"A half-pound black powder bomb with steel BBs would be well more than enough[to kill, say 200, people]. That's about the size of a tennis ball."
Not a chance! Black powder won't even explode unless it's contained, and a couple of layers of bone and meat are going to stop all of the steel BBs. 8 ounces of black powder might kill a handful of people and damage the hearing of a few others, but that's it. Even a tennis ball sized piece of C4 wouldn't be that destructive.
I think $8 per hour puts you in the category of "working poor", and I expect that you can do better. I was making > $13 as an intern doing Windows Client->Server setups in 1996-1997. We basically created a "test" network with some data and application servers and a few clients. Then, when everything was working, we created a production environment and went around standardizing the software and settings on all of the clients. At the time I had no credentials or certifications other than good grades. If you're in the United States, I'd recommend that you look around for other work. Get something that pays better, or if you're only going to be earning $8 per hour, look for something where you know for sure that there will be a lot of learning opportunities.
You seem to imply that the "all government is evil" crowd are adopting that rhetroic from a philosophical standpoint. Later in your post however, you point out that the pseudo-representative Federal government is owned by special interests. I don't think that those special interests control the government out of a profound desire to do "good". The belief that "all [Federal] government is evil" is therefore a rational conclusion, even for a person who believes that government CAN play a positive role in society. Maybe they "can", but, for the reasons you stated, they simply WON'T.
Very true. However, I can't help but think that if public education were not such a dismal failure, there might actually be a profitable market for objective journalism.
"I take it by your "government is always worse than private sector" bias that you're most likely american."
I think it's more a case of "The American government sucks" bias. The U.S. government is a wholly owned subsidiary of elite special interests, so even if we DID decide to accept a government role in a service like providing unbiased media, the government would just out-source it to CNN (Dems) or Fox (Repubs).
There are indeed a few things that a government COULD do better than the private sector, but that's a purely academic discussion. The government in Washington D.C. is so corrupt and power hungry, that they can't be trusted to do ANYTHING. I'd like to see some legislation regarding net neutrality for instance, but with THIS government, we'd get a 1000 page bill where the cover page read "Net Neutrality and Internet Freedom Preservation Act" and the legislation would give more power to the government, cost billions of dollars, and serve the profit motives of big corporations.
I think you meant "let's create a strawman argument". How did you get from "The DoE doesn't improve anything and should be abolished" to "Let's privatize the transporation infrastructure" and "let's get rid of the police department." ???
The point is that we have a Federal Department of Education that consumes resources which would be better spent on actual education and better allocated by people who understand the unique needs of their state and local schools. My proposal would be to eradicate the DoE and in the near term, redisctribute all the funds back to the states.
"There is nothing in the constitution that says the DoE cannot establish a generalized curriculum (just as the federal government has the right to regulate or protect interstate commerce.)"
There's likewise nothing in The Constitution that empowers them to do so, and therefore they don't have the legal authority. Remember, the idea of The Constitution is that the feds have specifically enumerated powers. They CANNOT legally do anything else. They have the enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce. They do NOT have an enumerated power to force crap like NCLB on our local schools.
". . . with the teeth to force local school districts to implement said curriculums."
They already do that by blackmailing us with our own tax dollars. Having federal government forcing things onto states and local communities, either through blackmail or unfunded mandates is a problem, not a solution.
"Whenever someone (or some group) thinks they know what Utopia is, they try to force everybody down the same path."
Welcome to America! (i.e. The United States of). A bunch of bureaucrats and politicians develop the plans for their utopian society and then send out armed minions to impose that vision onto society. Doesn't matter whether it's rural Montana or downtown Los Angeles. The Federal solution MUST be implemented.
"...if you keep people well-fed, sheltered, clothed and socially stable you can actually foster liberty and individuality."
You "could" do that, but if some central government figured out HOW to do it, they wouldn't have any desire to foster liberty or individuality.
"If you want to oppress people, make sure they don't have enough food to get up off their knees."
I think that might have been true once, but not any longer. A bunch of hungry people are also going to be desperate and angry people. Not exactly the recipe for tranquil servitude. These days, the best way to oppress people is to make sure that the pretzel bowl is full, there is beer in the refrigerator and there is plenty of mind-numbing entertainment on television with a big dose of propaganda letting people know that they are in fact "FREE".
NCLB has a nice "feel good" ring to it, but it rings hollow when you think about it what it means.
If no child can be "left behind", then an entire group can only move forward as quickly as the slowest and the dumbest member. Why don't we have "Every Child Moving Forward" or something? Just as anecodotal evidence of how stupid this policy is, I know a teacher that works in a city that was the target of the "Refugee Resettlement" program. She and her colleagues now have to deal with kids who are basically illiterate in English language and writing. But, NO CHILD can be left behind, so you can easily guess where/how she spends 95% of her time.
We should ACCEPT and ENCOURAGE the idea of leaving kids "behind". If a kid can't do 6th grade math, then it's highly unlikely he/she will be able to get "caught up" and suddenly be able to do math in higher grades. Passing someone into the next grade when they can't master their current studies only compounds and worsens the problem.
" . . . breeds are not inherently vicious, individuals are."
You make several good points, but I disagree with the "absoluteness" implied in your statement. You're suggesting that all breeds/species of dogs are born with a behavioral "blank slate" and that their eventual temperament is ENTIRELY a product of environment. Would you argue that the dog's eventual height, wieght, color, strength, agility, etc. are ENTIRELY a product of exercise and nutrition? I agree that almost any breed of dog could be conditioned to be friendly and basically "harmless" or could be conditioned to be mean and vicious through abuse and neglect. However, dogs are born with a pre-disposed temperament. That's why the training regimen and handling routines are different for different breeds. Compare and contrast the temperament of a golden retriever and doberman pinscher. There are definite and easily observed pre-dispositions there. Either dog can be trained to co-exist happily with people, including children and strangers, but in general, a doberman is going to require more discipline and assertiveness from a human friend, especially in its younger years. Otherwise, the dog will all too easily assume the role of "pack leader".
". . . banning those breeds won't solve the problem, or even alleviate it in a meaningful way"
I completely agree. The "bad" behavior of the dog is entirely the responsibility of the owner, and making certain breeds "illegal" because of a few people who don't know how to handle the animal, or who deliberately mis-handle the animal is ridiculous. If anything, we should prevent certain people from owning pets.
" . . . red states DO spend all the money blue states make."
I'm glad that you see this as a problem.
"(California and New York) . . . receive less money than many red states."
The question you should be asking is not which state "receives" more or less money, but where that money came from to begin with. Allowing the Federal government to confiscate massive amounts of wealth and then simply redistribute it to the states is a wasteful and ridiculous system. The people of California, New York, and the other 48 states would be much better off if the Federal government was about 1/4 of its current size. Then, a lot of that money would never leave the state to begin with! Let the blue states solve their blue state problems and the red states solve their red state problems and get big brother out of the "mandate" and "grant" and "earmark" business entirely.
Please do your part to support the state sovereignty movement and limit the power of the Federal Government to engage in such blatantly destructive policies.
"You honestly don't see those as being about as partisan towards the left side of things"
I see ALL of the "mainstream" media as a giant propaganda machine designed to perpetuate the status quo and serve wealthy special interests. Both of the "major" political parties are really on the same "side", except on a few divisive and emotional (but largely unimportant) issues. The mission of the MSM is to create and maintain the illusion of genuine political opposition. Their primary tool for doing this is to constrain the political dialogue in this country to a narrow spectrum of "acceptable" viewpoints, and then twist every issue into a narrow minded black and white paradigm where there are "two sides". Real investigative journalism no longer exists in the confines of the mainstream press.
We would all do well to completely ignore the MSM propaganda. Long live the bloggers and the independent media.
"Wealth used to be based on land and natural resources, true, but this was proven to be wrong by the late 1600s."
I don't think that such a thing can possibly be "proven" to be wrong. In fact, the economist Henry George in his book "Progress and Poverty" makes a very compelling argument which suggests that monopolization of land and resources is the fundamental mechanism by which vast disparities in wealth are created and perpetuated.
Condensing his arguments here would be impossible, but basically, if the rules of your society prevent you from accessing land and resources, you are automatically deprived of the ability to lead a self-determined and "free" existence. If you have no access to land or resources, you have no access to shelter, no way to grow food, hunt game, raise animals, etc. In the extreme case of resource privatization, you would have no access to air or water. George therefore argues for a system which levies taxes on land and resources as opposed to one that taxes productive activity.
It makes sense to me because the amount of land is fixed, so unlike taxing income, you don't create a dis-incentive for engaging in productive activity. I think the ideal public policy would be one based on a hybridization of the Austrian and George theories of economics, applied in the context of a limited Constitutional government.
They may be interest bearing bonds, but they are intergovernmental IOUs. They are NOT "marketable" securities like Treasury bonds which are bought and sold in the open market. With no prospect of a balanced budget in sight, new treasury securities will have to be issued in order for the general fund to be able to cover the IOUs to SS when the funds are needed.
Regardless, it will mean a lot more treasury securities going on the market, when the world's appetite for our debt is getting steadily weaker. People that buy treasuries may very well be the victims of a con. If you watch the regular treasury auctions, you'll see that the Federal Reserve has been sucking up large portions of the auctions with "printed" money(aka "monetizing the debt"). How long can that particular shell game last?
Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about, who you're listening to, or where you're getting your information.
Find me a libertarian that says that you, as an individual, or you and your friends shouldn't be FREE to write and distribute software in any way you please, even without charge. It's absolutely inconceivable for a libertarian to hold such a belief.
There is no fundamental libertarian belief that puts "making money" ahead of individual liberty, or praises it as an ideal in and of itself. No true libertarian would think that a corporation should be allowed to enhance its profits by dumping toxic waste into the air and water because THAT is a case in which making (more) money is a direct infringement on the freedom of others. Freedom is the ideal, and it's not subservient to "money making".
Anyone that preaches the libertarian ideal of "The individual should be free to do whatever they want" but leaves out the part ". . . as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others" isn't a real libertarian.
The author is NOT attacking "free software" as the summary would indicate. How the hell could any true libertarian argue that an individual shouldn't be free to write software and then sell or give it away at their own discretion? He IS attacking the viewpoint that all copyright and intellectual property law should be abolished, and that ALL software should be free. Unfortunately, he is making an extremely weak "guilt by association" argument in opposition to network neutrality by claiming that it is part of the same agenda. That's a lame tactic regardless of the viewpoint being argued. i.e. find the most radical or fringe element that supports a certain cause, and then associate that cause with the entire agenda of that fringe element. WEAK!
I have strong libertarian leanings, and the whole idea of "network neutrality" gets into a gray area for me. I agree with the principle, but I don't really trust the government when it comes to implementation. As the author suggests, the D.C. crowd is all too happy to give pleasant or innocuous sounding names to bills which are really hideous in the details.
You're making some rather sweeping generalizations. Libertarians are hypocrits and exploiters with a general superiority complex? This article is certainly NOT evidence of libertarian hypocrisy. I think the author is simply letting his completely justified mistrust of big government cloud the issue.
I'm libertarian leaning, and after much internal struggle, I also concluded that I support the "concept" of network neutrality.
It's extremely unfortunate that the only institution in the U.S. with enough power to enforce something like that is the Federal Government. With that in mind, I do not trust any "implementation" of network neutrality that the D.C. crowd will come up with. They may give a piece of legislation a nice label, but you can be sure that in the end, the big money special interests will get everything they want. Our government is currently unwilling to pass any major legislation, or even enforce existing laws that might benefit the average citizen at the expense of wealthy special interests.
It sucks, but I think that we're on our own here. Hopefully we can generate enough backlash against corporations that start throttling bandwidth, discriminating based on data type, content, source or destination to make them reconsider their practices. If we have to put our trust in D.C. we're screwed.
" . . . those who don't want to fight, not because they are weak, but because they don't like fighting."
Guess they need to say their prayers, turn the other cheek, and hope that they'll be rewarded in the after-life for all the $#!T that they're going to have to put up with in this one.
"... people like you who encourage young people to fight that is the problem."
Big difference between encouraging someone to "fight" and encouraging them to defend themselves. I agree that kids being forced to resort to violence is a failure of the adults, but the primary failure is often bad parents and bad home environments that create the bullies. How do you fix that? Why should good kids from good homes have to suffer because of these bad parents? I'd like to know what life experiences shaped your world view. Mine was shaped by a bunch of idiots who were around 3 years older than I was making my life miserable throughout my early school years. What's your nice peaceful solution when some 10 year olds are verbally and physically abusing a 7 year old? Call the cops? Compel the bad parents to be better parents? Have the teacher verbally reprimand the bullies? Unfortunately, the only thing that most bullies understand is violence. I'm proud of the times I fought back, and ashamed of the times when I did nothing or ran away. Knowing what I do now, I would not only have fought back, I would have taken a tree branch and beat every single one of those assholes to within an inch of their lives.
Limited competition in last mile connections is only one tiny part of the problem. Businesses that own those connections might enjoy monopoly profits in the bandwidth business, but as long as that's their ONLY business, we're still in decent shape.
The REAL problem is that the big telecom companies want to start a system of tiered service over the backbones, similar to what you see at the post office. You can ship standard ground, first class, or overnight express . . . for a FEE. Their mission is to set up bidding wars, e.g. between Google and Microsoft for search results. Oh, this packet originated from "Google", and they paid big $$$ for express service, so they get their data transferred faster. "littlesearchengine.com" didn't pay for top of the line service, so we'll de-prioritize their traffic.
That's the problem NN is trying to address. Too bad that the government has to stick its nose in.
"...insurance companies are quaking in their boots at the thought of Public Health care;"
HA! More like "putting up a token resistance". Think about it. If the insurance companies really thought this Federal nonsense was going to hurt their profits, and were REALLY fighting against it, you'd see an all-out media onslaught. I can guarantee that if this passes, there will be a MA-style mandate for people to buy insurance. More healthy customers for the insurance industry, pharma companies and medical service providers. They might even be able to pawn their poorest and sickest customers off onto the "public plan".
"Unrestricted Internet access should be the mission of the US, because it enables free speech. If corporate America has to suffer, so what?"
+1 Funny. When was the last time the Federal government passed any legislation that significantly enhanced civil liberties? Allowing concealed firearms carry in national parks? When was the last time they did anything to make corporate America "suffer"? Tobacco taxes and FDA regulating nicotine? Trade that off against trillions in military contracts, subsidies and bailouts.
Washington D.C. might as well be a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America and foreign governments.
Slashdot Mirror
"A half-pound black powder bomb with steel BBs would be well more than enough[to kill, say 200, people]. That's about the size of a tennis ball."
Not a chance! Black powder won't even explode unless it's contained, and a couple of layers of bone and meat are going to stop all of the steel BBs. 8 ounces of black powder might kill a handful of people and damage the hearing of a few others, but that's it. Even a tennis ball sized piece of C4 wouldn't be that destructive.
I think $8 per hour puts you in the category of "working poor", and I expect that you can do better. I was making > $13 as an intern doing Windows Client->Server setups in 1996-1997. We basically created a "test" network with some data and application servers and a few clients. Then, when everything was working, we created a production environment and went around standardizing the software and settings on all of the clients. At the time I had no credentials or certifications other than good grades. If you're in the United States, I'd recommend that you look around for other work. Get something that pays better, or if you're only going to be earning $8 per hour, look for something where you know for sure that there will be a lot of learning opportunities.
Good luck.
You seem to imply that the "all government is evil" crowd are adopting that rhetroic from a philosophical standpoint. Later in your post however, you point out that the pseudo-representative Federal government is owned by special interests. I don't think that those special interests control the government out of a profound desire to do "good". The belief that "all [Federal] government is evil" is therefore a rational conclusion, even for a person who believes that government CAN play a positive role in society. Maybe they "can", but, for the reasons you stated, they simply WON'T.
Very true. However, I can't help but think that if public education were not such a dismal failure, there might actually be a profitable market for objective journalism.
"I take it by your "government is always worse than private sector" bias that you're most likely american."
I think it's more a case of "The American government sucks" bias. The U.S. government is a wholly owned subsidiary of elite special interests, so even if we DID decide to accept a government role in a service like providing unbiased media, the government would just out-source it to CNN (Dems) or Fox (Repubs).
There are indeed a few things that a government COULD do better than the private sector, but that's a purely academic discussion. The government in Washington D.C. is so corrupt and power hungry, that they can't be trusted to do ANYTHING. I'd like to see some legislation regarding net neutrality for instance, but with THIS government, we'd get a 1000 page bill where the cover page read "Net Neutrality and Internet Freedom Preservation Act" and the legislation would give more power to the government, cost billions of dollars, and serve the profit motives of big corporations.
"They have been hijacking ships up to 1000nm off the coast ..."
I'm not sure you can specify the location of the coast with the degree of precision required to make that distance relevant. ;-)
"... in my experience if someone is actually wanted by the police they tend to be found pretty quickly."
How many times have you been caught?
"Let's rephrase that a bit,"
I think you meant "let's create a strawman argument". How did you get from "The DoE doesn't improve anything and should be abolished" to "Let's privatize the transporation infrastructure" and "let's get rid of the police department." ???
The point is that we have a Federal Department of Education that consumes resources which would be better spent on actual education and better allocated by people who understand the unique needs of their state and local schools. My proposal would be to eradicate the DoE and in the near term, redisctribute all the funds back to the states.
"There is nothing in the constitution that says the DoE cannot establish a generalized curriculum (just as the federal government has the right to regulate or protect interstate commerce.)"
There's likewise nothing in The Constitution that empowers them to do so, and therefore they don't have the legal authority. Remember, the idea of The Constitution is that the feds have specifically enumerated powers. They CANNOT legally do anything else. They have the enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce. They do NOT have an enumerated power to force crap like NCLB on our local schools.
". . . with the teeth to force local school districts to implement said curriculums."
They already do that by blackmailing us with our own tax dollars. Having federal government forcing things onto states and local communities, either through blackmail or unfunded mandates is a problem, not a solution.
"Whenever someone (or some group) thinks they know what Utopia is, they try to force everybody down the same path."
Welcome to America! (i.e. The United States of). A bunch of bureaucrats and politicians develop the plans for their utopian society and then send out armed minions to impose that vision onto society. Doesn't matter whether it's rural Montana or downtown Los Angeles. The Federal solution MUST be implemented.
"...if you keep people well-fed, sheltered, clothed and socially stable you can actually foster liberty and individuality."
You "could" do that, but if some central government figured out HOW to do it, they wouldn't have any desire to foster liberty or individuality.
"If you want to oppress people, make sure they don't have enough food to get up off their knees."
I think that might have been true once, but not any longer. A bunch of hungry people are also going to be desperate and angry people. Not exactly the recipe for tranquil servitude. These days, the best way to oppress people is to make sure that the pretzel bowl is full, there is beer in the refrigerator and there is plenty of mind-numbing entertainment on television with a big dose of propaganda letting people know that they are in fact "FREE".
NCLB has a nice "feel good" ring to it, but it rings hollow when you think about it what it means.
If no child can be "left behind", then an entire group can only move forward as quickly as the slowest and the dumbest member. Why don't we have "Every Child Moving Forward" or something? Just as anecodotal evidence of how stupid this policy is, I know a teacher that works in a city that was the target of the "Refugee Resettlement" program. She and her colleagues now have to deal with kids who are basically illiterate in English language and writing. But, NO CHILD can be left behind, so you can easily guess where/how she spends 95% of her time.
We should ACCEPT and ENCOURAGE the idea of leaving kids "behind". If a kid can't do 6th grade math, then it's highly unlikely he/she will be able to get "caught up" and suddenly be able to do math in higher grades. Passing someone into the next grade when they can't master their current studies only compounds and worsens the problem.
" . . . breeds are not inherently vicious, individuals are."
You make several good points, but I disagree with the "absoluteness" implied in your statement. You're suggesting that all breeds/species of dogs are born with a behavioral "blank slate" and that their eventual temperament is ENTIRELY a product of environment. Would you argue that the dog's eventual height, wieght, color, strength, agility, etc. are ENTIRELY a product of exercise and nutrition? I agree that almost any breed of dog could be conditioned to be friendly and basically "harmless" or could be conditioned to be mean and vicious through abuse and neglect. However, dogs are born with a pre-disposed temperament. That's why the training regimen and handling routines are different for different breeds. Compare and contrast the temperament of a golden retriever and doberman pinscher. There are definite and easily observed pre-dispositions there. Either dog can be trained to co-exist happily with people, including children and strangers, but in general, a doberman is going to require more discipline and assertiveness from a human friend, especially in its younger years. Otherwise, the dog will all too easily assume the role of "pack leader".
". . . banning those breeds won't solve the problem, or even alleviate it in a meaningful way"
I completely agree. The "bad" behavior of the dog is entirely the responsibility of the owner, and making certain breeds "illegal" because of a few people who don't know how to handle the animal, or who deliberately mis-handle the animal is ridiculous. If anything, we should prevent certain people from owning pets.
" . . . red states DO spend all the money blue states make."
I'm glad that you see this as a problem.
"(California and New York) . . . receive less money than many red states."
The question you should be asking is not which state "receives" more or less money, but where that money came from to begin with. Allowing the Federal government to confiscate massive amounts of wealth and then simply redistribute it to the states is a wasteful and ridiculous system. The people of California, New York, and the other 48 states would be much better off if the Federal government was about 1/4 of its current size. Then, a lot of that money would never leave the state to begin with! Let the blue states solve their blue state problems and the red states solve their red state problems and get big brother out of the "mandate" and "grant" and "earmark" business entirely.
Please do your part to support the state sovereignty movement and limit the power of the Federal Government to engage in such blatantly destructive policies.
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/
"You honestly don't see those as being about as partisan towards the left side of things"
I see ALL of the "mainstream" media as a giant propaganda machine designed to perpetuate the status quo and serve wealthy special interests. Both of the "major" political parties are really on the same "side", except on a few divisive and emotional (but largely unimportant) issues. The mission of the MSM is to create and maintain the illusion of genuine political opposition. Their primary tool for doing this is to constrain the political dialogue in this country to a narrow spectrum of "acceptable" viewpoints, and then twist every issue into a narrow minded black and white paradigm where there are "two sides". Real investigative journalism no longer exists in the confines of the mainstream press.
We would all do well to completely ignore the MSM propaganda. Long live the bloggers and the independent media.
Person 'A' did not willingly enter into a transaction which involved person B damaging his/her vehicle.
"Wealth used to be based on land and natural resources, true, but this was proven to be wrong by the late 1600s."
I don't think that such a thing can possibly be "proven" to be wrong. In fact, the economist Henry George in his book "Progress and Poverty" makes a very compelling argument which suggests that monopolization of land and resources is the fundamental mechanism by which vast disparities in wealth are created and perpetuated.
Condensing his arguments here would be impossible, but basically, if the rules of your society prevent you from accessing land and resources, you are automatically deprived of the ability to lead a self-determined and "free" existence. If you have no access to land or resources, you have no access to shelter, no way to grow food, hunt game, raise animals, etc. In the extreme case of resource privatization, you would have no access to air or water. George therefore argues for a system which levies taxes on land and resources as opposed to one that taxes productive activity.
It makes sense to me because the amount of land is fixed, so unlike taxing income, you don't create a dis-incentive for engaging in productive activity. I think the ideal public policy would be one based on a hybridization of the Austrian and George theories of economics, applied in the context of a limited Constitutional government.
"...wii remote for a mature games, use it as a axe for a postal type game..."
I can't find a link, but I believe Nintendo already rejected a game that proposed using the remote to emulate a stabbing weapon.
They may be interest bearing bonds, but they are intergovernmental IOUs. They are NOT "marketable" securities like Treasury bonds which are bought and sold in the open market. With no prospect of a balanced budget in sight, new treasury securities will have to be issued in order for the general fund to be able to cover the IOUs to SS when the funds are needed.
Regardless, it will mean a lot more treasury securities going on the market, when the world's appetite for our debt is getting steadily weaker. People that buy treasuries may very well be the victims of a con. If you watch the regular treasury auctions, you'll see that the Federal Reserve has been sucking up large portions of the auctions with "printed" money(aka "monetizing the debt"). How long can that particular shell game last?
Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about, who you're listening to, or where you're getting your information.
Find me a libertarian that says that you, as an individual, or you and your friends shouldn't be FREE to write and distribute software in any way you please, even without charge. It's absolutely inconceivable for a libertarian to hold such a belief.
There is no fundamental libertarian belief that puts "making money" ahead of individual liberty, or praises it as an ideal in and of itself. No true libertarian would think that a corporation should be allowed to enhance its profits by dumping toxic waste into the air and water because THAT is a case in which making (more) money is a direct infringement on the freedom of others. Freedom is the ideal, and it's not subservient to "money making".
Anyone that preaches the libertarian ideal of "The individual should be free to do whatever they want" but leaves out the part ". . . as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others" isn't a real libertarian.
I RTFA, and followed the link to the Op-Ed piece in the Washington Examiner:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/_Net-Neutrality_-Is-Socialism_-Not-Freedom-8410175.html
The author is NOT attacking "free software" as the summary would indicate. How the hell could any true libertarian argue that an individual shouldn't be free to write software and then sell or give it away at their own discretion? He IS attacking the viewpoint that all copyright and intellectual property law should be abolished, and that ALL software should be free. Unfortunately, he is making an extremely weak "guilt by association" argument in opposition to network neutrality by claiming that it is part of the same agenda. That's a lame tactic regardless of the viewpoint being argued. i.e. find the most radical or fringe element that supports a certain cause, and then associate that cause with the entire agenda of that fringe element. WEAK!
I have strong libertarian leanings, and the whole idea of "network neutrality" gets into a gray area for me. I agree with the principle, but I don't really trust the government when it comes to implementation. As the author suggests, the D.C. crowd is all too happy to give pleasant or innocuous sounding names to bills which are really hideous in the details.
You're making some rather sweeping generalizations. Libertarians are hypocrits and exploiters with a general superiority complex? This article is certainly NOT evidence of libertarian hypocrisy. I think the author is simply letting his completely justified mistrust of big government cloud the issue.
I'm libertarian leaning, and after much internal struggle, I also concluded that I support the "concept" of network neutrality.
It's extremely unfortunate that the only institution in the U.S. with enough power to enforce something like that is the Federal Government. With that in mind, I do not trust any "implementation" of network neutrality that the D.C. crowd will come up with. They may give a piece of legislation a nice label, but you can be sure that in the end, the big money special interests will get everything they want. Our government is currently unwilling to pass any major legislation, or even enforce existing laws that might benefit the average citizen at the expense of wealthy special interests.
It sucks, but I think that we're on our own here. Hopefully we can generate enough backlash against corporations that start throttling bandwidth, discriminating based on data type, content, source or destination to make them reconsider their practices. If we have to put our trust in D.C. we're screwed.
" . . . those who don't want to fight, not because they are weak, but because they don't like fighting."
Guess they need to say their prayers, turn the other cheek, and hope that they'll be rewarded in the after-life for all the $#!T that they're going to have to put up with in this one.
"... people like you who encourage young people to fight that is the problem."
Big difference between encouraging someone to "fight" and encouraging them to defend themselves. I agree that kids being forced to resort to violence is a failure of the adults, but the primary failure is often bad parents and bad home environments that create the bullies. How do you fix that? Why should good kids from good homes have to suffer because of these bad parents? I'd like to know what life experiences shaped your world view. Mine was shaped by a bunch of idiots who were around 3 years older than I was making my life miserable throughout my early school years. What's your nice peaceful solution when some 10 year olds are verbally and physically abusing a 7 year old? Call the cops? Compel the bad parents to be better parents? Have the teacher verbally reprimand the bullies? Unfortunately, the only thing that most bullies understand is violence. I'm proud of the times I fought back, and ashamed of the times when I did nothing or ran away. Knowing what I do now, I would not only have fought back, I would have taken a tree branch and beat every single one of those assholes to within an inch of their lives.
Limited competition in last mile connections is only one tiny part of the problem. Businesses that own those connections might enjoy monopoly profits in the bandwidth business, but as long as that's their ONLY business, we're still in decent shape.
The REAL problem is that the big telecom companies want to start a system of tiered service over the backbones, similar to what you see at the post office. You can ship standard ground, first class, or overnight express . . . for a FEE. Their mission is to set up bidding wars, e.g. between Google and Microsoft for search results. Oh, this packet originated from "Google", and they paid big $$$ for express service, so they get their data transferred faster. "littlesearchengine.com" didn't pay for top of the line service, so we'll de-prioritize their traffic.
That's the problem NN is trying to address. Too bad that the government has to stick its nose in.
"...insurance companies are quaking in their boots at the thought of Public Health care;"
HA! More like "putting up a token resistance". Think about it. If the insurance companies really thought this Federal nonsense was going to hurt their profits, and were REALLY fighting against it, you'd see an all-out media onslaught. I can guarantee that if this passes, there will be a MA-style mandate for people to buy insurance. More healthy customers for the insurance industry, pharma companies and medical service providers. They might even be able to pawn their poorest and sickest customers off onto the "public plan".
"Unrestricted Internet access should be the mission of the US, because it enables free speech. If corporate America has to suffer, so what?"
+1 Funny. When was the last time the Federal government passed any legislation that significantly enhanced civil liberties? Allowing concealed firearms carry in national parks? When was the last time they did anything to make corporate America "suffer"? Tobacco taxes and FDA regulating nicotine? Trade that off against trillions in military contracts, subsidies and bailouts.
Washington D.C. might as well be a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America and foreign governments.