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Montana To FCC: You Can't Stop Us From Protecting Net Neutrality (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Montana governor's office has a message for the Federal Communications Commission and Internet service providers: the state can't be stopped from protecting net neutrality, and ISPs that don't like it don't have to do business with state agencies. Governor Steve Bullock signed an executive order to protect net neutrality on Monday. But with questions raised about whether Bullock is exceeding his authority, the governor's legal office prepared a fact sheet that it's distributing to anyone curious about potential legal challenges to the executive order. ISPs are free to violate net neutrality if they only serve non-government customers -- they just can't do so and expect to receive state contracts. "Companies that don't like it don't have to do business with the State -- nothing stops ISPs from selling dumpy Internet plans in Montana if they insist," the fact sheet says.
The FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules attempts to preempt states and localities from issuing their own similar rules. But Bullock's executive order doesn't directly require ISPs to follow net neutrality rules. Instead, ISPs that accept contracts to provide Internet service to any state agency must agree to abide by net neutrality principles throughout the state. Bullock's fact sheet is titled, "Why Isn't Montana's Executive Order Preempted?" and it offers numerous answers to that question. "Through the order, the State of Montana acts as a consumer -- not a regulator," the fact sheet says. "Because there's no mandate, and no new regulations, there's certainly no federal preemption. Companies that don't like Montana's proposed contract terms don't have to do business with the State."
The FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules attempts to preempt states and localities from issuing their own similar rules. But Bullock's executive order doesn't directly require ISPs to follow net neutrality rules. Instead, ISPs that accept contracts to provide Internet service to any state agency must agree to abide by net neutrality principles throughout the state. Bullock's fact sheet is titled, "Why Isn't Montana's Executive Order Preempted?" and it offers numerous answers to that question. "Through the order, the State of Montana acts as a consumer -- not a regulator," the fact sheet says. "Because there's no mandate, and no new regulations, there's certainly no federal preemption. Companies that don't like Montana's proposed contract terms don't have to do business with the State."
By removing the mandate as a government rule and replacing it with contractual obligations they will bypass anything the FCC can do.
The State system is a big enough customer to have the clout to make it happem
Aim foot
Shoot
I can imagine big ISPs simply pulling the plug on the state government, and leaving the contract to a local ISP.
I'm not sure if the people involved in repealing NN thought this was going to go away or not but it seem very clear that those against this are going to fight this to the bitter end. I don't expect anyone involved to walk away from this unmarred.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
At the very least, forcing its opponents to fight the Net Neutrality battle at the State level multiplies the resources needed and aggravates those who benefit from its repeal.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I can imagine big ISPs simply pulling the plug on the state government, and leaving the contract to a local ISP.
Sounds like a great way to piss off the legislature and begin the proliferation of municipal ISPs.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
All 50 of the State military forces vs. the US armed forces?
First, the state would probably like this, and would probably only agree to if the 'local' isp was in position to compete with the big isp.
The state would probably offer direct incentives to the local isp to expand to consumers as well as state actors.
If the big isp attempted to prevent this, the state would probably sue for breaking monopoly laws.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
One of the points made is that the "marketplace" would decide things because those that didn't like it would just use a provider that kept things on an even keel.
However, if Montana sticks to its guns, and none of the ISPs are willing to provide service under those terms, then it would show there is not valid competition in the marketplace (at least in Montana), such that the consumer (in this case the state) can find and use a provider that does business the way the consumer wants.
It's the ultimate voting with the wallet. I'm just afraid the answer is not going to be a good one.
We've seen this ideology of overthrowing democracy before, with one in particular inflicting suffering and innumerable costs to life worldwide for over a century (and it still hasn't ended) using the EXACT same argument about not having time for democracy:
http://www.stephenhicks.org/20...
All that happens is you end up with sadists running the government, and democracy never returns until your glorious revolution, and everything it stands for, comes to an end.
Or this idea might spread to other states, and ISPs that have markets in multiple states will start to feel the pinch and lose government contracts. Money is a big motivator.
There's 1 million people in Montana, and a total of 120 ISP. I don't think this is a death blow for the FCC.
lucm, indeed.
What's basically happening here is collective bargaining by the government to get what it wants. In the case of concepts of Net Neutrality this is not a bad thing.
What if the approach works though?
Is it that inconceivable that the next governor will do the same thing regarding some other matter? Their issue might be to throttle bit torrent? Block porn? Fight "fake news" (i.e. block any news outlet painting them in a non-flattering light)? Is this what we want?
All sorts of government interests could be pushed by this method. Will we have a chance to collectively bargain too to balance the scales? How's this going to work?
Or just the state government passing rules that make it illegal for city governments to grant monopoly rights to an ISP. That's essentially the source of the problem. You can't expect a market and therefor choices to exist when it's been explicitly prohibited by law, and no one is really interested in starting their own black market internet over the whole deal.
uhhh what if all ISPs simply stop taking contracts from government, and just.. allow it to stop having internet access? They'd be free to sell dumpy plans to everyone else in the state.. I guess it depends on how much $$$ montana pays for service?
This is nothing more than consumers exercising their rights to walk away from bad products. If we all had the courage to do this, we'd have no need for government action to stop it.
Instead of the short-term boycotts used in the past to fight bad actors, what we need this time is something like an organized "national day of service termination". The importance of having it be a "day" instead of just a general campaign to quit bad actors and move to good ones is to highlight the reasons for the drops and publicize it so that they can't just launch discount campaigns to pull in new suckers.
There has been much organization and lobbying to fight net neutrality. Consumers, not just government consumers, need to start penalizing those seeking to take advantage of them with sharp organization that targets what counts, bottom lines.
Do you mean the European Left, which has been clamoring to censor the internet, or the American Left, which submitted the internet to CALEA under the label of "Net Neutrality" while doing nothing at all to actually give us net neutrality?
No, son, the polical left doesn't want network neutrality; they want network control.
This kind of action will only become more common as people realize more and more that some federal agencies only act in the interest of the administration du jour.
AC comments get piped to
It's more likely that some of the smaller ISP's already have no problem with net neutrality and would be happy to get state contracts. The Comcasts and Verizons are likely the ones that would stop taking contracts.
Remember that the Democrats literally nominated a cable company lobbyist to head the FCC when they had the chance
Gaslight for the fail.
During the Bush years, under Chairman Michael Powell (Colin's son) the FCC went to the Supreme Court in order to kill net neutrality (and succeeded in 2005).
Then Obama appointed, Tom Wheeler, former lobbyist turned Benedict Arnold who not only brought back net neutrality but also pushed for a bunch of other consumer freedoms like killing the Comcast/Time-Warner merger, and forcing cable companies to let customers use their own set-top boxes to save on rental fees.
As for Idjit Pai being an "Obama appointee" not so much. By law the 5 member comission can only have 3 members from the same party. Idjit Pai was one of the two non-democrats during Obama's term. The way it works is that the senate minority party comes up with a list of acceptable candidates, in this case Pai was Mitch McConnel's first choice. Maybe Obama should have fought harder, but it didn't really matter since the 3 people he did pick could always overrule the Idjit. Now that the banana republicans are in charge, who Obama appointed is moot because killing NN was always a republican goal and they would have done it one way or another - since that is what they did back in 2005.
uhhh what if all ISPs simply stop taking contracts from government, and just.. allow it to stop having internet access?
Worst case, the government doesn't need to contract with a traditional ISP (i.e. one that also services residential customers). They only have a limited number of offices (especially in Montana). So in theory they could go with a commercial-only provider which typically have little business incentive to violate NN principles since commercial contracts are plenty lucrative enough on their own.
However, the government offices will still want internet, so *somebody* will be providing it - and now who do you suppose will be the ones getting more favorable consideration in future legislation and other government dealings?
Plus the sate of Montana is responsible for over 5% of employment in the state - that's a lot of well-distributed business to just hand over to your competitors. Especially if nobody in the oligopoly wants to play ball - then some little upstart is suddenly going to be getting really favorable pole leases, etc. from the state to deploy the necessary infrastructure.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You're going to have corruption and abuse no matter where you go or what you do. Welcome to earth. But nobody wants the special flavor of tyranny that you want to add on top of it, except for you and your fellow sadists.
Interesting - they sure were not about that when they had some power at the federal level. I am guessing this is just a ruse to show off how they are resisting and such.
Anyway, it's Montana - nobody fucking cares what you do up there.
Then ... eminent domain.
Unlikely to happen.
State contracts are incredibly lucrative, and the ISP's love money.
They would be leaving money on the table if they just pulled out, and it would probably cost the ISP's more money if they just pulled out entirely. They would rather make money and follow the contract rules, than to pull out and make nothing.
This is a good attempt to start re-exerting states rights. The Federal government has over stepped their authority by co-opting powers that should be the purview of the State governments. The Federal government has done this using Federal regulations and laws that states are required to adopt or face being penalized. And the penalty is always losing federal money. A State that refuses to abide by the Federal Highway speed limits faces losing the federal money traditionally used to maintain the federal highways with-in the State. The Federal government was able to enforce the federally mandated drinking age using the same penalty. Any state that did not immediately raise their drinking age to 21 faced losing Federal highway money. Hell the Civil War was about state rights not freeing slaves. Making slavery illegal in the south was only one relatively minor being fought over. The imposition of Federal taxes and commerce regulations was more important than the slavery issue by far. After the North won the war slavery became illegal but that had very little impact on the lives of the former slaves living in the South. Instead of slave they were "share croppers". Racism and discrimination did not change in the least.
Before the FBI was created there was no federal law enforcement across state lines. So in the name of "Public Safety" the Federal government was able to create a law enforcement agency that made every State law enforcement agency subservient to the federal government. That doesn't mean that all federally mandated laws and regulations should be shit canned. Federal EPA regulations work better for the country as a whole instead of state by state. Federal NIST regulations fall into the same category as well. Federal airspace regulations also make sense.
The countries military hierarchy and division of powers is also a good example of States retaining control over their National Guard. The Federal government cannot deploy any federal military assets without the specific request of a states governor.
The Federal government was never supposed to usurp the state rights they have amassed over the years. Let corporations deal directly with states if they want to do business in that state.
Eliminating net neutrality was the opposite of democracy. It was an unelected official ignoring the voice of the people and doing whatever the hell he wanted.
Stick with me here...
One of the problems with Obamacare has been insurance companies pulling out of sparsely-populated areas because they weren't profitable 'enough' -- low-density population doesn't generate much revenue and since they can bail on a per-county basis, they do bail rather than spread the costs around the entire state. That has left a lot of counties with just 1 obamacare insurer, which is then free to jack the prices up because they literally the only game in town.
So Nevada said to the insurance companies - when it comes time to pick insurance companies to handle the state medicaid contracts, you get bonus points if you also offer obamacare plans too. The result? The 2 new insurance companies that won medicaid contracts for Nevada are also on the ACA exchanges for the entire state. So, unlike many other mostly-empty states, obamacare is pretty robust there. And, FWIW, this was done by a republican governor.
the EXACT same argument about not having time for democracy
Time isn't the issue. It's the idiocy, apathy, and corruption of the voters that is killing democracy. Plato was right.
Revolution is impossible. Push comes to shove, all it takes is a Predator drone lobbing a missile, or just tossing a can of nerve gas in the middle of the night into the revolutionary camp. Syria showed that out, where they tried for revolution, but it wound up causing Assad to be better entrenched, and a lot of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" people dead.
Sure, try revolt. Your life sentence in a private prison will only help CoreCivics (formerly Corrections Corporation of America's) stock value.
At the taxpayer's expense $$.
Montana. Not enough market to matter to large ISP's. The loss would be a rounding error. There are only about a million people in the whole state....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
We've seen the ideology of compliance and complicity with tyranny, corruption, and abuse before.
Yeah. Someone's Netflix stream might be a bit slower until Netflix pays off the ISP. OH NOOESS. So worth the rivers of blood that result from such revolutions.
Montana. Not enough market to matter to large ISP's....
The tiny tip of a very large iceberg.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
There's 1 million people in Montana, and a total of 120 ISP. I don't think this is a death blow for the FCC.
The tiny tip of a very large iceberg.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Wrong.
The LAST thing the big ISPs want is to encourage competition. They've essentially got monopolies. You think they want to encourage states to look for alternatives?
Not exactly unelected. We are in a representative democracy, which means you vote for people believing that they will make decisions with your best interests in mind. Unfortunately, that process put fat mouth in the FCC. This isn't the first, or last, time that an elected representative made a decision unpopular with his constituents.
It's not even a matter of partisan bullshit anymore, it's two conformist teams too busy whoring themselves for money to have noticed the water crawling towards a boil, or the noose tightening around their neck.
Any semblance of freedom, privacy, or justice in American has been corroded away by government officials and corporate interests. I used to have some optimism that the trend would right itself, but it is already too late. Those of us who doth protest had best start getting our luggage in order. Because you are going to want to be out of the country before they turn your eye on you, because once they have you won't have any path to escape.
Netflix is already a multi-billion dollar company. The problem is that the media is all bought and owned by corporate interests and the only reasonable way of getting other messages to the masses is via the internet.
Just because you're too stupid to realize what it means to allow a small number of companies control what goes over the wire doesn't mean that the rest of us are. Sure, we could get lucky and they might only ban and throttle the nutters, but realistically, nutters have an astonishing amount of money, they'll more likely go after people for pointing out that the economy isn't working very well for most people.
New York is supposedly following their lead and putting in the same regulations. Add California, and who needs the federal regulations.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
That's why the militants in the Gaza Strip and other similar areas live with and around civilians. It gives the Israelis a black eye every time they retaliate.
Military strength only goes so far in keeping the people at bay. At some point, the number of people refusing to comply or complying in such a shitty way that the economy collapses like it did in the former USSR where the government had spent so much on defense that they couldn't afford food.
The term is monopsymy. There's so few sources for the service that the providers have no reason to compete with each other. Competing with each other would force down the profits for all of them. So, they give token competition, but really, they're all doing as little as possible to upset the status quo.
The correct way to solve the current problem is via government owned wires. It's one of the reasons why the '90s had such a large selection of options for internet. Virtually everybody was connecting over somebody else's network, which led to all sorts of competition and innovation.
Yeah huh!
You're the one insisting on embracing the sin, with disingenuous objections, but have you even thought about just not being a paragon of corruption and exploitation?
Surely it would not be that great a burden upon you. Oh wait, even the trouble to think about being anything other than abusive shocks your overly delicate sensibilities.
Worry not, the embrace of your True and Eternal Lord and Maker exceeds even your depravity in forgiving compassion so when the sword of true righteousness lays your soul bare, it will cut with the healing might of the scapel. The purging fires will cleanse you eternally.
And the price will be nothing.
How many levels of indirection do you require before you consider the person unelected? Pai was appointed by someone who was elected, but the people certainly didn't vote for him. He was kept in by someone who actually lost the popular vote. He then went on to ignore the clear will of the people during the comment period.
So? your saying it would come to an end, and the government would be restored and we would win. Cost would be suffering and loss of life.
That is very encouraging.
Actually when I think of all the societal good the french revolution did. I cannot say that a bout of mass murder of the upper class at this point would not be for the greater good. Based on historical evidence, it would benefit us all tremendously, restore our freedoms, grant us new freedoms, and entrench/enhance current human rights.
Unsure why ajit pai is not hanging from the end of a rope at this very moment, honestly just cannot figure it out.
What? Israel kills civillians as a matter of course, they want to kill Palestinians as many as possible. A terrorist nation of thieves and liars.
Supported by the worst terrorists of all, the US.
"The Federal government was never supposed to usurp the state rights they have amassed over the years. Let corporations deal directly with states if they want to do business in that state."
When I read that my brain immediately followed up with:
The corporations (fictional persons) were never supposed to usurp the Federal or state rights they have amassed over the years.
A case can be made for the original and the followup.
I am concerned though, about a government at either level using such tactics as an end around obeying the law, even odious laws.
But as conservatives and Trump supporters love to keep telling us, we're not a democracy.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The popular vote means nothing for the President. You also cannot say with certainty had the rules been for popular vote rather than electoral that the result would have been different. Campaigns would have been run differently and people in states where their votes were in the minority may have voted differently.
Part of the Trump's platform was less regulation. That's exactly what this is. Less regulation. It's what people voted for. Title II should never have been used. It's an overhanded, archaic rule for legacy technology. Congress needs to implement sane and modern regulations which they then task the FCC with upholding.
but the big isps are in control of an ever increasing amount of the backbone those smaller muni-wide providers would connect to.. so one way or another, the big bad megacorps will still get their profits.
It's all well and good that the state is doing nothing more than setting requirements for vendors it deals with, but what if none decide to play the state's game? What is the fallback position, is the state going to establish it's own ISP just for government use? Are they going to try and use these new requirements to back out of existing multi-year contracts with ISPs?
There's a very real chance (IMHO) that Montana doesn't wield the clout with ISIs it thinks it does.
It will be interesting how this will play out with eRate grants from the federal government - eRate is federal money spent by schools, libraries to subsidize internet access - being federal, not state money these state requirements won't apply... Or will they?
Ken
Doesn't matter, AbrasiveDildo would eat infants by the dozen while caterwauling what we made him do.
We've been down that road before, redundant infrastructure is bad for other reasons and doesn't generate as much competition as you might hope for. Given the extremely high barrier to entry.
One of the advantages of classifying ISPs as Title II common carriers was that it allowed for the implementation of line sharing rules, which were baked into the Telecommunications Act. These rules were implemented briefly in 1999, and worked well, but they were only implemented for DSL and were revoked in 2005 when a new FCC decided to reclassify DSL as an "information service." (i.e.: exactly the same thing that the current FCC is doing)
... aligned the R's with religion and once that happened, we pretty much gave full control over to the ruling elites.
Rather amusingly as the R's took on the name of a Jewish heretic who saw political power as a Demonic temptation and saw the rich as unable to pass camels through the eye of a needle.
Trump: Wide-ranging and highly restrictively laws open to abuse should not be created by the Executive branch, it's the Legislative branch that should have this responsibility.
Legislative: Oh yeah? Well if you do that then we'll pass a law that does what we want. NAH NAH YOU CAN'T STOP US.
Actually when I think of all the societal good the french revolution did. I cannot say that a bout of mass murder of the upper class at this point would not be for the greater good.
TFTFY.
And as a final act their heads on pikes in front of the U.S. Capitol would be perfection.
...will the states realize that yes, they can protect things within their borders. But, say, if they get their internet via a provider that is based in another state, can do whatever they want?
An innumerate antisemite. How original.
Just pass a requirement that all ISP's in your state must provide service within a set time frame (say 2 weeks) to any customer in that state that requests it for the same rate advertised to all customers regardless where in that state they live. Boom, now everyone in that state has the same number of options for access. You know, as opposed to ISPs who defend their business practices by use maps showing where ISPs could offer service instead of where they do.
An illiterate Pavlovian idiot. How stupid.
Solution: state-owned utility companies with backbones.
Truly in the interest of the public.
Distinction without a difference. Limited monopolies are a deal to get ISP's to accept government regulation. End said regulation and you'll still end up with a single (or dual) provider anyway due to market consolidation. And then they'll really gouge you. The only alternatives are:
a) Even more government regulation to mandate levels of service, equipment upgrades, and price caps
b) Make the ISP a government run utility
But the people who tend to complain about government trading limited monopolies for regulation tend to oppose more regulation or ermagerd socialism even more strongly.
"Elections have consequences." If you don't like the policies chosen by the duly elected government and the people they appoint, "go out there and win an election."
If you don't want the president to appoint unelected people to the executive branch, convince people to change the start of Article II of the Constitution where it says that "[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Also the bit in Article I that says that "no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office".
If you want to re-assert states' rights, repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. The original method for appointing senators was explicitly intended to ensure that the Senate would protect the rights and interests of state-level governments, and not just be a copy of the House of Representatives with longer terms.
The 17th Amendment was passed because of extensive corruption in how states chose senators, but we have a much stronger set of laws and political restraints against that kind of corruption now, so we probably do not need popular elections of US senators to keep it from coming back. (Obviously, states that want to keep popular elections of their senators could make that a state-level rule.)
Verizon Government Services, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon, pledges that it will live up to Net Neutrality With Unicorn Chasers, and also that it won't bid for any business except for state and local governments that have contractual clauses requiring Net Neutrality With Unicorn Chasers.
Too funny. Republicans are staunch defenders of "state's rights" right up until they interfere with any corporate interests they're beholden to that might have their profits threatened.
The thing is, the Feds took away federal-level regulation and oversight, in effect giving it back to the states. There is nothing that says states can't make certain rules about how they do business, and with whom. They do it all the time and it's entirely reasonable for them to do so (e.g. to make sure they're meeting certain standards, hiring practices, sourcing, etc).
And the ISPs can't object- no ISP is forced to do contractual (i.e, profit making) business with any state. If they don't like the state's rules they're free to market their services elsewhere.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
So....we should destroy the village in order to save it? Where have I heard that before?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Not exactly unelected.
He was exactly unelected. He was appointed. Representatives, Senators, and the President are elected. FCC commissioners are not. "Unelected" doesn't mean put in office through an anti-democratic process, it just means he was not decided as the result of an election.
There is no sane, controlled way of conducting a bloody revolution. The killing of public officials out of hand is a rejection of law and order, not the imposition of it. Unless you can change the political character of the public, you'll only be substituting politically skilled people with people skilled at murder and mayhem.
What I think is needed is a major change (I won't argue with the term revolution) in how the public thinks about, and interacts with, the political system in their country. Democracy works better than any other system we know of, but works best when the public actually participates. Here are the problems I see with democracy as practised in the G7, but most strongly and clearly in the U.S.A.
1) Voter apathy : The sources I check don't agree on an exact number, but all would agree with the statement that less than 60% of those eligible to vote in the 2017 US presidential election actually did so. According to Wikipedia, there is over 235 Million eligible voters in the US, with a 60% voter turnout, that means over 93 Million people weren't involved.
2) There is a significant number of people who vote for a particular party, pretty much regardless of current platform or candidates. "Straight ticket voters" ensure that even weak candidates are going to have a significant voter base if they can win the parties nomination for a position. 10 US states make it very easy to vote straight ticket
3) Low voter turnout combined with straight ticket voting means that the more extreme voices on either end of the spectrum carry far more weight in politics than the raw numbers would justify. It also means that a politician can court the more extreme factions fairly safely without risking alienating their core voter base. It is my personal, unsupported opinion that the more extreme factions on either end of the political spectrum are far less likely to engage in even the minimal thought that your average voter does in choosing candidates. As long as a politician says the right things (dog whistling and rabble rousing) he or she can get away with behaviour in office that is totally different from their campaign platform. 4) Those three factors together mean that the voters, regardless of faction, do not have as much influence on the actions of the elected official as they should. That in turn means it is easier for lobbyists to influence, or even control what bills the official submits and what that official votes for. It is rare for a politician to be held accountable for going against his constituents interests. Most of the time they are only subject to repercussions if they get involved in some scandal that touches on morality and even then, often only if that scandal occurs in an election year. Being a dirty politician or puppet of the lobbyists is not a problem because for those with the deep pockets funding campaigns and the top people who control a party are used to that, it's business as usual. Cheating on your wife, being caught in a gay and/or underage sex scandal though is political death.
Bottomline; I believe the voting public needs to be a) better informed b) pay attention to, and remember a politicians actions while in office and hole them accountable at the next election and c) be more willing to vote based on the individual candidate and issue rather than party lines.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
But don't call it overthrowing democracy when taking action against an unelected official appointed by someone who didn't even actually win a majority of votes cast.
Fair enough to call it too extreme in this particular case.
By the time the 17th Amendment was ratified, a majority of the states already elected their US senators by popular vote so the effect of the Amendment was minor.
Before the 17th Amendment, those states could always change their approach. The amendment could have a major effect even if it did not change the way many states selected their US senators.
Why shouldn't we call it overthrowing democracy? If you're going to be that pedantic about the definition of democracy, don't call the US a democracy at all, because it's also a representative republic. Does it matter that much whether the phrase you accept is "overthrowing democracy" or "overthrowing the legitimate government"?
Because it's beyond silly to call assertion of the will of the people an overthrow of democracy?
It's really not, especially when you haven't actually polled all of "the people" on the question, and also when they (reasonably) delegate most sovereignty because they don't want to learn the details off every issue.
In this case, we know how the public comments were handled and ultimately discarded.
That's still not democracy. Besides, you are conflating two seriously different ideas: one is that "the people" want net neutrality, and the other is that "the people" want violent attacks on Ajit Pai. Even if the first is true, the second is certainly false, so it still makes sense to call violent attacks on Ajit Pai "subverting democracy".
Right, that's not democracy. So attacking it isn't overthrowing democracy.
To recap: you idiosyncratically define "democracy" such that the US isn't one, you cite non-democratic methods a a way of divining what "democracy" would demand, and you attempt to justify violent insurrection on the basis that the government doesn't fit your definition of "democracy". You might want to seek psychiatric help, champ.
No. I stated that Pai was not democratically elected and that his action was not consistent with democracy, so attacking him wouldn't be an overthrow of democracy. I then said it's fair enough to call a physical attack on Pai too extreme for the situation.
In other words, it would be wrong to PHYSICALLY attack Pai over this, but it would not be an overthrow of democracy. Kind of like stealing a car is wrong but it isn't murder.
Please read more carefully.
So you've spent how many comments attacking a straw man? (Hint: Maybe *you* should have read more carefully at the start of the thread. Or maybe you should just go seek that psychiatric help. Or both -- they're not exclusive, and they will probably both help.)
Not a straw man, ArmoredDragon's claim that it would be an attack on democracy. I see that you're now resorting to ad hominem attacks.
To be a strawman, I would have to have initially proposed that this would be an attack on democracy. I m not ArmoredDragon.
Never in the course of human events has so few said so much without saying anything at all.
Uh, no, ArmoredDragon's words were "this ideology of overthrowing democracy". That's different. A straw man attack is any time that you attack some version of an opponent's position that you have simplified in order to make it easier to attack.
Besides the fact that you keep misquoting ArmoredDragon, most people do not use the dim-wittedly narrow definition of "democracy" that you do, as explained by the article I linked earlier, among many others.
Attacking a high-level federal official because of their official actions is an attack on the legitimate US government and its democratic underpinnings. Most of the people who currently claim the US isn't "democratic" are only doing so in a fit of pique that their preferred candidate isn't president right now, as evidenced by your earlier raising of an irrelevant criterion for that election.
When he said that, he was necessarily characterizing OP's statemens as that.
You still resorted to Ad Hominem attacks. I await your sincere apology.
AH, unrepentant, I see. *PLONK*
An ideology of overthrowing democracy often includes things that are not specifically overthrowing democracy. So what if ArmoredDragon characterized calling for violent attacks on Ajit Pai an example of the ideology of overthrowing democracy?
The only thing I will apologize for is not immediately correcting your misunderstanding and misuse of the phrase ad hominem attack. I apologize for the delay in correcting you on that subject.
He is acting on behalf of the guy that was elected. That's pretty much the way all government jobs work. Joe Dirt doesn't vote for the clerk at the DMV, who can make decisions that have significant legal implications. Joe Dirt also doesn't vote for SCOTUS, which in many ways has more power than the president.
They are correct in that the federal government is a de-facto republic, though when you examine the US as a whole and include state and local governments, particularly in the case of referenda, we can be considered both.
All correct. Sounds like you got the idea - Pai was not elected. :-) I don't agree with the claim that that's "the opposite of democracy" though.