How splendid that Mr. Katz has decided to explain everything for us once more. Let's see...
> Reagan, a professional actor, didn't really need to understand the details of politics or government, and never did.
One of the nice things about being a "professional journalist" (which I presume Katz purports to be) is the free license to distribute flamebait. Sort of a GPL for unsubstantiated cheap shots, really. What other pearls of wisdom does he have for us this time?
> The pundits are wrong, especially when it comes to the 2000 election.
Aren't you a "pundit", Mr. Katz? Why is it always everyone else who's the clueless insider?
> All during the Monica Lewinsky drama, the U.S. Congress revealed itself as a remote, antideluvian institution unable to read the mood of the American public or respond rationally to it.
The word is "antediluvian", not "antideluvian". This (and I shall give you the benefit of the doubt) typo is quite impressive. As for the antiquity of Congress, that cannot be disputed; I would, however, take issue with the fact that because something dates to 1788 it must be useless. As for being "remote", how could it be otherwise? Congressmen hardly have the ability to give each constituent a little ring in mid-afternoon to check on J. Q. Public's thoughts on today's tariff reform bill. That's sort of the point of representative democracy. It is hard to know what to say, again, to his cheap shot about the impeachment process, except to note that if someone was to perjure himself with impunity in order to harm Mr. Katz, we would likely be hearing about it for years. Oh, no, wait, that's the complex, difficult-to-dismiss issue. It's all "just about sex"... I keep forgetting.
>Washington was constructed to do the talking and voting on behalf of constituents unable to join.
More to the point, Washington was constructed (metaphorically speaking) to do the thinking on behalf of constituents who didn't have the time or experience to contemplate alterations to the Glass-Steigel Act, the Sherman and Wheeler Acts, the Dawes Plan, or any other complicated sets of business which the aforementioned J. Q. Public, educated though he might be, does not have the time (or, one might note, the patience) to resolve for himself. In representative democracy, you vote for someone whom you can trust and whose opinions more or less match yours; you have then authorized them to speak for you. They then are supposed to keep an eye on things for you, help uphold the laws (except those against perjury and obstructing justice, I keep forgetting; they don't count), and hold the fort. If they screw up, you ask someone else to do it (i.e. vote for someone else next time). This is why representative democracy is a good idea.
> he survey found that wired Americans - people who use computers to access the Net and the Web regularly -- were different from the non-Wired
Mr. Katz here inserts a list of several characteristics shared by the "wired" set, a group of sainted elites only exceeded by the "geeks" he presumes to speak for. The most interesting thing about this list is that it consists of qualities like "is interested in pop culture" and "loves the free market system" which, upon further reflection, those possessing an account at an ISP don't really seem to have a deadlock on. It's hard to fathom quite what his point is.
> The Net pol might favor the equitable distribution of technology
Ah, yes... Mr. Katz' latent liberalism rears its hoary carapace once more. Folks, let's do a little polling ourselves here. Since "equitable distribution" here (and everywhere) means "taking things away from people who have them to give to people who don't", would you be satisfied to give away 90% of your computing power (let's set you up with, say, a 386 and Telnet) to make things "fair" for all the people who haven't gotten around to buying a computer yet? Or would you, say, prefer that people went and bought themselves one?
How on earth would you manage "distribution of technology", anyway? "Technology" isn't really a bulk good like, say, grain. It's a concept. Should we set up a nationwide program to distribute a UART and twelve transistors to each citizen over the age of 12?
> A Net campaigner needs... to be interactive, rather than pretending to be.
How does a person manage to not be "interactive" I cannot fathom, unless someone decides to run a rutabaga for County Commissioner somewhere. Or did Mr. Katz mean "readily available for an opinion anytime, day or night"? Ah, that must be it. I therefore support a law forcing every presidential candidate's home phone number to be posted on the Web. And we need some of those bathroom video-screens like in "Spaceballs". No sense in giving 'em a place to hide.
> An interactive politician would have known from the first the public wasn't going to go for Bill Clinton's impeachment, no matter what Kenneth Starr found or did.
Conversely, if said politician DID listen to the public when it, in some frenzied fit, demanded, say, a CDA, Mr. Katz would be the first person flaming the "immature" politicians for pandering to the public. You just can't win, I guess.
> Politicis isn't even on the list [of popular Internet content], a sharp commentary on the world's leading democracy.
I thought that we, the wired elite, were only supposed to be interested in pop culture and downloading MP3s! What do you want from us?
> Instead of clucking about how dangerous movies and pop culture are (Bob Dole), the Net candidate will go see them.
And, if he's a really decent guy, try to sneak a couple 12-year-olds in too. That's the only true expression of freedom; Jon Katz told us that a couple weeks ago.
Whew... well, I think that once again we should thank our illustrious columnist for Explaining How It Is to us. The only thing which mystifies and astonishes me is how he managed to get through a piece of writing longer than a grocery list without once mentioning Columbine High School.
Slashdot Mirror
> Reagan, a professional actor, didn't really need to understand the details of politics or government, and never did.
One of the nice things about being a "professional journalist" (which I presume Katz purports to be) is the free license to distribute flamebait. Sort of a GPL for unsubstantiated cheap shots, really. What other pearls of wisdom does he have for us this time?
> The pundits are wrong, especially when it comes to the 2000 election.
Aren't you a "pundit", Mr. Katz? Why is it always everyone else who's the clueless insider?
> All during the Monica Lewinsky drama, the U.S. Congress revealed itself as a remote, antideluvian institution unable to read the mood of the American public or respond rationally to it.
The word is "antediluvian", not "antideluvian". This (and I shall give you the benefit of the doubt) typo is quite impressive. As for the antiquity of Congress, that cannot be disputed; I would, however, take issue with the fact that because something dates to 1788 it must be useless. As for being "remote", how could it be otherwise? Congressmen hardly have the ability to give each constituent a little ring in mid-afternoon to check on J. Q. Public's thoughts on today's tariff reform bill. That's sort of the point of representative democracy. It is hard to know what to say, again, to his cheap shot about the impeachment process, except to note that if someone was to perjure himself with impunity in order to harm Mr. Katz, we would likely be hearing about it for years. Oh, no, wait, that's the complex, difficult-to-dismiss issue. It's all "just about sex"... I keep forgetting.
>Washington was constructed to do the talking and voting on behalf of constituents unable to join.
More to the point, Washington was constructed (metaphorically speaking) to do the thinking on behalf of constituents who didn't have the time or experience to contemplate alterations to the Glass-Steigel Act, the Sherman and Wheeler Acts, the Dawes Plan, or any other complicated sets of business which the aforementioned J. Q. Public, educated though he might be, does not have the time (or, one might note, the patience) to resolve for himself. In representative democracy, you vote for someone whom you can trust and whose opinions more or less match yours; you have then authorized them to speak for you. They then are supposed to keep an eye on things for you, help uphold the laws (except those against perjury and obstructing justice, I keep forgetting; they don't count), and hold the fort. If they screw up, you ask someone else to do it (i.e. vote for someone else next time). This is why representative democracy is a good idea.
> he survey found that wired Americans - people who use computers to access the Net and the Web regularly -- were different from the non-Wired
Mr. Katz here inserts a list of several characteristics shared by the "wired" set, a group of sainted elites only exceeded by the "geeks" he presumes to speak for. The most interesting thing about this list is that it consists of qualities like "is interested in pop culture" and "loves the free market system" which, upon further reflection, those possessing an account at an ISP don't really seem to have a deadlock on. It's hard to fathom quite what his point is.
> The Net pol might favor the equitable distribution of technology
Ah, yes... Mr. Katz' latent liberalism rears its hoary carapace once more. Folks, let's do a little polling ourselves here. Since "equitable distribution" here (and everywhere) means "taking things away from people who have them to give to people who don't", would you be satisfied to give away 90% of your computing power (let's set you up with, say, a 386 and Telnet) to make things "fair" for all the people who haven't gotten around to buying a computer yet? Or would you, say, prefer that people went and bought themselves one?
How on earth would you manage "distribution of technology", anyway? "Technology" isn't really a bulk good like, say, grain. It's a concept. Should we set up a nationwide program to distribute a UART and twelve transistors to each citizen over the age of 12?
> A Net campaigner needs... to be interactive, rather than pretending to be.
How does a person manage to not be "interactive" I cannot fathom, unless someone decides to run a rutabaga for County Commissioner somewhere. Or did Mr. Katz mean "readily available for an opinion anytime, day or night"? Ah, that must be it. I therefore support a law forcing every presidential candidate's home phone number to be posted on the Web. And we need some of those bathroom video-screens like in "Spaceballs". No sense in giving 'em a place to hide.
> An interactive politician would have known from the first the public wasn't going to go for Bill Clinton's impeachment, no matter what Kenneth Starr found or did.
Conversely, if said politician DID listen to the public when it, in some frenzied fit, demanded, say, a CDA, Mr. Katz would be the first person flaming the "immature" politicians for pandering to the public. You just can't win, I guess.
> Politicis isn't even on the list [of popular Internet content], a sharp commentary on the world's leading democracy.
I thought that we, the wired elite, were only supposed to be interested in pop culture and downloading MP3s! What do you want from us?
> Instead of clucking about how dangerous movies and pop culture are (Bob Dole), the Net candidate will go see them.
And, if he's a really decent guy, try to sneak a couple 12-year-olds in too. That's the only true expression of freedom; Jon Katz told us that a couple weeks ago.
Whew... well, I think that once again we should thank our illustrious columnist for Explaining How It Is to us. The only thing which mystifies and astonishes me is how he managed to get through a piece of writing longer than a grocery list without once mentioning Columbine High School.
Sartorius the Irascible