So everyone here is going to complain about this. A few people will post links to email your congressman. A few less will troll by using the "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" excuse.
Let us hope to our respective dieties that the Democrats gain control of at least 1 house of Congress in 2007. Perhaps, in a long shot, they might put an end to these blatantly unconstitutional programs. Then again, I don't trust them to do that too much.
Perhaps it is time for Americans of all stripes (liberals, conservatives, socialists, libertarians, anarchists, etc.) to invoke the rebellion clause of the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps it is past time for the tree of liberty to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
If you're not ready to be shipped to Gitmo, at the very least ask your state representative(s) to call for a constitutional convention. If 38 states call for one, we can try to get back on the right track to liberty and a government more respectful of those liberties.
The GP did not put it in a good way, but there is a good deal of evidence that we are heading in that general direction.
If you would have went 10 years in the past and told someone about the PATRIOT Act, illegal domestic surveillance, Valerie Plame, Iraq, and the increasing national debt (under a Republican government no less!), they'd have laughed at you and called you a nut.
Ten years from now, we might have to watch what we say about our dear leaders. It's not that far from where we are today.
You make excellent points and ones that I point out when people talk about how bad the Chineses are to their people yet these same people insist on going to WalMart to buy their stuff. Um folks, where do you think WalMart gets 98% of their stuff from? Duh! The same thing applies when I see someone with a "I'm Union and I vote" bumper sticker parked in WalMarts lot.
Americans, generally speaking, don't care anything about where/how products are made so long as they are cheap. Joe User doesn't care if his $40 DVD player is made from near-slave labor. He just cares that he can watch his ultra-pr0n when he gets home. He doesn't care that his HD plasma screen helps finance a government that doesn't allow its citizens basic human rights. He wants to see the pimples on Jenna Jameson's ass. If that takes extreme poverty on the part of tens of millions of Chinese, so be it. "I've got mine, so fuck you" is in full swing these days.
In a situation where consumers have perfect information and there are many competiting ISPs, I would be inclined to agree with you. Perhaps in very large urban areas, we would have such competition... basically, anywhere were the assumptions to free market theory are present.
In some areas, there is exactly 1 broadband internet provider. This is what we call a local monopoly and it ought to be regulated.
Imagine you enjoy reading/. (I know, its hard; just play along) and your ISP has decided to restrict access or outright block it since Taco won't pay to put/. on the list of "high performance" websites. If there was a competitor, you could always take your money elsewhere. Unless you want to go back to dial up or satellite (which may have their own agreements with other sites), you won't be reading/. anytime soon.
With cable its a different story than DSL. Anything running over the publicly funded copper should be completely open. Cable is private, so they should get a bit more leeway. In this case, since many areas are served by cable and cable alone, the company needs to either open its lines or live with government regulation.
I never got any more than half that with nearly 100% signal strength while using WPA encryption. Running it wide open was slightly faster, but I never saw it over 30mbps.
On the same token, my 100mbps ethernet doesn't run much faster than 85mbps.
Maybe it's about time that we pass something preventing this corporate sponsorship BS.
Thats just the point. It's a chicken/egg problem.
The politicians in power aren't going to change a structure that enables them to turn the government into an ATM for their contributors, so they make rules that make it nearly impossible for anyone to change the system from the outside.
It is a positive feedback loop. The more the politicians become entrenched, the more laws they pass to entrench themselves, and the harder it becomes to remove them.
The Internet is made up of a large number of companies; if a few choose to shoot themselves in the foot, the rest will pick up the slack.
You assume this because it is what traditional liberal economic theory says will happen. I charge that you can't assume that. As many, many people have said, the invisible hand that Smith spoke of only holds in specific situations, not everywhere for all t.
My effective tax rate when I was making just above the poverty line for each paycheck after state and federal taxes was about 21%.
Yeah, which is why I let people know that us poor working stiffs do pay quite a bit in taxes. I've never paid federal income tax, but I pay plenty in sales, FICA, Medicare, etc.
Basically, you're saying people who make just above the poverty level are overtaxed. I agree. This is where it gets foggy:
The bottom 20% of the wage earners not only don't pay taxes but actualy MAKE money off the tax system.
I'm assume those are the people near the poverty line of which you speak. So people who are near the poverty line both pay too much in taxes and not enough? Either you made a serious logical error or I'm missing something big.
The only bad thing about that strategy is that in a rather low visibility issue like this, the challenger is very likely to hold the same position. Net neutrality isn't sexy, and a lot of people really don't care about it or don't understand it. I'd love to vote based on copyright reform, but the CTEA of 1998 was passed by voice vote in both houses.
Currently*, the only way realistic way to get a minor issue in the fold is to start a single-issue party and attempt to gain enough votes so that one of the major parties take your issue and make it part of their platform. Not enough conservatives or liberals will vote for a Democrat or Republican, respectively, based on a single issue to make any difference in the congressional race in question.
*With comphrensive voting reform we could bypass the 2-party dictatorship and actually get some real traction on issues other than Jesus, terrorism, and boys kissing.
While I'd like to agree with you, that statement is essentially bullshit. There are a few Democrats who have signed on as sponsors, but I'm reasonably sure that less than half of congressional Democrats would vote for the bill. Telcos, like Hollywood, give generously to both sides of the aisle.
Well no shit, this is a Republican congress. Look at the list of public laws. I'd be willing to bet none of them have come from Democratic congressmen, excepting the odd naming of a post office.
One of the rules of being in the majority party is making sure the minority doesn't get any bills passed. This allows the majority to cast the minority as ineffective and without ideas or a coherent strategy. If the minority does put forth something that has bipartisan or widespread constitutent support, the majority will often just copy most of the bill and submit it themselves. That way they can take all the credit.
You do know that free speech and free enterprise are protected by legislation? If we had things your way (assuming you aim for maximum "freedom") there would be no laws or constitutional framework of any sort since all legislation must restrict freedom by definition. Therefore only 100% anarchy is the most desirable social order. Of course, we have the whole nature/vacuum deal... and we end up with a dictatorship.
People like you are the reason why Microsoft still has a monopoly and hasn't been broken up. In your relentless bashing of "gubmint" being all things bad, we end up with less freedom than if we restricted freedoms that some people shouldn't have.
Slashdot Mirror
It definitely won't matter if the Democrats are in charge. They are simply tyrants of a slightly different stripe.
;-)
I'm hoping knee-jerk partisanship will end up helping us in this case. Since Bush did it, it must be bad, etc.
Can you tell I've completely lost faith in democracy and government?
I'm holding out until 2008. I still have the slightest bit left.
Which raises the issue that people not using Qwest should be suing.
FTA doesn't talk about people who don't use POTS, so I wonder if my Speakeasy VOIP service has been compiled without my knowledge.
Mod parent up.
Exactly.
That too.
It is begging the question in that it is assuming what he is trying to prove, at least it seems so to me.
He must be of the stripe that anything illegal is wrong, which is a perfect example of begging the question.
So everyone here is going to complain about this. A few people will post links to email your congressman. A few less will troll by using the "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" excuse.
Let us hope to our respective dieties that the Democrats gain control of at least 1 house of Congress in 2007. Perhaps, in a long shot, they might put an end to these blatantly unconstitutional programs. Then again, I don't trust them to do that too much.
Perhaps it is time for Americans of all stripes (liberals, conservatives, socialists, libertarians, anarchists, etc.) to invoke the rebellion clause of the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps it is past time for the tree of liberty to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
If you're not ready to be shipped to Gitmo, at the very least ask your state representative(s) to call for a constitutional convention. If 38 states call for one, we can try to get back on the right track to liberty and a government more respectful of those liberties.
You armchair travellers should visit Guangzhou once in reality. See how happy they are.
Ignorance is bliss.
China isn't a legitimate government as it does not govern with the consent of the people. Only legimate governments are soverign.
The GP did not put it in a good way, but there is a good deal of evidence that we are heading in that general direction.
If you would have went 10 years in the past and told someone about the PATRIOT Act, illegal domestic surveillance, Valerie Plame, Iraq, and the increasing national debt (under a Republican government no less!), they'd have laughed at you and called you a nut.
Ten years from now, we might have to watch what we say about our dear leaders. It's not that far from where we are today.
You make excellent points and ones that I point out when people talk about how bad the Chineses are to their people yet these same people insist on going to WalMart to buy their stuff. Um folks, where do you think WalMart gets 98% of their stuff from? Duh! The same thing applies when I see someone with a "I'm Union and I vote" bumper sticker parked in WalMarts lot.
Americans, generally speaking, don't care anything about where/how products are made so long as they are cheap. Joe User doesn't care if his $40 DVD player is made from near-slave labor. He just cares that he can watch his ultra-pr0n when he gets home. He doesn't care that his HD plasma screen helps finance a government that doesn't allow its citizens basic human rights. He wants to see the pimples on Jenna Jameson's ass. If that takes extreme poverty on the part of tens of millions of Chinese, so be it. "I've got mine, so fuck you" is in full swing these days.
I'd keep writing, but I Tivoed American Idol.
In a situation where consumers have perfect information and there are many competiting ISPs, I would be inclined to agree with you. Perhaps in very large urban areas, we would have such competition ... basically, anywhere were the assumptions to free market theory are present.
/. (I know, its hard; just play along) and your ISP has decided to restrict access or outright block it since Taco won't pay to put /. on the list of "high performance" websites. If there was a competitor, you could always take your money elsewhere. Unless you want to go back to dial up or satellite (which may have their own agreements with other sites), you won't be reading /. anytime soon.
In some areas, there is exactly 1 broadband internet provider. This is what we call a local monopoly and it ought to be regulated.
Imagine you enjoy reading
With cable its a different story than DSL. Anything running over the publicly funded copper should be completely open. Cable is private, so they should get a bit more leeway. In this case, since many areas are served by cable and cable alone, the company needs to either open its lines or live with government regulation.
If I had modpoints I'd mod you down for misspelling "Flamebait" twice in your post even though your original post clearly spells out the word for you.
The best part:
/bin/ed /usr/ucb/vi /usr/bin/emacs
And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990
I bow before you, good sir!
For those of you wondering how he did that (and I know there's a lot of you out there):
instead of '<', use:
& lt;
(minus the space)
By that logic, since Yahoo and Google listen to the Chinese government, they must be Chinese companies.
I never got any more than half that with nearly 100% signal strength while using WPA encryption. Running it wide open was slightly faster, but I never saw it over 30mbps.
On the same token, my 100mbps ethernet doesn't run much faster than 85mbps.
I just call them as I see them.
If that is snobbery, I'm guilty as charged.
Maybe it's about time that we pass something preventing this corporate sponsorship BS.
Thats just the point. It's a chicken/egg problem.
The politicians in power aren't going to change a structure that enables them to turn the government into an ATM for their contributors, so they make rules that make it nearly impossible for anyone to change the system from the outside.
It is a positive feedback loop. The more the politicians become entrenched, the more laws they pass to entrench themselves, and the harder it becomes to remove them.
The Internet is made up of a large number of companies; if a few choose to shoot themselves in the foot, the rest will pick up the slack.
You assume this because it is what traditional liberal economic theory says will happen. I charge that you can't assume that. As many, many people have said, the invisible hand that Smith spoke of only holds in specific situations, not everywhere for all t.
Please help me understand.
My effective tax rate when I was making just above the poverty line for each paycheck after state and federal taxes was about 21%.
Yeah, which is why I let people know that us poor working stiffs do pay quite a bit in taxes. I've never paid federal income tax, but I pay plenty in sales, FICA, Medicare, etc.
Basically, you're saying people who make just above the poverty level are overtaxed. I agree. This is where it gets foggy:
The bottom 20% of the wage earners not only don't pay taxes but actualy MAKE money off the tax system.
I'm assume those are the people near the poverty line of which you speak. So people who are near the poverty line both pay too much in taxes and not enough? Either you made a serious logical error or I'm missing something big.
The only bad thing about that strategy is that in a rather low visibility issue like this, the challenger is very likely to hold the same position. Net neutrality isn't sexy, and a lot of people really don't care about it or don't understand it. I'd love to vote based on copyright reform, but the CTEA of 1998 was passed by voice vote in both houses.
Currently*, the only way realistic way to get a minor issue in the fold is to start a single-issue party and attempt to gain enough votes so that one of the major parties take your issue and make it part of their platform. Not enough conservatives or liberals will vote for a Democrat or Republican, respectively, based on a single issue to make any difference in the congressional race in question.
*With comphrensive voting reform we could bypass the 2-party dictatorship and actually get some real traction on issues other than Jesus, terrorism, and boys kissing.
While I'd like to agree with you, that statement is essentially bullshit. There are a few Democrats who have signed on as sponsors, but I'm reasonably sure that less than half of congressional Democrats would vote for the bill. Telcos, like Hollywood, give generously to both sides of the aisle.
Well no shit, this is a Republican congress. Look at the list of public laws. I'd be willing to bet none of them have come from Democratic congressmen, excepting the odd naming of a post office.
One of the rules of being in the majority party is making sure the minority doesn't get any bills passed. This allows the majority to cast the minority as ineffective and without ideas or a coherent strategy. If the minority does put forth something that has bipartisan or widespread constitutent support, the majority will often just copy most of the bill and submit it themselves. That way they can take all the credit.
You do know that free speech and free enterprise are protected by legislation? If we had things your way (assuming you aim for maximum "freedom") there would be no laws or constitutional framework of any sort since all legislation must restrict freedom by definition. Therefore only 100% anarchy is the most desirable social order. Of course, we have the whole nature/vacuum deal ... and we end up with a dictatorship.
People like you are the reason why Microsoft still has a monopoly and hasn't been broken up. In your relentless bashing of "gubmint" being all things bad, we end up with less freedom than if we restricted freedoms that some people shouldn't have.