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Republican Platform To Include Internet Freedom Plank
First time accepted submitter jay.madison writes "The new Republican Party platform includes language which promises action to promote freedom on the Internet. The move is being driven by Rand Paul's libertarian wing of the party. The text, which is still in draft form, says Republicans will work to guarantee that 'individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties,' and that 'personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach.' Republicans would resist moves toward international governance of the Internet, and seek to 'remove regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new technologies such as mobile delivery of voice and video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem.' The platform is due to be adopted at the Republican National Convention next week."
They'll spend most of the language attacking the evils of government data collection and storage, to the point where they only mention private actors off-hand.
They might even just say the contractors aren't responsible for government abuses of it simply because they've been paid.
Oh wait, they're already seeking to remove regulatory barriers. You know, the ones that keep companies from screwing their customers.
I'm sure they're really looking out for our freedom.
They also claim they are going to make the Internet Family Friendly, ban internet gambling, require ISP's to monitor their users for sexual deviancy, and require laws against pornography and obscenity to be vigorously enforced. You can't have it both ways but that is what this article is claiming.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
You have a $political_party and "promises" in the same sentence bud.
Come on, I'm not USian but their whole platform is based around "folk morality" of the worst kind. They're outright talibanesque on some fronts. People talk about Sweden like we're the Saudi Arabia of Pegg^M^M^M^MFeminism but the US Republicans seem like the Saudi Arabia's uncultured cousin sometimes. This is just a feint.
Didn't Obama say that would close the concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay?
Both the US parties (Dem and Rep) need major schisms to break their stronghold, and thus usher in change, may be accompanied by a more democratic electoral system then FPTP.
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
That by "individual" republicans mean AT&T, Verizon, Sprint...
Right?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
You can't have internet freedom without net neutrality.
You can't have internet freedom with 1-2 companies having a monopoly on internet access.
You can't create freedom by restricting the power of only some of those who would deny you freedom.
You cannot trust the government.
They might even just say the contractors aren't responsible for government abuses of it simply because they've been paid.
That would be an iffy defense for the contractor to make. The "But I was just following orders", doesn't seem to work that well, but maybe it'd fly in a courtroom.
Oh wait, they're already seeking to remove regulatory barriers. You know, the ones that keep companies from screwing their customers.
It's worth remembering here that customers should be working to avoid getting screwed. Say like using competitors who don't screw them? Classic examples are the huge banks with the ridiculous fees.
Republican internet freedom is freedom for large corporations to do what ever they want, with the citizens getting the shaft. You can forget net neutrality out of them.
"Republicans would resist moves toward international governance of the Internet" So to keep the USA's imperialist tight grip on whe web? Very libertarian.
"If you elect us, we will get rid of net neutrality so fast it'll make your head spin."
preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new technologies such as mobile delivery of voice and video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem.
What government regulations do we have right now that interfere with mobile delivery of voice and video data?
1. Sorry, Democrats. You snooze, you loose. Patron saint Al Gore's wife Tipper, anyone? This almost held sway.
2. Yey libertarian! MOAR!!!!!
Outta the bedroom and outta the wallet!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I will believe it when I see it. I am suspicious of anything from this website. Further, there is no link to a document, bill, or otherwise; only "Language in the final draft of the Internet freedom proposal was obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller."
I also think Rand/Ron Paul are on the skirts of The Republican Party. They are flies that the GOP leadership tolerate in order to get the libertatian votes.
Also note that there is a list of senators and congressmen at the bottom, but it doesn't explicitly state that they signed on to this. It only states they "work on internet issues".
eh.
Nuremburg Defense
seems to be about eliminating net neutrality ("freedom" for corporations), rather than anything about personal freedom for users.
Not part of their platform????
Oh no sir, what you mean is that it's not part of THIS DOCUMENT. Santorum declared war on Internet porn/obscenity and Romney signed up to it. Putting out documents aimed at the Slashdot crowd that are different to the platform put out to the American Taliban does not mean both platforms don't exist.
They can't legalize ATnT domestic spying and then turn around and say they're against surveillance!
GP is right, they can't have it both ways.
What have Republicans been saying about wikileaks?
Or by having legal protections against that screwing, not to mention mechanisms that lead to competition not collaboration.
See the banks aren't struggling against each other. Thery're working together to get what they wasn't from the government. All in the name of freedom and liberty.
but I read that as a) lots of protections against the DOJ looking into the financial meltdowns we cause every 10 to 15 years like the rising of the sun and b) we're going to stop policing the telcos and let them form monopolies again.
Besides, true freedom is economic security. Without that you're just a wage slave. True security can never be obtained by individuals. That's what society is for, and gov't is the instrument of society's will. If you've lost control of your gov't to an oligarchy, so what? They were going to win anyway. At least with the gov't I had a chance.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This sounds suspiciously like an attempt to get rid of net neutrality laws. "Remove government regulation" indeed!
No net neutrality is what this means:
" 'remove regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new technologies such as mobile delivery of voice and video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem.' "
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Scott Cleland's been paid by Microsoft and telcos to take shots at Google and more recently Google Fiber this year. As for Internet Freedom, it looks like he's more interested in Internet Commerce.
Just like probable cause, habeas corpus, due process, etc. They all go out the window when the Administration cites the State Secrets Privilege.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I doubt they can get an amendment trough even if this whole affair was anything but posturing, and anything else would just be further abuse of the constitution that they profess to hold in high regard. There is nothing in the constitution preventing third parties from sharing your data with the government, the constitution doesn't change just because some pseudo-libertarian idiot claims so.
My view of freedom is more like freedom for the citizen to enjoy efficient usage of this national resource at a low cost driven by effective competition.
If the present status-quo non-compete (tolerated if not encouraged by the government) of the cable industry versus wireless telcos is any indication, competition and low prices are not in the future for Americans, unless something changes.
Election promises mean less than nothing.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Well they would be the government if they win the election, so it's good that they're *gah* can't remember the idiom. They're correcting their own behaviour before trying to change others behaviour.
Republicans will work to guarantee that 'individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties,'
No attempt will be made to ensure you are able to exercise those rights; the Republicans will do nothing to altar any terms of use you come across on the internet, which universally demand you waive those "rights."
'personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach.'
Remember the speaker. Replace "personal data" with "Swiss bank statements" and "government overreach" with "the IRS."
'remove regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new technologies such as mobile delivery of voice and video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem.'
Recall the Republican definition of "regulation." They could have simply said "remove regulations" and left it at that. Contrast this statement to the first statement above; a regulation ensuring an individual can control their personal information would "stifle innovation" from Facebook, et al.
It ain't regulation that's letting AT&T charge more for FaceTime.
The problem with the choice between Democrats and Republicans is that it is a choice between what mechanism of destroying people's freedom we get. With Obama we get more of the same broken promises from the current kleptocracy. With Romney we get a new set of broken promises leading to a plutocracy. We get no other choice.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
What net neutrality laws? I thought those were never implemented.
Freedom for the owners of the tubes to dictate what you can and cannot receive through those tubes, that's what.
By freedom, they mean the right of AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast to control the internet any way they want.
My thoughts exactly. I would be more intersted in a plank that promised net neutrality rather than protecting users data.
The remainder of the Repbulican plank reads like something from the 1800's.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/what-the-gop-platform-represents.html
Vaguely promising to protect your personal data, while including language that puts the police state in your bedroom isn't exactly what I would call a fair trade.
There are no neutrality laws. And they fear them for good reason. It's a bitter pill to take, but out internet connections can either be controlled by those who covet power, or those who covet profit. Personally, I think profit driven individuals are far more predictable and less likely to throw me in prison for saying the wrong thing.
How about having NO ONE control them? That would be a good law to put in place.
... is that there is no teeth in it. That would have to mean government laws and enforcement. He will have none of that.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Feel-good hand-waving. Also, they're going to end terrorism, bring our boys (and girls) home, save American jobs, and put a chicken in every pot. Expect the same out of Charlotte, only more off the wall.
Come on, all these people wanted to bring us SOPA/PIPA. Internet freedom, my ass.
Speaking of political double-think, I think it's funny that this story about a Republican platform for Internet freedom comes right after a story titled "Why WikiLeaks Is Worth Defending From Grandstanding Politicians Who Only Occasionally Care About Freedom, Particularly on the Internet." (Okay, I may have modified the title slightly.)
I don't believe network neutrality is a Good Thing, because I recognize that most people's definition amounts to price fixing of bandwidth
You /know/ that net neutrality has nothing to do with bandwidth. Carriers cannot discriminate on content, source and destination. What is so difficult to explain. There's nothing about bandwidth in there.
And the public has a moral right to this, since the government paid for most of the infrastructure anyway, in huge corporate giveaways.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Defining digital freedom isn't new, so maybe the GOP should look to the four freedoms of the GPL:
* the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
* the freedom to change the software to suit your needs,
* the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and
* the freedom to share the changes you make.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html
Of course that doesn't fit with controlling your neighbors morality or allowing corporations to own the internet.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
I cannot believe that sensible people vote for these guys at all. How bizarre does the GOP platform have to be before the GOP-faithful put the breaks on and reclaim their party from the fundies.
Regarding the deadlocked congress on the debt ceiling, Bill Clinton pointed out that the public should not be so upset with congress, but instead take responsibility for who they vote in.
VOTE
And if congress deadlocks over fiscal policy, forks over truckloads to seniors in entitlement programs and the 1% in tax cuts, enacts medieval social policies, breaks the internet, slashes science programs, gives a free hand to the banking sector and anybody who wants to treat the atmosphere, land or waterways as a trash can, then YOU are responsible if you voted for the GOP.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
If you are being given freedom, then you are by definition not free.
Gee... more blank-and-white thinking on moral truths. Have you ever heard of a thought terminating cliche?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
They might even just say the contractors aren't responsible for government abuses of it simply because they've been paid.
That would be an iffy defense for the contractor to make. The "But I was just following orders", doesn't seem to work that well, but maybe it'd fly in a courtroom.
It works fine, just so long as you're working for the (US) government side. (How many of the guys who murdered 250 people at My Lai did time for it?)
And we've already got precedent, with the law that was passed saying that whatever ATT had done, it was ok even if it was illegal, because it was for the government.
...of politics.
Politician 1 promises A
Politician 2 promises B
Whichever one convinces the most voters that A or B is the better option wins.
The winner then ignores the promise and does whatever the people with the most money to "donate" tells them to.
After passing this through the bullshit filter, here's what comes out:
Due to Google's efforts, part of the FCC's ruling on the new 4G networks is that they MUST have net neutrality. This means that providers cannot favor their content, nor charge customers extra for accessing other people's content, they must explain variable speeds, and they can't limit anyone's access.
The telecoms HATE this. They are pushing for "less government controls" because they want the "freedom" to screw their customers.
This is what the whole AT&T and Face Time thing is about currently. AT&T can't charge extra for bandwidth-eating app, it eats too much bandwidth to run on 3G where they could charge extra for it, so they are restricting it's use - .which some claim violates the 4g net neutrality rules.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
to screw their customers. When you hear this current crop of Republicans mention freedom you can be assured that its freedom for giant corporations. Your freedom to use the network as you see fit after you have paid the bill.
I think you misunderstood the GP's argument. You don't go from one huge bank to another huge bank. You go to a small local bank or a credit union that is more reasonable and responsive. An actual small local bank anecdote: A friend gets a phone call from the bank manager telling her a check is about to bounce, her husband wrote a check she did not know about, giving her a chance to make a deposit/transfer to avoid bouncing the check and getting hit with the associated fees and embarrassment.
Or by having legal protections against that screwing, not to mention mechanisms that lead to competition not collaboration.
Those legal mechanisms work only if they exist and are enforced. As the grandparent post noted, such regulation can be taken away. I can choose to go to another bank. That choice cannot be taken away.
See the banks aren't struggling against each other. Thery're working together to get what they wasn't from the government. All in the name of freedom and liberty.
So what? I don't see the drama in this story. They're pursuing their interests. If you don't like that, then there are a number of legal tools available to you, should you ever choose to employ them.
And we've already got precedent, with the law that was passed saying that whatever ATT had done, it was ok even if it was illegal, because it was for the government.
If a law was passed, then it's not illegal unless it happens to violate law with higher precedent such as treaty or constitutional law. In that case, the law provides no protection.
1. Sorry, Democrats. You snooze, you loose. Patron saint Al Gore's wife Tipper, anyone? This almost held sway.
It wasn't just Tipper. Al Gore himself supported the ban on some music. He called for the Senate hearings, he gave her the national platform to promote the legislation, etc.
But the Rupublicans are against Network Neutrality (because they consider it excessive regulation) and without Network Neutrality as a base none of the other Internet Freedoms can actually exist because there is market action to push for more freedoms, only the infrastructure owning corporations natural desire for more control.
Network Neutrality is the first and key requirement for all other freedoms on the Internet. It is what makes the Internet the peer-to-peer system it was designed to be. Without some basic government regulation to ensure that the big peers (Telcos, etc.) don't simply bully the little peers (you and me) or completely take away our "peerness", all talk about Internet freedoms is totally empty.
Romney is on record as being against Nework Neutrality.
I doubt this will happen, since time and again, Paul's definition of freedom in this case is freedom for the ISPs to do whatever they want. Net neutrality requires regulation, but what will actually happen under this type of plan is deregulation.
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"Insert witty quote here."
It is isnt violating religious freedom to force employers to pay for contraceptives any more than it violates religious freedoms to ban human sacrifice.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The republicans are not the ones trying to mandate whether contraceptives have to be covered.
Contraceptives are a good thing.
The republicans are not the ones trying to get the government involved in all marriages.
It's hard to see how pushing for laws and constitutional amendments that prevent two loving adults from getting married isn't government involvement.
The republicans are not the ones trying to destroy religious freedom.
This is the opposite of what's true.
Oh wait, they're already seeking to remove regulatory barriers. You know, the ones that keep companies from screwing their customers.
It's worth remembering here that customers should be working to avoid getting screwed. Say like using competitors who don't screw them?
Good luck with that... As a customer today, there's so many things you need to have, taking the time to make the right choice every time is not feasible.
Also, it's not okay to skrew customer, that should never be legal, eof.
Those who seek power have no objection to paying for it, with your money. If your privacy is in the hands of government at least you have the chance of getting something better next election. With big business only the rich have that option.
The majority of Republicans (and Democrats, I daresay) certainly have been bad about internet rights. But I do not think it true of the Paul (Ron and Rand, not Ryan who's something else entirely) wing of the party. They've become a more vocal and powerful minority in the party mostly through a dedicated following who knows Robert's Rules and they really do take internet freedom as a civil right. The same can't be said of the party as a whole, but the party is willing to throw language like this in just to get the Paul wing to shut up.
Still, although powerful enough to add planks to the party platform, the Paul wing remains small and mostly marginalized. We can't say they've really taken charge from the old Neo-con and the Rockefeller Republican wing until they can overcome the hawkishness of the Republican party and get rid of the terrorism scare tactics used to infringe upon civil liberties.
But I mean to give credit when it is due. In the long run, the Paul wing may not succeed in creating a pro-internet-and-civil-freedom party. It may not succeed in creating a party which, when speaking of foreign relations, says "all options are on the table" includes peace and diplomacy among those options. In fact, I fear in the long run they may only succeed in enacting pro-corporate policies that their Neo-con and Rockefeller colleagues would have approved of anyway. Be that as it may, I will praise a positive step where I see it. I will further refuse to give in to the old "this side" and "that side" narrative, that only results in two bad sides. As parties, both the Republican and the Democratic do more harm than good. But I will praise any republican or any democrat who supports peace, civil rights and liberties (including on the internet), breathable air and potable water, and policies which would further localize power, empowering communities rather than corporations, and leading to a broader distribution of wealth and property. (Still looking for a politician who cares about the latter.)
But government is involved in marriage. It has been since the days when common law ruled. Marriage affects taxation, shared finances, inheritence, child custody, immigration, all manner of things. All of which require the government recognise marriages in some way, which in turn unavoidably means the government must have some standard for what constitutes a legal marriage and what does not.
I can choose to go to another bank. That choice cannot be taken away.
Of course it can be taken away; the big bank can acquire the little bank. Just like how a lot of people left AT&T for T-Mobile, so AT&T tried to acquire T-Mobile. Fortunately we have an administration that respects consumer rights and put good people in charge of the regulatory agencies, so that attempted acquisition was blocked.
> choice between Democrats and Republicans
Not much of a choice, in my book. There may be some sharp philosophical differences between the two, but the fact is that both parties are bought and paid for. And have been for some time.
That said, this is at least an acknowledgment of the issue. Whether it has any useful effect remains to be seen.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
A nice ideal, but it runs into economic issues. All that infrastructure is expensive. Fiber to bury and routers to power. Administering it needs highly skilled workers who need paying. There are really only two options for public-access networking over a large geographic area: Private commercial interests or a tax-funded government department. Profit or power. The only way this is going to change would be the introduction of some form of revolutionary new networking technology.
The power and water companies do just fine providing equal service to everyone. Neither the government nor the water suppliers tell people what they can and cannot do with their water. Internet bandwidth is no different from a utility. It should get the same treatment.
So it seems like Republicans really do value internet freedom more than Democrats, if only to keep the flow of porn going.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> Republicantards
Yes, and the "Demoncrats" are all socialists who want to compromise American sovereignty and reduce us to a third world nation. Right?
Dood, BOTH parties are bought and paid for. Each may be owned by a different set of crooks, but at the end of the day, they're P0wned.
Look at each candidate. Forget the party. The best time to do this is during the primaries, but it's too late for that now. You'll just have to hold your nose and vote for the least-offensive candidate. But if you're a believer that EITHER party has your best interests at heart across the board, you're deluding yourself.
If the American people would stop following party lines, and (most importantly) stop treating each election like a popularity contest, there might be some real change.
When I see Karl Rove or Mitch McConnell, I change the channel or click to a different Web page. They both turn my stomach. But so do Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi is especially endearing because she is obviously as thick as two short planks. (Not that she's alone in that distinction by any means.) I have a salt shaker in my kitchen with a higher IQ.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
I cannot believe that sensible people vote for these guys at all.
That's pretty odd, because they are the only party every giving lip service to wanting internet freedom. The democrats just want to regulate the hell out of it, at the behest of Hollywood... why would Republicans do anything Hollywood wanted?
If you want more ACTA, more SOPA, more RIAA control then by all means vote according to your "sensibilities". This go around, I'm voting with the only party that even HAS a libertarian wing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
panic much? obfuscate much?
Fortunately we have an administration that respects consumer rights and put good people in charge of the regulatory agencies, so that attempted acquisition was blocked.
I recognize there are other countries out there. But I thought we were talking about the US and its approach to things.
That isn't always true. Where I live, there are rules on when you can use water outside of your house, and for what purpose. If usage goes over a certain limit, cost per gallon goes up. In other places, there are even rules on what you can do with the water that falls on your property.
As somebody who stopped reading these long ago I can tell you that they are always more extreme planks than the politicians even ask for when they get into office. It is crafted by the dedicated party members and extreme factions and lobbyists as more of a large mission statement to appease and trick the infighters into rallying behind the chosen one. Why it still works so well on both sides is beyond me. You'd think they'd learn. The press rarely covers the planks-- and there are often 1 or two crazy ones that would harm the candidate forcing them to backtrack from it -- but that upsets some faction they need and after all, politicians give the press MONEY (now in the billions) and neither side would be happy with serious coverage of their planks.
They have no intention of following this - they only throw out a bone come election time or in rare cases are forced to do something and will just as easily leverage the opposition as an excuse for not really doing it. These platform documents rarely happen as written (if you want to get vague then you don't need them because the generalities don't need to be on paper) but of ALL politicians to expect to follow through with it-- Romney? really?? seriously?
Paultards were bought off with a bunch of song and dance from the party insiders they distrust so much. And Ron Paul is retiring because they found a home for his retarded son.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
That's pretty odd, because they are the only party every giving lip service to wanting internet freedom. The democrats just want to regulate the hell out of it, at the behest of Hollywood... why would Republicans do anything Hollywood wanted?
It is true that there are problems there. However, Democrats are split on the issue, and don't vote on purely partisan lines.
But your point of view is from the land of cognitive dissonance. I have sympathy that you support the GOP, but are frustrated with their position on net neutrality. Consider that Obama has been very clear that he will veto anti-net-neutrality legislation. Romney and Ryan are going to the electorate with the opposite position. Wishful thinking will not make the GOP the good guys on this issue. If you vote GOP, then you are responsible for the consequences if they win, and break the internet so that AT&T can make more money.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The two are diametrically opposed to each other. Or, at least, "internet freedom" wants nothing to do with net neutrality in any way, shape, or form. The "internet freedom" bit from the tea party / libertarian / whatever-they-want-to-call-themselves-this-week group is all about maximizing profit for the companies that are making money online.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The republicans are not the ones trying to mandate whether contraceptives have to be covered.
yes they are, they are trying to get the entirety of the NULL SET covered. you can choose from any in that set. all those will be covered.
more derp from this shill:
The republicans are not the ones trying to get the government involved in all marriages. The republicans are not the ones trying to destroy religious freedom.
do you believe your own words? do they pay you to shill this badly?
republicans are the main force in trying to force religion down our throats. worse: they have picked 'the right religion' for us all to follow! how thoughtful and kind of them.
maybe I was trolled. no one can be THAT stupid.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Electricity and water are both fungible; bits of data are not. The bandwidth may be fungible, but bandwidth will always be traffic-shaped for QoS (e.g. VoiP > HTTP > FTP), so while it's similar it's not exactly the same.
This is a bad example; plenty of municipalities have water regulations during summers or droughts.
I suspect that the availability of water in your area is a harder constraint than the availability of bandwidth.
That's great in a market with lots of competitors. We're talking about the Internet here. I have two options for Internet access: the cable company and the phone company. Both insist I buy something other than Internet if I want a premium plan, and both try to screw me.
Anyone who suggests you look for a competitor for better Internet in the US isn't paying attention.
You are assuming a perfect market of a wide availability of choices of middle size playing fairly. The reality is an oligopoly that suppresses competition from small players and squeezes customers for all they are worth. You can't use the fundamentals of capitalism to defend the practices of an oligopoly, please wake up.
And no, the government is not to blame for this, this is the natural state of affairs of an unregulated market. Yes, the government is corrupted to serve the oligopoly's interests, but to say the answer to that is to remove the government is to reward the disease for making the patient sick, removing all barriers to complete abuse of the customer.
Why do so many fools cling to the myth of the clean unregulated market? An unregulated market naturally gravitates to an oligopoly that colludes and
1. Squeezes smaller players
2. Abuses the customer
3. Corrupts the government
That is the natural state of the market. Wake up! The only effective remedy is a strong government with effective regulation. Cure your government of its corporate infection, its the only thing on your side. Really!
So many blind propagandized putzes.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
> The republicans are not the ones trying to get the government involved in all marriages.
Hahahahaha . +1 would troll again. Show me a party that's trying to get the government out of the marriage business and focus on sex-agnostic civil unions I'll be happy to support them. The Republican party wants specific legal protections for heterosexual god-ordained marriages. This is big theocracy, not some libertarian plank.
Good: I control the dissemination of data I share with someone or some business to third parties for whom I have not granted that right.
Bad: The loss of my rights to resell material that I have purchased.
Have gnu, will travel.
except that it was passed and set to cover events and actions that happened before the law passage. Laws shouldn't be retroactive.
Say like using competitors who don't screw them?
Yes... because if ISP #1, the phone company screws them, they can move to ISP #2, the cable company, which, wait, ALSO screws them. And there is no ISP #3.
Residential internet infrastructure is a natural monopoly situation. It's impossible for it to be a free market. That's why the government steps in with regulations to try and make it free-er.
The restrictions on water are on pure quantity - not on what you do with a given liter of water. You can brush your teeth or wash your face. No restrictions. No water company will say "Oh, this water filter belongs to xyz company so you can't use it with my supply". The power company will not say "You can't run abc toaster brand with my electricity supply".
And that's the fundamental difference.
This is a bad example; plenty of municipalities have water regulations during summers or droughts.
A - those are extreme, non-everyday cases, bordering on natural disaster conditions.
B - such regulations are there solely for the reason of "providing equal service to everyone". Not to ensure greater profit or for the sake of control.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Laws can't make legal actions retroactively illegal. They can make illegal actions retroactively legal. Classic example are the numerous immigration amnesties passed over the years.
Now, you might be right about the wrongness of making illegal actions retroactively legal, but that's not something built into the US system. You would need an amendment for that.
That's three pro-republican stories posted to the front page by timothy in less than 3 days. Can he follow it up with something telling us how Reagan would have prevented the current economic situation (or conversely how it is all the personal fault of Bill Clinton)?
All you people who bitch about slashdot being "left-wing" or "left-leaning" can kiss my ass (I know, I will be down-modded for that statement - mods can kiss my ass, too). This is just yet more proof that slashdot is catering more to the right wing with every passing day. Notice how this one also mentions the son of Ron Paul right in the story as if he is some great prophet who is single-handedly responsible for this act.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The plank is just part of the Waterboarding apparatus.
Does this include the right to use the Internet to advertise legal-in-the-state-it's-in walk-in medical marijuana dispensaries?
How about advertising abortion-provider services?
Soliciting funding for Planned Parenthood?
Just asking.
--
To those not in the USA, the Elephant is the logo of the Republican Party,
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Retard.
As free as the grass grows, porn free
It is isnt violating religious freedom to force employers to pay for contraceptives any more than it violates religious freedoms to ban human sacrifice.
Yes, it is. One bans an action that infringes on others basic rights. The other forces an individual to do something for another which is not related to any constitutional rights.
Of course, you wouldn't want people to not be able to have as much consequence-less sex as they want, they might actually get interested in politics or something if that happened (see: Brave New World .)
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
coporations are somehow better than an authoritarian government.
yeah, I know how the free market is going to protect me from that in some mysterious free market way, but I'm not really clear how that works.
because here how it REALLY works. corporations get really big until the market is basically monopolized and then they collude and I get screwed.
and it used to be we believe that the govt was supposed, since it's OUR government, put a stop to that.
but now the libertarians think we don't need that and the free market will somehow magically work.
and if it doesn't somehow it's always my fault.
Absolute statements are never true
In other elections, yes I have voted Libertarian for president (I disliked both McCain and Obama). In fact for more minor positions like senate/house I almost always vote libertarian unless one of the other candidates is especially compelling for some reason. I have been registered as independent my whole life as I do not really care for either major party.
But this time around the combination of Romney/Ryan are close enough to libertarian for me, and Obama/Biden are about as far away from libertarian as you can get (except, oddly, for NASA - for that position I thank Obama and just wish he could apply the same thinking to other areas).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Uh, of course all human laws only work if they exist and are enforced.
Wouldn't that be part of realizing that government needs constant management?
But you can bet your choice of going to another bank can be taken away, that's why you can't just blind yourself by thinking you can go to another member of the market.
You have to make sure that legal mechanisms don't arise that take away your choices.
But damn right I'm pursuing my interests, however there's plenty of people who seem to think consumer protection laws are anathema, and should not be employed, that we should just magically assume that the free market will handle it.
Maybe you're not noticing the real drama.
I'd like a token gift so I'd love to for my hacker to show me how to download some free cool wallpaper.
Nate
And as soon as total market transparency as well as instant access to information (AND the ability to understand it flawlessly) is a reality, I will instantly agree with you.
The problem is that the information situation is highly asymmetric and putting the customer at a severe disadvantage. Take your average contract with a bank. That contract put under your nose has most certainly been drafted and approved by a lawyer that specializes in finance laws and it is certainly worded in the way that is most favorable for the bank. You, as the average bank customer, are neither a lawyer nor a finance specialist. You might not understand every word in the contract and every abbreviation used, despite them being completely usual and well known in the finance world. For reference, take IT and its various terms.
Ask the banker what they mean? Oh sure, and they'll explain it to you in the most colorful words followed by "oh, but that never happens" or "that's just a legalese phrase without any real meaning". Good luck trying to prove you've been tricked.
Not signing a contract you don't understand you say? In this time and age, be happy if there's a bank that will lend you money altogether. People pretty much HAVE to sign whatever is shoved under their nose.
And for these asymmetries, the government has to step in to protect the consumer. One reason for its existence is actually to allow people to play on a level playing field.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Exactly. What they mean by "internet freedom" is "freedom for corporations," or more precisely, "not restricting corporations' freedom to restrict your freedom."
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
And yet another person buys into the democrat/republican showfight.
Keeps you all busy and with someone to blame for all your problems.
While the real masters of the country lube that giant dildo up again.
Bend over guys. It's election year!
> maybe I was trolled. no one can be THAT stupid.
Sadly enough there are way to many that stupid, or even more.
Just remember think how stupid the average person is.
Now understand that 50% is even more stupid.
There are no stupid questions, Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. (from a good friend)
All net neutrality will give us is more crony capitalism. Once the federal government has granted itself the authority to control content explicitly then it is only a matter of time before content is blocked for whatever reason they come up with, which will be sold to the highest bidder. ISPs can only enforce their policy and then hope and pray their customers stay with that isp, but if they lobby DC then their policies carry the full force of the law so customers will have no choice in the matter.
Now consider the insidious and ham-handed way that federal laws are enforced. Big corporations are almost never raided by swat teams that shoot first and ask questions later. Its why ruby ridge and waco turn in to tragedies of excessive force while bp execs get off with a small fine and investment firms get bailouts even though they did wayyyyyyy more damage in the end. Politicians are in the business of picking the winners and the losers and they get to use militarized and deputised forces to make it happen.
That is why net neutrality is bad for freedom and bad for you and me.
What we need is another amendment that opens with "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW..." since it has been 150 years since they passed any law that opens with that.
The only "freedom" this policy position guarantees is the freedom of corporations to screw consumers. Net neutrality (even in its current pathetic and anemic form) will be eliminated faster than you can blink. Oh, yeah, and I guess "freedom" doesn't apply to gambling and porn. The people smart enough to care about these issues are smart enough to see through this non-sense. From what I can see it looks like a straight-up quid-pro-quo for corporations. If corporations agree to enforce the Republican, draconian morality on everyone, Republicans will make net neutrality go away for corporations. It's a lose-lose situation for the American people. Shameless. How do Republicans live with themselves?
Matters bearing on children should not depend on whether you got married or not.
There is no good reason why people should get a tax break merely for living with a member of the opposite sex.
Sharing of finances and other things can and should be done explicitly rather than by opting people into legal contracts they don't understand or know about.
Immigration policy is up to the relevant agencies, if they decide that someone gets points for wearing a beanie then they can do so. And the same for marriage.
My thoughts exactly. I would be more intersted in a plank that promised net neutrality rather than protecting users data.
If that's what you want, don't expect it to come from Ron/Rand Paul. They consider "Net Neutrality" to be "internet collectivism. They don't want the government to have any part in regulating the internet.
What interests me most about their paper is how much they seem to rely on appeal to authority. They quote Reagan, and since he said it, it must be true. They quote Von Mises as an authority not to be doubted. They give authorities, not reasons, to back up their opinions. (yes, they do give some reasons too, but not enough to really establish their case).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The power and water companies do just fine providing equal service to everyone.
It's not equal service. Go to Fremont, CA, and the water tastes horrible. Go across the bay to San Mateo, and you have delicious water. Go down to Bakersfield, and it tastes like sulfur.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Regulations are not going to prevent companies from screwing with people. People are.
Don't trust in the government to do the dirty work for you.
The bigger problem is big companies paying the government to look the other way.
Less government means less opportunity for corruption.
Where is the actual text of the draft? The summary says very little and the source document is nowhere to be found.
Regarding "resistance to international governance of the Internet " .. did not the entire house just vote 414 to zilch against the ITU? No politician of any party will vote to scede power to others. This was never a serious issue so it does not count.
The protection of personal data thing sounds too good to be true. If anything like it passes NSLs would become unconstitutional because they depend on the third party doctrine to sidestep the 4th amendment...with that gone the patriot act is effectivly SOL.
If your privacy is in the hands of government at least you have the chance of getting something better next election. With big business only the rich have that option.
Oh? Do tell.
yes they are, they are trying to get the entirety of the NULL SET covered. you can choose from any in that set. all those will be covered.
Why should contraceptives be "covered?" Should insurers pay for condoms or just "The Pill" because that tries to appeal to women for votes? Birth control pills are under $10/month at Walmart so why does that require "coverage?" HELL, that's less than my co-pay on a "cadillac" healthcare plan, so I'd pay that anyway! If you can't afford $10/month for The Pill, or condoms, you probably can't afford the consequences of your actions. It's about demonstrating personal responsibility over "your body" and "your reproductive rights."
Actually the libertarian wing of the Republican party does want the government out of marriage. The term was co-opted by the government for a packaged set of privileges and responsibilities when two people enter into a certain contract. Those are civil unions.
The Democrats are pushing hard against religious freedom by demanding religious institutions pay for things against their core values, demanding people violate their consciences to keep a job or career, trying to tell Churches who their employees will be and who can be married on their property. Conveniently this punishes those who may not share their political agendas yet whose freedom is specifically protected by the constitution. For a party that claims to be about the "separation of Church and State" they sure want to meddle in the affairs of churches.
How are Republicans trying to "force religious down our throats?" By protecting the rights of those in faith institutions to live those values rather than just talk about them? By maintaining cultural tradition and preexisting monuments rather than destroying them because someone is offended? By embracing the scientific truth that a fetus is an unborn human being and not a clump of tissue? By defending viable babies from being killed and dismembered in the womb just because its "mother" doesn't want it? By defending those born alive in botched abortions, saying they deserve appropriate medical treatment from a disinterested doctor, rather than be left to die at the hand of the abortionist "treating" the mother?
Rather than live-and-let-live, Democrat secularists and atheists are at war with the religious forcing their values on others: that private war memorial gifted to a city decades ago in a will? It's a cross? That has to be destroyed. What's this? You want to sell it to preserve it? We won't allow it, we'll sue to void the sale. You want to put it to a public vote? We'll violate election law and demand a higher burden because we say so.
$10/mo for birth control? I'm not giving up one movie a month, one pizza a month, three bags of chips a month, to exercise my "reproductive rights" with my own dollars, I want my religious workplace or employer, whose values I don't share, fight against and try to undermine but don't you dare fire me or I'll sue, to pay for it.
Oh wait, they're already seeking to remove regulatory barriers. You know, the ones that keep companies from screwing their customers.
I'm sure they're really looking out for our freedom.
[Rant On]
Remember that to Republicans, "Freedom" means corporate freedom from regulation - so, no net neutrality.
Increased Republican control would be a Brave New World for us all -- not just for Internet users, but minorities, immigrants, the poor and, especially, women.
To be fair, the Democrats are often incompetent and uncoordinated, but the Republicans are evil and uncaring, unless you're a rich, white, Christian male.
[Rant Off]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Wow, easily available contraceptives now lead to Brave New World? I don't know how else to say it, so: You're a fucking moron. Easily accessible contraceptives allow people to plan a family and to raise children when they're ready for it. They improve social efficiency, lower social costs like crime, abuse and neglect, and generally lead to happier families.
The entire "just don't have sex" approach has been tried, and it's not working.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I wish he was a shill. Instead, I'm pretty sure he fervently believes everything he said.
The US is a fucked up place right about now.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
This may work in some cases, but not really for internet access in the US.
Both wired and wireless connections have a huge barrier to entry [both financially and regulatory]. And the incumbents know you don't have a real choice.
You can tell, because the few places that have [or could have] real competition, they actively fight against it [by legislating against it, suing to prevent/delay it, dropping prices locally & temporarily to kill it].
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
The whole thing was a way for government to bypass the 4th amendment so it shouldn't be legalized. Just because when the Bill of Rights was written electronic papers and communications were unknown doesn't mean they shouldn't be covered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Corporations are not individuals. No matter what the courts have been saying recently. Thanks for playing.
"The republicans are not the ones trying to get the government involved in all marriages."
Yes, they are. They're explicitly asking the governments (state and federal) to refuse legal rights and privileges granted to certain marriages from being granted to others. They're explicitly asking what should be defined only by religious and personal belief systems to be defined in exclusive ways in state and federal law. They're explicitly wanting power to be taken away from individual citizens to make their own decisions about lifelong commitment and giving that power to the government to "get involved in all marriages".
In other words, you're wrong, and a short-sighted bigot.
The republicans are not the ones trying to mandate whether contraceptives have to be covered.
And if your employer was from a cult that believed that all healing should come from Jesus, and that the practice of medicine was a sin, are we infringing on their religious freedom by saying that the health insurance plan they provide to their employees must actually be based on actual medicine, and not prayer meetings only?
Nobody is forcing anyone to take birth control, but right does an employer have to enforce their values onto their employees? You aren't talking about religious freedom, you are talking about allowing religious employers to put restrictions on their employees. Does the freedom of religion not matter to the employees?
The republicans are not the ones trying to get the government involved in all marriages.
Outlawing gay marriage is not getting involved? If nobody was getting "involved" with marriage, protections and laws explicitly allowing it wouldn't have to be made in the first place.
The republicans are not the ones trying to destroy religious freedom.
Let me fix that for you...
The republicans are not the ones trying to destroy religious freedom for those that believe the same a republicans.
Republicans have a value system that makes everyone else into a "them". If you aren't one of them, then you aren't just wrong, you are evil and amoral. The Republican party is part of a huge propaganda engine. Haven't you ever noticed how they tend to use the words "Muslim", "homosexual", "atheist", "science", and "liberal" as if they were curse words, or as if they have something terrible tasting in their mouth?
I'm not a democrat, I'm just anti-republican. I'm an atheist. I'm pro-choice. And unlike many people on the other side of the fence, I don't really care what you believe. If you are a pro-choice, Bible Thumping heterosexual, that's fine. If you think gay marriage and contraceptives are bad, then that's fine too... don't do them.
Just don't be a dick and try to block others that believe different than you, or pretend that if you aren't allowed to victimize others, then your freedoms are being infringed upon.
If the Govt. provides the connections, there is no issue about them eavesdropping on anything and everything you do. Several big stinky legal issues resolved in one stroke, plus as a bonus the esteemed gentlemen from S. Carolina is sure to include some huge porkbelly in the bill...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
That's fine until the smaller bank is assimilated by the larger bank because your idea of government regulation resembles a post apocalypse movie like Mad Max.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> Why should contraceptives be "covered?"
They prevent a very expensive medical condition.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Wow. Recents posts suggest Timothy is a Republican. This is the first time I ever noticed a Slahdot moderator being something other than lazy.
It's always been a single Democratic-Republican party.
Not so! Between 1792 and 1824 there were also the Federalists. ;-)
(And for those who don't get the joke: No, the modern Democrats and Republicans didn't used to be one party, though there was a party called the Democratic-Republicans. When their opponents the Federalists collapsed, the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrats and the Whigs. Then the Whigs collapsed and the new Republican party filled the void, and those are the parties we've had since around the Civil War, though they've both changed enough over that time that historians consider there to have been three distinct party systems composed of those two parties, each as unique as the aforementioned first [Democratic-Republican vs Federalist] and second [Democrat vs Whig] party systems).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
+1 Pneumatic
The republican party suggests that PIPA and SOPA be implemented immediately with government funding.
The republicans are not the ones trying to mandate whether contraceptives have to be covered.
yes they are, they are trying to get the entirety of the NULL SET covered. you can choose from any in that set. all those will be covered.
Are you suggesting they want to prohibit coverage? That is 100% incorrect. They just want to allow the insurance buyer and seller to be allowed to choose if that coverage should be supplied.
(not that the buyer ought to be your employer; nothing could be more ridiculous but neither party is doing anything about the issue)
OTOH, the democrats are indeed taking away choice. The seller can not offer reduced-rate policies that exclude contraceptives, and the buyer couldn't buy them if they existed. Instead, the buyer and seller are forced to have a plan that includes contraceptives.
Quite so. Also note how their free speech focus is pretty much only on that mythical "UN plan to regulate the Internet", bringing you the same horrors as previously perpetrated by IPU and ITU - as opposed to, say, WikiLeaks.
A NY Times opinion piece on the republican platform? You must be kidding.
The Times has transformed itself from the paper with 'all the news that's fit to print' to a liberal rag.
There are no two distinct groups. Those who covet power seek profit, because wealth is a very strong leverage. And those who covet profit also seek power, because applying that power in the right way will lead to more profit.
Can you disprove any of the plank agenda's that the link refers to? I thought not...
Your scathing cynicism shows you obviously understand nothing about Rand Paul or how much he or is father is hated by the Republican party.
Nor do you understand what the Campaign for Liberty is all about.
This is a libertarian message being injected into the Republican platform. Do you know what Rand Paul had to do to even get this platform pushed? Endorse Mitt Romney and not his own father for President, even before it was a done deal.
This is how you change things. You work within the party. I don't see the Democrats doing a damn thing about Internet freedom and constitutional rights. Where have you been the past four years?
Finally, everyone should have a listen to this. The funny thing is, what he won't tell you publicly, is that the GOP doesn't follow their own rules either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giFlE9kcLOU.
The Pauls are dead serious about the Constitution, to a degree that Democrats and Republicans don't like. Now do you understand why they are universally hated among both sides of the establishment?
While for the last 2 neo-cons and 1 republican admins, continued to run up deficits year after year, racking up a total of 12Trillion of the ~ 16T debt.
Of these, only Poppa Bush worked to actually bring down the deficit and that was only in his last year. Both, reagan and W ran it up all 16 years.
Fool us once, shame on you.
Fool us for 5 elections, shame on all of us.
It needs to stop. We need to quit electing neo-cons such as Romney/Ryan. These 2 speak of deficits, while what they have advanced as being their platform will only make things worse.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So what's your solution? Have the FCC police decency standards on the Internet, have the certificate authorities and ICANN be a federal agency? Allow wiretapping, enforce censorship critical of government?
What the fuck are you talking about, idiot?
If you opt out of using the abusive services, and the company starts to go under, it'll get a nice juicy bailout.
You act like we have a say in anything, you dumb fuck.
False dichotomy. Your drinking water is overseen by bureaucrats, but I doubt you could name the last megalomaniacal scheme they were busted for...
The restrictions on water are on pure quantity - not on what you do with a given liter of water.
Depends on the level and type of restrictions. For example certain high-usage activities such as watering your lawn might be banned completely, or only allowed on certain days. We had watering restrictions like this here a couple of years ago and couldn't set up water slides for the kids at all, or water our lawns except on specified days based on our street numbers.
--- Mercutio was right.
This sounds suspiciously like an attempt to get rid of net neutrality laws. "Remove government regulation" indeed!
Exactly. Remove network neutrality, prevent any government snooping (yay!), and regulate what "the cloud" does with your data.
But, considering that this is from the party that revoked due process during Bush II, and is saying nothing about Obama's continuation of it, despite their hatred of everything he does, I am still dubious of any anti-authoritarian stance they may take. Let them end warrant-less wiretapping, demand that everyone imprisoned by the US government be given a fair trial, and end torture. Then you can tell me you care about our civil liberties.
What does this even have to do with the law? The Constitution only states that the government cannot establish a religion or restrict the free exercise thereof. Corporations cannot logically practice religion. There is no place in heaven, hell, or Valhala for a corporation. Only their executors can be religious. So requiring corporations, which only exist at the mercy of the state, to provide certain benefits to their employees inorder to exist has no impact on anyone's religious freedoms.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Conservatives should be in favor of free government-provided contraception. Do you have any idea how much money that would save us in future entitlement spending? Not to mention the reduced number of abortions.
Those restrictions are imposed by the city not by the water company. Like child porn is illegal because the government says so not because the ISPs say so. Net neutrality is about preventing the ISPs from deciding what we can and cannot do with our bandwidth.
I know, I'll control it. Only that wouldn't be fair... how about we all do? We could vote for what we want to happen. Except that would be a little unwieldily. How about we vote for some people who represent our views and they go make decisions. And in case they fail to represent our views, they have to be reelected every so often?
are you.. retarded?
If the SCOTUS ruling for something that's unconstitutional makes it constitutional, then so does the courts saying corporations are individuals make them individuals. Thanks for the consistency. </sarcasm>
Somehow I knew someone would miss the point and insist the concept of big government would be the way to fix big banks. The problem with that is the reality that government doesn't always do what you want it to do nor does it always act in what you think is your interest. They are essentially the big banks.
Sure they might include it in their "platform," but a "platform" is just another word for a "marketing message." And this is just the usual pre-election market research. They're looking for anything that will give them a lift in the polls. They'll put it out there as if it's really their intention to protect “Internet Freedom” (whatever they mean by that).
We already know politicians are really good at using rhetoric to disguise their real intentions. I don't believe for a minute this has anything to do with preserving "net neutrality."
Thus far, they have very effectively demonstrated their complete ignorance re "net neutrality." Now they're trying to find a way to pitch a position that will sound appealing to the voting public. All they want is an election win. After that, ALL bets are off.
And especially from the Republicans. Protecting and supporting big business is what the Republican party is about. Whatever benefits business will be the focus of their legislative efforts. Remember we have already seen more than a few major lobbying efforts by large business interests to grab control of the internet and its data. So whatever the Republicans say about protecting "internet freedom" is just 100% pure political BS.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
These Naperville, IL year-round watering restrictions are pretty mundane.
This is similar to protocol-based QoS which ensures that VoIP or other latency-sensitive streams take priority over latency-insensitive streams. Yet such a mechanism may be blocked in some people's visions of net neutrality.
Have you ever stopped to think why there is only ISP #1 or ISP # 2 in the first place? Could it be because it's not a natural monopoly but because they have the ability to use elements of their government granted monopoly that competitors do not have readily available access too?
The only regulation that needs to be in place is the opening of any infrastructure owned by a telecom or cable operator used in their endeavors to deliver internet access to anyone at costs for the same purpose.
The parent's post is clearly a refutation of half of this statement you made earlier:
yeah, you're right. why enforce (or even have) laws against fraud, when the customers can just go somewhere else? it's only fraud if it affects a millionaire.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I do not know if you are aware of this or not, but most religious and private organizations have the right to only employ people who believe like them. Churches are not required to employ atheists or other religious people. The boyscout are not required to give gays that really badly want to be around children jobs in their organization.
But with the exemptions in coverage, the employees if they disagree and use that disagreement to negotiate higher salaries which can more then make up the difference. There is the big thing, if you know you aren't getting the same benefits as someone else, you can compensate for it when negotiating your salary. Or are you of the opinion that the government should dictate the salary of everyone too?
"Just don't be a dick and try to block others that believe different than you, or pretend that if you aren't allowed to victimize others, then your freedoms are being infringed upon." hmmm.. Ever think about what you say?
I know of a group of people who tried to start a small bank. Even though they had sufficient resources, government regulators prevented them from doing so.
That's how regulation always works. Those who are already in an industry use regulation to keep out competition.
Laws can't make legal actions retroactively illegal. They can make illegal actions retroactively legal. Classic example are the numerous immigration amnesties passed over the years.
Or granting the telcos immunity for participating in the government's illegal domestic wiretapping program. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/07/09/2027248/senate-passes-telecom-immunity-bill
pretty mundane.
Very. Not much of regulating even.
It only concerns people with large enough lawns. Who would probably find the fine to be trivial.
And it is obviously rooted in the need to provide equal service to everyone.
Those who water gardens and trees or even those who are washing cars are exempt.
Actual regulation would be something like dry faucets from 9 AM to 4 PM - and even that would most likely be caused by the water shortage.
Not by frivolous or profit-oriented motives.
This is similar to protocol-based QoS which ensures that VoIP or other latency-sensitive streams take priority over latency-insensitive streams.
More like bandwidth caps on a network with limited resources.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Including contraceptives in a plan probably reduces an insurance companies costs. They're much cheaper than pregnancy.
The republicans are not the ones trying to get the government involved in all marriages.
All the laws passed on "purity of marriage" were pushed through by conservatives, usually Republican ones. The Republicans are the ones that are pushing to "affirm" the government stance that a marriage is one man and one woman. If the Republicans weren't the one telling me what I can and can't do, why are they so invested in telling me who I can't marry?
The republicans are not the ones trying to destroy religious freedom.
Yes, they are. They are anti-muslim. They want religious freedom for all Protestants. The rest are on their own. Wasn't it Bush that said atheists aren't real citizens? That seems to be anti-religious-freedom to me.
Learn to love Alaska
Plenty of places will ban outdoor use of water first. Carrolton, TX buys its water from Dallas with silly rules. The water is unlimited, but it's a set fee for up to some amount. After that, it's massively expensive. So, if it looks like they'll run over because of usage (usually in hot times), they'll ban outdoor usage at certain times and days. So no filling a swimming pool, washing a car, or watering the lawn for 67% of the time. They do that so they don't have to charge more when the city goes over its cap.
So yes, places do care about the use of the water.
Learn to love Alaska
They're explicitly wanting power to be taken away from individual citizens to make their own decisions about lifelong commitment and giving that power to the government to "get involved in all marriages".
That isn't true. They are trying to keep things as they are now in most places. That means nobody is losing power because they don't have it now. Marriage stays the same: one man, one woman.
plenty of municipalities have water regulations during summers or droughts.
A - those are extreme, non-everyday cases, bordering on natural disaster conditions.
Depends on where you live. I'm in Northern California, and even though we haven't had a formal drought in years, my city no longer allows us to wash our cars, driveway, sidewalk, etc. or to water our lawn/garden enough that there's ANY runoff even if the ground is sloped; the official document essentially says that all residents are expected to turn neighbors in for breaking the rules... Otherwise, we're expected to use very little water (enough for perhaps 1.5 adults showering each day & running 1 load of medium laundry per week), and there's a steep increase in the per-gallon price at each tier of usage.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
Bandwidth is neither unlimited nor free, especially once you go mobile. Someone always pays for "free" things.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Still, it is regulation motivated by the need for "providing equal service to everyone".
Whether the local anecdotal case is about 10%, 50% or 90% regulation is of no consequence.
Original post was about there being only two options for public networks - built by private companies for profit OR built by government for power/control over people.
There are really only two options for public-access networking over a large geographic area: Private commercial interests or a tax-funded government department. Profit or power.
The counter argument is not that there is no regulation of water supply anywhere in the world.
It's that, if it exists, the regulation of water supply is not motivated by power or profit, but by greater good of all instead.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
denying a service in the health insurance your employees get as part of their employment on religious grounds is a form of religious discrimination. it is medication for the prevention of the need for a abortion. but then i am coming from the position of sex being a natural and enjoyable part of life, the control of the results of which are covered under any reasonable health plan, and not the position of sex being a sinful act, that should only occur whenever you want a pregnancy to occur, and all other occurences should be punished with unwanted pregnancy, because whereever there is pleasure there must be punishment cause the bible tells me so why do they get to enjoy themselves when i was raised on the threat of damnnation, sin, and sexual repression, its not fair its not fair its not fair its not fair they must be punished for their happiness and enjoyment of freedom.
what was i saying?
Ha.. I guess it is trollish to trot reality out right in front of some people.
I wonder what would happen if I started pointing out the flaws in the hope and change and how it didn't even take 2 months for campaign promises to start being ignored.
This will turn into an anti-consumer shit storm fairly quickly, thanks to the number of these guys that are in the RIAA/MPAA pockets.
>yes, they do give some reasons too, but not enough to really establish their case
Wait, are you talking about the GOP platform, or the Pauls' whitepaper on the Internet?
Because for the former, they're not really supposed to give reasons. It's a platform, which is basically just a list of stuff you believe in.
Reasons are generally included, or if they are, just the bare minimum.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Could this be the 10000000th time you've proved what a great UID you have? I'll check and see if you've won a prize.
Rolling out fiber/copper to homes and businesses is a serious investment. You simply are not going to have more than a few companies making said investment even in the most urban of areas - and once that investment is made, the best way for a company to increase profit is to buyout or merge with your competition. Until you are left with a monopoly, or if you're extremely lucky, an oligopoly. Quality of service will go down and prices will go up.
But, hey, maybe enough Libertarian Magic Dust will override 30 years of evidence on rampant market consolidation, whether it be banks, airlines, or telecoms.
How many gallows do they allow you?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
You go to a small local bank or a credit union that is more reasonable and responsive.
If you go to a small local bank, you're more likely to get hit with fees when you withdraw cash from an ATM outside the small local bank's market. You have to weigh the big bank's fees against these ATM fees.
giving her a chance to make a deposit/transfer to avoid bouncing the check
How does one make a deposit while in another city that has none of that bank's branches or ATMs?
I can choose to go to another bank.
How so, if one bank owns all the branches and ATMs in your town, charges a fee for using the ATM to withdraw from an account at any other bank, and doesn't accept deposits to an account at any other bank? This was the case in, for example, Terre Haute, Indiana, for 1999 through 2003.
Again - the driving factor is scarcity. Net neutrality for the ISPs prevents discrimination for reasons other than that.
In a democracy, what should someone who votes for fixing it do if he is outvoted by people who don't want it fixed?
Corporations cannot logically practice religion.
Not even a corporation formed for the purpose of practicing a religion, such as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Vatican, etc.?
Only their executors can be religious. So requiring corporations, which only exist at the mercy of the state, to provide certain benefits to their employees inorder to exist has no impact on anyone's religious freedoms.
What you require of a corporation you require of its directors.
Well, there's Indianapolis nearby. It's just not that hard to use banks that are elsewhere.
For example, I use a credit union that doesn't have a branch within 400 miles of where I work.
I'd want to see some of the fiddly-bit details but this is already at the point I'd accept it whole-heartedly.
Good job Republicans!
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
And this is why "marriage" (as religion defines it) should be strictly separate from domestic partnerships, which should be treated similarly to any other partnership. By not providing an alternative to marriage that confers the same tax advantages but is otherwise unconnected to religion, the government is establishing religion.
It's just not that hard to use banks that are elsewhere. For example, I use a credit union that doesn't have a branch within 400 miles of where I work.
I'd like some clarification on how that works. How do you deposit cash and checks into your account at such a distant credit union? Do you keep just enough money in an account at a local bank to cover the minimum deposit so that you can get money into your account? Or are you willing to quit your job over getting paper paychecks instead of direct deposits? And how do you get cash out without having to pay $5 in ATM fees each time or having to find one of the few stores that offers cash back with a debit card purchase? There must be something fundamental that I'm missing.
Your comment is kind of dumb.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I haven't read TFA or the new Rep Party platform, but I have this sinking feeling in my gut that net neutrality is going to be sacrificed on the altar of "less regulation". If online services mishandle our data, a grass roots movement can (usually) correct their course, but if the major infrastructure providers start shifting away from content neutrality, I don't know how we the geeks can sway their minds. Because let's face it; the average Joe Facebooker won't even notice a change in his connection.
Oh I see darker days acoming...
"Say like using competitors who don't screw them?"
And what happens to your "small gubment" claims when everyone in the field is screwing the customers? And when conservatives continue preventing people from telling the truth about how they get screwed by corporations?
Classic example is the mortgage mess conservatives created with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which "deregulated" banking and securities, and lead America straight into a Bush Second Great Depression.
As for My Lai, one person was convicted, William Calley. Apparently he served 3.5 years under house arrest. So, non-zero number! Gotcha.
I would be interested (as a possible future JPL employee, hence my anonymity) how this affects the recent Supreme Court case, Nelson v NASA, which denied gov-t employees the right of informational privacy.
I also wonder how this plank resonates with the popular European call for the right to be forgotten (le "droit de l'oubli"), or to have your data completely removed from online databases.
Since it's republican, I doubt it will confer any particular rights, except the right of ISPs to give preferential speed to high-paying websites.
Your comment is kind of dumber. See what I did there? Asshat.
I didn't say that bandwidth was free, just that it's easier to expand bandwidth than get more water.
Yes, and voting should have stayed the same: Only for white males. Oh wait, that's fucking stupid, and so are you.
I don't understand.
I wasn't even talking about the substantive portion of the Pauls' assertions. Just that platforms are just that: basically a list of stuff a party believes in, with some flowery language thrown in.
A platform isn't a whitepaper. Wiki says:
"A party platform or platform is a list of the actions which a political party, individual candidate, or other organization supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said peoples' candidates voted into political office or the professed opinion(s) proposed as part of law(s) or otherwise made into social policies."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_platform
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
OK, sorry for my earlier rudeness.
The problem with your comment is, it doesn't even relate to the comment you are replying to.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Really, getting tired of the entire two party system, it's clearly a total failure.
The ONLY remedy would be a "None Of The Above" option at the polls.
IF you're truly interested in voter participation, this IS THE ONLY solution.
Repeated cycles of voting for the asshole that's going to do the least amount of damages to your own perceived personal best interests isn't a solution; it's just repetition of something that you know doesn't work. It's insanity.
States that have attempted to initiate this option have both parties constantly preventing it from being initiated - because it's a huge threat to the inherently corrupt and useless two party system, which is essentially a system of people figuring out ways to fuck over the public.
Give the public the option to say "no thanks, your all assholes, we don't trust you, you're corrupt, we want a candidate and a party that isn't sleazy and corrupt", and you'll have some people in the house and Presidency that aren't lying two faced pieces of dog shit.
As for My Lai, one person was convicted, William Calley. Apparently he served 3.5 years under house arrest. So, non-zero number! Gotcha.
No gotcha, I just asked how many were convicted. "Between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians" were murdered (the number I quoted from memory turned out to be low), and the officer was convicted for killing 22 of them, and did 3.5 years for it. None of the other gunmen were convicted of anything. (Actually, I thought the captain had been convicted too, but turns out he was acquitted, though later he admitted having lied about what happened.)
In general governments don't convict (or even charge) their own. Rather, they engage in verbal flim-flam to deny responsibility (as in redefining the word "torture" to exclude whatever atrocity they've just committed)). In war, the vanquished side stands trial for war crimes, but never the winners.
The Democrats are all about destroying freedom of speech, expression, and everyone else who doesn't agree with them. So I can't see things getting much worse than they are right now...
You obviously haven't paid attention to telecommunications. Why did MCI buy UUNET? Was it to improve their network? I think it was because UUNET was spending about $1,000,000 per day improving its network, and MCI wanted to buy the competition before it was too big. There is scarcity of bandwidth in many places. It's mostly artificial (there's 16 fiber in the ground, only two lit, and only at OC-3, when lighting all 16 at 10 Gb with DWDM would be near 1 Tbps, so a simple optics change on both sides would get more than enough bandwidth). But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I specifically gave my example I did. There is no scarcity of water. If Carrollton were to use more than allocated, they'd still get all the water they asked for. It would just go up in price (by about 100x). That's not scarcity, that's Enron pricing. There was never actual scarcity with Enron either, they just managed contracts that had insane peak rates in some circumstances, and the people signing them didn't realize the circumstances were almost daily.
My favorite analogy was power. The power company doesn't tell you what brand of toaster to use, but your bandwidth company wants to tell you what brand streaming to use. If people understood the issues, everyone except AT&T and Comcast would be for net neutrality. Every ISP I've worked for has been for it in principal, so long as it wasn't written by the terminally stupid. But since that describes congress, in practical nature, they were against any new rule, as it could prevent multiple tier Internet service (business class vs residential class), if written poorly enough. So they all agreed with the idea, but didn't want it legislated because they feared the particular implementation.
Learn to love Alaska
you can always decide to shop countries.
For one thing, countries are extremely selective in whom they approve as "customers" (that is, work visa holders) in your analogy. What do you recommend that someone should do to make himself more appealing to countries? For another, country shopping is one major reason why certain industries have been lobbying for treaties that expand the scope of exclusive rights under copyright and patent.
Obama triangulated to center the moment he secured the Democratic Party nomination. That included backing out of his promises about FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That is the moment I turned away from him. To abandon a promise so quickly and casually, indicated to me that he had few principles.
They'll spend most of the language attacking the evils of government data collection and storage, to the point where they only mention private actors off-hand.
They might even just say the contractors aren't responsible for government abuses of it simply because they've been paid.
Oh wait, they're already seeking to remove regulatory barriers. You know, the ones that keep companies from screwing their customers.
I'm sure they're really looking out for our freedom.
www.ledflashingfan.com
(there s an economics for it: cost of association for consummer is just consistently way higher than for companies).
(The distinction is between public goods and merit public goods; merit public goods are considered so meritorious for the public general welfare that they have to be provided, so the burden of provision falls onto government, period; best example, Law itself; later government can transfer some costs to the private sector, vg, lawyers for profit; the implicit assumption is that any parted provision must not harm the provision itself, ie, your distribution of costs must not diminish the amount provided, so you have to find an adequate distribution of efforts since either/or would have incentives to diminish the amount provided; linking data persistence to the immortality of government seems to be meritorious, as it was the development of these technologies; what Republicans want is to prevent biggies to call law just because the smallies do not obfuscate its code and it exposes the biggy tricks, and also to prevent phone and TV biggies from calling law to stop smallies from becoming internet phone and TV providers on their own; as for the control part, I think they are using facebook and account bannings...)
Obama triangulated to center the moment he secured the Democratic Party nomination
Of course. EVERY major candidate shifts to center when they have defeated the challengers in their own party and are on the ballot for the general election in November. They don't get that far by being political idiots.
You'll see it over and over again -- be a bit extremist until the primaries/convention to secure the fringe support, then abandon them because you need moderates and swing votes more than the loonies. You don't actually have to do anything moderate, but you have to the say the right things to get votes.
trying to tell Churches who their employees will be and who can be married on their property
I'd like a cite for that. The gay marriage argument has never been about who will be wedded at a church, it's about what marriages, church or not, the government will recognize as valid.
The boyscout are not required to give gays that really badly want to be around children jobs in their organization
I see what you did there. Classy.
I suspect that the availability of water in your area is a harder constraint than the availability of bandwidth.
I wouldn't take that bet. In many rural areas (which can be close to big cities), it's very easy to transport water to a house, or even dig a well to have your own access to groundwater. Not so much for Internet access. You can have pipes going to your house that are 30+ years old and they're still fine, but telecom lines are obsoleted much faster, unless you're just fine with 14.4kbps speeds.
The power and water companies do just fine providing equal service to everyone. Neither the government nor the water suppliers tell people what they can and cannot do with their water. Internet bandwidth is no different from a utility. It should get the same treatment.
What really needs to happen, and what stands no chance in hell of happening, is for the communications lines and the ISPs to be disassociated with each other. Right now, the major ISPs own most of the lines, so they control access, policies, and so forth. It leads to monopoly situations, ISP abuses, loss of net neutrality, and all sorts of undesirable circumstances. Instead, the government should install the lines, then lease them to ISPs on an end-user basis. That's how my perfect world would be.
Good lord. I live in Northern California too (all my life) and I've never heard of regulations that strict. Your city is a real outlier.
Could this be the 10000000th time you've failed to remotely rise above the implied greatness of my great UID? I'll check and see if you've won a prize.
I do not think I ever said it was or wasn't. If you were even close to as smart as you think you are, you would have seen where I said the last mile infrastructure was put in place by government granted monopoly regulation and unless that infrastructure is opened, those existing companies have an inherent advantage. That is not a natural monopoly in the market, it is the exploitation of a government granted monopoly,. Do you seriously think cable and telecom internet would have invested in laying the last mile cables and infrastructure at all if they didn't have this government granted monopoly?
and somehow you think busting that monopoly by requiring them to grant access to their lines at costs is not going to change this by letting all sorts of competition enter their market when service or other things suffer? You must be a fucking idiot.
Yes, because regulating access to the infrastructure already in place due to government granted monopolies for the provision of internet services has everything to do with the improper regulation of banks or some libertarian mind think. If you would drop your ideological asshatery for a minute, you would see what I said is very far from libertarian mind think. In fact, I'm pretty sure your mind think will have far more devastating results then what you decry which is why I suggested you actually fucking look. So please stop working so hard to prove what an utterly useless moron you are.
Wrong, there are restrictions on water for use as well. In certain areas, in times of drought, non-essential activities like washing your car or watering your lawn can be restricted.
True enough, but I suspect that's not the GP's situation.
Checks in the mail.
I'll respect you in the morning
I promise not to cum in your mouth
The new Republican Party platform includes language which promises action to promote freedom on the Internet.
Although I'm not surprised to see so much anti-republican rhetoric on slashdot (or, let's be real, on the internet at all), I think it's important to remember something:
Control of personal data > Ability to stream netflix
Please don't trade privacy for convenience.
Not to knock on any particular politician, but the libertarian idea that we could trust business to promote and maintain "internet freedom" as a pro-business stance is ridiculous. Business groups, like say the RIAA, are not going to support a government intervention that they don't control. For them, internet freedom is the freedom to protect themselves from the horrible thieves who are stealing their property. Their freedom is to be free of regulation that controls copyright laws and restricts their power to continue to keep "Happy Birthday" under copyright.
Republicans, or Libertarians, giving away my freedom to business is scary.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
But you can be assured that the majority of those higher up wouldn't take the time to piss on you were you on-fire.
It's not that they're actually out to screw you, it's that they're out to make the most profit for themselves and friends. That such profit comes at your expense is incidental
That's odd, there are a lot of small banks where I live (here's mine). The group of people you refer to obviously were doing something wrong. Perhaps they just thought they had enough resources, but would have gone bottom-up after starting their business?
If a local grocery goes out of business, the customers come out fine. If a bank goes out of business and doesn't have FDIC insurance, its customers are fucked. If the government thinks you're going to fail, no insurance for YOU. As it should be.
People have started and do start small banks, so blaming regulators for your friends' incompetence is just an excuse for their own failure. I doubt seriously they had any business trying to start a bank.
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I am just as concerned about the private sector abusing and destroying the open internet as I am about the government censoring and over-regulating it.
I declined the job because the location was not desirable (and not disclosed before the interview).
I don't understand. I have a disorder that makes it hard for me to infer what all the faux pas are. Is it a faux pas to ask about location in the first interview?
As for playing devil's advocate, don't. Ask questions
At one point, I did try phrasing arguments in my Slashdot comments in the form of a question more often than I do now. Another user called me out on it years ago, claiming that I deserved to have my comments moderated down and left unanswered because I asked so many questions that it was getting annoying. How should I have continued without either A. continuing to ask questions, or B. playing devil's advocate? Do you want me to try to dig up the exact post in which I was called out in case I misinterpreted it?
And what the other side means by "internet freedom" is "freedom for government", or more precisely, "not restricting government's freedom to restrict your freedom". Given those two evils, I'll go with the guy without the massive army, thank you.
[Rant On]
Remember that to Democrats, "Freedom" means freedom from non-government-chosen lifestyle choices - so, no net neutrality. Increased Democratic control would be a Brave New World for us all -- not just for Internet users, but the religious, legal citizens, the rich and, especially, rich men.
To be fair, the Republicans are often incompetent and uncoordinated, but the Democrats are evil and uncaring, unless you're a poor, black, gay male.
[Rant Off]
See what I did there?
See what I did there?
Ya, you made stuff up that has no relation to reality. You should write some more fiction, or just go back to watching Fox News.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I am aware of the phenomenon. But it's a bit more infrequent to abandon promises you made a few weeks earlier as part of that shift to center.
*sigh* I'm sorry you're so out of touch with reality that you can only see monsters on one side but not the other. Maybe someday you'll dig a little deeper than the loudest and ugliest.
Is that you Todd Akin?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .