The public has a right to expect public oversight of the Internet, because the public paid for it. The Internet was devloped with taxpayer dollars, and fiber is run across public land, and even private land with the use of eminent domain. So when big business plans to turn the Internet into a money minting machine for their own benefit at the expense of the public's, the government needs to step in and put a stop to it.
The problem with Libertarianism's deregulation-for-the-sake-of-deregulation is that nature, and the economy, abhors a vacuum. Government officials, while frequently corrupt and incompetent, are at least answerable to the public. Corporate officials, while frequently corrupt and incompetent, are not. If the government is unable to regulate, business will step in and do their own regulating - with only their own interests in mind. Which is not to say that everything should be regulated, but that even Libertarians are probably happy they no longer have to rent their phones from AT&T.
They didn't compain about fraud because Democrats don't run Diebold, and they didn't ask for recounts because they didn't think they'd win anyway. If Burns or Allen thought there was a snowball's chance in hell that they could win on a recount, you can bet your ass they would have demanded them. As for whining, keep this fact in mind: if there had been a full statewide recount of the votes in Florida in 2000, Gore would have won the electoral vote as well as the popular vote.
Now that Republicans are having problems voting too (at least one candidate for govenor and one candidate for Congress), hopefully there will be a bipartisan movement for accurate, annonymous, verfiable voting methods, like Oregon's vote-by-mail system. And that severe penalties will imposed on attempts at disenfranchisng voters, like robo-calling them to say their location has changed or that they will be arrested if they show up.
because the first 2 haven't been already? What has bush really done? He's sent troops to iraq, and... Everything else that he's tried to push through has failed. Remember Social Security reform? Immigration reform? nothing.
Yup, we know. But he's had a Republican majority in Congress that has been more interested in covering up for him and rubber stamping his power grabs. What's been leaked to the press (NSA wiretapping, secret prisons) is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Democrats wont be able to override Bush's veto, but they will be able to force him to make moderate appointments and do the investigations that the Republicans have refused to do.
They are pandering to the unions, where too many contracts and prevailing wages are based somewhat on the minimum wage and seniority, rather than the actual ability to do a job well.
As opposed to the privatly owned company I work for in a right-to-work state, where the annual wage increases for the average employee are half the rate of inflation. If you are a flawless workaholic, you get wage increases that match the rate of inflation, but only to a certain point.
If you are in a union and work hard, you advance just like you would at any non-union business: you apply for a higher position. But thanks for the bit of anti-union propoganda that was old 60 years ago.
So now, everything that relies on minimum wage labor will go up in price.
Or maybe businesses will have to make some sacrifices rather than expecting their workers to bend over and take one for the team.
A raise in minimum wage is, in effect, a pay cut for everyone else.
Nope. More money in the hands of the lower class = more consumer spending = more business for any business. Or as Kennedy put it, "a rising tide lifts all boats." I would like to see all the big business Republicans who rail against minimum wage to try living on it for a year.
It's Iraqi. And there are power stations and schools being built, clean watter running for the first time in decades, children being fed and given medicine and many other things that are happening that are simply not interesting enough to make the headlines.
Because those things are WORSE now than BEFORE Saddam was deposed.
Power staying on for 24 hrs is simply not headline material.
It might be if it happens. So far, they haven't come close. Baghdad used to have power between 20 and 24 hours a day. Now it's more like 2-4. And that's not even taking into consideration the sectarian civil war and the 650,000 Iraqis that have died since the U.S. invasion. They would have been better off with Saddam.
Bush still has the VETO stamp. Its been sitting in his desk draw barely used for the last 6 years. I am sure it is going to get a major workout in the next two.
So will Congress's power to investigate, which has been sorley underutilized the last 6 years. While Bush is busily vetoing bills from Democrats (or doing his "signing statement" bullshit), Democrats will be meerily delivering sopeanas to various Administration officials.
Many minority groups are similarly ill-served by the Democrats who purport to represent them.
How so. Democrats have a good history of sticking up for and respecting their special interest groups. The problem is it's not enough to win them many elections. As Howard Dean said, the Democratic party isn't really a party anymore, it's just a collection of special interest groups. That's one of the things he's trying to change.
We already tried the independant state thing with the Articles of Confederation, and it was a dismal falilure. Strong federal government isn't the problem - see FEMA (under Clinton), the Tennessee Valley Authority, the FDA - bad politicians are the problem. And you can have those in a state or local government just as easily as in a national government. If you're up on your state's political history, I'm sure you could rattle off some corrupt govenors or a few scandals in your legislature.
Democrats lost no govenorships, state legislatures or national races in which they were defending. The Republicans on the other hand, lost big time. Oh yeah, and plenty of other blog backed candidates cruised to victory. Yes, you have your little opportunist Lieberman to throw some bones your way now and then, but you'll be faced with supoenas from both the Senate and the House. How do you like THEM apples?
As a believer in liberty, limited government, and rule of law, I'm no fan of the Democrats.
Why, they are infinitely superior to the current batch of Repulicans in those reguards.
And the less that gets done, the better off all of us are.
Which would be great if we didn't need government to take action on important issues. You know, the reason we have a government in the first place. Examples: food and drug saftey, disaster prepardness, public infrastructure, national defense.
Fewer taxes get raised.
Reagan and the Bushes have given us the most monumental tax increases in the history of this country, by giving us trillion dollar defecits. The only question is when it comes. And the longer we wait, the worse it will be.
Fewer obstacles are placed in the path of economic growth and prosperity.
A certain amount of regulation is necessary for both.
When is someone going to start a MODERATE third party?
We already have one: they're called Democrats. The GOP has gone so far to the right they are head and shoulders into facism territory. Secret prisons, warrantless spying, indefinite detentions w/o trial, suspending habeas corpus, torture, you-are-with-us-or-you're-with-the-terrorists rhetoric. Yup, facists. To get a left-wing party going in this country, we'd have to get Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to immigrate to the United States and form a political party.
I could stomach the small religious right side b/c they were the party of small gov., lower taxes, and free market enterprise. Now, the republicans and dems are virtually the same when it comes to fiscal policy (spend, spend, spend)
Remind us again which president had the last balanced budget? A surplus? Reduced the size of the federal government? Then how about which party invented the trillion dollar defecit? Republican only believe in "fiscal responsibility" as an election slogan.
If you think the Democrats didn't play the "We're in charge and you are NOT!" game when they were in power, then you are either too young to remember or not paying attention.
And *you* have not been paying attention if you think the two parties are on the same level in that reguard. They aren't even on the same planet. For examples, see Orrin Hatch demanding that for judicial nominations, both home state senators had to endorse a Clinton nominee - something that Democrats did not do for Bush I or Reagan, or any other Republican president. Democrats never threatned to go "nuclear" over a Republican filibuster.
The DMCA isn't the best example, as many Democrats pushed for it and Clinton signed it. There are a lot better examples to choose from, I'm surprised you didn't use them. For example, trying to end habeas corpus.
First of all, on most issues he was pretty solidly left of center.
Except for the slight problem that "center" is solidly "conservative". To get some balance back to the political system we'd need to get Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to immigrate and get elected to Congress.
I agree. The lesson of the election is the centrists.
You must be a Democratic campaign consultant. You know, the kind that needs to be slapped across the face and then fired. The whole "move to the center" has done nothing but cost Democrats elections. And that's because when you people say "center", you really mean "conservative". And why should voters elect Bud Light Republicans when they can have the real thing.
The Democrats didn't take the election with a slate of far-left, DailyKos candidates on the coasts.
You wouldn't know far-left if Kim Jung Il walked up and bit you in the face. Kos used to be a Republican. Nixon is a socialist pot smoking hippie next to today's Republican politicians. But in any case, you're just repeating the Republican spin. And as is usually the case, the Republican spin doesn't have anything to do with reality.
Just as the Republicans gained power in 1994 with (more-or-less) centrist candidates, and then lost it as they kept going too far to the right.
More Republican spin, and as usuall, it has nothing to do with reality. The GOP class of '94 was just as right wing, and just as corrupt as the GOP today. They were just stuck with a Democratic president who wasn't afraid to check and balance their excesses, and they hadn't yet had a decade to prove their incompetence in every area except getting elected.
However, I don't think that many Democrats are the way you think they are. Many of them are quite Socialist, pro-unions, contra school choice (as in getting vouchers in return for your hard-earned tax dollars).
Yeah, a lot of stupid people have that opinion. The simple truth is that the Democratic party today is far to the right of where the Republican party was 30-40 years ago. Nixon is practically a communist compared to today's GOP.
This country's concepts of "left", "right" and "center" need a complete enima. To balance out today's Republican party, we'd have to get Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to move to the United States, and enter Congress. Along with their extended families.
The only reason Clinton accomplished anything was because congress was controlled by Republicans.
How do you figure. He had to fight them tooth and nail on just about any issue, and they would launch hearings into his administration if he so much as farted in an elevator.
the Democrats are just as bad when they are in power.
No, they aren't. Sure, there are corrupt Democrats...Rostenkowski spent some time in jail, and unless he flees the country, Jefferson will too. But they aren't organized when they do it. Democrats never had a K Street. Pelosi (who by the way stripped Jefferson of his committee posts, as opposed to Republicans who rewrote ethics rules to let Tom Delay stay on as majority leader) has promised strict new ethics rules for Congress. If Democrats have any brains, they'll do that ASAP before they get complacent and the next Rostenkowski or Jefferson pops up.
Not long ago the Democrats (Clinton & Gore spearheading) were pushing for Clipper as a way to spy on all Americans and prevent anyone from having privacy and cryptography.
Not quite. They weren't preventing people from having privacy or crypto, they just wanted the FBI to be able to access information as easily as they can tap a telephone. Yes it was a horrible idea, but it's not even in the same universe as indefinte detentions, NSA wirtapping, torture, and trying to kill habeas corpus.
You would have just as much corruption with a dozen parties as we do with two, and gridlock would be a lot worse. 3rd parties are a red herring, much like term limits.
The reason no one votes for the third parties is that the US does not have a moderate third party; they're all extreme left or extreme Libertarian.
No, the real problem with the States is all the people who consider conservative to be "extreme left". Nixon would be a veritable communist in today's GOP.
Slashdot Mirror
everything is political. Everything.
The public has a right to expect public oversight of the Internet, because the public paid for it. The Internet was devloped with taxpayer dollars, and fiber is run across public land, and even private land with the use of eminent domain. So when big business plans to turn the Internet into a money minting machine for their own benefit at the expense of the public's, the government needs to step in and put a stop to it.
The problem with Libertarianism's deregulation-for-the-sake-of-deregulation is that nature, and the economy, abhors a vacuum. Government officials, while frequently corrupt and incompetent, are at least answerable to the public. Corporate officials, while frequently corrupt and incompetent, are not. If the government is unable to regulate, business will step in and do their own regulating - with only their own interests in mind. Which is not to say that everything should be regulated, but that even Libertarians are probably happy they no longer have to rent their phones from AT&T.
They didn't compain about fraud because Democrats don't run Diebold, and they didn't ask for recounts because they didn't think they'd win anyway. If Burns or Allen thought there was a snowball's chance in hell that they could win on a recount, you can bet your ass they would have demanded them. As for whining, keep this fact in mind: if there had been a full statewide recount of the votes in Florida in 2000, Gore would have won the electoral vote as well as the popular vote.
Now that Republicans are having problems voting too (at least one candidate for govenor and one candidate for Congress), hopefully there will be a bipartisan movement for accurate, annonymous, verfiable voting methods, like Oregon's vote-by-mail system. And that severe penalties will imposed on attempts at disenfranchisng voters, like robo-calling them to say their location has changed or that they will be arrested if they show up.
Because Stevens wasn't making an analogy. That's how he actually sees the Internet. Any more questions?
Both are basically the same despite their rhetoric.
That was a stupid thing for Nader to say in 2000, and the last six years have proved him to be a complete moron.
because the first 2 haven't been already? What has bush really done? He's sent troops to iraq, and ... Everything else that he's tried to push through has failed. Remember Social Security reform? Immigration reform? nothing.
Yup, we know. But he's had a Republican majority in Congress that has been more interested in covering up for him and rubber stamping his power grabs. What's been leaked to the press (NSA wiretapping, secret prisons) is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Democrats wont be able to override Bush's veto, but they will be able to force him to make moderate appointments and do the investigations that the Republicans have refused to do.
They are pandering to the unions, where too many contracts and prevailing wages are based somewhat on the minimum wage and seniority, rather than the actual ability to do a job well.
As opposed to the privatly owned company I work for in a right-to-work state, where the annual wage increases for the average employee are half the rate of inflation. If you are a flawless workaholic, you get wage increases that match the rate of inflation, but only to a certain point.
If you are in a union and work hard, you advance just like you would at any non-union business: you apply for a higher position. But thanks for the bit of anti-union propoganda that was old 60 years ago.
So now, everything that relies on minimum wage labor will go up in price.
Or maybe businesses will have to make some sacrifices rather than expecting their workers to bend over and take one for the team.
A raise in minimum wage is, in effect, a pay cut for everyone else.
Nope. More money in the hands of the lower class = more consumer spending = more business for any business. Or as Kennedy put it, "a rising tide lifts all boats." I would like to see all the big business Republicans who rail against minimum wage to try living on it for a year.
It's Iraqi. And there are power stations and schools being built, clean watter running for the first time in decades, children being fed and given medicine and many other things that are happening that are simply not interesting enough to make the headlines.
Because those things are WORSE now than BEFORE Saddam was deposed.
Power staying on for 24 hrs is simply not headline material.
It might be if it happens. So far, they haven't come close. Baghdad used to have power between 20 and 24 hours a day. Now it's more like 2-4. And that's not even taking into consideration the sectarian civil war and the 650,000 Iraqis that have died since the U.S. invasion. They would have been better off with Saddam.
Bush still has the VETO stamp. Its been sitting in his desk draw barely used for the last 6 years. I am sure it is going to get a major workout in the next two.
So will Congress's power to investigate, which has been sorley underutilized the last 6 years. While Bush is busily vetoing bills from Democrats (or doing his "signing statement" bullshit), Democrats will be meerily delivering sopeanas to various Administration officials.
Many minority groups are similarly ill-served by the Democrats who purport to represent them.
How so. Democrats have a good history of sticking up for and respecting their special interest groups. The problem is it's not enough to win them many elections. As Howard Dean said, the Democratic party isn't really a party anymore, it's just a collection of special interest groups. That's one of the things he's trying to change.
We already tried the independant state thing with the Articles of Confederation, and it was a dismal falilure. Strong federal government isn't the problem - see FEMA (under Clinton), the Tennessee Valley Authority, the FDA - bad politicians are the problem. And you can have those in a state or local government just as easily as in a national government. If you're up on your state's political history, I'm sure you could rattle off some corrupt govenors or a few scandals in your legislature.
Democrats lost no govenorships, state legislatures or national races in which they were defending. The Republicans on the other hand, lost big time. Oh yeah, and plenty of other blog backed candidates cruised to victory. Yes, you have your little opportunist Lieberman to throw some bones your way now and then, but you'll be faced with supoenas from both the Senate and the House. How do you like THEM apples?
love,
reality
As a believer in liberty, limited government, and rule of law, I'm no fan of the Democrats.
Why, they are infinitely superior to the current batch of Repulicans in those reguards.
And the less that gets done, the better off all of us are.
Which would be great if we didn't need government to take action on important issues. You know, the reason we have a government in the first place. Examples: food and drug saftey, disaster prepardness, public infrastructure, national defense.
Fewer taxes get raised.
Reagan and the Bushes have given us the most monumental tax increases in the history of this country, by giving us trillion dollar defecits. The only question is when it comes. And the longer we wait, the worse it will be.
Fewer obstacles are placed in the path of economic growth and prosperity.
A certain amount of regulation is necessary for both.
When is someone going to start a MODERATE third party?
We already have one: they're called Democrats. The GOP has gone so far to the right they are head and shoulders into facism territory. Secret prisons, warrantless spying, indefinite detentions w/o trial, suspending habeas corpus, torture, you-are-with-us-or-you're-with-the-terrorists rhetoric. Yup, facists. To get a left-wing party going in this country, we'd have to get Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to immigrate to the United States and form a political party.
I could stomach the small religious right side b/c they were the party of small gov., lower taxes, and free market enterprise. Now, the republicans and dems are virtually the same when it comes to fiscal policy (spend, spend, spend)
Remind us again which president had the last balanced budget? A surplus? Reduced the size of the federal government? Then how about which party invented the trillion dollar defecit? Republican only believe in "fiscal responsibility" as an election slogan.
If you think the Democrats didn't play the "We're in charge and you are NOT!" game when they were in power, then you are either too young to remember or not paying attention.
And *you* have not been paying attention if you think the two parties are on the same level in that reguard. They aren't even on the same planet. For examples, see Orrin Hatch demanding that for judicial nominations, both home state senators had to endorse a Clinton nominee - something that Democrats did not do for Bush I or Reagan, or any other Republican president. Democrats never threatned to go "nuclear" over a Republican filibuster.
The DMCA isn't the best example, as many Democrats pushed for it and Clinton signed it. There are a lot better examples to choose from, I'm surprised you didn't use them. For example, trying to end habeas corpus.
First of all, on most issues he was pretty solidly left of center.
Except for the slight problem that "center" is solidly "conservative". To get some balance back to the political system we'd need to get Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to immigrate and get elected to Congress.
I agree. The lesson of the election is the centrists.
You must be a Democratic campaign consultant. You know, the kind that needs to be slapped across the face and then fired. The whole "move to the center" has done nothing but cost Democrats elections. And that's because when you people say "center", you really mean "conservative". And why should voters elect Bud Light Republicans when they can have the real thing.
The Democrats didn't take the election with a slate of far-left, DailyKos candidates on the coasts.
You wouldn't know far-left if Kim Jung Il walked up and bit you in the face. Kos used to be a Republican. Nixon is a socialist pot smoking hippie next to today's Republican politicians. But in any case, you're just repeating the Republican spin. And as is usually the case, the Republican spin doesn't have anything to do with reality.
Just as the Republicans gained power in 1994 with (more-or-less) centrist candidates, and then lost it as they kept going too far to the right.
More Republican spin, and as usuall, it has nothing to do with reality. The GOP class of '94 was just as right wing, and just as corrupt as the GOP today. They were just stuck with a Democratic president who wasn't afraid to check and balance their excesses, and they hadn't yet had a decade to prove their incompetence in every area except getting elected.
However, I don't think that many Democrats are the way you think they are. Many of them are quite Socialist, pro-unions, contra school choice (as in getting vouchers in return for your hard-earned tax dollars).
Yeah, a lot of stupid people have that opinion. The simple truth is that the Democratic party today is far to the right of where the Republican party was 30-40 years ago. Nixon is practically a communist compared to today's GOP.
This country's concepts of "left", "right" and "center" need a complete enima. To balance out today's Republican party, we'd have to get Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to move to the United States, and enter Congress. Along with their extended families.
The only reason Clinton accomplished anything was because congress was controlled by Republicans.
How do you figure. He had to fight them tooth and nail on just about any issue, and they would launch hearings into his administration if he so much as farted in an elevator.
the Democrats are just as bad when they are in power.
No, they aren't. Sure, there are corrupt Democrats...Rostenkowski spent some time in jail, and unless he flees the country, Jefferson will too. But they aren't organized when they do it. Democrats never had a K Street. Pelosi (who by the way stripped Jefferson of his committee posts, as opposed to Republicans who rewrote ethics rules to let Tom Delay stay on as majority leader) has promised strict new ethics rules for Congress. If Democrats have any brains, they'll do that ASAP before they get complacent and the next Rostenkowski or Jefferson pops up.
Not long ago the Democrats (Clinton & Gore spearheading) were pushing for Clipper as a way to spy on all Americans and prevent anyone from having privacy and cryptography.
Not quite. They weren't preventing people from having privacy or crypto, they just wanted the FBI to be able to access information as easily as they can tap a telephone. Yes it was a horrible idea, but it's not even in the same universe as indefinte detentions, NSA wirtapping, torture, and trying to kill habeas corpus.
You would have just as much corruption with a dozen parties as we do with two, and gridlock would be a lot worse. 3rd parties are a red herring, much like term limits.
The reason no one votes for the third parties is that the US does not have a moderate third party; they're all extreme left or extreme Libertarian.
No, the real problem with the States is all the people who consider conservative to be "extreme left". Nixon would be a veritable communist in today's GOP.