That could also have to do with the fact that all of Europe is about 1/3 the size of the United States, too, with signifcantly higher population densities. Lot cheaper to build & maintain an infrastructure that doesn't include hundreds of miles of cabling that service 200 people.
How did government control of highways mean more freedom of movement (Fewer highway robbers and turnpike toll bandits)?
*cough* You've obviously never driven around New England. The governments here are quite happy to erect toll plazas "just to pay for construction of this road," and then leave those toll plazas in place indefinitely because, hey, once you've got that revenue stream flowing, why would you cut it off and put your completely unqualified nephew and his even-less-qualified girlfriend out of a job?:)
If this were really such a cut & dry partisan issue, why have 70+ democrat members of congress also asked the FCC to drop it's plans to impose net neutrality rules?
I'm not a big fan of the FCC having this power, and not because "I'm a republican," (I'm actually not, in point of fact), but because I see what moronic regulations the FCC has imposed on television & radio. If you look at the "content controls" they've enacted on those formats, is it all that hard to imagine that they'll soon be tasked with "content regulation" on the internet as well, in the form of mandatory parental controls & staggering fines on sites deemed to violate some obscure and arbitrary FCC ruling?
They do it with TV and radio today. If you give them the same control over the internet, I won't be surprised to see them attempting the same regulations there within a few years. I'm all for the concept of net neutrality, but I'm not convinced the FCC is the body best suited for 'regulating' a 'free and open' internet. I'd like to see a dramatic limitation of their powers to impose anything more than "thou shalt not filter or shape traffic," at the very least.
Seriously, for whom would a sample size of 1,000 torrents seem even close to enough?
Statisticians?
You do not need a huge sample size to extract statistically significant results. Of course their sampling methodology could lead to skewed results due to a selection bias, and that's always worth considering... but a sample size of 1000 is not too small to derive statistically significant results from, assuming they used a reasonably "random" sampling methodology.
But there you go again with the same old wrong premise: that part of socialism requires spending outside your means, which is patently false.
You're quite right - socialism doesn't "require" deficit spending, but it's entirely disingenuous of you, given the evidence everywhere in the western world, to act as if it does not encourage deficit spending. Socialism requires the creation of social programs which, in turn, need to be funded either by taxation, or by borrowing - can we agree that far? If you disagree, please explain what other method I'm overlooking.
It's debatable as to the merits of particular cases but the intention is one of investment, not the mindless waste you imply.
I would give a qualified agreement there - I don't doubt that many socialists absolutely earnestly believe that they are investing that money. However, to qualify as an investment, there must be a "return" on it - in the form of increased economic output, quality of life, or some other benefit - that outweighs the cost of that investment. In the context of "fully funded" social programs, that means that the burden of high taxes on the most productive & wealthy members of society must be offset by the benefit society gains by providing services to its least-productive and poorest members. And you must also consider whether or not *private* investment with that money would produce the same or more benefit to society. If the output is not greater than the input, then you are engaged in consumption, not investment.
Your selection of debt as a measure of GDP isn't necessarily the best way to look at the issue, as convenient as it is for your narrative.
For the purposes of this discussion, it's quite relevant. A country with a high debt-to-GDP ratio is in danger of being unable to pay the interest on its debt. The more debt a government has to service, the more of its income (i.e., taxes & fees) must be spent on that debt service, which conversely means the amount available for social programs is reduced. This leaves them with three options: raise taxes, cut benefits, or borrow - and I'll concede as well that none of these are exclusive to the others, and all could be employed as a result of a funding crunch.
However, consider that you can only raise taxes so far - you simply can't take more than 100% of what somebody earns, and tax increases are always tremendously unpopular. Cutting benefits you can do, but you won't stay in office past the next election if you cut them too broadly (and broad cuts are generally required to have a significant effect in the finances of a program like Social Security). This leaves us with borrowing to fund the program, and again, there's a practical limit to how much of this you can do - sooner or later, your creditors realize that you have no hope of being able to repay.
The US having a much larger GDP makes it that much harder to actually influence the trend, not to mention the fact that only China can afford to loan to us the amounts we need.
All the more reason to stop planning new entitlement programs when we have such a dangerously high debt burden. We hear a lot of talk about health care and how great universal coverage will be, but no talk of tax increases to fund it, just talk about how much bigger our deficits will be over the next 10 years. We're just kicking the issue down the road and saying "we'll figure that out later." I'm not saying "all spending = bad," I'm saying "social programs as the answer to everything with no consideration of their costs and benefits = bad."
If Republicans quit their political maneuvering and actually propose an alternative philosophy instead of fearmongering, there may be something to talk about.
I agree - I think the Republicans are, in general, making a complete hash of everything. I don't think the Democrats
Care to explain what you mean by "they eventually will"? Europe's in nowhere near the economic mess we are, nor does it have anything like our debt.
As an absolute measure, you're right, they have less debt. But "absolute measures" of debt aren't an accurate way to calculate. The better way to calculate a country's debt is by comparing their obligations to their GDP.
Sort those lists by "% of GDP" and see where the majority of European countries fall relative to the USA. Consider who is a better credit risk - the guy who makes 150k a year and has a balance of 5k on his credit card, or the guy who makes 20k a year and has a balance of 5k on his credit card. In terms of ability to make payments, the measure of debt-to-income is a much truer sense of a country's financial health. Look at debt-per-capita numbers, too... it's eye-opening.
The US already has a dangerous level of debt, and the solution being proposed is... to spend *more* money we don't have by enacting *more* entitlement programs?
Greece, Portugal, and Spain are all struggling with their debt killing their ability to borrow. Ireland has been struggling with its debt, Iceland practically collapsed in the past year's financial turbulence. And who's paying for Greece's mismanagement? The rest of the EU. Read up on just how popular the Greek bailout plan is, and then tell me that I'm wrong about people not enjoying paying for that "free stuff" eventually.
Socialism - "in practice" - leads to unsustainable levels of debt. You cannot spend more than you earn indefinitely, and increasing your spending while your earnings stay flat or decline is a sure path to disaster.
I've already been down-modded into oblivion here, but what the hell, let's go for one more. I refuse to believe that the people of Slashdot, well-versed in sciences and maths, cannot grasp logic this obvious. If you spend more than you earn, and you have no reasonable plan that will allow you to grow your earnings at a pace faster than your spending, you are on a path to financial ruin. If you are already spending more than you earn, and you propose to increase spending even further, you are simply putting your foot down a little harder on the accelerator.
Perhaps you could try *making* a point then, rather than just disagreeing with what I've said via innuendo and sneer?
If you wanted to discuss "social democracy", that's not what I (or the post I responded to) were talking about, and in fact we specifically *stated* that the topic was "socialism" and socialist ideology.
But I'm heartened to know that socialism has eliminated (or even "greatly reduced") social inequality everywhere it's been implemented. Thanks for the examples - oh wait, you didn't provide any.
there is the government. and then there are corporations. if your mind can't understand that those are two separate things,and that only one of them works with your interests in mind, then your mind and your opinions are useless and logically incoherent
I can do that too! Watch me:
There is the government, and there are corporations. If your mind can't understand that those are functionally indistinguishable today, and that neither of them works with YOUR interests in mind, then your mind and your opinions are useless and logically incoherent.
"raping" the government? I'd say that it's a good deal more consensual than you paint it.
see the corporations as helpless to do anything but rape, the poor little things, and the government is evil because it can be raped
No, I see the corporations as subverting the process of government to suit their own needs - it becomes a tool by which they stifle competition, choke off competitors, and take advantage of consumers.
I disagree that the solution is to "enact socialism," the solution is to strictly curtail the power and scope of government, and limit it as much as possible to police/military/courts, rather than giving it a vastly expanded role in managing every other aspect of society.
nd would you STOP blaming the government for being infected by corporations. the corporations are the enemy, not your government. what other tool do you believe the average citizen has against the power of the corporation?
I would argue that the two are so closely intertwined that it's quite hard to tell where one begins and the other ends at this point - taken independently, corporations are not necessarily the enemy, and neither is the government.
But when they collude to oppose the best interests of the people they are supposed to serve, my solution isn't to say "Well give more power to the government then, so they can fight off those evil nasty corporations." All you're doing is ceding more power to a body that is already controlled by the people you claim to want them to fight.
Thanks for quoting back most of my post to me, I love seeing my words cited. But I have to tell you, since I'm the one who wrote it, I sort of already knew what it said.
Did you have a point in any of that, or were you just so excited that somebody said something Rachel Maddow would disagree with, you had to repeat it?
Also, I got to give you extra points for using an extreme case of social inequality, a signature feature of a capitalist system, to be blamed on a socialist ideology, the whole point of which, is to fight such inequality.
I'm well aware that socialism, when combined with proper amounts of fairy dust, kitten whiskers, double rainbows, and the earnest wishes of 6 year olds, will eliminate "social inequalities". I'm also well aware that it doesn't do that in practice, because all socialism does is concentrate wealth in the hands of the central government, which special interests then wrestle with each other to control - often with bloody results.
then i will say that the corporatocracy you live under, that you blindly defend or ignorantly refuse to see that you are defending
First: "Socialism rapes you a little less," is hardly a strong recommendation for your solution.
Second: Where am I defending "corporatocracy"? I'm saying that socialism is not the answer, I'm not saying that the way things are today is "the best it could possibly be." I would, in fact, disagree just as strongly with someone saying that "the system we have today is capitalism and can't be improved on."
The fact remains that as long as you have a large government which takes in lots of money and hands out that money to particular constituents, you have set up a target that is irresistible for corporations and/or wealthy special interests to attempt to seize control of. Socialism does nothing to change that dynamic, in practice it simply concentrates more power and money in the hands of the government, making it an even more attractive takeover target.
No, I'm not "with you" on the rest of your words, because it was nothing but a rambling screed about how evil conservative people are for not supporting your preferred liberal (socialist) agenda.
Your entire post talked about how conservatives make "socialism" sound bad, but that it's really good and Europe loves it. Of course they do - who doesn't love free shit? You know what they don't love? Paying for it, as they eventually will.
There are plenty of very good reasons to not support socialism in practice - most notably that it's not financially sustainable as an economic solution. It demands that some people work as slaves part-time to pay for entitlements given to others. Can you think of a worse way to encourage creativity and industry than by saying "Great, you're very skilled with programming. Now you need to go work an extra 20 hours this week to pay for your neighbor's food, since he's kind of dumb?" I sure can't.
The problem is, this country has been governed as a socialist state for many years now. Republicans assure us that they're against big government while they enact new entitlements. Democrats shriek that we're racist while they enact new entitlements. And all the while, they're both beholden to their corporate & wealthy masters who are giving them their marching orders.
Socialism - in practice - is just another way for a wealthy and privileged few to amass more power and wealth. Or would you really care to argue (by citing examples) of socialists states that implement your ideals which are not ruled by a rich few who enjoy privilege far beyond what the serfs tilling the land are entitled to?
The problem isn't that "passion and urgency" have gone missing today, it's that "passion and urgency" have been placed in the service of "supporting my pet projects regardless of whether or not they're feasible, sustainable, and rationally sound."
Rambling about corporate conspiracies in all caps doesn't make him look like a passionate reformer who wants to convince people, it makes him look like a borderline-psychotic conspiracy theorist.
But yeah, cool response, bro - even if completely irrelevant.
Imagine if the FCC were doing the opposite, and trying to encourage a non-neutral net.
And let's also not forget that the FCC is the one levying fines for nipple slips and curse words on tv & on the radio. If that's not a case of "regulating content," I don't know what would qualify.
Now, does anybody truly believe that giving the FCC the power to regulate the internet providers won't result in somebody down the line getting the bright idea of saying, "Well it's fine if you restrict access to nipple images and videos people curse in?" Once given the power to regulate, somebody will say "Gee, we've got this hammer over here... maybe we should drive a few nails!"
I agree - I think *this decision* (net neutrality) is the right one, but I'm not comfortable with the notion of a group of appointed officials making these decisions, which can be reversed with a day or two's notice.
unfortunately, it is very difficult to fight billions of dollars in lobbyists and media buys.
Yeah, I mean all the fundraising Obama did and the money George Soros and other liberals plow into supporting political causes they support... it's impossible to fight that! All conservatives have is little old Fox news and Rush Limbaugh in their corner - they're fighting the good fight, but OH LORD, are their bones tired!
Stop pretending that your liberal causes are any less beholden to wealthy interests than the conservatives with "low iqs" you're slamming.
Opinion is fine as long as it is defined as opinion and not FACT. They should have a disclaimer bar that scrolls across the top of the screen at all times stating this network (Fox News) is not reporting news, just their opinions on what they consider the news.
Wow... that would pretty much destroy every cable news outlet in business today, at least as a "News" outlet.
Turn on CNN, MSNBC, Fox... take your pick. Watch them. Now tell me that any of them are primarily in the business of "reporting news" rather than "providing commentary and filtering what's happening today through the lens of the world as we think it ought to be"?
I challenge you to say - with a straight face & no irony - that Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, et. al on Fox are anything but flip-sides to entertainers like Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews.
If you actually believe that they (those other, non-Fox news channels) do anything but report a biased version of the news that conforms more closely to your biases and suppositions, then you truly are an idiot of monumental proportions.
If you want news, read/watch the BBC - they're not perfect, but they do a pretty damned good job of covering news rather than promoting personalities. If you want biased commentary, watch any American news outlet.
In theory, many Democrats favor Net neutrality. President Obama recently reiterated through a spokesman that he remains "committed" to the idea, as have some Democratic committee chairmen.
But theory doesn't always mesh with political practice. More than 70 House Democrats sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski instructing him to abandon his Net neutrality plans. A majority of Congress now opposes Genachowski's proposals.
It's not just "the republicans" that are doing this, wake the fuck up and stop with the "My team is better than your team" bullshit - the only difference here is that YOUR whores are disingenuously claiming to be in favor of it while working to undermine it.
Maybe I am a lost breed, one that believes if I pay for a service I do not want to see these ads.
If by "lost breed," you mean "someone who has expectations for service quality that are unrealistic given the relatively small amount he pays for the service," then yes.
You do realize that if they stopped advertising altogether and went to a completely subscriber-funded model, that you would see either a DRASTIC reduction in the breadth of programming ("doesn't everybody want to watch Friends on a loop for 5 hours a day on the one channel we offer?"), or a DRASTIC increase in the cost of the service?
Alternately, you'd see a bunch of college art films made on someone's iPhone, with the acting skill & production qualities of Victorian-era porn.
I also think that Apple can't afford to not do this. They have been forced to reduce their prices on their hardware, eating away their margins. I don't think that they would be able to continue to provide the level of support as well as the heavyweight retail presence with margins continuing to fall. Ads would increase the value to the bottom line of each sale.
Yeah, the slowly eroding margins are why they're printing fucking money with all their products with the possible exception of Apple TV. Have you watched their revenues and profits over the past few years?
And if you read the article further, instead of selectively quoting, you see they also talk about offering the option to "pay" for the service so you don't have to "watch the ads."
As far as "bombarding" goes... you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Slashdot Mirror
That could also have to do with the fact that all of Europe is about 1/3 the size of the United States, too, with signifcantly higher population densities. Lot cheaper to build & maintain an infrastructure that doesn't include hundreds of miles of cabling that service 200 people.
*cough* You've obviously never driven around New England. The governments here are quite happy to erect toll plazas "just to pay for construction of this road," and then leave those toll plazas in place indefinitely because, hey, once you've got that revenue stream flowing, why would you cut it off and put your completely unqualified nephew and his even-less-qualified girlfriend out of a job? :)
If this were really such a cut & dry partisan issue, why have 70+ democrat members of congress also asked the FCC to drop it's plans to impose net neutrality rules?
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/05/73-democrats-tell-fcc-to-drop-net-neutrality-rules.ars
I'm not a big fan of the FCC having this power, and not because "I'm a republican," (I'm actually not, in point of fact), but because I see what moronic regulations the FCC has imposed on television & radio. If you look at the "content controls" they've enacted on those formats, is it all that hard to imagine that they'll soon be tasked with "content regulation" on the internet as well, in the form of mandatory parental controls & staggering fines on sites deemed to violate some obscure and arbitrary FCC ruling?
They do it with TV and radio today. If you give them the same control over the internet, I won't be surprised to see them attempting the same regulations there within a few years. I'm all for the concept of net neutrality, but I'm not convinced the FCC is the body best suited for 'regulating' a 'free and open' internet. I'd like to see a dramatic limitation of their powers to impose anything more than "thou shalt not filter or shape traffic," at the very least.
Statisticians?
You do not need a huge sample size to extract statistically significant results. Of course their sampling methodology could lead to skewed results due to a selection bias, and that's always worth considering... but a sample size of 1000 is not too small to derive statistically significant results from, assuming they used a reasonably "random" sampling methodology.
You're quite right - socialism doesn't "require" deficit spending, but it's entirely disingenuous of you, given the evidence everywhere in the western world, to act as if it does not encourage deficit spending. Socialism requires the creation of social programs which, in turn, need to be funded either by taxation, or by borrowing - can we agree that far? If you disagree, please explain what other method I'm overlooking.
I would give a qualified agreement there - I don't doubt that many socialists absolutely earnestly believe that they are investing that money. However, to qualify as an investment, there must be a "return" on it - in the form of increased economic output, quality of life, or some other benefit - that outweighs the cost of that investment. In the context of "fully funded" social programs, that means that the burden of high taxes on the most productive & wealthy members of society must be offset by the benefit society gains by providing services to its least-productive and poorest members. And you must also consider whether or not *private* investment with that money would produce the same or more benefit to society. If the output is not greater than the input, then you are engaged in consumption, not investment.
For the purposes of this discussion, it's quite relevant. A country with a high debt-to-GDP ratio is in danger of being unable to pay the interest on its debt. The more debt a government has to service, the more of its income (i.e., taxes & fees) must be spent on that debt service, which conversely means the amount available for social programs is reduced. This leaves them with three options: raise taxes, cut benefits, or borrow - and I'll concede as well that none of these are exclusive to the others, and all could be employed as a result of a funding crunch.
However, consider that you can only raise taxes so far - you simply can't take more than 100% of what somebody earns, and tax increases are always tremendously unpopular. Cutting benefits you can do, but you won't stay in office past the next election if you cut them too broadly (and broad cuts are generally required to have a significant effect in the finances of a program like Social Security). This leaves us with borrowing to fund the program, and again, there's a practical limit to how much of this you can do - sooner or later, your creditors realize that you have no hope of being able to repay.
All the more reason to stop planning new entitlement programs when we have such a dangerously high debt burden. We hear a lot of talk about health care and how great universal coverage will be, but no talk of tax increases to fund it, just talk about how much bigger our deficits will be over the next 10 years. We're just kicking the issue down the road and saying "we'll figure that out later." I'm not saying "all spending = bad," I'm saying "social programs as the answer to everything with no consideration of their costs and benefits = bad."
I agree - I think the Republicans are, in general, making a complete hash of everything. I don't think the Democrats
As an absolute measure, you're right, they have less debt. But "absolute measures" of debt aren't an accurate way to calculate. The better way to calculate a country's debt is by comparing their obligations to their GDP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
Sort those lists by "% of GDP" and see where the majority of European countries fall relative to the USA. Consider who is a better credit risk - the guy who makes 150k a year and has a balance of 5k on his credit card, or the guy who makes 20k a year and has a balance of 5k on his credit card. In terms of ability to make payments, the measure of debt-to-income is a much truer sense of a country's financial health. Look at debt-per-capita numbers, too... it's eye-opening.
The US already has a dangerous level of debt, and the solution being proposed is... to spend *more* money we don't have by enacting *more* entitlement programs?
Greece, Portugal, and Spain are all struggling with their debt killing their ability to borrow. Ireland has been struggling with its debt, Iceland practically collapsed in the past year's financial turbulence. And who's paying for Greece's mismanagement? The rest of the EU. Read up on just how popular the Greek bailout plan is, and then tell me that I'm wrong about people not enjoying paying for that "free stuff" eventually.
Socialism - "in practice" - leads to unsustainable levels of debt. You cannot spend more than you earn indefinitely, and increasing your spending while your earnings stay flat or decline is a sure path to disaster.
I've already been down-modded into oblivion here, but what the hell, let's go for one more. I refuse to believe that the people of Slashdot, well-versed in sciences and maths, cannot grasp logic this obvious. If you spend more than you earn, and you have no reasonable plan that will allow you to grow your earnings at a pace faster than your spending, you are on a path to financial ruin. If you are already spending more than you earn, and you propose to increase spending even further, you are simply putting your foot down a little harder on the accelerator.
Ad hominem attacks! YAY! Perhaps you'd like to compare me to hitler and the nazis now, just to close out the thread?
Perhaps you could try *making* a point then, rather than just disagreeing with what I've said via innuendo and sneer?
If you wanted to discuss "social democracy", that's not what I (or the post I responded to) were talking about, and in fact we specifically *stated* that the topic was "socialism" and socialist ideology.
But I'm heartened to know that socialism has eliminated (or even "greatly reduced") social inequality everywhere it's been implemented. Thanks for the examples - oh wait, you didn't provide any.
Straw men. You has them.
I can do that too! Watch me:
There is the government, and there are corporations. If your mind can't understand that those are functionally indistinguishable today, and that neither of them works with YOUR interests in mind, then your mind and your opinions are useless and logically incoherent.
Please demonstrate your point by naming a country where socialism has eliminated social inequality, then?
"raping" the government? I'd say that it's a good deal more consensual than you paint it.
No, I see the corporations as subverting the process of government to suit their own needs - it becomes a tool by which they stifle competition, choke off competitors, and take advantage of consumers.
I disagree that the solution is to "enact socialism," the solution is to strictly curtail the power and scope of government, and limit it as much as possible to police/military/courts, rather than giving it a vastly expanded role in managing every other aspect of society.
I would argue that the two are so closely intertwined that it's quite hard to tell where one begins and the other ends at this point - taken independently, corporations are not necessarily the enemy, and neither is the government.
But when they collude to oppose the best interests of the people they are supposed to serve, my solution isn't to say "Well give more power to the government then, so they can fight off those evil nasty corporations." All you're doing is ceding more power to a body that is already controlled by the people you claim to want them to fight.
Thanks for quoting back most of my post to me, I love seeing my words cited. But I have to tell you, since I'm the one who wrote it, I sort of already knew what it said.
Did you have a point in any of that, or were you just so excited that somebody said something Rachel Maddow would disagree with, you had to repeat it?
I'm well aware that socialism, when combined with proper amounts of fairy dust, kitten whiskers, double rainbows, and the earnest wishes of 6 year olds, will eliminate "social inequalities". I'm also well aware that it doesn't do that in practice, because all socialism does is concentrate wealth in the hands of the central government, which special interests then wrestle with each other to control - often with bloody results.
First: "Socialism rapes you a little less," is hardly a strong recommendation for your solution.
Second: Where am I defending "corporatocracy"? I'm saying that socialism is not the answer, I'm not saying that the way things are today is "the best it could possibly be." I would, in fact, disagree just as strongly with someone saying that "the system we have today is capitalism and can't be improved on."
The fact remains that as long as you have a large government which takes in lots of money and hands out that money to particular constituents, you have set up a target that is irresistible for corporations and/or wealthy special interests to attempt to seize control of. Socialism does nothing to change that dynamic, in practice it simply concentrates more power and money in the hands of the government, making it an even more attractive takeover target.
No, I'm not "with you" on the rest of your words, because it was nothing but a rambling screed about how evil conservative people are for not supporting your preferred liberal (socialist) agenda.
Your entire post talked about how conservatives make "socialism" sound bad, but that it's really good and Europe loves it. Of course they do - who doesn't love free shit? You know what they don't love? Paying for it, as they eventually will.
There are plenty of very good reasons to not support socialism in practice - most notably that it's not financially sustainable as an economic solution. It demands that some people work as slaves part-time to pay for entitlements given to others. Can you think of a worse way to encourage creativity and industry than by saying "Great, you're very skilled with programming. Now you need to go work an extra 20 hours this week to pay for your neighbor's food, since he's kind of dumb?" I sure can't.
The problem is, this country has been governed as a socialist state for many years now. Republicans assure us that they're against big government while they enact new entitlements. Democrats shriek that we're racist while they enact new entitlements. And all the while, they're both beholden to their corporate & wealthy masters who are giving them their marching orders.
Socialism - in practice - is just another way for a wealthy and privileged few to amass more power and wealth. Or would you really care to argue (by citing examples) of socialists states that implement your ideals which are not ruled by a rich few who enjoy privilege far beyond what the serfs tilling the land are entitled to?
The problem isn't that "passion and urgency" have gone missing today, it's that "passion and urgency" have been placed in the service of "supporting my pet projects regardless of whether or not they're feasible, sustainable, and rationally sound."
Rambling about corporate conspiracies in all caps doesn't make him look like a passionate reformer who wants to convince people, it makes him look like a borderline-psychotic conspiracy theorist.
But yeah, cool response, bro - even if completely irrelevant.
And let's also not forget that the FCC is the one levying fines for nipple slips and curse words on tv & on the radio. If that's not a case of "regulating content," I don't know what would qualify.
Now, does anybody truly believe that giving the FCC the power to regulate the internet providers won't result in somebody down the line getting the bright idea of saying, "Well it's fine if you restrict access to nipple images and videos people curse in?" Once given the power to regulate, somebody will say "Gee, we've got this hammer over here... maybe we should drive a few nails!"
I agree - I think *this decision* (net neutrality) is the right one, but I'm not comfortable with the notion of a group of appointed officials making these decisions, which can be reversed with a day or two's notice.
Yeah, I mean all the fundraising Obama did and the money George Soros and other liberals plow into supporting political causes they support... it's impossible to fight that! All conservatives have is little old Fox news and Rush Limbaugh in their corner - they're fighting the good fight, but OH LORD, are their bones tired!
Stop pretending that your liberal causes are any less beholden to wealthy interests than the conservatives with "low iqs" you're slamming.
It makes you look like an idiot. Unbelievable.
I see you haven't bothered to read the article. Go do that now, and come back when you have something relevant to add.
Go on! I'll wait.
Wow... that would pretty much destroy every cable news outlet in business today, at least as a "News" outlet.
Turn on CNN, MSNBC, Fox... take your pick. Watch them. Now tell me that any of them are primarily in the business of "reporting news" rather than "providing commentary and filtering what's happening today through the lens of the world as we think it ought to be"?
I challenge you to say - with a straight face & no irony - that Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, et. al on Fox are anything but flip-sides to entertainers like Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews.
If you actually believe that they (those other, non-Fox news channels) do anything but report a biased version of the news that conforms more closely to your biases and suppositions, then you truly are an idiot of monumental proportions.
If you want news, read/watch the BBC - they're not perfect, but they do a pretty damned good job of covering news rather than promoting personalities. If you want biased commentary, watch any American news outlet.
Cool story, bro. I like the use of CAPS, it really adds passion and urgency.
From the same article under discussion:
It's not just "the republicans" that are doing this, wake the fuck up and stop with the "My team is better than your team" bullshit - the only difference here is that YOUR whores are disingenuously claiming to be in favor of it while working to undermine it.
More likely that they sent out their hit squads and killed him.
I guess we'll never know the truth now.
If by "lost breed," you mean "someone who has expectations for service quality that are unrealistic given the relatively small amount he pays for the service," then yes.
You do realize that if they stopped advertising altogether and went to a completely subscriber-funded model, that you would see either a DRASTIC reduction in the breadth of programming ("doesn't everybody want to watch Friends on a loop for 5 hours a day on the one channel we offer?"), or a DRASTIC increase in the cost of the service?
Alternately, you'd see a bunch of college art films made on someone's iPhone, with the acting skill & production qualities of Victorian-era porn.
Yeah, the slowly eroding margins are why they're printing fucking money with all their products with the possible exception of Apple TV. Have you watched their revenues and profits over the past few years?
Hint: Up is not Down.
And if you read the article further, instead of selectively quoting, you see they also talk about offering the option to "pay" for the service so you don't have to "watch the ads."
As far as "bombarding" goes... you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.