They were passing information to journalists so that they could help redact it. That implies that they have to pass them information that they do not want published (or they wouldn't be redacting it).
Maybe you are implying that Wikileaks should go through thousands of documents describing events that they are not familiar with and try to guess which information should be redacted and which information shouldn't without trying to enlist the help of people (journalists) who are familiar with these events. In that case I think you are the idiot.
I thought the reason it was their "first big release" and not just "the release" is that they went through and picked documents that did not need to be redacted. I don't recall anyone dying over that release (or any others for that matter). Just because they didn't redact some of the documents does not mean that they did not intend to redact others in the future.
Can't you do better than an Ad Hominem. If you don't agree with his point, then actually give him a reason why. Insulting the messenger does not lead to productive discussion. Logically fallacys are usually used by people who know they are wrong but just don't want to admit it.
Contributing back takes money and can be counter-productive for the community too - especially if it's introduces lots of buggy or bad code.
I think that is the point. If you modify the original project but do not push it back upstream, then you become responsible for maintaining it. But, if you do push it back upstream, then the fact the community has access to it benefits you. If it is buggy or bad code, then it will get fixed and you can patch your version with non-buggy, good code. If it is good code, then the community can leverage it and make more improvements beyond what you submit. Which you can then add to your version of the software. It is "stupid" for you not to use those advantages.
Now, obviously some companies will have some proprietary code that they cannot release. But, even in most of those circumstances there will be some code you have to write that doesn't have to be proprietary. And you would be "stupid" not to leverage it by pushing it upstream for the reasons I mentioned above.
I think that a lot of people assume that when "contributing back to open source" is mentioned that it is meant to be charity work. As far as businesses are concerned, it is not. A business shouldn't pay their employees to just "do work" on an open source project. They should pay their employees to fix bugs that affect their business, that need to be fixed regardless of whether you plan on contributing the bug fix to the upstream project, and then push those bugs fixes back up. The only extra cost is in the communication time with the upstream project, not from useless (for the business) coding.
Wow... you have such a well thought out counter-argument. The only good reason I have heard against is that the day would change for some people in the middle of the "day". All the other reasons I heard do not say that it is a bad idea, just that it would be too difficult because people are too set in their ways to switch. So please explain to me what is so "daft" about it. Because your comment is trying to dismiss this as a valid discussion without raising a single valid point. Very lazy of you.
Do 99.9% of people work ONLY with people in their own time zone? You don't have to be on the other side of the world for time zones to be inconvenient. One hour to the east or west is just as bad.
I could be wrong but I was under the impression that Wikileaks (and I am assuming that OpenLeaks is the same way) does not promise to release information. They promise not to reveal their sources, but they reserve the right redact or not release information if they feel should not be released to the public.
Certainly none of this is a shock to anyone, but I don't get why Google feels the need to come up with G+ and compete with Facebook. Stick to fscking search, stick to what you're best at. I don't understand this Microsoft mentality of "Oh, we didn't have this first and make money with it? Lets do one of our own! And fire the people in charge of marketing and precognition. They should have known social networking would become such a huge hit."
Google is an advertising company, not a search company. They made a very good search engine so that they could make money off of advertising. Their main strength is data mining so that they can target their customers' (advertisers) ads. They need to keep as many markets accessible as possible so that they can continue to grow their advertising business and continue to have access to information to data mine. When they could not answer search queries and sell advertising on the iPhone, they created android. Since they cannot data mine and sell advertising on Facebook, they created Google+. Gmail is the first market that they pushed into aside from searching where they were successful. Android has also been quite successful (especially if your metric for success is how many more search results go through google). I think that Google+ is one of those things that Google has to be successful with to stay competitive and continue to grow, and I think they realize that. So, even if Google+ does end up failing, I think that Google will keep throwing resources and money at the problem until it is successful. That is why we now have Google+ even though they failed with Buzz (and Wave?).
You cannot predict when a given atom will decay, but you can get a very accurate guess of what percent will decay over a given period of time. This is why radioactive material decay is given in half-life increments. You might have a good point about temperature, though.
440,00 tons is just in the US. I just did a similar back-of-envelope calculation and calculated that the US could support its current consumption for 14,000 years on 440,000 tons of thorium.
440,000(tons) * 907,184.74(g/ton) * 7,500(gal/g) / 31(gal/bbl) / 19,000,000(bbl/day) / 365(days/year) = 13,925 years
I assumed that a bbl of oil gets converted to a bbl of gasoline, which is a very conservative assumption.
I disagree. If you want to have an open relationship and are fine with it, then more power to you. But jealousy related to non-monogamous partners is not a "social meme". And most marriage ceremonies (or similar human bonding rituals) include a promise to be monogamous. So, in general, sexual activity is very closely related to honesty and trust.
There are many reasons why humans would have evolved to prefer a monogamous relationship, and, from the fact that almost all cultures enforce monogamous relationships, it can be concluded that social norms were created due to human nature, rather than human behavior being molded by social norms (at least in this instance). So, unless you have any cite-able proof that jealousy is a learned behavior and not a natural emotion, then I am going to have to say that your argument is wrong.
If you are so good at programming that you do not need a general education, then you should also not need a piece of paper that says you got a general education (a BS).
The market can provide him with the solution he is asking for. It is called a vocational school. But, that is not what he wants. He wants a degree that says he is a well-rounded person without actually proving to the school that he is.
A degree is a piece of paper from a school saying that the person holding it is educated to their standards. University standards include the gen-Ed requirements and that is why employers give them higher weight. His values don't matter. If he can't parallel park, then I don't think he should get a drivers license because his values don't include parallel parking. If he wants a BS, then he should just go and complete the requirements.
But, if he is actually just interested in the education, then he should go to a vocational school.
And you passed your classes, correct? The school wants to make sure that you have a basic knowledge in general and then specific knowledge in your specialty. Trade schools can allow a student to graduate who can code like a demon but cannot use correct grammar in their writing, because they are not selling a well-rounded education. If someone came out of MIT and could not use basic grammar correctly in their writing, I would lose a lot of respect for that school.
I think that you have it backwards. If we let everyone in this country who wanted to come, then they would have no problem going through a drug search or whatever when they cross the border. But, their only option is to do it illegally. So, if you are already breaking the law to get yourself into this country, why not make a little cash in the process. Also, if there are thousands of people crossing the border each day, you are much less likely to catch the 10 or 20 who are carrying drugs. If you make it so that many normally law-abiding citizens break the law, you only make it easier for similar, but more severe, crimes to be committed. The same thing can be said of File-Sharing and Marijuana. Actually, the biggest blow you could give to the drug-lords in Mexico would be to open the borders (but still require that people crossing the border go through a checkpoint) and legalize Marijuana.
Blocking an app's ability to use Facebook integration would probably behave in one of two ways. Either it would act as if you are not signed into a Facebook account on your phone, or that you don't have the Facebook app installed. If either of these cause an app that didn't previously have Facebook integration to crash, then you are talking about some pretty shitty coders.
Or the developer could write the app so that if it can't connect to the internet to get ads, then the app doesn't work (or only work for a limited amount of time, ect.). The ecosystem will adapt.
I cannot give you an absolute number. I do not believe in absolute numbers. But the good thing about the american government is that it is flexible. While it would be nice if I could give you a formula to implement my ideal tax system, I do not know what that formula is, and even if I did, I do not think it would be a good idea to use it. I think, as you say, we should have a defined tax rate that is set by congress. But, congress should not be striving to find the "perfect" tax rate. Instead, they should adjust it over time based upon the results of it. Here is what I think we should do now. Simplify the tax code and close all of the loopholes that allow the rich in this country to avoid paying taxes. Ideally make unearned income be taxed MORE than earned income. But, a first step would be to just tax it the same as earned income (instead of 15%). Also, repeal the Bush tax cuts for the highest tax bracket (I actually would be in favor of repealing all of them so that we could actually balance the budget). Or maybe even increase it by a point or two. Also, drop the estate tax from $5 million to between $1 and $2 million and close the loopholes.
Is that specific enough for you?
Now that I have told you what I believe, it is your turn? What level of income inequality do you believe in? How little taxes should the rich pay? What do you think is "fair"?
Someone modded this down to -1 but honestly, I'd like an answer to this question myself. It really is a simple question. It's also a legitimate question. Answering a legitimate question would be much more respectable than modding it down and hoping it goes away like an insecure person. So, is anyone of the Progressive persuasion willing to put numbers to this?
It was posted AC. They are guilty until proven innocent as far as trolling is concerned.
What I want is for someone who truly believes in Progressivism to attempt a real answer at this question, even if you sincerely feel that no politician is adequately representing your position: at what point would you be satisfied and feel that you have gotten everything you wanted with regard to the tax code?
I believe in income redistribution when it comes to the tax code. Let me get that out right up front. Globalization has been very good to the United States. I have not seen any economists argue that we should have or should now economically isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. But, the middle class and lower class has not benefited from Globalization. All the money and power has gone to the Upper-Middle and Upper classes. That is why income inequality is so high in this country. In the 60s and 70s, the difference between a CEO salary and the average worker salary was something like 20:1 or 30:1. Now it is somewhere around 300:1. They are getting most of the benefits from our system of government. Why should they not shoulder the higher tax burden?
My view of the "American Dream" is that it should not matter where you start in life. If you are the best, smartest, and hardest working then you should be able to become one of the richest. And you can measure this by measuring Intergenerational Mobility. And you find that the US ranks pretty low on the list. If you are rich in the US, then your descendants probably will be as well, no matter how stupid or lazy they are.
The tax system that I would theoretically like to have (though would have no idea the best way to actually implement it) would be one that aims to have a income distribution in the population (most likely would be a poisson distribution). If the rich are getting richer, and the middle class is getting left behind, then the rich should be taxed more (relatively). If there are not enough poor people, then the middle class should be taxed more (relatively). I am leaving out of the discussion how much taxes we should aim to collect. I am positing a system that stays revenue neutral. Now, I still want poor people. I think that we should build in opportunities for them to make something of themselves, but I still want people to be motivated to work knowing that if they don't their life will be uncomfortable. But, I also want the working man to have the incentive to work real hard, knowing that a few rich families at the top do not have a monopoly on real wealth. I do not want to assign an arbitrary tax percentage that is "enough". It is enough when it makes this a better country.
Also, I want to correct the previous post. The 40% do not "not only pay no taxes but actually get credits". They get a credit on their federal income taxes. They still pay FICA taxes (medicare and social security) which account for 15% if you count what the employer has to "match". They also pay sales taxes, possible state income taxes, gas taxes, property taxes, and whatever other taxes there are. I would also like to point out that those taxes tend to be regressive taxes. So, as a percentage of income, the middle class and below pays a much higher amount of tax than the upper class does.
I hope that was the kind of response you were asking for.
Wow! There have been 2.5 Trillion in private investment in R&D in the internet!!!
There has been all of that investment in INFRASTRUCTURE because the GOVERNMENT took the risk to invest in the IDEAS. You are comparing apple seeds to apple orchards to try to confuse the conversation. The fact is that without government investment in the internet it would not exist as it is today.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from starting your own broadband company, and then charging a flat rate with absolutely no limits on usage.
Wrong. Internet infrastructure still requires a wire so it has the same problem as power companies. You are not going to allow 5 different power companies to run power poles through your neighborhood. So, the company that owns the power poles can charge whatever they want. That is why we have government. To protect the consumer from abuses by companies in areas that are in natural monopolies. Same thing for internet infrastructure. I remember when my neighborhood had the infrastructure put in. They were hitting gas lines and cutting power lines every day or two. People's lawns got dug up. Were they asked for permission? No, the local municipality used their easements to give the ISP the right to dig through people's lawns without paying for it. You think people will allow that to happen 3 or 4 more times (to have true competition you need at least 4 or 5 companies competing against each other).
You want a centrally managed economy that prevents Eeeevil companies from competing with each other and trying to price things to win your business while managing to also stay in business.
No, I want companies to compete for my business. It isn't happening. Please name for me the 4 or 5 companies that are competing in your neighborhood for your business. Because if it is just Comcast and AT&T, then they are getting rich while you got slow internet. The free market provides excellent service, price, and innovation when there is a lot of competition. This is because PROFITABILITY requires good service, low prices, and innovation. When there is little or no competition (monopoly or oligopoly) then those things are no longer sources of PROFIT. The profit comes from reducing costs (bad service), increasing income (high prices), and stifling competition (preventing innovation). They are not evil. They are looking after their shareholders. It is government's job to look after the consumers (the people).
You do realize that your whole argument is "Liberals want this and Liberals are evil so it must be bad", right. That is not a valid argument. Also, you are gonna have to give me some sort of citation that shows that they will use net neutrality to regulate political content. Just because you say it does not make it true.
The Republicans have done nothing of worth since they were elected besides cut a couple of tenths of a percent from the budget. And in response all you can do is talk about the Democrats. If you want me to argue how the Democrats did NOT go back on all of their campaign promises then I will. But I just want to point out that the fact that you are trying to shift the conversation away from the original debate shows that you know you will lose it.
Slashdot Mirror
They were passing information to journalists so that they could help redact it. That implies that they have to pass them information that they do not want published (or they wouldn't be redacting it).
Maybe you are implying that Wikileaks should go through thousands of documents describing events that they are not familiar with and try to guess which information should be redacted and which information shouldn't without trying to enlist the help of people (journalists) who are familiar with these events. In that case I think you are the idiot.
I thought the reason it was their "first big release" and not just "the release" is that they went through and picked documents that did not need to be redacted. I don't recall anyone dying over that release (or any others for that matter). Just because they didn't redact some of the documents does not mean that they did not intend to redact others in the future.
Can't you do better than an Ad Hominem. If you don't agree with his point, then actually give him a reason why. Insulting the messenger does not lead to productive discussion. Logically fallacys are usually used by people who know they are wrong but just don't want to admit it.
Yeah, because there is no history of something like that happening.
Contributing back takes money and can be counter-productive for the community too - especially if it's introduces lots of buggy or bad code.
I think that is the point. If you modify the original project but do not push it back upstream, then you become responsible for maintaining it. But, if you do push it back upstream, then the fact the community has access to it benefits you. If it is buggy or bad code, then it will get fixed and you can patch your version with non-buggy, good code. If it is good code, then the community can leverage it and make more improvements beyond what you submit. Which you can then add to your version of the software. It is "stupid" for you not to use those advantages.
Now, obviously some companies will have some proprietary code that they cannot release. But, even in most of those circumstances there will be some code you have to write that doesn't have to be proprietary. And you would be "stupid" not to leverage it by pushing it upstream for the reasons I mentioned above.
I think that a lot of people assume that when "contributing back to open source" is mentioned that it is meant to be charity work. As far as businesses are concerned, it is not. A business shouldn't pay their employees to just "do work" on an open source project. They should pay their employees to fix bugs that affect their business, that need to be fixed regardless of whether you plan on contributing the bug fix to the upstream project, and then push those bugs fixes back up. The only extra cost is in the communication time with the upstream project, not from useless (for the business) coding.
Is probably at work and does not have headphones.
Wow... you have such a well thought out counter-argument. The only good reason I have heard against is that the day would change for some people in the middle of the "day". All the other reasons I heard do not say that it is a bad idea, just that it would be too difficult because people are too set in their ways to switch. So please explain to me what is so "daft" about it. Because your comment is trying to dismiss this as a valid discussion without raising a single valid point. Very lazy of you.
Do 99.9% of people work ONLY with people in their own time zone? You don't have to be on the other side of the world for time zones to be inconvenient. One hour to the east or west is just as bad.
I could be wrong but I was under the impression that Wikileaks (and I am assuming that OpenLeaks is the same way) does not promise to release information. They promise not to reveal their sources, but they reserve the right redact or not release information if they feel should not be released to the public.
Certainly none of this is a shock to anyone, but I don't get why Google feels the need to come up with G+ and compete with Facebook. Stick to fscking search, stick to what you're best at. I don't understand this Microsoft mentality of "Oh, we didn't have this first and make money with it? Lets do one of our own! And fire the people in charge of marketing and precognition. They should have known social networking would become such a huge hit."
Google is an advertising company, not a search company. They made a very good search engine so that they could make money off of advertising. Their main strength is data mining so that they can target their customers' (advertisers) ads. They need to keep as many markets accessible as possible so that they can continue to grow their advertising business and continue to have access to information to data mine. When they could not answer search queries and sell advertising on the iPhone, they created android. Since they cannot data mine and sell advertising on Facebook, they created Google+. Gmail is the first market that they pushed into aside from searching where they were successful. Android has also been quite successful (especially if your metric for success is how many more search results go through google). I think that Google+ is one of those things that Google has to be successful with to stay competitive and continue to grow, and I think they realize that. So, even if Google+ does end up failing, I think that Google will keep throwing resources and money at the problem until it is successful. That is why we now have Google+ even though they failed with Buzz (and Wave?).
You cannot predict when a given atom will decay, but you can get a very accurate guess of what percent will decay over a given period of time. This is why radioactive material decay is given in half-life increments. You might have a good point about temperature, though.
440,00 tons is just in the US. I just did a similar back-of-envelope calculation and calculated that the US could support its current consumption for 14,000 years on 440,000 tons of thorium. 440,000(tons) * 907,184.74(g/ton) * 7,500(gal/g) / 31(gal/bbl) / 19,000,000(bbl/day) / 365(days/year) = 13,925 years I assumed that a bbl of oil gets converted to a bbl of gasoline, which is a very conservative assumption.
I disagree. If you want to have an open relationship and are fine with it, then more power to you. But jealousy related to non-monogamous partners is not a "social meme". And most marriage ceremonies (or similar human bonding rituals) include a promise to be monogamous. So, in general, sexual activity is very closely related to honesty and trust.
There are many reasons why humans would have evolved to prefer a monogamous relationship, and, from the fact that almost all cultures enforce monogamous relationships, it can be concluded that social norms were created due to human nature, rather than human behavior being molded by social norms (at least in this instance). So, unless you have any cite-able proof that jealousy is a learned behavior and not a natural emotion, then I am going to have to say that your argument is wrong.
If you are so good at programming that you do not need a general education, then you should also not need a piece of paper that says you got a general education (a BS).
The market can provide him with the solution he is asking for. It is called a vocational school. But, that is not what he wants. He wants a degree that says he is a well-rounded person without actually proving to the school that he is.
A degree is a piece of paper from a school saying that the person holding it is educated to their standards. University standards include the gen-Ed requirements and that is why employers give them higher weight. His values don't matter. If he can't parallel park, then I don't think he should get a drivers license because his values don't include parallel parking. If he wants a BS, then he should just go and complete the requirements.
But, if he is actually just interested in the education, then he should go to a vocational school.
And you passed your classes, correct? The school wants to make sure that you have a basic knowledge in general and then specific knowledge in your specialty. Trade schools can allow a student to graduate who can code like a demon but cannot use correct grammar in their writing, because they are not selling a well-rounded education. If someone came out of MIT and could not use basic grammar correctly in their writing, I would lose a lot of respect for that school.
I think that you have it backwards. If we let everyone in this country who wanted to come, then they would have no problem going through a drug search or whatever when they cross the border. But, their only option is to do it illegally. So, if you are already breaking the law to get yourself into this country, why not make a little cash in the process. Also, if there are thousands of people crossing the border each day, you are much less likely to catch the 10 or 20 who are carrying drugs. If you make it so that many normally law-abiding citizens break the law, you only make it easier for similar, but more severe, crimes to be committed. The same thing can be said of File-Sharing and Marijuana. Actually, the biggest blow you could give to the drug-lords in Mexico would be to open the borders (but still require that people crossing the border go through a checkpoint) and legalize Marijuana.
Blocking an app's ability to use Facebook integration would probably behave in one of two ways. Either it would act as if you are not signed into a Facebook account on your phone, or that you don't have the Facebook app installed. If either of these cause an app that didn't previously have Facebook integration to crash, then you are talking about some pretty shitty coders.
Or the developer could write the app so that if it can't connect to the internet to get ads, then the app doesn't work (or only work for a limited amount of time, ect.). The ecosystem will adapt.
I cannot give you an absolute number. I do not believe in absolute numbers. But the good thing about the american government is that it is flexible. While it would be nice if I could give you a formula to implement my ideal tax system, I do not know what that formula is, and even if I did, I do not think it would be a good idea to use it. I think, as you say, we should have a defined tax rate that is set by congress. But, congress should not be striving to find the "perfect" tax rate. Instead, they should adjust it over time based upon the results of it. Here is what I think we should do now. Simplify the tax code and close all of the loopholes that allow the rich in this country to avoid paying taxes. Ideally make unearned income be taxed MORE than earned income. But, a first step would be to just tax it the same as earned income (instead of 15%). Also, repeal the Bush tax cuts for the highest tax bracket (I actually would be in favor of repealing all of them so that we could actually balance the budget). Or maybe even increase it by a point or two. Also, drop the estate tax from $5 million to between $1 and $2 million and close the loopholes.
Is that specific enough for you?
Now that I have told you what I believe, it is your turn? What level of income inequality do you believe in? How little taxes should the rich pay? What do you think is "fair"?
Someone modded this down to -1 but honestly, I'd like an answer to this question myself. It really is a simple question. It's also a legitimate question. Answering a legitimate question would be much more respectable than modding it down and hoping it goes away like an insecure person. So, is anyone of the Progressive persuasion willing to put numbers to this?
It was posted AC. They are guilty until proven innocent as far as trolling is concerned.
What I want is for someone who truly believes in Progressivism to attempt a real answer at this question, even if you sincerely feel that no politician is adequately representing your position: at what point would you be satisfied and feel that you have gotten everything you wanted with regard to the tax code?
I believe in income redistribution when it comes to the tax code. Let me get that out right up front. Globalization has been very good to the United States. I have not seen any economists argue that we should have or should now economically isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. But, the middle class and lower class has not benefited from Globalization. All the money and power has gone to the Upper-Middle and Upper classes. That is why income inequality is so high in this country. In the 60s and 70s, the difference between a CEO salary and the average worker salary was something like 20:1 or 30:1. Now it is somewhere around 300:1. They are getting most of the benefits from our system of government. Why should they not shoulder the higher tax burden?
My view of the "American Dream" is that it should not matter where you start in life. If you are the best, smartest, and hardest working then you should be able to become one of the richest. And you can measure this by measuring Intergenerational Mobility. And you find that the US ranks pretty low on the list. If you are rich in the US, then your descendants probably will be as well, no matter how stupid or lazy they are.
The tax system that I would theoretically like to have (though would have no idea the best way to actually implement it) would be one that aims to have a income distribution in the population (most likely would be a poisson distribution). If the rich are getting richer, and the middle class is getting left behind, then the rich should be taxed more (relatively). If there are not enough poor people, then the middle class should be taxed more (relatively). I am leaving out of the discussion how much taxes we should aim to collect. I am positing a system that stays revenue neutral. Now, I still want poor people. I think that we should build in opportunities for them to make something of themselves, but I still want people to be motivated to work knowing that if they don't their life will be uncomfortable. But, I also want the working man to have the incentive to work real hard, knowing that a few rich families at the top do not have a monopoly on real wealth. I do not want to assign an arbitrary tax percentage that is "enough". It is enough when it makes this a better country.
Also, I want to correct the previous post. The 40% do not "not only pay no taxes but actually get credits". They get a credit on their federal income taxes. They still pay FICA taxes (medicare and social security) which account for 15% if you count what the employer has to "match". They also pay sales taxes, possible state income taxes, gas taxes, property taxes, and whatever other taxes there are. I would also like to point out that those taxes tend to be regressive taxes. So, as a percentage of income, the middle class and below pays a much higher amount of tax than the upper class does.
I hope that was the kind of response you were asking for.
Wow! There have been 2.5 Trillion in private investment in R&D in the internet!!!
There has been all of that investment in INFRASTRUCTURE because the GOVERNMENT took the risk to invest in the IDEAS. You are comparing apple seeds to apple orchards to try to confuse the conversation. The fact is that without government investment in the internet it would not exist as it is today.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from starting your own broadband company, and then charging a flat rate with absolutely no limits on usage.
Wrong. Internet infrastructure still requires a wire so it has the same problem as power companies. You are not going to allow 5 different power companies to run power poles through your neighborhood. So, the company that owns the power poles can charge whatever they want. That is why we have government. To protect the consumer from abuses by companies in areas that are in natural monopolies. Same thing for internet infrastructure. I remember when my neighborhood had the infrastructure put in. They were hitting gas lines and cutting power lines every day or two. People's lawns got dug up. Were they asked for permission? No, the local municipality used their easements to give the ISP the right to dig through people's lawns without paying for it. You think people will allow that to happen 3 or 4 more times (to have true competition you need at least 4 or 5 companies competing against each other).
You want a centrally managed economy that prevents Eeeevil companies from competing with each other and trying to price things to win your business while managing to also stay in business.
No, I want companies to compete for my business. It isn't happening. Please name for me the 4 or 5 companies that are competing in your neighborhood for your business. Because if it is just Comcast and AT&T, then they are getting rich while you got slow internet. The free market provides excellent service, price, and innovation when there is a lot of competition. This is because PROFITABILITY requires good service, low prices, and innovation. When there is little or no competition (monopoly or oligopoly) then those things are no longer sources of PROFIT. The profit comes from reducing costs (bad service), increasing income (high prices), and stifling competition (preventing innovation). They are not evil. They are looking after their shareholders. It is government's job to look after the consumers (the people).
You do realize that your whole argument is "Liberals want this and Liberals are evil so it must be bad", right. That is not a valid argument. Also, you are gonna have to give me some sort of citation that shows that they will use net neutrality to regulate political content. Just because you say it does not make it true.
The Republicans have done nothing of worth since they were elected besides cut a couple of tenths of a percent from the budget. And in response all you can do is talk about the Democrats. If you want me to argue how the Democrats did NOT go back on all of their campaign promises then I will. But I just want to point out that the fact that you are trying to shift the conversation away from the original debate shows that you know you will lose it.