing this legislation appear to either widely ignorant of what's going on around them or mouthing off because they either think it's good politics or they find writing absurd legislation to be fun.
When the govt deregulated the airline industry we got 9/11. When they deregulated the energy industry we got Enron. And when they took apart the complicated post-depression regulations we got today. All is not what it seems. When an elected civil servant tells you regulation is bad, they are not doing their job. Throw the bums out.
Net Neutrality protects the consumer, not the carrier.
now that i've equalized you're knee jerk partisan trigger points, are you with me on the rest of my words?
or is it that you say its ok that you are a manipulated fool... because democrats are manipulated too
seriously? that's your weak ass fucking argument?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Anyone who mentioned a political party in any way to support or oppose net neutrality gets +5 sheeple.
Maybe I'll post a similar article in a week or two with DNC opposing net neutrality and everyone can reverse their opinions and get -5 sheeple.
Then we can see where we got ourselves again...
Fucking nowhere...
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
to work against you
the job is therefore not to fight the government, the only tool on your side, but to remove the corporate infection of your tool that doesn't make it work as well as it should for you
get it yet genius?
or is the idea to remove the only goddamn tool you have to fight the power of corporations?
you really believe corporations, shackled even less weakly by government than they already are, in part because of fools who trust government less than corporations, would do anything except get away with as much abuse as they can in the name of profit?
do you honestly trust a corporation, beholden to shareholders only, more than your own government, beholden officially to you?
yes, corporations have corrupted government away fro, the purpose of serving you. and you think this is somehow an argument against government rather than corporations? how the fuck does that work in your mind?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When the civil rights act, written to explicitly prevent discrimination based on skin color, is used to justify federal discrimination based on skin color (with similar backward applications of the 1st and 2nd ammendments), it is somewhat justified (if cynical) to expect that a regulation written to explicitly prohibit internet censorship based on content, will be used to justify federal internet censorship based on content.
As a Republican, I am amazed that my senator (mccain) has sold out to the media monsters when 1) they betray the principles at the core of the party, and 2) they are typically a 5th column for the dems.
Why is something as important as The Internet so poorly understood by the Republicans? - Personal Liberty is directly enabled by Net Neutrality and the the lack of Net Neutrality will stop economic growth and is required for any of the colectivist policies of the left? get a F'in clue.
I want to know the names of those 7 idiots - that dem (the 73) have sold out should be expected, passion over principle etc etc - but for republicans to not understand how this betrays our core principles is unforgivable.
I want names.
will buy the right to kick down your door if the government is not going to do that job. the government does that when there are criminals involved. when they fuck up, and do it by mistake, there are valid recourses the victims of that abuse can take. those recourses only exist in a state with a working valid strong central government
in an environment where the government is not powerful, meanwhile, there is nothing to stop corporations from kicking down your door and pointing guns at you. you honestly think they won't? how fuckign clueless are you?
you need an education
start here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_National_Detective_Agency
pinkertons is what happens when the government is weak and the corporations are strong. thousands of our great and great great grandfathers fought in this country for strong governmental curbs on corporate abuses of power in the gilded age. length of workday? minimum wage? you think these laws are abusive? do you want to know the kind of abuse that wnet on before those laws existed?
you are simply an ignorant, ignorant of your own country's history and the kind of abuse corporations got away with when the government wouldn't police them
fact, solid fucking fact: if the government is weak, then there exists a power vacuum. that vacuum will be filled by corporations, the mafia, religous nuts, whatever, you name it. ALL OF WHOM ARE WORSE ABUSERS THAN YOUR OWN GOVERNMENT. you really believe otherwise?
you WANT a powerful central government to protect your rights. why the fuck you believe a weak government somehow works out for your freedom is some sort of massive state of propaganda on your part and true ignorance and true stupidity
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A direct demonstration of how the rich (internet service providers) are planning to steal from the poor (subscribers and small internet sites) unless the Prince (Obama) steps in with legislation to level the playing field.
Guess not much has changed since 1513, has it??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince
list every single criticism of socialism above
why the fuck do you not think the SAME abuses don't go in under corporatocracy? (i didn't say capitalism, i said corporatocracy: monopolies and oligopolies are MORE of an enemy of capitalism than socialism is, read your gilded age economic history)
so i'll tell you what: i admit to every single criticism of socialism you have listed
then i will say that the corporatocracy you live under, that you blindly defend or ignorantly refuse to see that you are defending, commits the same abuses AND MORE. your money goes to the pocket of some guy in a corporate office, unjustified, untraceable, and wasted, rather than a government coffer, which at least is supposed to be for your benefit and be can be tracked and recovered
wake up fool!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
First off, I'd like to see the source of your numbers and the method by which those numbers were obtained.
Secondly, that argument is so silly it's not even worth responding to. Without government there would be anarchy and then, I am quite sure, the death toll for those regions would be significantly higher. Do you really support a world where there is more killing, but at least the people are doing the killing directly without the need for justice systems?
Blar.
"The FCC's rush to take over the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect consumers," says Sen. Jim DeMint, who I'm sure truly only has the consumer's needs at heart -- since his campaign contributions list AT&T in his top five donating organizations.
Did you consider that, just maybe, someone might donate to a candidate because they support his views, rather than him forming his views based on who donates to him? I doubt AT&T's $35k out of a total of nearly $2m campaign contributions would sway him if he wasn't inclined to vote that way already.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
wow 'fierce' competition. really, is there ? microsoft dominates a certain segment of market, apple the other. both try to dominate customers, and often get fined due to their restrictive behavior.
not only that, software market is totally different than other markets, in that if you have an app made for a certain platform, you are stuck with it, for aeons. you cant change it. there are still many banks using as400.
whereas on ALL other fields of life, megacorporations dominate everything.
its really capitalism, corporationism that doesnt work. we will be free of these issues once people like you realize that.
Read radical news here
Please show me a historical basis for natural monopoly. The theory of "natural monopoly" was developed to justify the government supporting AT&T becoming a monopoly over telephone service back at the beginning of the 20th Century. The closest thing I know of a monopoly developing without direct intervention by the government is Microsoft.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You know that not all that's aired on Fox News (Glenn Beck, O'Reily (sp?), etc.) never claim to be news, right? They are the Fox's equivalent to Comedy Central's Stewart and Colbert... even if they are not as funny.
I don't watch a lot of Fox News, but when I've caught the actual news programs they seem to be pretty fair, even if Glenn (et al) are not.
Be careful how much you include in your tirade.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
" you have set up a target that is irresistible for corporations and/or wealthy special interests to attempt to seize control of"
to me, this is like saying it is the fault of the really hot chick that she got raped, not the rapist
corporations are raping our government. i think we can both agree on this. but you, fantastically, see the corporations as helpless to do anything but rape, the poor little things, and the government is evil because it can be raped
we need to remove the infection of corporate money in the government. we do this with laws. this is the only solution possible. do you honestly have a better one?
and would you STOP blaming the government for being infected by corporations. the corporations are the enemy, not your government. what other tool do you believe the average citizen has against the power of the corporation?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
yeah. at least, the political decision machine AND the people running it, have legal responsibilities and obligations towards me. you can even request state secrets with a FOIA application, but, you can not request anything from a megacorporation. they will reply 'trade secret', and it even tramples state secret defense in courts.
private is private. its owned by OTHER people. you cannot do anything against it. public means, publicly owned. EVERYONE has an inalienable right on it.
Read radical news here
that is irrelevant. all the isps would be free to dominate their infrastructure as they want it. with whomever has to use their infrastructure too. the problem is this. not a few corporations dropping 1-5% price or not.
Read radical news here
Time to start killing them one by one
"raping" the government? I'd say that it's a good deal more consensual than you paint it.
No, I see the corporations as subverting the process of government to suit their own needs - it becomes a tool by which they stifle competition, choke off competitors, and take advantage of consumers.
I disagree that the solution is to "enact socialism," the solution is to strictly curtail the power and scope of government, and limit it as much as possible to police/military/courts, rather than giving it a vastly expanded role in managing every other aspect of society.
I would argue that the two are so closely intertwined that it's quite hard to tell where one begins and the other ends at this point - taken independently, corporations are not necessarily the enemy, and neither is the government.
But when they collude to oppose the best interests of the people they are supposed to serve, my solution isn't to say "Well give more power to the government then, so they can fight off those evil nasty corporations." All you're doing is ceding more power to a body that is already controlled by the people you claim to want them to fight.
The problem isn't "Form-1891." It is "Form-2382."
You know, don't you, that to get connectivity to your new house, or the wire repaired that that windstorm knocked down, you need to fill out a "Form-2382" and hand deliver it (your net connection is down, remember?) to the big Federal building in the center of your closest big city. You can also send it by certified letter if that's more convenient.
and will fight for what is right and genuinely american, because i love my country
the hordes of low iq partisans will not claim and destroy my country in the name of the corporations that have purchased their dim minds with radio personality demagogues and cable news propaganda. i will ensure that my country exists for the people, by the people, as the founders originally intended. not for the corporations, by the corporations, with dimwits as their tools, fighting for their own enslavement
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wanna make a point about Jim DeMint getting contributions from AT&T? Harry Reid got more from AT&T ($44K for Harry, $36K for Jim - see: http://politics.usnews.com/congress/reid-harry/donors) - I hear he supports Net neutrality (http://mydd.com/2006/6/10/harry-reid-and-net-neutrality)... I don't think money determines support for a given bill, otherwise Harry owes AT&T donors a refund...
Ken
when you diminish the power of the government, you create a power vacuum that is filled by corporations
the government must be the most powerful thing in the room. all you are arguing for is corporations being the most powerful thing in the room. list every abuse you can see and can imagine by the government. now add a few more, and remove any ability for recourse, and that's what happens when the corporations are the most powerful thing in the room
if you don't understand that, you really don't understand what the hell is going on. really
there is the government. and then there are corporations. if your mind can't understand that those are two separate things,and that only one of them works with your interests in mind, then your mind and your opinions are useless and logically incoherent
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Corporate owned media like NBC should be regarded as right-leaning. They may appear left-leaning by comparison with ultra-right wing Fox. Their conservative bias doesn't appear in the news stories they cover. It appears in what they refuse to cover. (To get those stories, you have to tune into Link TV, Freespeech TV.) For example, you won't be seeing a documentary like "Walmart: the High Cost of Low Prices" on any commercially owned network such an NBC, CBS, ABC. Instead you will see lots of advertising telling you to shop at Walmart.
PBS appears to be increasingly censoring content to avoid offending their corporate sponsors. Somehow I don't know think that an agricultural program that is "made possible by a grant from Archers Daniels Midland" is going to give me an unbiased perspective on the benefits of organic farming.
Depends on what script they've been reading.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I can't help wondering how many of these replies are from Comcast employees. They have already shown themselves willing to fill courthouses with shills. So why not slashdot? Am I just being paranoid? With millions spent on advertising why not have at least a few slashdot posters in their pocket as well. That's not to say there are genuine concerns about trusting the government. I'm sure some of the posters are legit. I have some concerns as well, but I still don't see how there could be any negatives to a simple net neutrality law. I think the basic rule is that anything good for Comcast is bad for us.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
ROFL! Ahh, what a riot! Yep, that pretty much sums up all the libertarian arguments I've heard on /.
Just as an aside, what ever happened to the real libertarians? You know, the ones that were just to the right of the anarchists, but hated money just as much as government? Where did they go? Did they all die out in the 80's, or something?
Yes. Public infrastructure leased by private ISPs is really the way to go. But you're right, I can't even imagine the screaming and crying that would result if this were ever proposed in Congress.
I don't like the Internet Super Highway thing but it fits quite well. The highway system works pretty well and government did that and still does MOST of it. Sometimes they mess up largely due to their own citizens neglect of their duties... but overall they do quite well.
Nothing says that we can't have government run internet everywhere like we do with the roads. HELL, they run all those wires down the public land of the roadways! There are many ways payment can be done for it. Also, private business can use it freely without discrimination. My local city could provide poor DNS service or I could pay for some or use OpenDNS. The city could also do a simple DHCP server. ISPs are largely USELESS outside of the connection; even more so with IPv6. We've seen the silly games of multiple ISPs over the same wire from DSL and a little with cable but I see no reason we can not do that over a public connection. Me, I'd set myself up as an ISP because they do nothing for me I can not do myself. It's like paying a toll to drive down the street.... oh wait, some idiotic places have done that!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
When the whole subject of net neutrality came up, it was obvious that neutrality of packet delivery needed to be preserved in order for the internet to continue to exist as a space where innovation runs rampant. Now it seems that in order to assure neutral packet delivery, we must accept regulation by the FCC. Historically, FCC regulation has often become overbearing. We could see the internet turn into glorified TV where the FCC starts to regulate content. So, either we get packet delivery by extortion from the ISPs, or we get a regulated internet with no idea where further regulation will take us. Like so much of life lately, it looks like another lose, lose for the citizenry.
I don't suppose you mean the government-created, government-enforced cable monopolies that exist only because the government gave only those companies the rights to run cable, outlawing the running of competing cables that broke the government-mandated monopoly?
Why yes, more government is just the solution to the problem that too much government created.
Just for context: 20 years ago was 1990. The Web was not even invented yet; very few people had Internet access at home.
When home Internet use started growing in the mid and late 1990s, it was via modems and telephone lines. Home telephony was (and is) a common carrier service, regulated by the FCC. This means that telephone providers may not discriminate between customers accessing the same level of service. They must publish their prices, cannot charge different prices for the same service, can't refuse service, and must treat all carriage (in this case, phone conversations) equally.
Much of the ubiquity and fairness that people take for granted in the phone system is the result of common carrier regulations. The concept of common carrier dates back to before the railroads.
In 1996 Congress passed the Telecomm Act, which said that telephony will remain a common carrier service, but that Internet service is not. Originally DSL counted as the former, and cable modem as the latter. Now, after a long series of lawsuits and decisions, the ulimate result is that neither DSL nor cable modem count as common carriers.
So your post about history strikes me as ironic. Today the protections of equality that we enjoyed during the rapid growth of home Internet are gone. That is why we are fighting over "net neutrality" today, and we weren't 15 years ago.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
a perfectly health 20 year old can break his arm
therefore, you are pretty much forced to buy their products
furthermore, you defined communism, not socialism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We need LEGAL protection not the whim of the FCC.
I'm for equality but I'm NOT for some of the moves trying to implement it. We are just an election away from another crook heading the FCC or an organized group of nuts sending in letters and skewing the org over 4 letter words etc. Furthermore, if the FCC can regulate internet over private communication lines this includes HBO etc unless explicitly exempted. What happens when TV goes to IP? I object to their powers on TV airwaves.
Free speech is the opposite of being free from offense!
What the FCC should be doing is creating a digital ratings system that works instead of this marketing based industry tripe we have today. Help people protect their kids and shield their fragile minds from offensive material but NOT IMPOSE limitations (other than fraudulent ratings and not making ratings mandatory.) Children's programming would have ratings or otherwise not be seen by parents blocking unrated material. This could extend to the web as well; sure it limits the web for children - that is a parents choice to make. Adult programming could allow viewers to blank out graphic scenes or skip to only the sex or violence scenes... Yes, I'm saying we should also have an optional ratings track with timecode; I couldn't care less about artistic integrity! They can't stop me from skipping chapters or skipping their whole "artwork."
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
So if we get the mandated "net neutrality" I read about at Freepress.net, am I still allowed to block traffic from all those spambots? Is my ISP? Is his transit provider? What if the ISP hosting the spambot doesn't want to disconnect it?
And so are senators for that matter!
oh geee.
so why monopolies exist in fields where government doesnt grant monopolies ? why every other shampoo, cleaning liquid, material you buy has a different brand, but when you look at the producer, it comes up as procter&gamble for example ? only morons fall for the 'different branding' illusion. a few megacorporations control the root products in every sector. and procter&gamble example is one of the ones which is doing it honestly too, not hiding their ownership of production or production subsidiaries through numerous intermediate companies that throw those who track them off.
Read radical news here
The problem with net neutrality is that the current proposals (including proposed legislation and proposed regulations by the FCC) all seem to allow ISPs to be non-neutral when it comes to illegal traffic. This in and of itself is not bad but the wording of "illegal traffic" is such that ISPs can interpret it to cover network protocols with both legal and illegal uses such as BitTorrent.
Here is my list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress_by_longevity_of_service
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
...for the nearly $1 million that Google gave to the Obama campaign and the similar amount that it gave to the Obama transition team. Not to mention the more than $100K it gave for the inauguration. The so-called "network neutrality" rules proposed by the FCC aren't the slightest bit neutral; they'd tie ISPs' hands while giving control of the Net's future to Google and preventing newcomers from arising to challenge Google's monopolies. And no wonder: they were written by Google lobbyists whom Obama -- breaking his pledge not to hire lobbyists -- hired into the administration. What's more, at least one of the FCC Commissioners -- Michael Copps, the most senior and the one who was Interim Chairman -- has already stated that he wants to use these new regulatory powers to censor the Net. (He's the one who went ballistic over the exposure of Janet Jackson's pastie at the Super Bowl many years ago.) ISPs won't censor the Net; in fact, they have NEVER censored legal content. But the FCC, given the power, will follow in the footsteps of the Australian government and will try to do so.
Yeah, if you think that making a phone call, an e-mail, or a letter is going to have any effect on your political representatives then you should go to peace rallies and protests more often. This type of behavior has no effect except to make the callee feel a little bit better about themselves for pretending to give a shit and "do" something but ultimately it's pointless an just just a self-masturbating ego boosting.
Your elected representative will vote along his party lines as he is told by his higher-ups, do whatever continues to make the lobbist's money flowing towards his campaigns, make the best choice for his personal business investments or friend's business investments that are going to give him a job after he leaves the office, or he will trade this vote for another one that he wants on more important issues that bring him more of the former.
Money is the only thing that can make a difference in US politics at this point since the majority of the population is beyond the tipping-point of "Who gives a shit! Give me a beer, a burger, a car and leave me the hell alone in my house!"
You want to make a difference in US politics, focus on becoming rich, then make enough money that your donations to candidates are heavy enough to sway their votes in your favor. This is the way that this country's political system has been run in the recent past and this is the way that the tide is turning judging by the current political outlook on the future and the way that bills are being passed. The corporations are now becoming more politically active and are starting to donate larger and larger sums toward politics, and this behavior is now enhanced by the recent US Supreme Court ruling removing limits from campaign contributions by corporations.
We are heading towards United States of America, Inc. or LLC if we're lucky!
"It is in the very nature of governments that they serve their own will. They are their own master and answer only to themselves. Elections just change the names involved."
you are either one hilarious troll or you are seriously fucking retarded
YOU ELECT YOUR GOVERNMENT moron. you LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY. that MEANS SOMETHING, something IMPORTANT
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you're a genuinely ignorant slave, proud of your ignorance, proud of your closed mind
fact: europe surpasses the usa on a number of measures of quality of life, due to their focus on social justice rather than maximizing corporate profit
but it involves this scary word to you, "socialism", which propaganda has effectively turned, in your brain, into "scary bogeyman i can't think about logically"
why is the concept of quality of life for the average man such an invalid goal in your mind? why is the quality of your own life, the numbers of hours a week you work, the health benefits you receive, the weeks of vacation you receive... why are these concepts something you work your damndest to fight?
THAT'S what socialism is, retard: A FOCUS ON THE QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE
you are a propagandized fool, and you and those who are propagandized sheep like you are destroying this great country, and as a proud patriotic american, i will not let you hordes of radio parsonality demagogue listening, fake news watching ignorants ruin the united states of america with, your minds bought and paid for by corporate propaganda, and too fucking stupid to realize you are being used, against your own self-interest
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
very good job at aping words
now can you THINK FOR ONCE IN YOUR PATHETIC LIFE, you fucking monkey slave?
to me, you are a slave, proud of his slavery and ignorance
you're a tool, and you are propagandized and being used
time to wake up, tool
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
it not being on sat tv and the lack of CSN + / comcast network on some cable systems.
Since Congress, now a wholly owned subsidiary of the telecoms, wants to give them a direct connection between their hands and our pockets, and since the FCC and Congress cannot seem to agree on who should control what, I propose that the correct answer is that you and I should control the Internet. We need to figure out a way to build very inexpensive weatherproof low-power WiMAX routers that we can install rapidly--pretty much everywhere. We need to seed them in so many places that nobody can take them all down. The airwaves are the property of everyone, not just a select few. It's time we proved that.
you need healthcare insurance
yes or no?
the healthcare system needs to be reformed
yes or no?
nobody had a plan or willpower to fix the ridiculously expensive unresponsive system except the democrats in 2009
yes or no?
you figure the rest out, idiot
as for hate:
yes, i hate you. because you are destroying this country. because you are not a free thinking individual, you are a radio personality and faux news propaganda-addled asshole arguing against your fellow citizens, and for corporations. you're a slave, and you don't even know it, and all you do is argue for your own continued slavery. and you and those like you are my eternal enemy, because what you stand for will turn this great country into haiti, whether you realize it or not, that's the end result of your ideology. if i and others who realize the truth defeat your propagandized ignorance, then this country will be saved. that really is the fucking truth
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the next time you walk by a man bleeding on the street, ask him if he has $100,000 in the bank to go to the hospital
if he says no, make sure you walk on, or you betray your beliefs
i'm glad you hate poor folk. that makes you really awesome
my ideology is not about no incentive to work. my ideology is about not letting people suffer because they can't afford THE BASICS. not play station 3s, not cadillac escalades, but DIABETES TREATMENT. or HEART MEDICINE. get it asshole?
apparently, your belief is "don't have the money? then hurry up and die"
so go move to haiti. you'll fit right in. because that country is the end result of your "i got mine, fuck you" crass selfishness. you take care of your society, and you GET RICHER. or you spend your money fighting off the poor who just want to eat. you are not an island, the money in your bank account is merely an abstract reflection of the richness of the society around you. you work hard, you invest in your community, and you are a rich man. or you horde every nickel you grab like a greedy slut, and you deny anyone around the simplest of compassion, and you get an ugly mean society full of suffering. you will not define my society, i will. becaus ei care about it. and if you won't pay your fair share for the riches you derive from the bounty of your society, i will make sure you fucking do. get it you greedy asshole?
i'd call what you believe an ideology, but even if you dress a whore up in a nice dress, she's still a whore. likewise, you don't have a philosophy or an ideology. all you have is lizardlike slimy greed
you suck, and you are my enemy, and you will not destroy my country, twatstain
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the europeans have better healthcare and pay less for it
why?
because its MANDATORY
in the usa, only those who are sick or old buy it. so it stays expensive. the perfectly healthy 20 year old with no health insurance: he breaks his arm, who pays for that? do you let him go untreated? see why our system sucks yet?
"Has it occurred to you that many of us might not want these services or, if we do want them, we prefer NOT to pay as much for them as the Europeans do?"
do you support the idea of a driver without driver's insurance? no? good. do you understand why? SAME LOGIC APPLIES TO HEALTHCARE, YOU LOW IQ ASSHOLE
the us healthcare system is economically flawed. it MUST be universal, or it is MORE EXPENSIVE for LOWER QUALITY. simple motherfucking economics. solid truth. solid reality
wake up from your propaganda, you ignorant slave
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
group A: only the sick and old have health insurance. premiums are expensive. because they are SICK and OLD
the uninsured 22 year old making $20K breaks his arm. he has $50 in his bank account. he can't afford it. the hospital bills him, he ignores the bills. the hospital bills the state, because we can't afford our hospitals to go bankrupt. this goes on ALL THE TIME IN THE USA MORON
group B: EVERYONE has to have health insurance. premiums are low. BECAUSE THE YOUNG HARDLY GET SICK. hospitals are healthy. the focus is on PREVENTATIVE medicine rather than emergency medicine. that diabetes gets caught sooner (and cheaper). that heart condition gets caught sooner (and cheaper)
feel me yet retard?
WAKE
THE
FUCK
UP
YOU
PROPAGANDIZED
IGNORANT
ASSHOLE
you and low iq twatstains like yourself ARE RUINING THIS COUNTRY
i want BETTER healthcare for LESS money, and thats what healthcare reform is you ignorant useless motherfucker
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
guy is laying on the street with a broken arm. he has no money in his bank account, he has no health insurance
"Or in other words, you want to take what I have worked hard for, by force, and spend it on yourself."
do you leave him there with a broken arm?
let us hear you articulate your social darwinist vision for american society, selfish asshole, LET'S HEAR YOUR SAY THE REALITY OF YOUR SELFISHNESS
out with it asshole: do you walk by the guy in the street? do you?
"Or in other words, you want to take what I have worked hard for, by force, and spend it on yourself."
LET'S HEAR YOU SAY IT YOU SELFISH IGNORANT ASSHOLE
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The free market isn't about perfect competition, it's about freedom of entry.
Politicians who spout about competition don't really understand what it means, when their positions are monopolized themselves.
Net neutrality regulation is unneeded, and if brought about, will just increase service costs.
A monopoly who just outperforms everyone else isn't a monopoly over the market, since others can come in and compete.
I say that in respect to your use of the word which is correct, but that it's useless. A few men own an entire industry, so what? What's wrong with that? If they did something criminal, or used the government, blame them for that. But not for offering services and products cheaper and better than anyone else.
why don't we pay, as a society, for a pool of cash to educate our youth, and pay for our health issues, and then just not have to worry about that? do you understand the notion of quality of life?
why exactly is the idea of sharing healthcare and educational costs such a horrible idea to you? do you not see the benefits of that idea? why aren't those benefits attractive to you?
why should you be burdened for 6 months for your bike accident why not just burden society in aggregate? because a few selfish 40 something assholes don't like their tax rate? why should we care what those a few selfish assholes think of their tax rate?
i'm all for taxing a few 40 something assholes more than forcing a young kid to work for 6 months because he got in a bike accident. what exactly is wrong with that? you understand the value of insurance, right? why not just pay the damn insurance at a group rate? its that simple a concept!
i'm also for society paying completely for youth's education, so they aren't slaves to their debt the moment they graduate. what's the downside of that? the complaints of some 40 somethings who have to pay more in taxes. ok. so fucking what?
those 40 somethings enjoy the fruits of their society just as much as the 20 year old. its just that the way costs are structured, the burden is placed on those entering society (as young folk), rather than on those already in the prime of life. this is a bad structure: it should be structured to ease the young folk into the structure of society, otherwise, they have reason and interest to reject society, to drop out of society as useless debt shirkers or flee the country or hate their lives or hate you and hate americna society for being unfairly structured to reward only 40 something assholes. the way society structures its costs puts so much burden on the young, for what? so some 40 year old asshole can buy another gas guzzling SUV or mcmansion? fuck the 40 something, make it easier for the 20 something
the problem is, you are playing a class warfare game and a generational warfare game, but you either are unaware of the clash of your priorities versus the priorities of others who are more deserving than you, or you honestly believe that there are no social costs to burdening 20 somethings without trust funds with so much, or that you generate social costs that you aren't paying your fair share of. i openly admit to the generational and class warfare game, i don't cage my opinions in libertarian bullshit (libertarianism is just selfishness, dressed up as philosophy: you can dress a whore up in a nice dress, she's still a whore)
why exactly is the idea of sharing healthcare and educational costs such a horrible idea to you? do you honestly believe you are an island and that your fortunes are not tied to the fortunes of your society? do you honestly believe that if the health and education of others suffers you won't suffer as well?
take care of and be concerned about the welfare of your society. or live in haiti. you don't realize that the fruits of your "ideology" is a country like haiti. you honestly believe your "ideology" is a gateway to a better society, erroneously, or you admit that you are a selfish asshole and you are just playing a game to get more than you deserve
the money in your pocket is an abstract representation of the wealth of the community you live in. that's not some hippie far out dude thought, that's economic fact. so take care of your investment, or truly be a poor man
i for one will not be a poor man, simply because there are selfish assholes in my society who don't realize that that is what they are choosing for themselves, and me, by shafting the community they live in by demanding to invest less in their society, as shortsighted and selfish as that is
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
" The difference is that we were all free to opt-out and nobody forced us to participate and that is very important in a free society"
the guy who opts out, and then breaks his arm, and then doesn't pay (you do realize our hospitals are constantly being bailed out by THE TAXPAYERS, correct?) shows the folly of your "choice"
the "choice" that is being made to not have insurance is the "choice" being made to freeload (which is the delicious irony in your attitude: you dislike freeloading, and yet this is what your philosophy is arguing for)
this is your REAL choice:
1. mandatory insurance
2. freeloaders. who "choose" not be insured, then break their arms, then we the tax payers pay for them because they avoid the bill
that's your choice in reality
everything else you wrote is idealism: workable only if human beings suddenly start behaving in ways people never have behaved
furthermore, your "socialism sucks because communism sucks" line of reasoning is laughable and tedious. surely you understand socialism is not communism, correct? communism is stupid. likewise, libertarianism, free market fundamentalism: equally stupid. the only workable middle ground is socialism: capitalism with social safety nets. is what you are advocating for social darwinism?: do you want people who can't pay their hospital bills to be rejected from healthcare and allowed to die in the street? no?
i won't pay you the disrespect like you have to me (by criticizing communism when that's not what i am advocating for). surely you don't mean to advocate social darwinism. so surely you see the braindead obvious: health insurance MUST BE MANDATORY. or you are choosing to let some people freeload. you do understand that inevitable real world effect, or are you a hopeless castle in the sky naive idealist? arguing about that which will never be true because you don't understand human nature?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i agree to every single criticism of it you can muster, and a few more creative complaints you might make up
and yet it is still superior to the fucking joke of a broken health care system that the usa operates under. in terms of bureaucracy (yes, bureaucracy: the government is the only one who can bury you in paperwork?), access to preventative care, quality, cost, both on a national level and a personal level, etc. dude just look at obvious healthcare measures like longevity, newborn survival, cost (YES COST!), etc: comparing the usa to other industrial countries with universal healthcare. its a no brainer, our system SUCKS IN COMPARISON, and universal healthcare is CLEARLY better, according to any real life measure
why is it that the deficiencies of government run healthcare figure so heavily in your mind, but you fail to recognize, address, or conceive of the obvious horrible failures of the bullshit system we currently exist under? its idealistic of you: you examine the failures of a system in a vacuum, not comparing it against your other real world choices. choosing instead to analyze universal healthcare against idealized fantasies and stereotypes, good and bad, of human behavior that have never existed and never will
its like what churchill said about democracy: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." so i say to you: "Government run healthcare is the worst form of healthcare, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
and that's the truth sir
and i find it particularly hilarious that you say you are not an idealist, and then fall back on idealistic mindfarts about collectivism and tribalism and what not. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOUR SIMPLEMINDED THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS HAVE TO DO WITH REAL WORLD NATIONAL HEALTHCARE, you naive idealist
the real world bears no resemblence to simpleton essays in introductory philosophy class. please get your head out of your idealistic ass and examine REAL WORLD FACTS. the usa system SUCKS and FAILS. you have too much ivory tower castle in the sky philosophical air headed brain droppings, not enough real world concrete truth. wake the fuck up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the usa system sucks. you agree to this
and you look at canada, uk, france, germany that are doing BETTER, but somehting moves your brain to not conclude the fucking obvious. namely, your fucking armchair philosophy professor bullshit
now write 10,000 more words to me, go ahead, send me 20x more links i "have to read before you take me seriously". fuck you you partisan. the facts are on the fucking table: other countries with socialist systems have better healthcare than the usa. there's your insurmountable wall of truth that your ivory tower words cannot defeat. this is where you give me links to faux news propaganda spinning problem socialist countries have with healthcare (that i would love to have rather our far worse problems: more analysis in a vacuum, more propaganda half-truths)
all i know is, i'd rather live in germany, uk, or france, when it comes to healthcare, rather than the usa
but being a proud american, i'd rather recreate the obviously financially and health outcomes superior system of uk/ germany/ france/ canada/ etc, here, in the country i love
to do that, i instead have to beat back asshole free market fundamentalists like yourself, and that i will do
you derive your opinions from talking heads rather than clearly and broadly established facts of how they do healthcare BETTER in socialist countries
YOU LOSE
ON POINT OF FACT
wake up from your propaganda and your castle in the sky wish fulfillment fantasies
in real life, socialist healthcare is superior on all the measures that matter: financially, health outcomes, etc
imagine that: not everything in this world can be solved by the profit principle. who knew that free market fundamentalism wasn't the answer to all the problems in the world? pfffffffffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it