Exactly what I was thinking. GP obviously doesn't understand the issue if he thinks that anti-net-neutrality meshes with being a liberal. Quite the opposite. Anti-net -neutrality is pro telecom giant monopoly, which is pretty obviously a conservative position. Get a clue.
Seeing as how Liberalism is about small government liberals should be anti net neutrality. Net neutrality is about bigger, not smaller, government
I mean, I'm against net neutrality, but I'm pretty liberal so that viewpoint meshes with my beliefs. But why are you all against it? I'm a little confused. You're against net neutrality and that coincides with you being a liberal? I'm a liberal and I support net neutrality - Verizon, AT&T, or Time Warner Cable have no right to limit the access of anyone to any type of content because they won't pony up fees to their respective carriers. Not to mention that net neutrality boils down to government regulation of business, which seems to be a core liberal value IIRC. So explain to me how your being against net neutrality meshes with your liberal beliefs.
Ah, another person who doesn't know what a real Liberal is about. Liberalism is about liberty and small government. Net neutrality isn't small government it's bigger government.
I'm a little puzzled by the anti-net-neutrality stance on slashdot. So many of you are libertarian "marketplace will solve anything" types, so I'd think that you'd be philosophically against the government stepping in to prevent what companies do with their own infrastructure.
I think you have things mixed up. Yes Libertarians are against government stepping in, and that's exactly what happens with net neutrality. The government would be stepping and saying people can't charge people for faster service. Now some who support net neutrality use the opposite argument in discribing what companies might do, degrade speed if they are not paid. "Pay us X or we will slow down your speed." As it is now I see no problem so I want government to stay out.
I mean, I'm against net neutrality, but I'm pretty liberal so that viewpoint meshes with my beliefs. But why are you all against it?
Liberal yes, if you mean the Classical Liberalism of liberty and small government.
Akamai is a distributed hosting service, not a common carrier.
This guy is seriously a professor?
He is a law professor that's an opponent of neutrality. Whether his distortions of the technology are because he knows the law better than the technology, or because he is expounding an ideologically-based viewpoint and trying to snow people over with FUD, or because of some other reasons is, I suppose, something you'll need to form your own opinion about.
As some here can attest, as we had a discussion on net neutrality yesterday, I am currently against a net neutrality law. However this guy doesn't really say why such a law is bad other than waving his arms around. It looks, smells, and tastes rotten.
The question that Marx raised that is still relevant today is: how do you keep free trade capitalism from devolving into corporate aristocracy? There are no checks and balances, it's a runaway feedback loop. Of course, his proposed solution necessarily leads to dictatorship so that won't work.
A strong court system which is vigirously used serves as the checks and balances. Another is an open market. If they think about it, most people don't think, or know, that Adam Smith was against monopolies including patents. He believed patents stiffle economic activity and that if a person could make and sale something cheaper or better than the inventor could they should be allowed to do so. Personally I disagree with this as I support patents however in today's day and age I would shorten the time patents are enforced. Ths same with copyrights. They are both supposed to encourage creativity and the progress of society, and allowing them to last the life of the patent or copyright holder, never mind until after they've died as copyrights do now, don't encourage creativity, they discourage it if anything. To encourage creativity you want to limit the time these right exists, make them continue to invent or write new things. Long patents also discourage others from making inprovements.
Your use of the "Government granted natural monopolies" is an oxymoron. Natural monopolies are those that aren't granted by the government, but exist because of the very nature of the market.
As many others who use the phrase "natural monopolies", I use it to mean things like how governments granted a monopoly to phone companies, power companies, and broadcasters. Governments gave phone and power conpanies the right of way to lay cables on public as well as private properties. Only one phone or power company is allowed to use the rights of way, if someone else wanted to offer the same service they wouldn't be able to as they can't use the right of way. The same applies to cable operators. Now this could be the big disagreement I may have with some other Libertarians, I'm beginning to think a local organization whether a nonprofit; the government; or the community itself should be who owns the local infrastructure. This would include cable, electrical, and phone lines. But then the owner must allow anybody who wants to, has the expertice and resources to, and has the finances to, will be allowed to offer any and all services the infrastructure can deliver. A good example of this is A Broadband Utopia in northeast Utah. Here a group of communities got together to build a broadband utopia. They created an organization that built out a network then opened up access to it so a business could come in and offer one or more services such as internet access, phone, and cable tv. Internet "service providers there will be offering speeds of 50 and even 100 Mb/s." All that bandwidth allows hd tv for the kids while the parents can watch another hd channel, and there's still enough bandwidth left for broadband access to the net and even for video telephone service.
In my mind, there's a good reason that the libertarians are on the ringe of economics, but you'll have to decide for yourself, and you can't do that until you know both sides of the debate.
One reason Libertarians are "on the fringe" is a matter of why the party started. The first ones were Republicans who became dissolutioned over Nixon's actions, including what he said about one of his own presidential commissions. This commission was setup to study whether hemp, marijuana, should be legalized. He said no matter what they decided he would never legalize it, which after studying it they did decide should be done. It only makes economic sense as hemp is one of if not the most industrially useful plants around. Libertarians saw how Republicans were not for
Microsoft has deep pockets and distributes enough software to fill the Mediterranean Basin. It's a good bet that they would be willing to sacrifice their own patent pool for in order to be free of the constant threat of successful multi-million dollar (or more) lawsuits from some clown who has managed to patent binary arithmetic or the use ampersands in code.
Microsoft doesn't get software patents to protect themself, the only reason to get patents to use it to make money. If the idea is to protect yourself against others saying you're violating thier patent all you have to do is to put your idea into the public domain. Then if you're sued you can point to the publication you used to prove when you used it. It's then the responsibility of the plaintif to prove they patented it prior to the date of publication.
I would expect a whole class/library/etc. would be outside of fair use, but would a function/method be?
A function or method shouldn't patented just as all software shouldn't be. Basically they are algorithms which should have no patent protection. Only implimentations, how it works, should get protection. But only if it is truly new and unique.
Software patents only benefit companies who don't actually produce a lot of software and would prefer to just go around suing. Microsoft would be better off without them.
If software patents harm Microsoft then why does MS patent software?
Not quite, I have an Alpha running NT4, which it came with. Of course because I couldn't get much software installed it was basically a waste getting it.
.com is not a US domain root, it is an international root mainly used for commerce. The US domain root is.us That's not to say the root servers aren't in the US, only that.com is international and not country specific.
I can tell you first hand that there are a lot of military families out there who love America, but despise most civilian Americans as undeserving of their freedom.
I know some in the military and thier families love America, and the military, however many only dispiase or look down on those who deride the military. This is first hand experience too, my family is one of them.
But the founders had it right, as a society in the longer term we are much better off with a smaller standing Army but with a much bigger reservoir of reserves. This promotes defense over offense and prevents an idling Army from getting resentful and ambitious. But most importantly it makes us one people in our nations defense instead of factions looking out for themselves.
Ooh, I agree. I'd rather the US have a citizen's army much like Switzerland's. There would be a small core of professionals but the bulk of the military would be the citizens. Reminds me of a country song though I can't recall who sang is, maybe Hank Williams Jr. He sings about how people support different things like different sports teams and get rowdy but that if the US is attacked we'll all fight together.
Here's the truth of the matter: Free-trade capitalism serves one valid purpose in our society, and that is to make money for the shareholders of corporations. It has exactly dick to do with improving life, and if success in capitalism comes at the cost of someone else's quality of life or long term wellbeing, there is nothing free-trade capitalism will do about it.
Is that what you really believe? That is NOT freetrade capitalism, what that is is a Corporate Aristocracy! It is what Thomas Jefferson warned about.
You must be one of those pinheads who has been successfully deluded into thinking that Democracy and Capitalism are two sides of some mythical coin, and that more of your quality of life comes from the Capitalism side than the Democracy side.
And you must be one of those who believe communism works! Dispite what history has shown.
You can say that, in theory, freetrade capitalism is about improving everyone's life but you are being very naive if you think that is the way the game is being played now.
Maybe you didn't catch it but I did say we don't have freetrade. I'll go even further and say what we have is the "Corporate Aristocracy" Thomas Jefferson warned of. Many laws aren't written by the people but are the creation of corporations. And it was the government that created many of the natural monopolies we now have. And if you thnk giving government more power will help correct the problems governme t created then you are being naive. You don't fix a problem by creating more problems, and who kows what problems a Net Neutrality law will create?
Capitalism leads to concetration of wealth, which leads to concentration of power.
What you are talking about is not capitalism, it is a corporate aristocracy. One created in part by government granted natural monopolies.
"If my isp tried to throttle some of the websites I wanted to visit..."
It isn't your ISP that's doing it. Let's say you want to load Google. Your ISP has to go through Yet Another Company to connect to them. As long as YAC is only in the business of providing the "tube between your ISP and Google, no problem, all packets are equal.
And unless my ISP isn't good with business it has a simlar contract with the provider of it's pipes. So if that provider tried to trottle some websites then it would be breaking it's contract with my provider. My ISP can them use it's clients to go after it's providers. Also if the "YAC" is a telcom it would breaking a law, because it is a common carrier it has to treat all connections the same. By degrading another entity's connection it could loose it's common carrier status.
That also ignores some of the other things I mentioned, such as all the dark fiber Google owns. With it, Google could come out with it's own access. And it is, Google is setting up wireless access in San Francisco.
What the platform said was, "ALL public lands and resources, as well as claims thereto, except as explicitly allowed by the Constitution..."
As you acknowledge the Constitution does say "postal raods" and the post office uses many of the roads. What you don't say anything about is the interstate commerce clause, and most US or federal highways are important to interstate commerce, they are how goods are shipped. On top of that the Constitution says nothing about the states, or more local governments, being resrticted from road building or ownership. Moreover the 9th Amendment states that any power, right, not specifically granted to the federal government is reserved to the states or the people. This means states, counties, and cities can own and build roads. As far as I'm concerned this is a prime responsibility of these governments.
If they say "all public lands", they mean ALL public lands
I wonder if in fact that means federal land or includes state and local land as well. In regards to federal land private organizations may be able to manage land better than the federal government. Ever try to buy raw land, land without any structures built on it? In many places it can cost thousands of dollars per acre. Yet the General Mining Act of 1872 allows mining companies to mine stuff like gold and silver on public lands for dollars per acre, and then leave the pollution created left for the government to pay to cleanup. Now, with Representative Nick Rahall from West Virginia chairing the House Resources Committee which is responsible for this, they may sponser one or bills to improve this. Even if so though any bill still would have to go through the senate as well as be signed, or if vetoed have the veto overwritten, by Bush. I'd rather have those like Conservation International be able to purchase and manage national parks than have the federal government do it. Besides, can you guess who's the biggest pollutor in the US? The US government. By far it pollutes more than any business or industry
You think mere neighborhood roads are somehow off-limits?
See above about local governments.
It's the same with private nukes. Nowhere will you find in the party platform mention of private ownership of nukes, but you'll find plenty about private weapon ownership, and nothing about limits. They don't believe in limits -- that's the whole Libertarian philosophy. Either something is allowed in unlimited amounts, or it's not.
Can you provide one stance of Libertarians saying anything about private nukes? Just as with Democrats and Republicans, not all Libertarians believe in the same things. The one belief that holds Libertarians together is the belief in liberty and a small government that exists within the limits of the Constitution of the USA. Otherwise we can go into how Republicans want to privatize the military and control what people do in private. And how Democrats want to nationalize things just like good socialists.
I don't know where this comes from, I have never heard a Libertarian say all roads should privatized. Can you provide a link, or is this smoke?
Right from the Party Platform [lp.org]: ...
Ah, neither on the snippet you provided nor on the actual page of the link you provided appears either "highway" or "road". I went ahead and searched the LP website using "road" and "privitize" and all I found was a post in a forum wherein a poster writes:
But, many of our critics like to accuse us of not living in the real world. They say, "You crazy Libertarians! You guys probably want to privatize the roads!"
Indeed, we do. Or at least I do. Privatizing the roads is one very important and under-appreciated step we can take toward liberty.
That's one person's belief, one I disagree with, but it is not the party platform. On another page another writer says: privatizing the roads along with other things is only going to make Libertarians look like loons.
All that is required for Net Neutrality to remain is for Congress to do nothing.
They are remarkably good at that, especially with the divided government we have now: remember, it takes 60 senators to pass legislation, and the dems only have 51.
That's what I like about the Democrats having taken over congress. Maybe now nothing will get done. I hope we have a lot of gridlocks, and get government out of our hair.
Private highways work well in certain cases. The problem is that they want every road in every neighborhood to be privatized. As in, you need to pay a toll to go from your house to the grocery store. A toll back. Basically, since everything would be private property, you have would have no right to travel unless you could afford to pay.
This actually neatly summarizes the problems with Libertarians in a nutshell. They simplistically assume what's a good idea in one case is applicable to every case (e.g., self-defense is good, therefore, personal nukes must also be good. Low taxes is good, therefore, no taxes must also be good. Etc.)
I don't know where this comes from, I have never heard a Libertarian say all roads should privatized. Can you provide a link, or is this smoke?
That doesn't happen in every case. The highway system has not been privatized, for example, as many libertarians would like it to be. Thank god they're not and probably never will be in charge.
Not all Libertarians want to privatize the highways, I am one of them. Libertarians want the government to follow the Constitution of the USA and it specifically gives the federal government the authority to run the highway system. There's at least two places it gives the authority, one where it says the government is responsible for postal sytem including postal roads. And the second is the interstate commerce clause.
Arguably, the phone network would never have been built if not for the subsidies and government-granted monopoly.
This is one place where I disagree with some Libertarians, the phone networks. Instead of being owned by companies who have a natural monopoly, I'd have it so the local comminuties own the infrastructure. Whether it be nonprofit organizations or the government, they would own physical infrastructure but would then have the system open so anyone who wanted to offer any services that could be provided are able to.
For example, Skype might pays protection money to Comcast, so their VoIP traffic gets priority, while Vonage doesn't pay them protection money, so their traffic gets prioritized somewhere just below bittorrent downloads. Since neither Skype nor Vonage are customers of Comcast, that sort of behavior would be highly inappropriate, and the people who would inevitably lose in this example would be Comcast's customers. Worse, since most parts of the country are only served by one or two high speed internet providers (and satellite internet is not particularly viable due to extreme latency), many of those customers could not reasonably avoid such harm. That is the scenario that net neutrality legislation is trying to prevent.
However as one of the customers of my ISP I would raise hell about them degrading my connection in breach of contract. Then when it came tyme for my cable co, I have cable access, to have it's license renewed by the city I'd raise hell there too. They'd get the message, my voice may not be loud but combined with others it would be. They'd also have to deal with competitors. Yes, currently most people don't have a choice in who provides service but with technologies like WiMax they will.
Okay, so what will prevent companies from abusing tiered service? The free market? There isn't one in telecom and there simply can't be one. Great example of a natural monopoly, no state required.
No there isn't a true freemarket but there is some things that can be done without a new Net Neutrality law. First the landline telcos are regulated as common carriers and can't discriminate based on who the parties are. Then there's isps' clients such as you and me. If my isp tried to throttle some of the websites I wanted to visit I'd raise hell. I pay for my access and by slowing down any website I try to visit they are breaking their contract with me. Then there's those like Google who own lots of dark fiber, and WiMax. Wimax, Like cellphone service, offers people the option to switch providers. Actually my only phone service is cellphonee service, I pay less for it than I did for a landline. And if you combine dark fiber with WiMax businesses can go around isps who throttle traffic, Google is already setting up a wireless system in San Francisco though not WiMax.
As it is now I see no need for a net neutrality law. We don't need more regulations we need less. If only the FCC were to open up the airwaves even more would be able to offer wireless access. Better yet get rid of the FCC.
That's what capitalism is all about right, dog eat dog, devil take the hindmost, screw the poor and powerless neo-social-darwinism sort of thing?
No it isn't. Freetrade capitalism is all about improving everyone's life. To see what capitalism is about Adam Smith's, the father of capitalism, book The Wealth Of Nations is good.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly what I was thinking. GP obviously doesn't understand the issue if he thinks that anti-net-neutrality meshes with being a liberal. Quite the opposite. Anti-net -neutrality is pro telecom giant monopoly, which is pretty obviously a conservative position. Get a clue.
Seeing as how Liberalism is about small government liberals should be anti net neutrality. Net neutrality is about bigger, not smaller, government
FalconI mean, I'm against net neutrality, but I'm pretty liberal so that viewpoint meshes with my beliefs. But why are you all against it? I'm a little confused. You're against net neutrality and that coincides with you being a liberal? I'm a liberal and I support net neutrality - Verizon, AT&T, or Time Warner Cable have no right to limit the access of anyone to any type of content because they won't pony up fees to their respective carriers. Not to mention that net neutrality boils down to government regulation of business, which seems to be a core liberal value IIRC. So explain to me how your being against net neutrality meshes with your liberal beliefs.
Ah, another person who doesn't know what a real Liberal is about. Liberalism is about liberty and small government. Net neutrality isn't small government it's bigger government.
FalconI'm a little puzzled by the anti-net-neutrality stance on slashdot. So many of you are libertarian "marketplace will solve anything" types, so I'd think that you'd be philosophically against the government stepping in to prevent what companies do with their own infrastructure.
I think you have things mixed up. Yes Libertarians are against government stepping in, and that's exactly what happens with net neutrality. The government would be stepping and saying people can't charge people for faster service. Now some who support net neutrality use the opposite argument in discribing what companies might do, degrade speed if they are not paid. "Pay us X or we will slow down your speed." As it is now I see no problem so I want government to stay out.
I mean, I'm against net neutrality, but I'm pretty liberal so that viewpoint meshes with my beliefs. But why are you all against it?
Liberal yes, if you mean the Classical Liberalism of liberty and small government.
FalconAkamai is a distributed hosting service, not a common carrier.
This guy is seriously a professor?
He is a law professor that's an opponent of neutrality. Whether his distortions of the technology are because he knows the law better than the technology, or because he is expounding an ideologically-based viewpoint and trying to snow people over with FUD, or because of some other reasons is, I suppose, something you'll need to form your own opinion about.
As some here can attest, as we had a discussion on net neutrality yesterday, I am currently against a net neutrality law. However this guy doesn't really say why such a law is bad other than waving his arms around. It looks, smells, and tastes rotten.
FalconOK, I RTFA'd, but I didn't find any reason as to why. Did I miss something here?
I missed it too.
FalconThe question that Marx raised that is still relevant today is: how do you keep free trade capitalism from devolving into corporate aristocracy? There are no checks and balances, it's a runaway feedback loop. Of course, his proposed solution necessarily leads to dictatorship so that won't work.
A strong court system which is vigirously used serves as the checks and balances. Another is an open market. If they think about it, most people don't think, or know, that Adam Smith was against monopolies including patents. He believed patents stiffle economic activity and that if a person could make and sale something cheaper or better than the inventor could they should be allowed to do so. Personally I disagree with this as I support patents however in today's day and age I would shorten the time patents are enforced. Ths same with copyrights. They are both supposed to encourage creativity and the progress of society, and allowing them to last the life of the patent or copyright holder, never mind until after they've died as copyrights do now, don't encourage creativity, they discourage it if anything. To encourage creativity you want to limit the time these right exists, make them continue to invent or write new things. Long patents also discourage others from making inprovements.
Your use of the "Government granted natural monopolies" is an oxymoron. Natural monopolies are those that aren't granted by the government, but exist because of the very nature of the market.
As many others who use the phrase "natural monopolies", I use it to mean things like how governments granted a monopoly to phone companies, power companies, and broadcasters. Governments gave phone and power conpanies the right of way to lay cables on public as well as private properties. Only one phone or power company is allowed to use the rights of way, if someone else wanted to offer the same service they wouldn't be able to as they can't use the right of way. The same applies to cable operators. Now this could be the big disagreement I may have with some other Libertarians, I'm beginning to think a local organization whether a nonprofit; the government; or the community itself should be who owns the local infrastructure. This would include cable, electrical, and phone lines. But then the owner must allow anybody who wants to, has the expertice and resources to, and has the finances to, will be allowed to offer any and all services the infrastructure can deliver. A good example of this is A Broadband Utopia in northeast Utah. Here a group of communities got together to build a broadband utopia. They created an organization that built out a network then opened up access to it so a business could come in and offer one or more services such as internet access, phone, and cable tv. Internet "service providers there will be offering speeds of 50 and even 100 Mb/s." All that bandwidth allows hd tv for the kids while the parents can watch another hd channel, and there's still enough bandwidth left for broadband access to the net and even for video telephone service.
In my mind, there's a good reason that the libertarians are on the ringe of economics, but you'll have to decide for yourself, and you can't do that until you know both sides of the debate.
One reason Libertarians are "on the fringe" is a matter of why the party started. The first ones were Republicans who became dissolutioned over Nixon's actions, including what he said about one of his own presidential commissions. This commission was setup to study whether hemp, marijuana, should be legalized. He said no matter what they decided he would never legalize it, which after studying it they did decide should be done. It only makes economic sense as hemp is one of if not the most industrially useful plants around. Libertarians saw how Republicans were not for
Microsoft has deep pockets and distributes enough software to fill the Mediterranean Basin. It's a good bet that they would be willing to sacrifice their own patent pool for in order to be free of the constant threat of successful multi-million dollar (or more) lawsuits from some clown who has managed to patent binary arithmetic or the use ampersands in code.
Microsoft doesn't get software patents to protect themself, the only reason to get patents to use it to make money. If the idea is to protect yourself against others saying you're violating thier patent all you have to do is to put your idea into the public domain. Then if you're sued you can point to the publication you used to prove when you used it. It's then the responsibility of the plaintif to prove they patented it prior to the date of publication.
FalconI would expect a whole class/library/etc. would be outside of fair use, but would a function/method be?
A function or method shouldn't patented just as all software shouldn't be. Basically they are algorithms which should have no patent protection. Only implimentations, how it works, should get protection. But only if it is truly new and unique.
FalconSoftware patents only benefit companies who don't actually produce a lot of software and would prefer to just go around suing. Microsoft would be better off without them.
If software patents harm Microsoft then why does MS patent software?
FalconIIRC, Dec Alpha, The Sparc, PPC, and x86 were all supported by WinNT. No one bought WinNT for anything other than x86, however.
I realize I'm a nobody yet I bought an Alpha running NT4.
FalconNot quite, I have an Alpha running NT4, which it came with. Of course because I couldn't get much software installed it was basically a waste getting it.
FalconOf course, some Libertarians want to privatize (or rather, disband) the USPS as well.
Now this, privatizing the US Postal Service, I TOTALLY disagree with. Allow competition but not privatize the USPS.
Falconand registered a U.S. domain root. (.com)
.com is not a US domain root, it is an international root mainly used for commerce. The US domain root is .us That's not to say the root servers aren't in the US, only that .com is international and not country specific.
FalconI can tell you first hand that there are a lot of military families out there who love America, but despise most civilian Americans as undeserving of their freedom.
I know some in the military and thier families love America, and the military, however many only dispiase or look down on those who deride the military. This is first hand experience too, my family is one of them.
But the founders had it right, as a society in the longer term we are much better off with a smaller standing Army but with a much bigger reservoir of reserves. This promotes defense over offense and prevents an idling Army from getting resentful and ambitious. But most importantly it makes us one people in our nations defense instead of factions looking out for themselves.
Ooh, I agree. I'd rather the US have a citizen's army much like Switzerland's. There would be a small core of professionals but the bulk of the military would be the citizens. Reminds me of a country song though I can't recall who sang is, maybe Hank Williams Jr. He sings about how people support different things like different sports teams and get rowdy but that if the US is attacked we'll all fight together.
FalconHere's the truth of the matter: Free-trade capitalism serves one valid purpose in our society, and that is to make money for the shareholders of corporations. It has exactly dick to do with improving life, and if success in capitalism comes at the cost of someone else's quality of life or long term wellbeing, there is nothing free-trade capitalism will do about it.
Is that what you really believe? That is NOT freetrade capitalism, what that is is a Corporate Aristocracy! It is what Thomas Jefferson warned about.
You must be one of those pinheads who has been successfully deluded into thinking that Democracy and Capitalism are two sides of some mythical coin, and that more of your quality of life comes from the Capitalism side than the Democracy side.
And you must be one of those who believe communism works! Dispite what history has shown.
FalconYou can say that, in theory, freetrade capitalism is about improving everyone's life but you are being very naive if you think that is the way the game is being played now.
Maybe you didn't catch it but I did say we don't have freetrade. I'll go even further and say what we have is the "Corporate Aristocracy" Thomas Jefferson warned of. Many laws aren't written by the people but are the creation of corporations. And it was the government that created many of the natural monopolies we now have. And if you thnk giving government more power will help correct the problems governme t created then you are being naive. You don't fix a problem by creating more problems, and who kows what problems a Net Neutrality law will create?
Capitalism leads to concetration of wealth, which leads to concentration of power.
What you are talking about is not capitalism, it is a corporate aristocracy. One created in part by government granted natural monopolies.
Falcon"If my isp tried to throttle some of the websites I wanted to visit..."
It isn't your ISP that's doing it. Let's say you want to load Google. Your ISP has to go through Yet Another Company to connect to them. As long as YAC is only in the business of providing the "tube between your ISP and Google, no problem, all packets are equal.
And unless my ISP isn't good with business it has a simlar contract with the provider of it's pipes. So if that provider tried to trottle some websites then it would be breaking it's contract with my provider. My ISP can them use it's clients to go after it's providers. Also if the "YAC" is a telcom it would breaking a law, because it is a common carrier it has to treat all connections the same. By degrading another entity's connection it could loose it's common carrier status.
That also ignores some of the other things I mentioned, such as all the dark fiber Google owns. With it, Google could come out with it's own access. And it is, Google is setting up wireless access in San Francisco.
FalconWhat the platform said was, "ALL public lands and resources, as well as claims thereto, except as explicitly allowed by the Constitution..."
As you acknowledge the Constitution does say "postal raods" and the post office uses many of the roads. What you don't say anything about is the interstate commerce clause, and most US or federal highways are important to interstate commerce, they are how goods are shipped. On top of that the Constitution says nothing about the states, or more local governments, being resrticted from road building or ownership. Moreover the 9th Amendment states that any power, right, not specifically granted to the federal government is reserved to the states or the people. This means states, counties, and cities can own and build roads. As far as I'm concerned this is a prime responsibility of these governments.
If they say "all public lands", they mean ALL public lands
I wonder if in fact that means federal land or includes state and local land as well. In regards to federal land private organizations may be able to manage land better than the federal government. Ever try to buy raw land, land without any structures built on it? In many places it can cost thousands of dollars per acre. Yet the General Mining Act of 1872 allows mining companies to mine stuff like gold and silver on public lands for dollars per acre, and then leave the pollution created left for the government to pay to cleanup. Now, with Representative Nick Rahall from West Virginia chairing the House Resources Committee which is responsible for this, they may sponser one or bills to improve this. Even if so though any bill still would have to go through the senate as well as be signed, or if vetoed have the veto overwritten, by Bush. I'd rather have those like Conservation International be able to purchase and manage national parks than have the federal government do it. Besides, can you guess who's the biggest pollutor in the US? The US government. By far it pollutes more than any business or industry
You think mere neighborhood roads are somehow off-limits?
See above about local governments.
It's the same with private nukes. Nowhere will you find in the party platform mention of private ownership of nukes, but you'll find plenty about private weapon ownership, and nothing about limits. They don't believe in limits -- that's the whole Libertarian philosophy. Either something is allowed in unlimited amounts, or it's not.
Can you provide one stance of Libertarians saying anything about private nukes? Just as with Democrats and Republicans, not all Libertarians believe in the same things. The one belief that holds Libertarians together is the belief in liberty and a small government that exists within the limits of the Constitution of the USA. Otherwise we can go into how Republicans want to privatize the military and control what people do in private. And how Democrats want to nationalize things just like good socialists.
FalconI don't know where this comes from, I have never heard a Libertarian say all roads should privatized. Can you provide a link, or is this smoke?
Right from the Party Platform [lp.org]:
...
Ah, neither on the snippet you provided nor on the actual page of the link you provided appears either "highway" or "road". I went ahead and searched the LP website using "road" and "privitize" and all I found was a post in a forum wherein a poster writes:
But, many of our critics like to accuse us of not living in the real world. They say, "You crazy Libertarians! You guys probably want to privatize the roads!"
Indeed, we do. Or at least I do. Privatizing the roads is one very important and under-appreciated step we can take toward liberty.
That's one person's belief, one I disagree with, but it is not the party platform. On another page another writer says: privatizing the roads along with other things is only going to make Libertarians look like loons.
FalconAll that is required for Net Neutrality to remain is for Congress to do nothing.
They are remarkably good at that, especially with the divided government we have now: remember, it takes 60 senators to pass legislation, and the dems only have 51.
That's what I like about the Democrats having taken over congress. Maybe now nothing will get done. I hope we have a lot of gridlocks, and get government out of our hair.
FalconIt all depends upon if the Democrats are serious about their real job; Restoring Democracy, Honor, and Sanity. Or they sell out indictments for pork.
Barf! I don't expect the Democrats to do anything that's not in their own self interests. Republicans didn't and now Democrats won't.
FalconPrivate highways work well in certain cases. The problem is that they want every road in every neighborhood to be privatized. As in, you need to pay a toll to go from your house to the grocery store. A toll back. Basically, since everything would be private property, you have would have no right to travel unless you could afford to pay.
This actually neatly summarizes the problems with Libertarians in a nutshell. They simplistically assume what's a good idea in one case is applicable to every case (e.g., self-defense is good, therefore, personal nukes must also be good. Low taxes is good, therefore, no taxes must also be good. Etc.)
I don't know where this comes from, I have never heard a Libertarian say all roads should privatized. Can you provide a link, or is this smoke?
FalconThat doesn't happen in every case. The highway system has not been privatized, for example, as many libertarians would like it to be. Thank god they're not and probably never will be in charge.
Not all Libertarians want to privatize the highways, I am one of them. Libertarians want the government to follow the Constitution of the USA and it specifically gives the federal government the authority to run the highway system. There's at least two places it gives the authority, one where it says the government is responsible for postal sytem including postal roads. And the second is the interstate commerce clause.
Arguably, the phone network would never have been built if not for the subsidies and government-granted monopoly.
This is one place where I disagree with some Libertarians, the phone networks. Instead of being owned by companies who have a natural monopoly, I'd have it so the local comminuties own the infrastructure. Whether it be nonprofit organizations or the government, they would own physical infrastructure but would then have the system open so anyone who wanted to offer any services that could be provided are able to.
FalconFor example, Skype might pays protection money to Comcast, so their VoIP traffic gets priority, while Vonage doesn't pay them protection money, so their traffic gets prioritized somewhere just below bittorrent downloads. Since neither Skype nor Vonage are customers of Comcast, that sort of behavior would be highly inappropriate, and the people who would inevitably lose in this example would be Comcast's customers. Worse, since most parts of the country are only served by one or two high speed internet providers (and satellite internet is not particularly viable due to extreme latency), many of those customers could not reasonably avoid such harm. That is the scenario that net neutrality legislation is trying to prevent.
However as one of the customers of my ISP I would raise hell about them degrading my connection in breach of contract. Then when it came tyme for my cable co, I have cable access, to have it's license renewed by the city I'd raise hell there too. They'd get the message, my voice may not be loud but combined with others it would be. They'd also have to deal with competitors. Yes, currently most people don't have a choice in who provides service but with technologies like WiMax they will.
FalconOkay, so what will prevent companies from abusing tiered service? The free market? There isn't one in telecom and there simply can't be one. Great example of a natural monopoly, no state required.
No there isn't a true freemarket but there is some things that can be done without a new Net Neutrality law. First the landline telcos are regulated as common carriers and can't discriminate based on who the parties are. Then there's isps' clients such as you and me. If my isp tried to throttle some of the websites I wanted to visit I'd raise hell. I pay for my access and by slowing down any website I try to visit they are breaking their contract with me. Then there's those like Google who own lots of dark fiber, and WiMax. Wimax, Like cellphone service, offers people the option to switch providers. Actually my only phone service is cellphonee service, I pay less for it than I did for a landline. And if you combine dark fiber with WiMax businesses can go around isps who throttle traffic, Google is already setting up a wireless system in San Francisco though not WiMax.
As it is now I see no need for a net neutrality law. We don't need more regulations we need less. If only the FCC were to open up the airwaves even more would be able to offer wireless access. Better yet get rid of the FCC.
That's what capitalism is all about right, dog eat dog, devil take the hindmost, screw the poor and powerless neo-social-darwinism sort of thing?
No it isn't. Freetrade capitalism is all about improving everyone's life. To see what capitalism is about Adam Smith's, the father of capitalism, book The Wealth Of Nations is good.
Falcon