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Lew Rockwell: Ron Paul Not Using the State or UN to Control RonPaul.Com
New submitter sbulut77 writes with a follow up to accusations Ron Paul is using the UN to gain control of ronpaul.com. "Lew Rockwell explains the RonPaul.com issue. There is so much misinformation on this topic, his blog is very welcome. His blog entry is pretty short and well-written please read the blog post directly."
From the article: "Ron is not calling on the UN. ICANN has four approved arbitration organizations. Because the RP.com guys registered Ron's name in Australia, the international arbitration option must be used. Yes, it is associated with the UN. Too bad, but one must play the cards one is dealt. The UN itself is not involved, though note — whatever else is wrong with it — the UN is not a State."
Sadly it is pretty much the only way to keep the mythology alive... gotta take advantage of all those systems while still putting on a facade of being against them. So it is not that he is using a system that he claims to be against just because it suits him when negotiations failed to produce the deal he wanted... no, it has to be rephrased to sound like he has no choice...
This is little more then 'I believe in the free market, unless regulation gives me a better deal, then I am not actually using regulation because.. look a squirrel!'
And lets not forget the whole "rich and famous" part. If it were my name, I would not be able to have done what he did since I am neither rich nor famous. So much for equal protection under the law.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I'd love to read a libertarian take on "cybersquatting". I can't even define the notion of cybersquatting without involving government or human rights.
Here's my attempt at a libertarian definition of cybersquatting. Cybersquatting is when you enter into a private contract with a party to be listed in their directory under the name "X", and someone else claims that they "ought" themselves to be the ones who are listed under that name. Okay, that's fine, but a libertarian wouldn't recognize this "ought" and so no claim of cybersquatting would have any basis for a libertarian.
Here's my attempt at a statist definition of cybersquatting. The state or superstate recognizes that individuals have an interest in their own identities, and companies in their own brands, and it creates a framework of regulations to protect those interests, and it delegates the authority to do this, and it coerces people through threat of force to abide by that authority. Cybersquatting is when someone breaks the state's regulations in this regard."
So please, to any libertarians -- can you give me a purely libertarian explanation of why cybersquatting is wrong?
(or will you merely give an explanation of why this particular RP.com situation has contravened the arbitrary rules set by ICANN, while admitting that an alternative ICANN2 without such rules would be entirely fine from a libertarian perspective? How would free market forces chose between ICANN as it currently is, vs ICANN2 without those rules?)
Actually DNS IS a free market. Each DNS server certainly is free to do whatever kind of domain name translation they wish. The market has spoken and what it has said is that it WANTS a central authority. The only power that ICAAN holds is that of the monopolist. All of the users go to ICAAN, so if you don't use their product, you don't exist. ICAAN's power is that of the monopolist. Not that of government regulation.