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Net Neutrality Supporters Hammered In Elections
Pickens writes "Gigi Sohn writes in the Huffington Post that one of the results of the mid-term elections was the defeat of Representative Rick Boucher, the current Chair of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, widely recognized as one of the most tech-savvy and intelligent members of Congress, and long an advocate for consumers on a wide variety of communications and intellectual property issues. Boucher has been the best friend of fair use on Capitol Hill writes Sohn. In 2002, 2003 and 2007, Boucher introduced legislation to allow consumers to break digital locks for lawful purposes, a fair use exception to the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and while the odds against that legislation passing were always great, Boucher understood the symbolic importance of standing up for consumers' rights to use technology lawfully. 'As important, he served as a moderating force both on the House Energy & Commerce and Judiciary Committees against those many members of Congress willing to give large media companies virtually everything on their copyright wish lists.'"
two steps back. You can hear the lobbyists howling at the door.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
long an advocate for consumers on a wide variety of communications and intellectual property issues.
The loss of a friend for fair use was sad, but I think a few others may have come in so perhaps that will balance out. On the whole the Democrats were always befriended by Hollywood in ways Republicans were not, so I would hope a lot of new Republicans would be cool to the MPAA and other organizations...
That said, "Net Neutrality" is not about what people think. It's about bringing the internet, and specifically ISP's, under more regulation to solve a problem that doesn't exist. How you you carefully craft regulation to solve a problem that doesn't exist?
The biggest ISP no-no we have seen was Comcast and torrent tomfoolery. But no net neutrality ideas under discussions would have stopped that, because in that case Comcast forged traffic, they didn't limit anything. It was your network's stack response to forged packets that caused a slowdown.
So even if you support regulation of the internet and the foot in the door for greater control over allowable traffic that brings with it, even if you support that - shouldn't we at least wait and see IF issues arise so we can construct regulation that actually solves a problem instead of just being there to make us all feel warm and fuzzy?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Dems were already in power. Midterm elections tend to be overwhelmingly biased to the party principles of the second-largest party. Now add all the FUD spread by the Tea Party et al. Nobody should be surprised that the resulting observations are all leaning Right.
"Liberal" stances like Net Neutrality and CA's Prop 19 (though neither of those are completely economically liberal, they are associated that way) suffer in elections like this. This is not a trend that you should expect to see continue in 2012.
I plan on running for Congress in 2012. I'll fill a void.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Very few people that I know who don't work directly with computers have a decent understanding of net neutrality. I actually know several people who believed that moron Glen Beck when he said it was an "Marxist takeover of the internet", which is about as far from the truth as you can get. I don't believe that these candidates were voted out because of their net neutrality stances, I think it was more an issue of health care and the economy, but if they ever want this issue to be understood and voted on by the public then they need to run campaign adds explaining it in very basic, honest, terms.
If we only have 1 provider then that is an example of a market failure, and in that case it is not a violation of good market economics for the government to intervene. There are externalities imposed by the nature of the business that do require limited government regulation, I don't think that's to extreme a stance.
It's funny you say that, because our ISPs in this country operate in a manner that is hardly conducive to a free market. They get money from the state, they get laws from the state that allow them to lay their cables on your property (even if don't want them), in some cases they get (or have gotten) state sanctioned monopolies (sometimes called franchise agreements), and I'm sure the mucking about in the FCC and Congressional telephony regulation probably insulates them from competitors. I think those are where the battles should really be fought, especially the outright monopolies that have been granted in the past.
SSC
Net Neutrality was not on the radar of these voters. Support for net neutrality didn't hurt or save anyone.
Actually Capitalism is any economic system where the means of production are owned and profited by private individuals and organizations rather then the state. What you're talking about is a strict free market where the government doesn't do anything but enforce contracts. Also it is sometimes called Laissez-faire economics. Which is why you can be a firm capitalist and still believe that the Government has the right to stop the selling of lead laced toys.
With "unlimited" data plans, the incentive for the ISP is to find ways to keep you from saturating the network connection. Making the network non-neutral is one way to accomplish this.
With pay-as-you-go data plans, the incentive for the ISP is to eliminate anything that prevents you from saturating your network connection. This means not slowing down traffic based on origin or destination (in other words, making the network completely neutral), and upgrading the infrastructure when it makes economic sense for them.
We can't have our cake and eat it, too.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Under capitalism, the providers get to provide whatever traffic shaping they want. If you don't like it, get a another provider.
This is not a provider issue, this is about who owns the Internet backbone. The company with the biggest portion of the backbone wins. I recommend reading up on the subject: http://advice.cio.com/who_owns_the_internet_we_have_a_map_that_shows_you
The actual main idea behind capitalism being a 'good thing' was that there would be a constant influx of competitors - and companies would die out, start over et cetera.
The idea wasn't a corporocracy.
Also, 'another provider' won't work if:
1. Its the only provider in your area
2. The large companies agree with each other on what they're blocking
I'm pretty sure the RIAA/MPAA have enough resources to turn the larger ISPs over to their side, then certain sites and technologies magically start disappearing.
What you are speaking of is absolute Free Market Capitalism, which doesn't exit in this country and for good reason. The government, on behalf of the people, set up rules which regulate business that protect the people from irresponsible business practice and promotes a fair trading environment. Certain sectors of our economy require more regulations than others due to their importance to daily life. The internet falls into this category and it should be protected from greedy corporations so that we can all have equal access to it. I for one don't want the rich to have special access to the internet that can't get due to my small pay check.
American democracy explained: the people want stuff for free. One side says "you get to have stuff but you have to pay for it." The other side says, "if you don't want to pay for anything, you shouldn't have to get anything." So every couple years, the voters alternate between "Waahh! I want more stuff!" or "Waahh! I don't like spending money!" It doesn't have any more to do with theoretical ideals of capitalism this time around than it did with theoretical ideals about socialism or progress last time around.
Look, I don't get a lot of chances to validate the economics classes they made me take in college, so when I get a chance to use words like "Market Failure" and "Externality", I take it damnit.
Actually, if you live anywhere besides the city, its pretty common (out of the five towns I've lived in the past two years, all except one) to have only two providers - and one is often dial-up. So without net neutrality your choices are "slow for non-corporate websites" and "slow for all websites"
Or because providing a service that requires laying wires to your house or beaming things to your house over a limited, licensed part of the radio frequency spectrum is a naturally monopolistic market. You can't really have a true free market with Internet access providers much more than you can have a true free market with electricity providers, natural gas providers, water providers, or road providers. Some states have played with pretend free markets in those areas, but there is no getting around the fact that there are not going to be multiple parallel sets of natural gas pipes running through the entire grid.
"If you don't like it, get a another provider"
Like the one that doesn't exist? Access to a stable internet connection has become important to the lives of many (some even having jobs that revolve around it). Competition has failed (no surprise there). I mean, sure, the government having complete control over it isn't good either, but something must be done.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
So they pass laws that outlaw breaking locks on things you physically own, and now they're being oh-so-gracious to "allow" us to break them, without putting us in jail for it?
The faster the better. Then we can set about rebuilding..in some far, distant future
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Somebody should explain that the companies willingly let free market capitalism die. It was damn expensive having to maintain a navy to protect their trade. Once the companies let the government use their military to protect trade, there was no free market. The military, the government, and the companies were all now working together in a NOT free market. Some people want to believe the free market exists, but it does not. It has not for a long time. Belief in such a free market is a sign that no thought has been put into understanding the world. Like all religions, it requires faith, not intelligence to believe.
no one(well almost no one) is discussing having a govt ISP. just having the govt own the wires, like they do the roads, and letting anyone provide services(cars) for them. Anyone that wants to use the wires(roads) can as long as the services(cars) meet certain requirements(safety belts, and a license plate, and tires with tread).
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
Right... rather than simply treat the article on its factual merits, go after the source of the article. Brilliant! Did you invent that strategy yourself?
Not: it's called ad hominem. It's also a debate tactic used to implement tribalism/partisanism/racism/sexism/prejudice: self-hypnotic words to delude yourself into believing your opponent is less-than-human; once you've managed that stunt, why bother to listen to any of his arguments, even the otherwise cogent ones? Even better if you can also delude and convince others at the same time, because there's great strength in delusional numbers.
Congratulations to you for learning another trick to maintain your bias and mislead others.
There is a third option. I refer to it as the "single payer public option" just to get up the ire of the Tea Party folks. It's remarkably simple:
This takes the infrastructure costs out of the equation, making it possible to have substantial competition even in smaller markets. More importantly, however, it means that the government is not in control over the content because the government is not the ISP, and after ten years, the government is not even involved except in hiring somebody to run it. The key part of this is nonprofit. By taking the profit motive out of the equation, this ensures maximum areal coverage for minimum cost, yet does so in a way that minimizes the government's control over the infrastructure.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Libertarians think everything is the government's fault, even blaming them for monopolies. But the fact is, this is a natural monopoly. You are not going to have half a dozen companies laying competing fiber networks do your door. (And without the government imposing eminent domain, you won't even have ONE). The choice isn't between a government-regulated monopoly vs a thriving marketplace, it's between a government-regulated monopoly vs. an unregulated monopoly. Free markets are great for most things, but the government must be involved with infrastructure at some level. Maybe better wireless technology will help the situation, one day.
It's not about forcing anyone to do anything, it's about forcing corps(which aren't a person) to do nothing based on some rules.
Want to see slashdot*, google, youtube, hulu, farmville, and facebook, those are available on the super ++good platinum package that is an extra $300 a month and requires a special "router" that will require you to lease it at $45 a month, and to use that router you will need the professional internet package, only $70/month but you can watch all the "ondemand" you want from ondemand.comcast.net for the low price of $30 a month with a free modem. XBox live and PSN are only $100 a month if you want those services.
*Includes goatse.cx for the full slashdot experiance
Don't think it will happen? I'm sure it will if we let them.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
The right wing goes after the stupid voters. Part of their platform is anti-intellectualism. Its pretty fucked up.
The left wing goes after poor people's votes by promising them goodies we can no longer afford (if we ever really could.)
So yeah, it's pretty fucked up, but it's a bi-partisan process.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The basic problem with the net neutrality battle is that it is called "net neutrality". The average American hears this when you say net neutrality:
net = COMPLICATED COMPUTER THINGY
neutrality = Switzerland
So it's no surprise at all that people don't care, and the Republicans don't get it. Want to change the game? Make this all about Online Freedom and make the story how greedy carriers want to take away freedom / violate my rights. It's about explaining how carriers want to LIMIT WHERE YOU CAN GO, CHARGE YOU FOR ACCESS TO THINGS YOU HAVE NOW, AND TAKE AWAY YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO DO BUSINESS ONLINE.
People aren't that stupid, but they are not that well educated. If you make your case using language that the average Wal*Mart consumer can understand, you can get anything you want out of Washington because those are the people that change their minds in elections and cause congresspeople to lose their jobs as they did yesterday. Nine out of ten times when you see voters support something that is bad for them, it's because one side used language like "net neutrality" to sell their side of the story.
-- $G
Curious about where you live... You have only cable as an option, no DSL, no 3G, no satellite, no WiMAX? Just - cable?
I'm not sure that even matters. Imagine a future where an ISP can charge you monthly and also charge Google/Facebook/etc. to get on their high-speed list. What other ISP in my area, no matter how they deliver the data to me, is going to pass on maximizing their profits by doing the same?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
My condo association is largely run by idiots who signed a contract with Comcast to get service. No other provider in my area is willing or able to provide service. And I live in the beating heart of Chicago, in one of the neighborhoods with the highest population densities and median income in the city.
WiMAX/4G I can get, but the latency makes online gaming impossible (no thank you, 2000MS ping times!). Satellite is the same thing, and also has other issues (board rules about dishes, I'm in the midst of a bunch of high-rises and they block most orientations). DSL isn't happening for reasons that the phone company has not made clear.
I'm not the person you were responding to, but I assure you, a lack of choice (or, at least, a lack of any kinds of viable choices if you do anything that benefits from or requires a lowish ping) is not uncommon.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
nonprofits can still have a profit motive, it's just that instead of reporting their excess earnings as profit they get rolled into executive salaries.
1) If a news source has marketed itself as a source of with a liberal bias (huffpo) or conservative bias (Fox News) then it is completely rational to double-check anything they say. Ad hominem attacks are perfectly acceptable and warranted if the source has explicit motives for it's speech. Read up a little more on the nuances of what an ad hominem attack really implies.
2) Your response is entirely premised on terrible logical fallacies. You link the OP with "tribalism/partisanism/racism/sexism/prejudice" as a method to disparage his/her opinion. In my opinion, that is about 10x worse than what the OP did.
3) Browsing through your comment history, it's clear this sort of hogwash is your MO and you need to chill out rather than attacking people all the time.
Competition has failed (no surprise there).
It failed because of a regulatory environment that was specifically crafted to discourage or eliminate it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Right, so make each vote be multiplied by the number of dollars in taxes you paid last year.
Problem solved. No more looting.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Network Neutrality was lost the day they/we allowed E911 calls over the internet. The network neutrality folks would argue that P2P traffic has the same priority over 911 VOIP packets. They don't.
I'm using Verizon as a sample because thats what I currently have (Replace Verizon with whatever ISP you have). Should Verizon discriminate packets between a streaming video NetFlix user and an FiOS on-demand video user on their network? No. If I was the NetFlix customer I would file a consumer complaint. Should Verizon discriminate between me watching on-demand and the NetFlix user watching a streaming video while the P2P Verizon user downloads Debbie Does Dallas from Russia at the same time? Yes, if it interferes with the paid for transmissions. Both I and the NetFlix user paid extra (State/local Taxes, Fees, etc.) for the priveledge of watching an un-interrupted streaming video.
In the USA, this isn't a Federal issue its a local issue. Its a grass roots effort that requires you to go down to the local zoning/franchise board in your community. Get the Franchise ISP's to sign a some sort of customer Bill of Rights. If they violate it, then they loose the franchise. The community gets to vote for a new ISP.
We, the USA internet users, need to craft this Bill of Rights for our ISP's. Not, congress, not the president, and especially not the courts. Make the internet Bill of Rights a GPL/ANSI/ISO/FSF etc. standard. How do we do this? I don't know. Maybe usenet, IRC, etc. Maybe each local ISP block needs to send two users to a internet forum to discuss, debate, and ratify. Then those users take it back to the ISP users for a vote. That's how the US constitution was formed. Its how democracy works.
Food for thought,
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
I don't know. Crying "racism" to every substantive issue seems to me "going after the stupid voters". You know, the left wing says "The Tea Party are racists" and it works, because stupid people think Marco Rubio and Tim Scott are white??? (both won).
Suffice it to say, there are STUPID people on BOTH sides of the isle. And it is anti intellectualism that denies that both sides are doing the same thing. They do it, because it works. BOTH SIDES.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
no one(well almost no one) is discussing having a govt ISP. just having the govt own the wires, like they do the roads, and letting anyone provide services(cars) for them.
You could do that, but it's entirely unncessary.
The simplest and best solution is to force current ISPs to separate into two companies.
One company owns the wires and leases them to anyone at cost + x% profit.
The other company has to compete like everyone else.
It'd bring actual competition to the internet/tv/VOIP market.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I "linked the OP" with that behavior because it's precisely how he was behaving. I didn't disparage the person, I criticized his behavior. Get your semantics straight.
Whether a source advertises a particular bias is largely irrelevant to its credibility. A source is in fact being more forthright by advertising it. Knowing the bias of a source in advance, it's easier to weigh the veracity of its statements. It's the ones that don't advertise it that are deserving of scorn. Regardless, ad hominem is NEVER ACCEPTABLE and NEVER WARRANTED.
Some people might perceive use of blanket terms like "hogwash" to describe EVERYTHING a person says as more deserving of the term ad hominem than anything I said in my previous comment.
Agreed. Capitalism as it's practiced today is less about beating your competitor in the open market and more about beating them in the legislature. If you can get the government to allow you to have a monopoly (like the monopoly usually granted for local cable service) that's even better. Getting laws passed or tax incentives that are awarded to you and not your competitors is also a desirable thing.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Many people would love to offer WISP type services to compete with landlines, or even to purchase land to construct new landlines to compete with the local telecom infrastructure.
Sadly, this often results in being sued for violation of artificial monopolies granted through franchise agreements. Additionally, there is natural scarity in the EM spectrum which limits the former option in regard to the FCC, and already existant providers who purchase spectrum even if they dont intend to use it, since it prevents others from using it.
Due to these two mitigating factors, some form of artificial control must be exerted over these industries to prevent them from absuing their natural monopolistic positions, (Such as Verizon charging "mystery data fees", like it recently got wrist-slapped for.)
No
Libertarians think that REGULATING an entire INDUSTRY because of POTENTIAL problems is tyranny. IT is no different than "security theater" in the airports. You don't like it when it applies to you, but you're so willing to apply it to everyone else as long as it doesn't apply to you (never mind that it eventually will).
Cable, Telephone are monopolies because people in government have no clue how to manage natural monopolies (utilities). City should own the INFRASTRUCTURE and auction the lease off to the utility company for 5, 10, 15, or 25 years (depending on type) and define the proper "service level agreement" they want for their citizens.
IF we did ... say TELCO this way, I'd have Fiber to my house already, because it would be installed per city regulations and service would be give to the company that offered me the best service bits for my price range.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The 'will of the people' that caused generic 'voting against whoever is in office' was no more specific than 'we want economy to be better'. It really didn't matter who was in office, 'the other guys' were going in since since voters have no confidence in the economy. It's not like the people in office said 'you know what, let's willfully aim for no improvement of the economy'. In fact, I doubt any particular measure by the government would have helped the economy that much. Between private industry being particularly unhelpful and the media constantly shooting down any optimism over the economy, not much can be done IMO.
If you say the 'will of the people' was wholly represented by the extremely vocal 'tea party' activitsts, I'd say you are too easily influenced by who speaks loudest. With or without those voices, the incumbents were going to lose.
The simple, sad fact is that the majority of people who voted blindly did straight ticket one way or another, moved to action more by the drama created around politics by the media rather than informed awareness of all the facts and evaluating whose ideas seem the most plausible way to get what the voter wants. This is not anti-republican, Democrats won last time largely on the vague charisma of Obama rather than anything else, and this time the Republicans had wins as 'the other guys' set up as opponents to the establishment that hasn't given them their expected unicorns.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You're also not telling the whole story: Those weren't just "some concessions" to build the networks that were tiny. AT&T's network was built out over the years with government subsidies at the national, state and local levels. The cable company networks were built out with government concessions... that they would have some say in how fair the network would be by being able to hold them accountable through their franchise contracts.
The government gave the companies this money to build their networks, then the networks went out and got the rules changed (state level franchise contracts, no more public access, no more inexpensive cable for low-income residents, etc), and now the networks are saying "you have zero say in your investments". THAT'S tantamount to robbery... of the taxpayers.
An ad hominem attack/argument is never salient in a rational discourse, regardless of a stated bent from the source. In rational discourse, ideas are the thing.
This is simply incorrect. Let me give you some examples:
- If a source portends to be unbiased and is discovered to have motives in their speech, then ad hominem is OK.
- If a source claims to be an expert on a matter, and is not, then ad hominem is OK.
IN essence, if I am relying on my reputation to make the argument, then I am exposing myself to my opponent legitimately making ad hominem attacks.
The US Legal system encourages/permits ad hominem attacks when the person or source IS salient to the issue. So I cannot simply attack a witness' reputation unless their reputation is critical to the point being made (eg an expert witness).
Wrong. Ad hominem attacks were linked with those traits, and validly so.
This bit isn't something I would argue too much over, but it was fairly obvious to me that associating the OP who doubted a source with racism/sexism/etc was clearly a rhetorical strategy meant to link the two and attack the OP (ironic, eh?). If I say to Steven Hawkings "Dammit man, you're using SCIENCE to prove your theory. Did you know the Nazi's used SCIENCE to prove that Germans are superior," everyone would immediately identify that as an inappropriate argument because I'm trying to subconsciously link Hawkings and Nazis. I don't get understand using the identical mechanism and intentionally using a guilt-by-association strategy is OK for you in this case.
The idea that you only find it rational to double check a source that has marketed itself as a source of bias is disturbing.
Sure, net neutrality went out the window. But now we have legislators who are going to spend all their time working to repeal a health care overhaul bill that didn't overhaul anything. And they are led by someone who said he will not compromise on his principles.
Basically, the 2010 election only set the stage for a very early (as in this afternoon) start to the 2012 election cycle. On the plus side, the politicians will be so busy campaigning that we might not have to worry about them passing anything we don't like because they may well not pass anything at all (beyond their own gas and hot air of course). On the minus side, the politicians are already so busy campaigning that they might never pass anything at all.
Provided they don't find some way to completely destroy the world, this might indeed be the government we deserve...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That said the reason you only have 1 provider is probably because one company was granted a local monopoly by the government
That said, in most places the reason you have ANY provider is because the government promised they wouldn't have to compete.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
> Libertarians think that REGULATING an entire INDUSTRY because of POTENTIAL problems is tyranny.
Can you show me an industry that's completely new and is being pre-emptively regulated even though they're never done anything wrong before?
Of course you can't. You seem to think that screaming about tyranny will get you votes though. Sorry, that only works for Republicans.
Relevant to this specific /. article, the telecoms are regulated because of how they acted before (and the way they constantly continue trying to push the boundaries does NOT help your, or their, argument).
It is a proper news organization. We need to promote it more. No one has a problem with it.
Want a list?
There are probably a few other things I'm not thinking of, but that's enough.
This isn't at all like municipal Wi-Fi. Municipal Wi-Fi doesn't work (except if it is free) for three reasons:
Thus, except for people who regularly use a laptop for a significant amount of time in a place that provides no free Wi-Fi, municipal Wi-Fi doesn't make sense as a paid service, and certainly not as an alternative to existing ISPs. Fiber, by contrast, does not have any of these fundamental problems. Its only real downside is the cost of infrastructure construction and maintenance. This sort of scheme has been tried for fiber in several communities around the U.S., and last I was aware, it was working remarkably well everywhere it has been tried.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Because it won't work like that.
You'll have the same 2-ish options you have now, except Google will need to have a higher revenue somehow because you won't be able to connect to Google at a reasonable speed unless Google pays your ISP as well for the honor of letting you connect to them without having their connection degraded.
It'll all but kill ad-supported web services entirely.
Personally, I'd offer the ISPs the option to be a common carrier -- if you're a common carrier by definition you can't tinker with the connection based upon it's contents, source, or destination but you also aren't responsible for those contents. If you aren't, then you, as the ISP, are now legally liable for everything your customers do on your connection -- in altering the connection in a content/source/destination sensitive way you are claiming responsibility for that content.
That'd be the fastest way to ensure net neutrality while still giving the ISPs the option to ignore the concept entirely.
Somehow it seems like this wouldn't be a problem if you could just divide the country regionally between these two philosophies
I think the left-wing half is called "Scandinavia" ;-)
Interesting factoid: in a recent episode of The Young Turks featured on Best of the Left, Cenk (the host of TYT) talks about wealth distributions. Americans think the richest 20% of the people own 59% of the wealth, they want the richest 20% to own 32% (59 and 32 are averages among the asked), and in fact the richest 20% own 84% of the wealth. [32, 59, 84: IIRC]
In Denmark, the richest 20% own 34% of the wealth, see http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Europe/Denmark-POVERTY-AND-WEALTH.html
You're welcome over here; we talk english reasonably good, the food's nice, the tax rate is high and the weather is shit during the winter but the people are friendly and trusting. When you've got enough you don't need to squeeze more out of others, and when squeezing isn't the norm people don't have role models to learn it from. [We're like the Canada of Europe :D]
I tend to agree, that Internet access nowadays has grown into a true form of infrastructure, like roads, which are clearly a government responsibility. The main thing I worry about here, however, is that unlike roads, networking technologies are changing rapidly, and given the way government planning, standards, and contracts work, it is highly likely that we'd always have Internet access that was a fraction of the speed and reliability we could have. We'd constantly be rolling out public access networks that were about 10 years behind the current, latest technology.
You're sounding as though any regulations are the epitome of evil.
Most if not all businesses are regulated in some way, and it's a damn good thing they are. Otherwise, you'd get gas stations selling gallons of gas that were less than the standard gallon as a way of making prices appear low, you'd buy groceries and get human meat marketed as beef, or you'd go to the bank and find that the contents of your bank account had disappeared because the bank was going under. And these aren't theoretical, but exactly what was going on when there weren't regulations to the contrary.
In industries where these techniques for cheating customers become commonplace, it became difficult-to-impossible for sellers who weren't cheating their customers to compete, because they could always have their price undercut by the cheaters and an average customer couldn't easily tell the difference between the sellers who cheated and the sellers who didn't.
I am officially gone from
I think he was being facetious.
It's hard to tell. So many libertarians are on the cusp of self-parody.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.