US Refuses To Sign ITU Treaty Over Internet Provisions

An anonymous reader writes "The United States said today that it will not sign an international telecommunications treaty thanks to the inclusion of Internet-related provisions. According to the BBC, the U.K. and Canada have also pledged not to sign the treaty in its current form, while delegates from Denmark, the Czech Republic, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Kenya also have reservations."

Comments

Re:Treaties

[Bill_the_Engineer]

International Treaty on Torture Fucking Contard.

I never heard of this "International Treaty on Torture Fucking Contard", and from what I can tell we only interrogated "Fucking Contards". I see where you could be upset and will do my best to get the US to start torturing these Fucking Contards ASAP.

Re:Treaties

[girlintraining]

To be fair, the US government does have a pretty long and distinguished history of signing agreements (or for that matter, domestic laws or, well, our own constitution) and then ignoring them if whatever administration is in power feels that the other parties can't stop them.

Yes, but pointing that out lands you in "-1, troll" land usually, as my OP demonstrates to great effect. In most developed countries, there's been major historical event that they lost on. Germany lost WWII. Britain was bombed back into the stone age. The French... well... 'nuff said. Poland, Switzerland, every European country has at one point been steamrollered and had to eat crow. So their sense of patriotism is tempered by the understanding that they can lose, that they have lost, and that while they're proud of who they are, they're not insensitive to the fact that they've also screwed up before.

The United States hasn't had that pivotal moment yet where it simply, unquestionably, lost. Failed. Beaten. Destroyed. It will happen, eventually, but until it does, people here are going to be highly resistant to the idea that we can screw up. They have untempered pride in their country, blind patriotism. And that's why so many people are irritated with Americans -- it's the lack of humility, it's the idea we can do whatever we want because we'll always win. But we're paying an enormous cost for this attitude; The south now resembles the living conditions commonly found in the suburbs and smaller towns of Egypt. Detroit is a wasteland full of crime, murder, and destroyed infrastructure. Several of our major cities have been reclaimed by nature due to economic neglect. Many americans are starving or close to it, and our food reserves dangerously low. People talk about the recession like it's over, but it's never been worse. Our pride is killing us. Literally. Every predator drone launched is a denied college education. It's food that could have been put on the table of a hungry family.

We need to jettison that pride, but as you can see, even here on Slashdot, that's amazingly hard for people to do. They'd rather just scream at the top of the lungs "You're wrong! You're wrong!" They're dragged kicking and screaming to the truth, and they hate me for it.