The US House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it. By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others.
House Rejects Net Neutrality Rules
216 Comments
2006-06-09 6:01 pm
ebrusky
While I do not like government intervention in our lives, net neutrality is a good idea. We live in a country where capitalism rules, and if more money can be made by shafting over the users you can be sure a company will do it. Case in point; Microsoft. We are going to sell you an OS but the security sucks, so we will also sell you a yearly subscription that might help you keep your system clean. Instead of doing the right thing they would rather make money.
The Telco’s aren’t going to be any better, unless there is enough diversity out there where no one carrier controls a large chunk of connections and content. But if one company has a bulk of the content what will stop them from charging you to access it? Nothing.
2006-06-09 7:51 pm
cr8dle2grave
It’s astonishing how much noise the debate over net neutrality has generated when one considers how little real substantive information on the matter is out there. By reflex, I’m all for net neutrality, but I’ve been genuinely dismayed by a lot of the shrill fear mongering and outright misinformation coming from the pro-neutrality camp.
Cutting through all the crap, it appears the only thing we really know about the intentions of the large upstream providers is that they’ve been engaged in discussions with FCC regulators concerning the implementation of QoS routing. The idea of implementing QoS routing across the backbone segments of the net is an intersting one. It’s also a frightening one. The potential for abuse is huge, but I’m not ready to totally dismiss the idea out of hand either; QoS routing has many completely legitimate applications.
So what are the upstream providers really up to here?
The pro-neutrality camp seems to me to be pushing a collection of distopian visions consisting of worst possible case scenarios. A fractious network where every interconnect is transformed into a lever of extortion. A network where each provider is individually empowered to negotiate with content providers for passage across their pipes. A network where the last mile providers are free to impede or even outright block access to whatever they please without any oversight whatsoever.
Scary indeed. But such distopian visions are also highly implausible. In order for such frightening eventualities to really come to pass it would essentially require dismantling the entire regulatory edifice as implemented Congress and overseen by FCC. This strikes me as extraordinarily unlikely.
Which brings me to my next point. Those from the anti-neutrality camp preaching the virtues of free markets solutions are guilty of an egregious misrepresentation. What’s wrong with letting the free market decide? After all, that’s the capitalist way, the American way, right?
There is no free market. The only private industry in the U.S. subject to greater regulatory interventions and oversight than the telecommunications industry would be nuclear power plant operators. Nearly everything done by the large telco companies is subject to oversight and regulatory interventions by the FCC. It’s already far, far too late to keep government out of it.
So both sides are guilty of making a false assertion on this point. A vote for the status quo (more acurately a vote against one of the new neutrality provisions) isn’t a vote for keeping the government’s hands off of the internet, it’s a vote for retaining the existing high degree of government control but without any further legislative adjustments to the existing policies.
So what, really, is this whole net neutrality issue all about? I don’t know and neither do you. None of us do. There is no publically available information describing exactly what the large telco companies are after. Actually, I suspect that the upstream providers aren’t exactly sure of what they are after either. But QoS routing holds the promise of getting more bang for the buck out of their infrastructure. That’s obviously appealing to the network providers, but it’s also quite appealing to me as a customer as well.
My suspicion is that the upstream providers are moving toward including QoS routing policies into their existing peering agreements. In theory, this would make it possible to retain QoS routing policies as packets traverse the different backbone segments. Additionally, last mile broadband providers, given that their infrastructure supported it, could get in the game too and enforce the same QoS policies across their networks. True end to end QoS routing across the internet (or at least across the American segments of the internet) has the potential to make things such VoIP a far more potent rival to traditional phone service. On the other hand, it hands the network providers and an enormous amount of power which they have financial incentives to abuse in manner detrimental of the rest of us.
What’s needed is a careful and sober assessment of the desirable possibilities offered by QoS routing, as well as the corresponding regulatory measures required to ensure that QoS routing isn’t abused. That is a debate which should happen prior to passing any new legislation. We should all, regardless of where we fall on this issue, be concerned about overly hasty reactions on the part of Congress. These are very important issues, issues with potentially huge ramifications for both the economy and civil liberties, and I, for one, question whether Congress has been given the information necessary to handle this issue in a fashion which maximizes the benefits while still mitigating the greatest possible harms.
That said, I join the pro-neutrality camp on the following points:
1.) Blocking any endpoint (except for security reasons or as part of an optional customer requested content filtering service) is wholly unacceptable. Period! To do otherwise is to abandon the entire concept of having common carriers in telecommunications infrastructure.
2.) Content providers (website and service operators) must not be obligated to individually negotiate QoS agreements with each and every network operator. If there is to be QoS routing of any sort, then it needs to be included within the framework of the peering agreements between network operators. Forcing a content provider to separately negotiate QoS routing policies with the likes of SBC, Qwest, Sprint places far too many barriers in the way of doing business. If I, as a content provider, purchase bandwidth which includes QoS guarantees as part of my SLA (whether all encompassing or only for specific protocols), then those QoS policies should be enforced across every compliant interconnect (backbone to backbone and backbone to compliant ISP).
The above is not intended to be complete. I’m sure there are many additional stipulations which I would agree are necessary to ensure against abuse. But let’s turn up the quality of this discussion and not rush to a hasty judgement which will harm us over the long run.
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2006-06-09 11:12 pm
CloudyCutting through all the crap, it appears the only thing we really know about the intentions of the large upstream providers is that they’ve been engaged in discussions with FCC regulators concerning the implementation of QoS routing. The idea of implementing QoS routing across the backbone segments of the net is an intersting one. It’s also a frightening one. The potential for abuse is huge, but I’m not ready to totally dismiss the idea out of hand either; QoS routing has many completely legitimate applications.
We know more than that. AT&T has indicated that they intend to set up a mult-tier pricing scheme and that they would use the QoS routing to enforce it, for example.
This isn’t about QoS routing, which is merely an implementation technology. It is about AT&T (and others) create an artificial market in backbone bandwidth.
2006-06-09 8:01 pm
rayiner
dylansmrjones. How do public goods fit into your worldview?
I’m of a fairly libertarian bent, but one of the primary reasons why I am not a libertarian is that their ideology seems to leave a lot lacking when it comes to dealing with things that people are forced to share by their physical nature.
For example, take rivers. State governments usually claim domain over rivers, and regulate access to them. Should such regulations be eliminated? Should such rivers be offered for private sale, and should the owners of these rivers be able to dump all of a manner of waste products into them, because it is their property?
Or, take the useage of the radio spectrum. Is it wrong for the government to tightly control the radio spectrum, regulating it as it does? Should the government give the spectrum up to a free-for-all, allowing anyone to transmit whatever they want?
2006-06-09 8:17 pm
archiesteel
…we’re going way off-topic once again, so I’ll stop.
I can tell you are quite passionnate about these issues…however, I think you should add a bit a nuance to what you say. Saying that “the left==authoritarianism” is simply not true, as there are left libertarians out there.
I’ll agree with you that totalitarian is bad, but we’ll just have to disagree on the rest.
Peace
2006-06-09 9:03 pm
geoffp
“Let the market decide. That works every time it’s tried.”
Okay, that’s just laughably false. I actually thought you were being sarcastic until I read through the whole post. Antitrust law exists because…? No reason? Yeah.
I’m not afraid of the government threatening to restrict my use of the internet, because it’s, er, not. The telcos are. So I’m forced to disagree. Simple!
2006-06-09 9:53 pm
tony
The free market is what I’m concerned about. Right now, the barrier of entry, even today, for a website are very low. Not much capital is required to create a media company these days, or any other type of company. Google ads is a revolution in economics. But that’s all at risk, if the Telco/Cable companies get their way.
The only ISPs these days are the phone company and the cable company. Neither have a stellar reputation for having consumer interests in mind, and both are lobbying hard to keep the other out of their respective markets, while trying to encroach on the others. Most of them don’t have any competition in their areas, and what competition they were forced to have, they’ve largey repealed.
Cable companies and telco companies have made money, but they’re looking at the bucket loads that Google has made, and they want a piece of it too. That’s closer to the mafia than it is to any free market mantra. “Nice website, it’d be a shame if something happened to it”. Forget that Google and others have paid lots of money for hosting, now the cable and telco companies want to charge money to them too. Despite the fact that both the consumer and content provider have paid their money, the telcos want to collect more money.
Let’s face it. This is a money/power grab, and the content providers got out-lobbied.
2006-06-09 11:34 pm
mipeligro
especially how you keep painting doors red and telling me they’re blue.
please let me know when you have your replacement internet in place. i’m looking forward to seeing how well it does.
2006-06-10 12:25 am
archiesteel
Well, not everybody is equal in a socialism. Workers are more than the rest, and the individual is nothing. Everybody who opposes the socialistic regime is to be butchered. Instead of oppressing people due to racial differences, they oppress people due to “class” differences. That’s no better than racism.
What you describe is not Socialism, but an extreme form of Stalinism. I would tend to agree with Cloudy, but I think this goes beyond a strawman argument.
Left is about taking freedom away from the individual and therefore it is totalitarian.
That’s not what the left is about at all. I’ve already established that there were Totalitarian right-wing states, such as Nazi Germany (and before you spout more nonsense about Hitler being a socialist, remember that the Nazis abolished trade unions and the right to strike – two cornerstones of socialism).
Planned economy is just one of many ways to oppress the individual.
Really? So agricultural subsidies oppress the individual? How about public schools? Oh, and the Internet, which was made possible through government programs, does that oppress the individual as well?
You seem to forget how it was at the height of capitalist power, during the heydays of the industrial revolution and Victorian England. Child labour, terrible working conditions, wage slaves, endemic pollution…it wasn’t right-wingers who solved all this, but liberals, yes, liberals such as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
There is nothing wrong with calling Fascists and Nazis for Socialists. Because they are Socialists.
No they are not. Their policies were opposed to those of socialists, they denounced socialists (actually, they demonized them pretty much the same way you’re tring to), they massacred socialists. Stop saying this, please, it really makes you look bad.
Nazism is a short form of National Socialism (though it should be Racistic Socialism), and Fascism is merely a nationalized version of Socialism, and as such in opposition to International Socialism.
So, then, the People’s Democratic Republic of China must be democratic, then. So must be the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea)…
Please, there’s nothing socialist about the Nazis, despite the name. There’s actually a very good rebuttal of this old lie here:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm
And as far as fascism being a form of socialism…that’s so far from the truth I don’t know how you can say this with a straight face. Fascists and socialists have always been bitter enemies, and there you go saying that fascism is a form of socialism. Your comment is an insult to all the socialists who were killed by fascists in Spain and Italy.
The market crash in 1929 did not come from unlimited free market, but from a limited free market for certain classes, and from a huge difference in education between classes, as well as government fiddling with the market laws. The crash would not have happened with a true free market.
Thank you for proving that you know very little about the 1929 crash, and about free markets in general. The 1929 crash happened because the market wasn’t regulated enough. New regulations were introduced following the crash, and the market has been a lot more stable since.
USA, Japan and Germany are more free market than they are mixed economies.
Nope. The US in particular is a very interventionist and protectionist country, despite the myth of capitalism that they project. Without the Pentagon system of corporate subsidies, the high-tech sector would have never taken off. Without the huge agricultural subsidies, this whole side of their economy would collapse.
I suggest you go beyond simple rethoric and actually learn a bit more about economics before spouting such nonsense. The world is very different from what you think.
— A freedom-loving leftist
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rayiner
Without the Pentagon system of corporate subsidies, the high-tech sector would have never taken off.
You’ve got a pretty good point there. A lot of the cutting-edge tech here in the United States is the result of government money, either directly or indirectly. The internet is the pedagogical example. The entire aerospace industry is a good example too. If it weren’t for lucrative Department of Defense contracts, companies like Boeing and Lockheed would probably not be in business. It’s not like the airliners, who themselves are dependent on government bailouts, can pay them the fat margins required to find high-tech R&D.
There is a nice economic justification for this sort of government intervention as well. Some theories suggest that the free market, being risk-averse, tends to underspend on R&D. Countries in which the government takes an active stance towards funding R&D, with Hong Kong being the classical example, actually have higher growth rates than they would if the government took a more “hands off” approach.
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Cloudy
Without the Pentagon system of corporate subsidies, the high-tech sector would have never taken off. Without the huge agricultural subsidies, this whole side of their economy would collapse.
This turns out not to be true. If you carefully study the history of technology after WW-II, what you find is that there are one or two areas in which government subsidy made an early difference, mostly in airspace, typically power plant and airfoil design, but even in those areas, various government screwups, such as paying multiple times for the same development, or keeping the technology classified too long for it to matter, have pretty much negated any long term gain.
The government itself recognized this in the 80s, when it started shifting DoD procurement to the CoTS (common off the shelf) program.
Even “the” internet isn’t a good example. Most people don’t realize that commercial internets already existed when DARPA started funding theirs. I, for instance, was a user of CDC’s “Cybernet”, back in the early 1970s.
One of the rare examples of DoD contribution is the widespread easy availability of TCP implementations in the late 80s, at a time in which corporate internets existed, but were unable to interoperate. Widespread adoption of TCP was a major factor in how “the” internet developed, but it’s not clear that the benefits (simplified interoperability) outweighed the disadvantages (naive assumptions about the level of trust on the network)
2006-06-10 12:31 am
archiesteel
Of course they would not recognize it. Nazis don’t recognize our description of nazism either. And libertarians often do not recognize the description given by other political groups. That is to be expected.
This is irrelevant in this context, since nazis and fascists not only considered themselves to be opposed to socialism, they acted on this by slaughtering them.
One thing you have right: as a libertarian leftist, I certainly don’t recognize myself in the description you make of libertarians…
As a libertarian I do not support abolition of property (at least not by force – abolition of property by free will is a different issue). But abolition of the state.
How would you enforce property rights without a state? How would you protect individuals against stronger, better armed bandits without a state? And if you say “well, groups of individuals could organize into a militia” then I’d ask: who would give orders to the militia?…and pretty soon we’d be back to some sort of government.
I’m sorry, but your worldview just doesn’t work, not anymore than pure stalinist communism.
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Cloudy
I’m sorry, but your worldview just doesn’t work, not anymore than pure stalinist communism.
Please don’t use that oxymoron. Stalin was an autocratic dictator who hijacked a particular revolution and turned it into a completely different beast.
Pure communism has been tried a few times, most notably in New Harmony in the United States. It failed for various reasons, but it bears no resemblence to the abomination which was Stalinism.
2006-06-10 12:45 am
archiesteel
dmj, please read this article before equating socialism with totalitarianism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialist
2006-06-10 12:49 am
archiesteel
Please don’t use that oxymoron. Stalin was an autocratic dictator who hijacked a particular revolution and turned it into a completely different beast.
I’m sorry, I should have put quotes around communism in that sentence. I personally do not believe for a second that Stalinism was a form of communism (not anymore that I believe the PDRoC to be democratic, or that the National Socialist party was socialist).
Pure communism has been tried a few times, most notably in New Harmony in the United States. It failed for various reasons, but it bears no resemblence to the abomination which was Stalinism.
I didn’t know about New Harmony, I’ll check it out, thanks.
Personally, I keep thinking about how history would have turned out if Marxism had been adopted in industrial England (as Marx himself theorized) rather than agrarian Russia…
2006-06-10 12:53 am
archiesteel
…I’m out. Have a good weekend, all!
dmj, nice sparring with you! At least we agree on Linux… 😉
Edited 2006-06-10 00:54
2006-06-10 1:10 am
ozonehole
Now that this awful law has been passed, I’m trying to think of a possible solution using existing tools (as opposed to waiting for “somebody” to start a new net-neutral grid network).
OK, one possibility I see that would work well for hardcore Linux/Unix geeks would be to get a shell account on a server. In fact, I already have one. I can access it with ssh and then surf the Internet using tools on the server (ie “lynx” or “links”). I have a friend in China who uses this method to bypass the Great Firewall. The trouble is that it means surfing the Internet only in text-mode – you can forget about graphics.That’s not such a big deal for me, but many people are not going to be happy doing that.
Like I said, I already have a shell account, but not everybody does. I’ve done a little searching with Google on the term “shell account” and found one ISP offering them pretty cheap (www.panix.com). And no, I don’t work for them or own their stock, just mentioning it as a possibility. If anyone has other ideas for beating the telcos and cable companies at this game, I’d like to hear it.
Edited 2006-06-10 01:13
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Cloudy
OK, one possibility I see that would work well for hardcore Linux/Unix geeks would be to get a shell account on a server.
Since a non-neutral backbone provider would be looking at the source ip of the packets from the web server to decide QoS, changing your IP at the destination makes no difference.
That’s why net neutrality is so controversial. There’s nothing you can do about it as a consumer.
edit: fixed html typo
Edited 2006-06-10 02:11
2006-06-10 2:38 am
hondje
Am I really seeing an almost 200 post discussion on one of the most important issues of current technological discussion? That almost made me happy, realizing how others felt it was important…but nope, it turns out it’s an almost 200 post debate with a Danish randroid about basic economic realities and how the US Telco industry works.
This is kinda depressing, I expected better.
Edited 2006-06-10 02:39
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Cloudy
This is kinda depressing, I expected better.
Well, most of the posters don’t seem to understand the underlying issue, as witness all the posts about ISPs; and the randoid is amusing to spar with.
I’ve tried to keep actual on topic discussion alive when I’ve found it, but there’s not much here to work with.
2006-06-10 4:12 am
tony
A reminder from history… socialism is rather subjective.
The health plan Margaret Thatcher (a rather conservative Prime Minister, I believe) promoted in the 80’s was more socialist than the health plan the Clinton administration championed early on in his adminiastration (its advocacy was a disaster).
2006-06-10 1:59 pm
Soulbender
“It’s not what’s being touted so much that bothers me. It’s what’s *not* being touted(the hidden parts of the bill) and of course, historical precedence.”
Ah yes, good thing big corporations are always honest and really think about the little guy, eh?
Ever heard of astroturfing? the anti-net neutrality people are pretty good at it.
“You want to take that chance with the internet?”
Well, it really doesnt affect “the internet”, only providers in the U.S. The rest of the world will just roll their eyes at how anyone could ever even imagine that such a stupid scheme (“lets have our customers pay us and lets also make the sites they access pay us”) could ever work. You’d have to be a special kind of retard..err…CEO to think it would be a good idea.
Edited 2006-06-10 14:01
2006-06-10 2:13 pm
Soulbender
“Oh but I must care. The internet is regulated by the US, and as such, any US law concerning the internet is of relevance to the entire planet (so ridicoulous, but oh well, that’s just the way it is).”
Dont be stupid, the U.S does not regulate the internet and whatever law they come up with in this respect has NO effect on “the internet” elsewhere.
It would not affect traffic inside the EU, Asia, Africa or any other region. The only ones affected by it are the consumers in the U.S. The only other traffic that it could remotely *possibly* affect is the transit traffic from/to Asia from/to Europe/Africa and if that gets too bad that traffic will just be routed thru the middle-east instead.
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Cloudy
Dont be stupid, the U.S does not regulate the internet and whatever law they come up with in this respect has NO effect on “the internet” elsewhere.
The US regulates large parts of the internet and has a strong say in the overall regulation of the network.
It would not affect traffic inside the EU, Asia, Africa or any other region.
The EU already has legislated net neutrality.
The only ones affected by it are the consumers in the U.S.
Or anyone who wishes to access a web site in the US, or anyone who uses US transit, or anyone who is adversely effected by transit being rerouted.
The only other traffic that it could remotely *possibly* affect is the transit traffic from/to Asia from/to Europe/Africa and if that gets too bad that traffic will just be routed thru the middle-east instead.
US web sites are a significant destination even for Asian and European consumers. Even US companies that have Asian presence will be impacted if their traffic between the US and their Asian sites is impacted. Rerouting will change congestion patterns and put loads on infrastructure that’s not as extensively developed.
2006-06-10 2:30 pm
Soulbender
Who cares? What has it got to do with net-neutrality?
Nothing, thats what. Maybe there should be a way to mod posts down in bulk.
2006-06-10 6:24 pm
archiesteel
So, you continue your futile attempt to amalgamate fascism with socialism, huh?
Too bad Benito Mussolini himself disagrees with you (emphasis mine):
“Granted that the XIXth century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the XXth century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the ‘right’, a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the ‘collective’ century, and therefore the century of the State.”
The fact is that Fascists and Nazis were anti-workers’ rights, anti-women’s rights, anti-gay, anti-semitic, racist and placed the Nation above all else (extreme patriotism). All of these are diametrically opposed to socialist ideals.
So, socialists don’t agree with your definition, and fascists don’t agree with your definition…
We also know that the Italian Fascist Party was the successor to the Italian Socialist Party, and that the Swedish Socialist Party was a fascist party during 2nd World War.
Please provide links that show clear filiation, thank you.
The next thing you want to lecture me in, would probably be the wonderful nature of Libertarian Socialism, which is a hilarious oxymoron.
Maybe it is to you, because it destabilizes your worldview and would force you to accept that things aren’t as simplistic as you (and a very, very small minority, such as diehard freepers) think they are. Did you even read the Wikipedia entry on Libertarian Socialism? I don’t think you did. Even if you did, you did not signify in any that you saw anything false on there.
In other words, you are adopting a fanatical position, changing definitions and facts to adapt to your preconceived ideas. Many here have already noted this.
If you want to do that, go read my profile first. And then I might be able to welcome you back to reality. Until then – Have a nice life.
I wouldn’t be so arrogant after demonstrating such ignorance of economics, politics and history…
2006-06-13 3:18 am
Soulbender
“The US regulates large parts of the internet and has a strong say in the overall regulation of the network.”
The U.S has no say in how networks in other countries work.
“US web sites are a significant destination even for Asian and European consumers.”
Not really. Most Asians and Europeans prefer sites with local content and in a local language. Korea and Japan, for example, wont miss many U.S sites.
Also, most big U.S sites (ie ebay, Yahoo, Google) have regional mirrors that will not be affected by whatever retarded policies the U.S providers implements.
“Rerouting will change congestion patterns and put loads on infrastructure that’s not as extensively developed.”
Yes, that will of course be the initial impact but given time the needed infrastructure will be put in place.
Let the market decide. That works every time it’s tried.
As the article points out, the sooner government gets involved with the internet, the sooner you’re going to have a secretary of the internet. The sooner that happens, the sooner the UN’s gonna control it.(that’s the next step)
Isn’t that the argument that some have against the internet now, that the american government supposedly has too much sway over the internet?
As the internet sits now, it’s largely independent of any govt. It’s largely regulated by a bunch of independent companies.
It seems to me that 269 votes were for keeping the internet independent, thus keeping people’s fears largely sidelined, and no future UN intervention needed.
And one more thing. Let’s all be honest here. One of the attractions of the internet(when it comes to buying and selling) is how cheap things are on there. I know I’m not alone on this. Watch how(if) they start taxing the internet, how the pricing magically goes up.(I asure you *chuckles* there’d be no connection)
These internet companies wouldn’t be paying these “corporate taxes”. Corporations never do. You and I, your cousins, brothers, friends and mothers pay those taxes. Economics 101. A corporate tax is merely a dishonest tax that dishonest politicians can hide from us. “no, we’re not raising taxes on you…. uhh… uhhh, we’ll raise taxes on corporations! Yeah, that’s it!” I’m stupid enough to buy that. Are you?
Edited 2006-06-09 12:30
Sorry I think your post needs sarcasm tags because if you are serious then WTF?
A rejection of Net Neutrality = The start of a slipperly slope that will forever change the face of the internet.
If people are not disturbed by this then I urge them to think past 1 year into the future, look 10 years ahead. They have forever shifted the internet from a forum of information exchange, innovation, and creativity to nothing more than a shallow channel for content and revenue gathering.
Shame on you america. shame on you
———–A rejection of Net Neutrality = The start of a slipperly slope that will forever change the face of the internet.————–
We already have net neutrality. The key word is “rules”.
“net neutrality rules” is an oxymoron. By tying the internet closer to the government you are essentially killing the neutrality that the internet now has.
Edited 2006-06-09 12:55
Huh?
If Net Neitraility can be passed into law/rules (think first ammendment rights but for the internet) then I admit that does bring the net under some govt control. It is by far the lesser of two evils.
HOWEVER
Whats the alternative? Todays rejection of Net Neutrality? That is a BAD thing. Now that that has begun to happen then we are all royally screwed. The govt has shown that they back the telcos.
The war has begun:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=threat#abuse
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=lie3
About the only good I can see coming from this is that it will spur intelligent geeks into action. I am sure that all sorts of tactics will emerge to break the systems that the telcos will put in place an demonstrate to congress that a bunch of smart geeks will always beat a group of stupid politicians
Edited 2006-06-09 13:11
————-If Net Neitraility can be passed into law/rules (think first ammendment rights but for the internet) then I admit that does bring the net under some govt control. It is by far the lesser of two evils.———–
The government rarely if ever the lesser of two evils. And I am thinking first amendment. Because as it sits right now I could post anything on the internet I want. I’ll refrain from it, but it wouldn’t be hard to post a link to people talking about killing the president, how to build a nuclear bomb, …. you get the idea. When government gets involved then the question becomes “who’s neutrality is right?” Do you want house republicans deciding that their neutrality is more important than yours? Yeah, I don’t either.
The poster at post 7 had the right idea.
===========If I were google/amazon, I’d block access from ISP’s trying to extort money. Then let a flood of customer calls into their call center change their minds.===============
Problem solved. There’s your net neutrality.
When government gets involved ….. Do you want house republicans deciding that their neutrality is more important than yours?
Ummm….
1) The Government is already involved now
2) A group of republicans just chose ISP’s version of net neutrality over mine.
If I were google/amazon, I’d block access from ISP’s trying to extort money. Then let a flood of customer calls into their call center change their minds.
Thats awesome!
“net neutrality rules” is an oxymoron. By tying the internet closer to the government you are essentially killing the neutrality that the internet now has.
I don’t really see how putting in the law “ISPs are not allowed to treat some websites differently than others” can be seen as “tying the internet closer to the government”. On the contrary– if that were to be set in the law, we’d have a clear-cut point of reference. Now, ISPs are free to do as they please. Let’s say Apple hands a bick sack of money to a major ISP, asking them to make sure all other online music stores load more slowly than the iTMS. With the rejection of this law, it would be perfectly legal to do so, and you, as a customer, are fcuked.
Other than that, the US Gov already has major influence over the net. See how the Bush administration blocked the .xxx domain.
Edited 2006-06-09 13:10
Although I do agree with you post, I must point out that as a moderator you should not be using words such as “fcuked”. This worked brilliantly as an advertising campaign for “French Connection UK” when they rebranded their clothes department, it does not work here on a forum that has filters built in to stop bad language.
Rant Over. Raver31
———-it does not work here on a forum that has filters built in to stop bad language.———–
There goes your OSnews.com neutrality. *sarcasm*
*looks around* What What? Why’s everybody looking at me? It was a joke!
But the underlying point is valid. Once the internet is regulated everything changes.
I was just going to say “Well Thom does it!”
Until I realized it was Thom who’d posted it in the first place
Is “frack” OK? Or are curse word encodings from sci-fi TV shows also banned?
Hi Thom!
———–I don’t really see how putting in the law “ISPs are not allowed to treat some websites differently than others” can be seen as “tying the internet closer to the government”.—————
It’s not what’s being touted so much that bothers me. It’s what’s *not* being touted(the hidden parts of the bill) and of course, historical precedence.
Legislators have zero credibility with me when it comes to things like this. As I mentioned in comparison, look at CFR.(mccain/feingold) It did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do.
You want to take that chance with the internet?
I don’t. It isn’t worth the risk.
——————-Other than that, the US Gov already has major influence over the net. See how the Bush administration blocked the .xxx domain.—————-
Rejecting an initiative and full blown regulation are two different things.
Edited 2006-06-09 13:28
Legislators have zero credibility with me when it comes to things like this. As I mentioned in comparison, look at CFR.(mccain/feingold) It did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do.
And I should care because? I’m not American, never will be, so if you guys want a political system where money is the end-all-be-all, fine; just don’t try to put in a completely unrelated matter to somehow strengthen your argument.
I still see no one answering my question, so I’ll repost it here. I want a clear answer, no beating around the bush (seriously, no pun intended), just plain ol’ English:
“I don’t really see how putting in the law “ISPs are not allowed to treat some websites differently than others” can be seen as “tying the internet closer to the government”.
Ok, it’s not really a question, but you get my point. Saying that this law will put the internet under (even more) US Gov control is plain old, FUD.
On the ‘fcuked’ issue– sorry, I always type it that way (started as a joke on my blog; “If Google ever decides to stop listing websites with foul language, they won’t block me!!”), I did not do it on purpose to circumvent our foul language blockfilterthing.
———-And I should care because? I’m not American, never will be, so———–
Oh. Ok. Then you shouldn’t care about this net bill either.
———-just don’t try to put in a completely unrelated matter to somehow strengthen your argument.———-
Uh uhn. They are related. The bills themselves are unrelated, but how legislation isn’t always what it seems is an important matter to consider.
———–I still see no one answering my question, so I’ll repost it here. I want a clear answer, no beating around the bush (seriously, no pun intended), just plain ol’ English:
“I don’t really see how putting in the law “ISPs are not allowed to treat some websites differently than others” can be seen as “tying the internet closer to the government”. ————
All you’re doing is switching parties. Instead of companies deciding how to treat certain websites, the government will be deciding. I really don’t see the difference, except that with the govt’s lack of credibility I see things getting worse not better.
Edited 2006-06-09 13:50
Oh. Ok. Then you shouldn’t care about this net bill either.
Oh but I must care. The internet is regulated by the US, and as such, any US law concerning the internet is of relevance to the entire planet (so ridicoulous, but oh well, that’s just the way it is).
Uh uhn. They are related. The bills themselves are unrelated, but how legislation isn’t always what it seems is an important matter to consider.
Your distrust for the US government, which I wholeheardetly share, has nothing to do with this matter, as this law does NOT give the US gov (even more) control over the internet.
All you’re doing is switching parties. Instead of companies deciding how to treat certain websites, the government will be deciding.
No, you’re not– does this law say, “The Internet now shalt be governed by the government”? No, it does not. All this law does is limit the power of companies to block content off of the internet. Basically, what you are saying is this: “Here, companies, please decide for me what information I can access. I cannot control you, I cannot elect your officials, but please, be so kind as to filter out stuff you find I do not need.” Fine if you want to live that way, but I do not.
And even if it DID bring more control to the/a government– I’d applaud that, as I’d rather have a democratically elected body govern it, than a company over which nobody has any control.
————And even if it DID bring more control to the/a government– I’d applaud that, as I’d rather have a democratically elected body govern it, than a company over which nobody has any control.————
Businesses are easier to control. Just waive the green in front of their faces. You only get a chance to control legislators when it’s election time.(every 4-6 years) Look at the immigration bill. They’re not listening to americans.
That’s not what I want the internet to be.
Businesses are easier to control. Just waive the green in front of their faces.
And there is the problem, you… Arrogant boy (sorry if that sounded harsh, but that’s the best word to describe your reply).
Not everyone actually HAS the green to wave in front of them. Other than that, in my country, money A) isn’t green, and B) less important than in the US.
———Not everyone actually HAS the green to wave in front of them.————
The lack therof is just as powerful.
Broadband companies continue to make their pricing lower in order to get more customers away from dialup.
What’s their best tool? Lower subscription cost.
On the ‘fcuked’ issue– sorry, I always type it that way (started as a joke on my blog; “If Google ever decides to stop listing websites with foul language, they won’t block me!!”), I did not do it on purpose to circumvent our foul language blockfilterthing.
Could use the file system check command, “fsck”, doubt they’re going to block every unix related site on the planet.
The mere existence of the law would tie the internet closer to the government. The government effective defines neutrality, and that’ a bad thing.
Now, the ISP can do a they please – and that’s a fantastic thing. We should be happy.
We must just remember, that we too, can do as we please in regard to the internet. We can find out who actually _are_ violating net neutrality, warn other people, and then we can stop to use those ISP’s.
It’s not that difficult. Just stop whining, and act like a man (or woman).
The customer isn’t f–ked. The customer can choose not to have internet access – or can choose to side with million of other customers, and create a new company giving customers net neutrality.
It’s not that difficult. Just stop whining, and act like a man (or woman).
Your argument is getting ridiculous. Your options are either no internet access, or being f–ked. Your third option, while ideologically neat, is also a stupid idea. Any ISP that enraged net users create will be secondary to the major backbone networks. That is, of course, unless this ISP gets a license to be a state-sanctioned monopoly, and starts laying cable everywhere!
Spend some quality time with traceroute and whois, and get an idea of where your packets go. If you’ve got a smaller ISP, chances are your packet will go through one of the big networks en-route to its destination. That means that the big networks can still QoS your packets, no matter what you do.
PS) I find it deeply ironic that your defense of the principle of capitalism, a concept which is predicated on rational self-interest, is leading you to irrationally support an idea that works against your self-interest. Ideology is a magical drug isn’t it…
That’s incorrect.
The options are: Being f–ked, having no access, create a competitor, or in the very end, create a new network (that would require millions and millions of users world wide though).
PS) I find it deeply ironic that your defense of the principle of capitalism, a concept which is predicated on rational self-interest, is leading you to irrationally support an idea that works against your self-interest. Ideology is a magical drug isn’t it…
Net neutrality is in my interest, but securing it through laws are against my interest. My self-interest is net neutrality without laws, and that of course leads me to support the possibility of lacking net neutrality. Getting what you want has always been a kind of gambling. But yes, it does have a certain ironic taste. But as a Dane I can perfectly live with that.
Having an ideology is a lot better than not having one. Not having one is merely egoism, and that’s no good.
The options are: Being f–ked, having no access, create a competitor, or in the very end, create a new network (that would require millions and millions of users world wide though).
Actually, unless you are a multi-billionaire, the only realistic options that you posited are: Being f–ked -or- having no access. The other two you listed are pie-in-the-sky fantasy island options that will never materialize in this world with its economic realitites. I know that it can feel good to imagine some perfect world where the third and fourth options are plausible, but believing in such fantasies does nothing to bring the net neutrality you desire into reality.
The only thing which might prevent the two “unrealistic” options are the lack of will.
It’s easier to say “it’s impossible” than actually trying to accomplish it.
The only thing which might prevent the two “unrealistic” options are the lack of will.
The only thing that would allow the “unrealistic” options would be a suspension of reality.
You can’t get there from here. The window of opportunity for an alternative network pretty much closed sometime in the early 1990s. It’s not economically feasible now, because you simply can’t get 60 million people to cough up 1000 dollars each at the same time.
The barrier to entry in the network backbone space is huge, and the amount of up-front capital needed is prohibitive.
Of course, it’s ironic that a Dane would argue against the US codifying net neutrality, since the EU already does.
Of course, it’s ironic that a Dane would argue against the US codifying net neutrality, since the EU already does.
Considering Denmark is the most EU-negative country, I don’t consider it ironic. Due to the excessive bills passed by EU, it has ceased to have a practical meaning. Nobody can figure out how to do things correctly, so we just do things the way we want it done.
You can’t get there from here. The window of opportunity for an alternative network pretty much closed sometime in the early 1990s. It’s not economically feasible now, because you simply can’t get 60 million people to cough up 1000 dollars each at the same time.
It doesn’t have to be at the same time. One could always start locally, building up through time. Until then, you’ll have to pay ISP’s for giving you a net neutral experience. Of course, another option is to lower the barrier (which will take time), and temporarily control the major companies because they have a sort-of goverment-granted monopoly (at least in regard to international network connections).
It doesn’t have to be at the same time. One could always start locally, building up through time. Until then, you’ll have to pay ISP’s for giving you a net neutral experience.
This is the bit you don’t seem to get. creating new ISPs has no impact on the backbone. creating new ISPs has no impact on whether web sites will pay backbone providers for advantage. (Creating new ISPs is also a very good way to lose money.)
It does have to happen at the same time. to achieve your goal, you have to replace a significant part of the back bone, and you have to do it all at once.
Of couse it will not have an effect in short term. But it will in long term (if you have success).
If you can pull off a major replacement very quickly then go for it. But I still prefer going the slow steady way. I believe it has a greater chance of success.
The options are: Being f–ked, having no access, create a competitor, or in the very end, create a new network (that would require millions and millions of users world wide though).
In other words, your options are being f–ked, having no access, doing something that wouldn’t solve the problem, or flying away to happy magical fairy land.
You have not posed a plausible solution to how to get net neutrality without regulation.
My self-interest is net neutrality without laws, and that of course leads me to support the possibility of lacking net neutrality.
Your rational self-interest is net neutrality. The thing about the laws isn’t self interest, its ideologically-motivated desire. If people were ideologically motivated, the capitalism would come crashing down. Yet, you defend an idiologically motivated position in the name of capitalism. Therein lies the irony.
Creating a competitor would solve the problem. Even having no access would solve the problem, because it would mean no money for the ISP’s which would be forced to give me net neutrality, or lose me as a customer. If everybody decided to make that choice net neutrality would not be endangered.
But of course it’s easier to scream “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is coming! Flee flee flee!” and demand new laws than it is to take responsibility for your own life.
I don’t defend capitalism. Capitalism is merely a tool, and as such a good tool. Nothing wrong with that tool, just remember it’s merely a tool.
What I care about is freedom, and freedom stems from lack of laws.
I know better than you what my self-interest is. Do not decide for me what is best for me. I’m better at doing that than you are.
If people were ideologically motivated laws would cease to exists. But it wouldn’t touch the nature of capitalism. Capitalism is merely a description of human nature and as such it exists everywhere no matter the laws. Defending capitalism is like defending the tide. Pretty pointless.
What I am defending is the free market, and capitalism is a part of free market, but merely a small part. The big part of the free market, is the personal freedom.
And there is no way I’ll give up my freedom, just so you can have what you want, without doing anything to actually get it.
What I care about is freedom, and freedom stems from lack of laws.
You’ve confused ‘freedom’ with ‘anarchy’. They’re not the same thing.
I know better than you what my self-interest is. Do not decide for me what is best for me. I’m better at doing that than you are.
Laws come into play when your self-interest and my self-interest are in conflict.
If people were ideologically motivated laws would cease to exists.
Totalitarianism is an ideology.
You mean “if everyone shared dylansmrjones’ ideology, laws would cease to exist.” Of course, the only way you could get everyone to subscribe to your ideology would be to force them to. So much for freedom.
Anarchy is freedom. Actually it is complete personal freedom. The fewer laws, the more personal freedom. No laws is complete freedom, and with complete freedom comes complete responsibility. Unfortunately mankind appears incapable of handling such responsibility.
Totalitarianism is an ideology.
So is liberalism. So is anarchism. I didn’t bring up the “if people were ideologically… blahblahblah”. I merely responded.
You mean “if everyone shared dylansmrjones’ ideology, laws would cease to exist.” Of course, the only way you could get everyone to subscribe to your ideology would be to force them to. So much for freedom.
I’m not going to force anyone to subscribe to my ideology. As long as you don’t interfere with me in _my_ domain, I won’t interfere with you in _your_ domain.
I wonder if there is an english translation to “Jyske Lov” (Jutlandic Law) from 1241. It has a very interesting foreword.
“Med lov skal land bygges, men ville enhver nøjes med sit eget og lade andre nyde samme ret, da behøvede man ikke nogen lov.”
With law shall land be built, but if everybody would be satisfied with what belongs to him, and let other persons enjoy the same right, then there would be no need for a law.
That’s all it boils down to.
With law shall land be built, but if everybody would be satisfied with what belongs to him, and let other persons enjoy the same right, then there would be no need for a law.
That’s all it boils down to.
In other words, it boils down to “if humans weren’t human they wouldn’t need human institutions.”
But even that view is overly simplistic, since, again, you’ve missed the issue of rights in conflict. The classic example here is your right to make noise versus my right to live in quiet.
You only have the right to live in quiet within your domain. And you’re – in this situation – not located within your own domain.
You only have the right to live in quiet within your domain. And you’re – in this situation – not located within your own domain.
This sentence makes no sense in light of the comment it is in response to: But even that view is overly simplistic, since, again, you’ve missed the issue of rights in conflict. The classic example here is your right to make noise versus my right to live in quiet.
The problem is that you’re avoiding the obvious: noise does not respect your idea of “domain”, and travels from one domain to the other.
In fact you can easily construct numerous similar examples. The entire idea of a private domain that is somehow isolated and discrete is pretty senseless in most cases.
The thing you fail to realize is that we’re not talking about the telcos doing what they want with their own lines. In that case, it’d be a clear-cut matter of property rights. We’re talking about what telcos do with the lines that they laid as the result of acquiring from the government state-sanctioned monopoly status. The telcos exist because of the subversion of the free market — they are in no position to argue free market solutions now!
The true free market solution would be what I suggested. Give everyone back the line that was laid on their property. Get the government out of the business of supporting the telcos entirely. Get rid of the state-sanctioned monopolies that these people have. Then, let these companies build a network by forming contracts with millions of land owners. Then, they’ll own the lines, and can do whatever they damn well want with them, public good be damned.
But they won’t agree to that, and it’d be a logistical nightmare to even try. Therefore, as long as their infrastructure exists as the result of public concession, they’re going to have to make some concessions themselves for the good of the public.
As I’ve already stated:
To the extent the companies have a government protected monopoly that monopoly should be removed. Until then – as a temporary solution, until a true free market exists – the companies should not be allowed to give special advantages to anyone. But such limitations should only be applied together with a beginning monopoly-removal process.
You do not reset the balance on a regulated market, by applying more regulation, but by removing existing regulation, e.g. remove the monopolies, and the advantages the companies have gained (that means they would lose control of the physical lines).
Okay, this is an interesting statement. You’re suggesting that the telcos give up ownership of the lines, in order to give up their monopoly advantage.
Let’s, for a moment, consider the possible modes of ownership for the lines:
1) Private companies (the telcos) own the lines, by virtue of the state claiming eminent domain on the properties on which the line is laid.
2) The state owns the lines, by virtue of it claiming eminent domain on the properties on which the line is laid.
3) The property owners own the lines, by virtue of natural property rights.
Now, I doubt you’re suggesting (2), because its no more a free market situation than (1). So you must be suggesting (3). While this is indeed a free market solution, it also means you wil no longer have a phone network, but a bunch of people with some cable on their property!
That is, if you want phone service, or internet access, you’re going to have to form a cooperative, wherein individual landowners get together and connect the line on their properties to form networks so they can talk to each other. Now, if you can collect $1000 from each of 60 million people, this idea might just work…
Edited 2006-06-09 20:25
Priority to amend a hate crime into the constitution yet no concern for my right to equal bandwidth, I am ashamed indeed. It would seem corporate greed has become the law of the land and all our politicians merely shills lining their pockets. The next American revolution may consist of everybody passing the hat and buying a congress…
Yeah. Letting leftist politicians decide what the best internet experience is, is definitely a bad idea.
If you want net neutrality then choose an ISP that gives you net neutrality, and avoid those that doesn’t.
Problem solved.
Brilliant! Excellent idea. Only one problem. How many ISP’s are left? And aren’t those ISP’s the same corporations who own the networks? Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Cox, etc.
Those of us on the left would agree with you if competition actually existed.
Unite, and create a competitor, rather than sit down and yell for mother
Another brilliant idea. Create a competitor. The days of dialup are over. When the FCC already says that Cox can control their own network and nobody else can jump on, that eliminates competition. When state governments pass legislation preventing municipalities from setting up wireless networks, who do you think was behind the legislation? A true capitalist hates the thought of monopolies. Do you not believe in capitalism?
Were you born this assinine or did it take years of practice to get this way?
Capitalism is merely a tool, and not something you can believe in. It’s like believing in a spoon. Utterly inadequate.
Preventing municipalities from setting up wireless networks are irrelevant to whether people can unite and set up wireless networking. The municipalities != people.
And of course municipalities should not be allowed to do so. It would prevent competition. Networks created by municipalities == networks created by government.
Create a company, owned by “ordinary” people, create a competitor. This is doable in USA – it is doable in Denmark. It may not be doable in Communist-China, but in all western countries it is doable.
Were you born this assinine or did it take years of practice to get this way?
No. But unlike you, I don’t consider communistic-tasting laws to be the answer. You are making the mistake of “local authorities == people” , and that one is false. Local authorities are authorities and thereby effectively in opposition to people of all kind.
I don’t consider communistic-tasting laws to be the answer.
You find this law “communistic-tasting”? Boy, you must have no idea what communism means. Please don’t use words when you have no idea what they mean. This law is as much communistic as is the US constitution– exactly, not at all.
Thom, Thom, Thom.
I do know what Communism is. And this law is Communistic-tasting.
The law would reduce the personal freedom, and as such it definitely has a Communistic taste. One could also claim it has a Fascist taste, or any other freedom-limiting taste, but it doesn’t change the fact that the law does limit the personal freedom, and therefore is opposite the American Constitution, which was created to ensure personal freedom.
The principle of this law is opposite the principle of the American Constitution, as well as the Dutch and the Danish Constitution (Grundloven).
The fewer laws == better, more laws == worse. It’s that simple.
The fewer laws == better, more laws == worse. It’s that simple.
That’s definitely simple. Naive, but simple.
Taken to its logical conclusion, you would have no laws at all. It would be no problem for me to drive the wrong way down a one way street, ignoring speed limits and stop lights.
Each proposed law should be judged on the merits of that law and those that make sense should be passed.
Taken to its logical conclusion, you would have no laws at all.
Exactly.
It would be no problem for me to drive the wrong way down a one way street, ignoring speed limits and stop lights.
That would be very irresponsible, and I dare say you wouldn’t do that for long. You would either die from an accident, or other person would take matter in their own hands and stop you very effectively. However, there are many countries with laws on how to drive a car, and many of these countries have a terribly traffic culture. Look at France, Greece or Germany and compare with Denmark. One wonders how there can be so many french persons considering their lack of responsibility in the streets. Laws are no good, if they aren’t followed.
Each proposed law should be judged on the merits of that law and those that make sense should be passed.
Depends on the sense it makes. A law can make sense and still be a bad law. Laws should not be passed, unless strictly necessary. Laws are to be passed as the last solution to a problem.
Dude. Read an econ text published in the last 50 years.
I’m almost tempted to go page through some of my old economics books and select choice quotes to dissuade you from having much faith in those either.
Any textbook that engages in any sort of empiricism and doesn’t mention gold every 25 pages is going to be stale reading for those subscribed to the Austrian School.
Laws are to be passed as the last solution to a problem.
OK, the traffic example was a touch too subtle. Let me try again: If there were no traffic laws, there would be no one-way streets, so which ever direction I decided on, according to your theory, would be fine, because it was my choice.
Laws serve many purposes, one of which is establishing order in situations where imposed order makes more sense than continually determining the consensus, like which direction traffic should flow in on a given street.
In case people cannot use their freedom in a responsible manner, then a law can be necessary. This is often the case in traffic situations, because many people are in a hurry and really don’t care about anybody else. Since the result would most likely be a terrifying death toll, laws has been passed as the last solution to the problem.
But in the beginning there were no laws. That turned out to be suboptimal, and they made laws – as the last solution.
There is no need for laws securing net neutrality – there may however be a need for laws securing that companies with government-granted monopolies do not use said monopolies to extinguish competition.
Interesting example.
I’m tempted to make an analogy to evolution. In some cases, waiting for a free market solution is like waiting for evolution to create a better ear of corn, instead of horticultural science.
Dude, I would like normally agree with you in all aspects except for those laws that enforce equality and protect individual freedoms and to me this looks like one of those laws. Broadband access == cable for most yanks, and since there is no competition among cable providers, (in almost every market there is only one provider to choose from), they need some stiff rules to prevent them from behaving badly, most abuse their position to the hilt as it is now. In any other situation I’m with you 100% and would urge de-criminalization over legalization every time. I wholeheartedly agree there is way too much legislation but it’s not all bad, some of it actually protects the rights of the individual.
It may be the market situation in USA is so crippled a Dane cannot imagine it. In that case the problem will be much deeper than it appears to be.
I still consider the solution to be dissatisfied americans to join forces and create alternatives to the major companies. It has worked before and will work again.
However, it does require that laws make the entry barrier low. If the situation is opposite, then we have a major problem, I’ll grant you that much.
I think you are correct, that you don’t understand how broken the US is.
This isn’t about the ISP’s, it’s the backbone providers. All the telco’s are basically government sponsered monopolies. All the land and right of ways to run the wires the telco’s say they “own” were made possible by the government and eminent domain.
It is IMPOSSIBLE for a competitor to start up, because the gov’t will not give them the same tax payer funded start up, because the telco’s OWN the legislators. The only option seems to be wireless, which explains why states are legislated AGAINST municipally owned wifi — again, follow the money and it leads to telco’s protecting their monopoly with bought and paid for legislators (of both parties unfortunatly, but heavily tilted to the right).
This is simply a case of more legistlators on the take from telco’s then on the take from Google/MS/misc. content provider/etc.
I have no doubt that this is bad for the internet.
I believe the American Constitution allows for an arm-bearing nation, just in case the Government should be corrupt.
Why don’t you use that constitutional right? If the situation is that bad, I cannot see another reasonable solution.
I agree with you that fewer laws == better, more laws == worse. But at the same time, fewer companies == worse, more companies == better.
And if there are only a few companies who control access to the Internet, then some regulations need to be laid down to govern those companies.
I agree with more companies being better. And this can be difficult to reach if the major companies hold monopolies granted by authorities.
That’s the only flaw in my ideas. To the extent ISP’s have a government-granted monopoly, that monopoly will have to be removed. The temporary solution could be to regulate the market until the government-granted monopoly has ceased to be.
The solution you propose is no more of a free market one than Net Neutrality. Any potential competitor could only exist via government intervention. That’s the only practical way to lay your own line, and the only way the current set of telcos came into existence.
So if your “free market” solution involves subversion of the free market, is it really a “free market” solution?
Hmm.. that depends on which part of my solution, you are referring to.
That however I cannot clearly see from your post, so I cannot reply.
So you’d rather the corporations get us out of the next depression?
The government is just corrupt and worthless in your eyes, but corporations are shining examples of the Capitalist Tool?
Wasn’t it the Capitalists “tooling” the general public that created the first depression?
Those who don’t learn from the past…
The depression came by, by governments fiddling with market laws.
Companies are “shining examples”, but so are you. The question is: What are you doing to make your own situation better?
Wasn’t it the Capitalists “tooling” the general public that created the first depression?
Nope. It happened due to governments fiddling with market laws, and “ordinary” persons failing to take responsibility for their own happiness. Relying on the companies to do so, will lead to disaster. And that’s what happened.
I don’t want you to rely on the companies. Nor am I suggesting such a hideous thing. I’m suggesting you to compete with the companies.
Local authorities are authorities and thereby effectively in opposition to people of all kind.
So what you’re basically saying is that you don’t believe in democracy.
If authorities are democratic, then there is no problem. Rather than place our faith in private enterprises (who only have their own interest at heart), why not try to reform government systems so that it lives up to the dreams of the founding fathers, i.e. a government of the people, by the people, for the people?
I believe in direct democracy, but I don’t trust in indirect democracy. The idea is good, but it doesn’t work in reality.
If authorities are democratic, then there is no problem.
I agree with that. Unfortunately authorities are powerful, and power corrupts. In theory the model works but in reality it doesn’t. We need a lot more direct public control of the authorities, before I’ll trust them.
I understand that you mistrust authorities, since they are often corrupt. I’m not sure if direct democracy is the answer, though it’s clear that if citizens were more involved in the political process, and enforced more accountability, then there would be a lot less problems.
The fact that the model doesn’t work doesn’t mean it’s hopeless, it just means that the particular implementations are broken…IMO, of course. 🙂
I can follow that.
I also understand your misgivings about direct democracy, but I cannot see any alternative. Indirect democracy is not the answer, and dictaturship is completely unacceptable.
Total freedom is good as an idea, but it appears to be impossible to implement.
Municipal wifi is no less free market than private wifi co-ops. No wireless service is a truely free-market solution. All wireless services exist because of government-sanctioned monopolies on the useage of the wireless spectrum. The fact that one service may be run by the local government and another by Verizon makes no difference — both are regulated by virtue of the fact that their existence depends on private use of a public resource.
Municipal wifi is no less free market than private wifi co-ops. No wireless service is a truely free-market solution.
This is unacceptable because it kills the private sector and therefore removes any hope for competition.
All wireless services exist because of government-sanctioned monopolies on the useage of the wireless spectrum.
This does not have to be the case. There is nothing that prevents more than one private wireless service in the same area. It’s a technical challenge which requires a certain amount of control with frequenzies, but it doesn’t change the fact that there can be competition and a free market.
The fact that one service may be run by the local government and another by Verizon makes no difference — both are regulated by virtue of the fact that their existence depends on private use of a public resource.
This is factually wrong as already shown.
This is unacceptable because it kills the private sector and therefore removes any hope for competition.
There is a distinction between “private sector” and “free market”. Lot’s of things are handled by the private sector, but those companies are not subject to free market
This does not have to be the case. There is nothing that prevents more than one private wireless service in the same area.
It is necessarily the case. All radio communications in most countries is controlled by the government. If it weren’t, the radio spectrum would mostly be useless — the person with the most powerful transmitter would basically own it. The government thus grants use of the spectrum via licenses. Even the unlicensed bands, like the one wifi services sit it, are still allocated and regulated by the government. Businesses built on the use of radio frequencies are thus not a part of the free market. Their sole existence is derived from government license and regulation.
*LOL*
This post got modded up despite being offensive while mine got modded down?
Agreed mine could be considered offensive, but no more than this post.
Unite and create a competitor? That sounds so easy.
And how many broadband companies that can handle or quickly grow to handle a million-or-more subscribers have you started, pray tell? And where did you get the funding for it? Your credit card?
Of course, one has to start in the small way. Nobody can singlehandedly create a multibillion company in two weeks.
But everybody can join their efforts with other people, and thereby – through time – create a true alternative.
In Denmark we have a saying: Mange bække små gør en stå å -> Many small creeks create a big stream.
Use that knowledge. Let’s say 60 million americans get tired of the ISP’s lack of net neutrality. 60 million americans giving up 1000 dollars each. Now that’s a good start.
All it requires is taking a responsibility for your own happiness.
If it doesn’t work it’s because people don’t care about their own lifes, and in that case they deserve no better.
Use that knowledge. Let’s say 60 million americans get tired of the ISP’s lack of net neutrality. 60 million americans giving up 1000 dollars each. Now that’s a good start. […] If it doesn’t work it’s because people don’t care about their own lifes, and in that case they deserve no better.
Most people view computers as tools, so they couldn’t care less. They have other things to worry about. The minority who cares will pay for the majority that doesn’t. At least that is the reality in NA.
Starting your private company? Taking aside the funding issues, you would still be at the mercy of the telcos. What could you possibly do if they decide to blacklist your entire network? Following your logic, you couldn’t complain to the government since it’s a “free market”.
You have good ideas. It’s just a shame they are completely utopic/disconnected from our reality…
An example where government intervention can be good? If it wasn’t from our government, I would be stuck with one of the two big telcos (Bell and Videotron). Before the government forced one of them (Bell) to share their lines with smaller enterprises, they were both imposing strict quotas and were blocking/throttling a significant number of ports. Without competition, I am pretty sure they would have begun to give additional priviledges for those paying for it (going against net neutrality). In fact, one of them already got a cache proxy…
While they are still using these tactics, it’s now possible to get with a line without such restrictions. My ISP probably got no more than 300 clients, but they provide me a free line where I can set up my own server without questions asked. Most people don’t care, but I do. Thanks to the government, I have choice. Isn’t what a free market is about?
Most people view computers as tools, so they couldn’t care less. They have other things to worry about. The minority who cares will pay for the majority that doesn’t. At least that is the reality in NA.
In that case they deserve no better. Problem solved, because it’s not a problem.
Starting your private company? Taking aside the funding issues, you would still be at the mercy of the telcos. What could you possibly do if they decide to blacklist your entire network? Following your logic, you couldn’t complain to the government since it’s a “free market”.
Ever heard of contracts? They won’t ban an entire network, if that network has a million or more customers. They’ll lose money that way.
You have good ideas. It’s just a shame they are completely utopic/disconnected from our reality…
You don’t read what I write – you read what you want to read. The problem is you don’t have the will to do what it takes, because it’s easier to scream “Mommmmmyyyyyy!”.
The examples you give are a bit void, because these examples were based on government-protected monopolies.
It’s clear that all companies with a law-protected monopoly have to be controlled. The solution is to not have government-protected monopolies.
You don’t read what I write – you read what you want to read. The problem is you don’t have the will to do what it takes, because it’s easier to scream “Mommmmmyyyyyy!”.
Oh, please. So far, the only thing you have done is yapping some rhetoric out of your ass. Perhaps I would take you more seriously if you manage to start a successful business in such hostile environment…
The examples you give are a bit void, because these examples were based on government-protected monopolies.
How can they be void when it is the reality? I am all for smaller/non-intrusive governments, but it won’t happen in a day. Meanwhile, we need solutions fitting the reality.
It’s clear that all companies with a law-protected monopoly have to be controlled. The solution is to not have government-protected monopolies.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, we are not going to see this in the near future (see above). Like it wasn’t enough, technology is evolving at an incredible pace, thus decisions have to be taken quickly.
Honestly, I couldn’t care less of what could happens in the US, but their policies have a direct impact on the world, most especially on our own policies in Canada.
I don’t believe this rejection of the amendment will bring the end of the Internet, but it might have an impact on our experience. Just an example among others, Microsoft could reserve bandwidth for throttling open-source projects (although it’s FAR more likely that the war will be waged with multimedia content like video streams).
At the same time, there is a lot of research in wireless technologies (one of our research groups in my department is dedicated at radio communications)… At worst, an ng-Internet might not be that far.
Hurdles to overcome:
1. Locating the 60 million that dislike the Telcos and ISPs strongly enough to oppose them.
2. Convincing them to yield up $1000 dollars front-money in an as-yet non-existant alternative with the promise that the alternative will absolutely be immensely better in more dimensions than I can readily count.
3. Deciding who holds on to the $60b in cash while this non-existant, not-obviously better alternative is um, what? Built? Derived?
4. Convincing the well-connected and certainly better-funded Telcos and ISPs to just stand idly by and allow this alternative to be lobbied, funded, and (built?) and eventually displace them, costing them profitibility and scads of market control.
5. Preventing the alternative from merely becoming the beast you went out to battle in the absence of sound legislation to curb the transformation.
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!
Unite, and create a competitor, rather than sit down and yell for mother
So, do you have a spare 30-50 billion dollars lying around? If so, you might be able to lay enough cable around the country, buy enough office space, hire enough employees, etc. to be able to be your own backbone. In 5 to 10 years. If you want it faster, it’s going to cost you a lot more. You’ll need to buy out one of the major telcos already in operation.
If you don’t have that kind of money, then creating a competitor is as useful a suggestion as “take over the world.” It sounds nice, but it’s completely impossible.
60 million americans giving 1000$ each. That’s a start right?
Just f–king unite and you’ll win.
60 million americans giving 1000$ each. That’s a start right?
Just f–king unite and you’ll win.
You are jesting, right?
If you can’t accomplish it, you don’t deserve better.
If you can’t accomplish it, you don’t deserve better.
Maybe you have this picture in your head of the USA where money falls from the sky and everyone stuffs their matress with $100 bills, but $1000 is a lot of money for a lot of Americans. So, getting $1000 from 60 Million people is impossible. Hell, getting 60 million Americans away from American Idol long enough to think about it is probably impossible.
I have no faith in the general public (or anywhere really).
Edited 2006-06-09 16:43
Hell, getting 60 million Americans away from American Idol long enough to think about it is probably impossible.
Then they really don’t deserve better. They could start with 1 dollar. That’s still 60 million, and that’s not a bad start. But it would require them to forget about American Idol, Survivor (if that still exists), and Paris Hilton and her latest escapades (whatever she’s been doing lately).
I have no faith in the general public (or anywhere really).
I do, at least in Denmark. Well, at least some of the time. Sort of.
Hell, getting 60 million Americans away from American Idol long enough to think about it is probably impossible.
Then they really don’t deserve better.
You’re right about that lol.
If you can’t accomplish it, you don’t deserve better.
Since you seem to feel that setting up a large corporation is easy, please feel free to enumerate your experiences:
1) organizing and managing a large group of people.
2) organizing and managing a large project with a multi-million dollar budget.
2b) vendor contracts?
2c) accounts payable? receivable?
3) incorporating, organizing, and managing a large corporation.
3b) how will shareholder votes be handled?
3c) which US state will you incorporate in, Delaware or Nevada?
4) which legal firms and accounting firms do you reccomend?
5) describe your experience dealing with regulatory agencies such as the FCC and Department of Commerce.
1) Oh dear. I really hate to do that. I’m not a good leader if I have to say it. I really hate ending up in such positions, even though they tend to sneak up on me.
2) Now that is one thing I’ve never tried. But if the money was there, I don’t doubt I could but the assistance needed.
2b) A few. A few was broken and ended in court, and ome of these was won. However, they were not multi-billion contracts. Not even close.
2c) I usually have people for that kind of work. So I wouldn’t know how to do it on my own. Nor did I suggest that.
3) See #1 as well as #2 – and 2c
3b) See #2 and 2c
3c) See #2 and 2c
4) None, and this is irrelevant in regard to whether it can be done. It can be done, and assistance can be bought. I do know one firm I’d use but that one resides in Denmark. Hardly usable in USA.
5) None what so ever, being Danish. But I do have a certain experience with the equivalent Danish agencies (though it’s unknown to me how useful that would be in USA). However, it’s completely irrelevant in regard to whether or not it can be done.
It’s a matter of will. Without the will it can never be done, and if people don’t care they don’t deserve better.
The fact that you give up before you tried, doesn’t mean it cannot be accomplished. It can and it has been done many times and it’ll keep happening, even though you prefer to believe it’s impossible.
60 million americans giving 1000$ each. That’s a start right?
Just f–king unite and you’ll win.
So you’re suggesting that fully 1/3 of the U.S. population between the ages of 18-65 (186,150,307) needs to get involved and donating to get this off the ground? That doesn’t even factor in incarcerated, impovrished, or unwired individuals. You truly have no grasp of what you are asking for.
Of course I know what I’m asking for, and I know how close to impossible it is to pull off. But in that case, there isn’t any issue. If people don’t care they haven’t deserved any better.
EOF
This post is not off-topic, nor spamming, nor offensive in anyway.
Shows how certain people cannot handle opposition. Quite funny though.
Well, no, it’s not that people can’t stand opposition. In fact, you should be happy. Several people have seen a bad idea, they’ve modded it down and have gone off to make their own. Weird, huh? In a way, in failing to make your point, you’ve made your point. Of course, you didn’t have the power to stop them from modding you down, so you merely reached for what power you had (ridicule), and tossed it in there. Just think what you might have done if you could have auto-deleted any contrary posts to your own.
Just think what you might have done if you could have auto-deleted any contrary posts to your own.
Now that’s a scary thought. That would effectively be the end of free speech.
Smaller ISPs are not hard to find.
But it requires you to actually look. I would’ve been for this about two years ago, but I’m more the type to get active and research than to just complain and act like I’m a victim.
Smaller ISPs, however, are dependent on the networks of the bigger ISPs. So if the bigger ISPs decide to QoS their packets, the smaller ones can’t really do anything about it.
That’s the fundemental problem here. There is a state-sanctioned monopoly wherein the people who own the networks have rights everyone else does not. That’s probably a necessary part of being able to provide their services in the first place, because in a truely free market, we’d have no phone, data, or cable service to begin with. But because they have these rights, and because they’ve got a monopoly on the infrastructure, there is no way for competitors to effectively challenge them.
Keep in mind that even switching ISPs doesn’t get around the problem that they’re all using the big boys’ lines, which means there’s no way to get out of paying. Remember how Bell got broken up once before, due to their unfair monopoly? Sounds like it’s almost time to do it again.
Ok.. so you are advocating that we all drop our broadband connections and go with some of the local dial up providers? I think that it will be just a matter of time before we see something happen. Maybe it will work out.. If for example Comcrap decides to throttle some connections.. and WOW doesn’t I could see people jumping ship to WOW.. but there really arent that many options for broadband. Not in my area at least Its WOW, Comcrap,or SBC/ATT/Yahoo..Lets not even begin to discuss sattelite.
No. I’m advocating you make your own decisions.
No, you are advocating that your government let corporations reduce the number of options you are given to decide from. You would be making your own decisions either way, but now there are some decisions you are not allowed to make because monopolistic corporations can arbitrarily forbid them.
Yes. And the companies have that right.
If you don’t like the options, make your own company.
Take the responsibility for your own happiness, instead of forcing laws down on the head of other people.
No, they don’t. Corporations — government-issued corporate charters — exist at the mercy of the public for the benefit of the public. When they start profiting at the expense of the what’s good for the individual citizen, they must be brought to heel.
If I don’t like my options, I will and do vote for a political party that knows that it is elected by the public to serve the public and that it is their duty to prevent corporations from making the world a better place. It is also in the long-term interests of the corporations, because any profits they derive for stupidity are short-term ones that benefit today’s CEO and stockholder at the expense of tomorrow’s.
I take responsibility for my own happiness by participating in society and working hard to make the system better.
That’s a tad silly in this case. When you’re in a china shop with a three-year-old, do you:
a: Tell the three-year-old to keep his hands to himself or else he gets punished.
b: Tell the shopkeeper to supply the china with bubble-wrap and “take responsibility for their own happiness”.
Yes, people could theoretically strike out on their own and create an alternative, but when the answer is as easy as telling the self-minded, clumsy ISPs to watch their Ps and Qs or they’ll be legal repercussions, why not just do that? Isn’t that “taking responsibility”? You don’t stop organized crime by having an organized non-crime, you make sure that organized crime is increasingly difficult to pursue and reward legitimate business with protective fences of law. The ISPs have used the popularity of their product to gain money and influence, which they are now using to ignore and pervert that which was the initial promise of their product. Also, if they notice people “striking out on their own” to create an alternative, do you honestly think they won’t use the legal system and everything this side of armed resistance to stop such an effort? Silliness.
It’s not an ISP issue, it’s a line provider issue. You can’t choose line providers because they’re already government protected monopolies.
People who honestly think the Internet is a free organization in the market (and not Government controlled) are blatantly ignorant of its history and current stance. While there are no laws on contents and little on delivery that doesn’t mean it’s not overseen things like ICANN and all of the organization which make up the physical layer of the internet (Ma’ Bell).
I’m not sure that I was for this net neutrality legislation. I never read it, and I believe I read that it was pushing things too far in many respects and creating extra regulation. However, let me tell you, if we don’t have net neutrality we’re going to end up with Ma’ Bell again, but Internet instead of phones. It might even be two companies competing, but since they won’t be able to compete on the Internet within each others geographies they’ll both have local monopolies and companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon will have to pay two or more extortion fees.
And don’t kid yourself. Charging for priority routing is not giving you something you couldn’t have before, it’s requiring pay for what you had with neutrality: It’s a form of extortion.
But at the same time, we don’t want to tell places like Universities that they’re not allowed to priority route; because there are reasonable, LOCAL, uses for priority routing. Such as ensuring that people using http connections get priority over bittorrent users (very valid, one expects to wait and the other may not have time to wait; especially in a local setting like a University).
It’s not an ISP issue, it’s a line provider issue. You can’t choose line providers because they’re already government protected monopolies.
Fine, as I already stated, these monopolies should be removed, and until then – as a temporary solution – should these monopolies be strongly controlled (e.g. they should not have the right to “violate” net neutrality).
However, the ISP’s should be allowed to “violate” net neutrality, because they can easily be changed. And it’s not only a matter of line provider. At least not in regard to the last few yards from your installation and to the rest of the net.
But I already stated that government protected monopolies should cease to be, and until then they should be heavily controlled.
But I already stated that government protected monopolies should cease to be, and until then they should be heavily controlled.
You’ve said this, but you’ve made no argument in support of it. You haven’t even made an argument in support of how you would cause these monopolies to cease to be.
The US goverment broke up AT&T. The nature of the business it was in is such that it is reforming. Without regular repeated government intervention, that will always be the case.
You’ve said this, but you’ve made no argument in support of it. You haven’t even made an argument in support of how you would cause these monopolies to cease to be.
That is incorrect.
I’ve already stated, that laws should be passed to remove the granted monopolies. This would be comparable to the old land reforms in Denmark, or the (historically recent) AT&T case in USA.
They can’t be simply removed. There’s the issue of public property: You have to use it to have lines, and you actually have to have very strong control of it to fix your lines in a timely manner.
You can’t just have people willy-nilly adding their own physical lines in. So you have two choices:
1.) A regulated Government monopoly.
2.) Government owned lines.
We have 1, and it is heavily controlled. It’s very heavily controlled. I’m afraid 2 would be even worse as we’d probably never see new technologies in physical mediums applied to our lines.
If we could do entirely wireless (via satelites maybe) communication we could forget the government regulated monopolies. But we don’t have the technology yet to do that.
I did not suggest removing the physical installations.
I didn’t suggest you did, I said you suggested removing the institutions.
Well, yes.
We could replace those with private organizations owned by all individuals.
Personally I don’t see a problem with people laying down their own lines. It might seem chaotic to some, but a certain amount of chaos is to be appreciated.
Collusion of ISP’s won’t give you Net Neutrality.
Like the previous poster stated, people with money will BUY access to display your choice.
If you haven’t seen the collusion that is currently going on you must be blind.
Collusion of ISP’s won’t give you Net Neutrality.
Like the previous poster stated, people with money will BUY access to “DISPLACE” your choice.
If you haven’t seen the collusion that is currently going on you must be blind.
They will give me what I want, if I pay for it.
Yeah. Letting leftist politicians decide what the best internet experience is, is definitely a bad idea.
If you want net neutrality then choose an ISP that gives you net neutrality, and avoid those that doesn’t.
Problem solved.
Excuse me for being very non-objective: Aren’t you as f–king naiv as the lefties you’re so sarcasticly refering to!? The problem isn’t f–king solved that easily and your eyes have gotta be as blind as newborn hedgehog.
Problem solved my ass.
We NEED legislation to protect Internet neutrality. Nothing wrong with that.
You have to know better than that. In most areas you can get high speed internet access in one of three ways. 1) Dialup, slow, generally no longer acceptable for gaming or even webbrowsing, and especially file transfers 2) Cable, you get it from your cable company. There is NO choice of which cable company you go with, you have to get what is in your area. 3) DSL – not widely available. For example in my area I cant get DSL but I can get cable, which is what I have.
The point? There isnt always a choice. For example, unless I want dialup, im stuck with charter.
So much for CHOOSING an ISP at all.
Also, what is this law about anyway. Net neutrality could mean anything depending on context, nowhere in the entire article do they actually say right out what the law does.
Also, what is this law about anyway? Net neutrality could mean anything depending on context
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality is a good summary
grossly simplified, it means that a bandwidth provider should treat all packets on their pipe equally, subject only to the bandwidth limit that they’ve negotiated with the consumer.
You have to know better than that. In most areas you can get high speed internet access in one of three ways. 1) Dialup, slow, generally no longer acceptable for gaming or even webbrowsing, and especially file transfers 2) Cable, you get it from your cable company. There is NO choice of which cable company you go with, you have to get what is in your area. 3) DSL – not widely available. For example in my area I cant get DSL but I can get cable, which is what I have.
Yeah, our friend in Denmark doesn’t, I think have an idea of the extreme geographical isolation that one finds in the US West.
My hometown, for example, is 2 hours from the next incorporated city. There is one provider of high-speed internet access — Verizon.
Or where I live now, despite living in a large metropolis, there are people who actually have no high-speed i’net because Cox Cable never bothered to run out to their house, and they’re still too far from a switch for DSL.
However, when the new housing developments get close enough that DSL is avalible, the people in that part of town will have one choice: Sprint.
lol yeah.. instead lets leave it up to the telcos like verizon, sbc/att, and bellsouth to Tell me what is best for me on the web.. When the telcos start bombing large corporations like google, ask,Amazon and wikipedia with additional costs for their bandwidth how much longer will it be before we end up paying for it? Net neutrality isnt about gov’t regulation, its about putting a cork in Telco greed.
Why don’t you decide what is best for you?
They are deciding what’s best for them. You simply refuse out of hand their intended means of securing it. You can stop framing your argument as a matter of self-selection, now.
There is nothing wrong with their intended means. If you don’t like their offer, don’t take it.
The companies are not that powerful. Ordinary people are a lot more powerful; they have just forgotten how powerful they are.
I’m suggesting here that the intended means of the people is their government, and that you’re rejecting it out of hand because it conflicts with your ideological beliefs. In fact their ideal is that ordinary people are more powerful than these businesses because they have greater representation in the government. Unfortunately for the plebes, their coalitions don’t agree on much. That would be as true of co-ops as anything else, though.
The intended means of the people is not the government as such. The existence of that government is actually against the ideal.
The intended means of people is simply uniting. There is no need for doing so through authorities.
In Denmark we have something called “andelsbevægelse”. Such a movement is what I consider necessary in order to secure net neutrality.
Edited 2006-06-09 16:36
The government is a union, and it’s the union people supporting a “net neutrality” bill are using. You don’t have to like the means but that is their means of deciding what’s best for them.
The government is NOT a union. That’ a lie they like you to believe. The government is – in reality – a tool to oppress freedom, and not enhance it.
The House may be a union, but that one has ceased to work, if it ever has.
The solution is not to create more regulating laws, but to remove the existing regulating laws.
The government is a union. In fact it’s a lot of unions themselves in a union. Deal with it. This is not negotiable. It is not a lie or a conspiracy. It exists to strike compromises between all of the competing interests of human populations. Every act of preventing one form of oppression is another form of oppression. And the point, which you so casually ignore, is that these people are making their own choice which is to create laws to govern their country as they see fit. One side for the regulation, the other opposing it. Stop characterizing your ideology as people making their own decisions and your opposition not making their own decisions. What you want is for people to ignore the power that they have in government so that they can become bogged down in the minutiae of every single utility they benefit from because it more closely approximates people following the rules you favor. Just say that, instead of all of this nonsense about self-selection. They are simply using tools you do not favor.
You are grossly misinterpreting all I’ve wrote, while quoting me for statements that are not mine.
The moment you’re passing a law, you are not making your own decision, but rather you are making a decision on other persons behalf.
Anyway, don’t even think you know what I want, and making people ignore their power is the least I want. Actually I want the opposite.
However, passing laws are a bad way to use your power. Every new law gives less freedom, and that is a bad thing IMHO.
You clearly diagree, and so be it.
I have provided, to the best of my knowledge, absolutely no quotes whatsoever. What I have done is repeatedly asked you to stop telling other people to make decisions for themselves when that is what they are doing through their government. Those decisions are not limited solely to themselves. Welcome to the world with a population greater than you. The world, despite what you want, does not revolve around you or your personal ideology. People _do_ have the power to utilize their government to regulate the behavior of those within the State. That is manifestly true, and you can argue that they should not, but it is not the reality of the situation. You do not want them to exercise this power, instead preferring that they indulge in some personal endeavor over every public utility so that they can insure that others do not manipulate the rules of your simple game to corner them. You want them to exercise this _other_ power despite its limitations at the expense of the power that they have as a member of the larger union of government. They clearly don’t want to, but that does not mean that they are not making their own decisions.
You do not make decisions for yourself through the government.
You have it turned completely upside down.
You decide what is the acceptable course of action for those within the State and you enforce this through the State by whatever means of participation that you have available to you. If for instance I am in favor of the State enforcing “net neutrality” I manifest “net neutrality” by voting for representatives that will represent that interest in the larger union. I have made the decision to use the power available to me as a member of the State to actualize my goals. If on the other hand I believe that the government cannot regulate the telecommunications industry I elect representatives that will go forth and manifest this goal. In either case I am making my own decision and I am using my power as a member of the State to bring it into being. It does not exist simply because it follows from my personal beliefs, it exists so long as others are willing to believe that it exists. The government does, as much as any free enterprise, represent the power of the people. The laws you view as oppression are compromises between those people to minimize turmoil. Society does not accept as a premise that you are free to do whatever you want. It does not as an extension accept that you in a group may do as you want. It declares itself as the final arbiter of actions under whatever limitations it agrees to act under. In this case the people do not have create co-ops to create “net neutrality,” they can simply legislate it into being. It is the path of least resistence, given the financial and cultural realities.
You decide what is the acceptable course of action for those within the State and you enforce this through the State by whatever means of participation that you have available to you
Yes, and in doing so you make decisions on behalf of other people.
The fact you can do so, does not change your decision is on behalf of other people. What I suggested was for people to make their own decisions for their own life, rather than make a decision on behalf of other persons.
I decide what I believe those within the State can do and take actions to make it happen. The State decides what those within the State can do. It can do so as long as those that embody the State enforce such decisions. When the State decides what those within the State may do it is deciding what I may do, or what Bob may do. When I decide what I believe those within the State may do, I decide what I may do and what Bob may do. Actualizing those beliefs is a decision regarding what the members of the State can do, which includes myself and others. If I decide that littering is a problem and I vote for the Anti-Littering Party which subsequently abates littering, I am deciding for myself that littering is a problem. Your litter and my litter. Neither of us may litter. If you decide that you don’t want to regulate littering you vote for the Anti-Anti Littering Party, which subsequently does nothing to abate littering. The State enforces whichever view or whatever hypothetical compromise that emerges due to divisions with the State. The State can only enforce that which the constituents of the State accept. The States holds itself to be the final arbiter of behavior among the members of the State. In this role it negotiates settlements between disparate interest groups over what behavior is acceptable. It is conflict resolution between parties. You cannot as a matter of policy simply “go about your way,” because as you’ll notice when you look outside of your window there are other human beings on this planet. At some point your interest will conflict with the interest of another and some manner of dispute resolution must occur. Despite what you desire this resolution includes regulation of the telecommunications industry. It is firmly within the power of the people to decide that it is in their favor and to act accordingly with respect to their power in government, without having to resort to efforts that will fail or eventually just fall into the same problem in the future.
I decide what I may do and what Bob may do.
Yes, and that’s what I wrote again and again and again. And that’s why I’m against your solution. I won’t let you decide for me.
I’m fairly sure that you let society decide for you all of the time. Chances are if you did not that you would find yourself in some manner of incarceration or you’ve since departed from Denmark to live on a Martian colony. You do not have to like it, but it’s difficult to tell everyone else that they have no say over what you do in their world without realizing that you are telling others how they may behave. I don’t personally care what solution that you’re interested in, I just find your sentiment of questionable merit. People voluntarily associate with the government, and choose how to resolve and to enforce decisions of permissable conduct. Those laws simply manifest the choices of the people. Not all of the people, since they represent conflicting interests. It’s all conflict resolution. I don’t really care for it myself, but that’s how it is.
Your solution is unrealistic and simply won’t happen because it isn’t what the people actually want. That basically describes the sentiments of most ideologues.
Peope do not voluntarily associate with the government. That’s a lot of nonsense. At least they don’t in Denmark. Nor anywhere else in the western world.
That should have been clear with the Cartoon Crisis.
I don’t let society decide for me all of the time. And I never will let it decide for me all of the time. I may however choose to follow the rules, to the extent I consider the rules reasonable. But if the law sucks don’t count on me abiding by it. Nor count on anybody else to do so. That would be naïve.
The laws do not necessarily manifest the choices of the people. That’s the theory, but not the reality. It would require uncorrupt politicians.
The idea of democracy is to let each individual make his/her own decision within own domain.
I have decided. I want the greed of the telcos throttled. They spout this B***SH*t argument that the money is needed to build the new highspeed internet. Bollocks..Our telcos are decidedly negligent in reinvesting into their infrastructure. Instead they feel it is more prudent to take tax breaks from depreciatiation. I have emailed and faxed my senators, and congressmen ad nauseum. That is my decision.
It’s not quite so simple as all that. Somebody on Slashdot said something interesting about why the telcos aren’t just entities in the free market. To paraphrase: “I can’t go into my neighbors yard and start laying line. The telephone and cable companies can. This loss of property rights must in some way be balanced by an assurance that the lines will be used for the public good.”
As long as telcos have rights that regular companies do not, they have responsibilities that regular companies do not. If they want to play the “free market” game, let them play it like everybody else. Have the government sieze all the cable thats sitting in public land, return all the cable thats sitting in private land to the owners of that land, and have the telcos negotiate with everyone involved and pay fees for the use of these private lines. Because if Google or Amazon wanted to run cable all over the country, that’s what they’d have to do.
PS) Letting the market decide doesn’t work in lots of cases, and that’s something you’d learn in Economics 101. There are classes of services in which the market fails to optimally allocate resources to maximize perceived value. Which is why we have national defense instead of privitized defense, environmental regulations instead of none, and why our privitized healthcare system (in the US) is performing so poorly relative to nationalized healthcare systems abroad.
Since I can not vote you up as you are maxed reyiner… I will just say … heck yeah!!!
Right… lets let the market decide… because the market is free when you have the bandwidth owners giving their services that compete with amazon, google, etc, better pipes.
GET A GRIP!!!
a free market is needed to have the market decide. If the market’s land is owned by one of the players, how is it free?
Let the market decide. That works every time it’s tried.
Actually, it doesn’t. From the Dutch Tulip Craze to 1929 to Microsoft’s monopoly to airline deregulation, there are plenty of historical evidence that shows that markets are not in fact the quasi-sentient beings that laissez-faire proponents would like us to believe.
Regulations are important to avoid major economical catastrophes, and to create wealth. After all, if it hadn’t been for government intervention, we’d have very little of the technology we use today. Aerospace, computers, the Internet…those were all developed with taxpayer’s dollars.
Oh, and corporate tax is essential…after all, many very successful corporations got to where they are with the help of public subsidies – why shouldn’t they also assume their share of the tax burden?
What if all the ISPs in your area do not provide neutral unbiased access? How will the market decide that?
Bravo! Someone by this man a beer!
Though he makes some broad statements and some rather shaky assumptions, he manages to hit the nail on the head when it comes to taxes. Taxes are the bread and butter of crooked politicians and only causes pain for honest tax paying citizens while simultaneously slowing down the economy.
The concept of Net Neutrality not only smells of anti-capitalism, it’s not even a plausible means to an end. You gotta love the bias in the coverage though, when it says things like, “dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google”. These companies weren’t dealt a bitter blow, the House probably just saved one of their best customers – the U.S.! Somehow, saying that they were “engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it”, isn’t a strong endorsement, when you consider some of the behaviour of these companies, particularly Google. Google has a real problem with ethics when it helps China, a communist country, deprave it’s people access to the internet on a content basis. Which is what Net Neutrality is all about. What a load of crock.
I would normally agree with you, but with the current monopoly the telcos have, there is no market. In some places where broadband penetration isn’t high, they have one choice, and if that choice prioritizes packets and starts blocking access to sites then what? That doesn’t sound free or independent at all.
I personally have choices where I am at, but many do not. What also worries be is this seems like my costs are going to go up. My monthly bill for the internet may stay the same, but my webhosting bills will go up, sites will start charging fees to access premium content because they have to pay the telcos extra fees, small busnieses and independents can’t afford the fees and I’m stuck with slow access to their sites, all trhe while I pay 52 dollars a month in internet access.
I pay a lot of money to stay connected, I don’t want anyone saying what site I can access quickly and what I cannot. That includes the government.
———–I don’t want anyone saying what site I can access quickly and what I cannot. That includes the government.———–
That’s why you don’t want government involved.
It would be inevitable were that to happen.
you’re right…I don’t. Let’s think about this for a second though. The government isn’t involved right now anyway, but the ISP’s now are. How is that any different? If it’s not one asshat it’s another.
Either way this is bad for us…I can’t see my bottom line getting lower, just my costs going up.
If I were google/amazon, I’d block access from ISP’s trying to extort money. Then let a flood of customer calls into their call center change their minds.
———If it’s not one asshat it’s another.———-
The asshats in the ISPs can be taken down. it’ll be a hard job, but it can be done.
the asshats in the government can’t.
Give me a really hard job over an impossible one.
————-If I were google/amazon, I’d block access from ISP’s trying to extort money. Then let a flood of customer calls into their call center change their minds.————–
You were thinking the same thing I was.
How is starting your own broadband company and keeping it both afloat and aggressively expanding easier than voting out bad legislators?
“Let the market decide. That works every time it’s tried.”
Yeah, right… If the government had no control, how much monopoly-power do you think Microsoft would have had?
And people living outside the cities would have had no broadband, roads, telephone etc.
EDIT: I was a little late with this comment..
Edited 2006-06-09 12:36
The government is protecting Microsoft. Ever heard of software patents?
Remove software patents (monopoly on ideas) and you’ll see a lot more of competition.
Microsoft is big, and will stay big as long as governments protect it through legislation.
Remove the laws, and let man decide for himself.
Did you really just suggest that Microsoft’s power base was a result of software patents? Do you have any evidence that this is the case?
They are using them right now to cripple competition.
Fact is that patents stiffle competition by granting a law-protected monopoly to a certain person or group, thereby making competition illegal.
Microsoft holds many patents, and are using them actively and so does IBM.
Patents == high entry barrier. Microsoft owns patents and enforces them actively ERGO Microsoft participates in creating higher barriers.
I didn’t ask you whether you thought that software patents were bad. I asked you if you had any evidence that Microsoft’s market position stems from software patents. Please cite specifics if you do, because if you have no reason to believe that Microsoft’s position stems from software patents then removing software patents doesn’t address the issue of Microsoft’s market position. It simply addresses the issue of whether software patents can be harmful. It’s a matter of smoke and mirrors, where Microsoft’s market position just becomes attributes to things you don’t like. Today it’s software patents, tomorrow it’s copyright, next week it’s fiat currency.
to how Microsoft uses it’s patents to “cripple competition”?
I must say that i fear the idea that a given ISP can say, would you(let say microsoft(live.com)) like your users to load your site faster then google.com, well then all you have to do is pay us more then google does. I don’t know if i’m understanding it correct, please correct me if i’m wrong.
I don’t think the “let the market decide” saying is all that it is made up to be, or maybe it’s just because i’m not from the states.
Most of the companies that oppossed this bill just happen to be the same companies that have been nice enough to provide the NSA with all the unlimited access they need to build their nice database.
I’m not saying that these companies threatened to cut the NSA off, or to release embarrassing information about the programs, but it does make me wonder about the real motives involved.
Anybody here familiar with campaign finance reform?
The bill which was supposed to keep money out of politics? Anybody know what that bill actually did?
Put more money into politics.
It’s a valuable lesson to learn when it comes to legislation of this type. The old “fairness doctrine” from back in the day would be another example of saying one thing and doing another.
I like the internet. I don’t want politicians to destroy it and you shouldn’t either.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act“>McC… ] put more money into politics.
Do you have any numbers to back that up? I understand that parties received significantly less money in 2004 than in 2000.
a viable option? If you cannot trust the government to govern, do you trust corporations to self-regulate?
The Corporate America sentiment “Let the market decide” is clearly not always the best policy.
Take for example the US cell phone system. Multiple standards, spotty coverage, these are what the market has decided. Europe and Japan have far superior systems, and they are regulated.
Some government is necessary. One can only imagine the infrastructure we’d have if highways, sewers, etc… were in the hands of corporations. The Internet should be treated as an Interstate, not a private way.
This:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=14848
I wish I had a nickel for everytime I heard someone say or imply that MS has too much power, blah blah, that the only way linux is going to take of is if the government stops MS’ rampage, blah blah.
The market is deciding. And what me and other linux users want is continuing to be closer.
The market works every time it’s tried.
That applies everywhere there actually is fair competition, unfortunately telco is not that place. The government did stop MS rampaging, (should have gone further), or you would not be seeing linux on dell’s for instance.
Which is why every single African and South American country that tried opening up its markets in the 80s and 90s is now throwing up regulations and protectionist measures like there’s no tomorrow. The market is a nice tool, but it needs to be balanced and kept in check.
so much confusion.
The internet is regulated, and has always been so.
The US government has a great deal of control over the internet for a reason: it’s the internet’s daddy. It is convenient to forget who paid for the original net, and who changed their regulations to allow commercial use of it, but there it is.
Net neutrality is not about ISPs, and changing providers won’t make any difference. It’s about how peering is done and how traffic transits between ISPs over the backbone.
Many governments have already incorporated net neutrality into local laws. The US is merely playing catch up here.
Web sites already spend a lot of money on improving their perceived performance. There’s the size of their local pipe, their own server set up, net acceleration by companies like netli, and caching by companies like akami.
“The market” doesn’t always work. Markets only work as forces of social engineering when all of the costs and benefits are carried by the buyers and sellers. The classic example of markets not working is the reason why we have environmental regulation and safety laws. The cost of market decisions (make products cheaper by polluting) is paid by non participants (those whose environment is polulted) who tend not to have any direct participation in the market. (This is especially true of industrial pollution like mine tailings)
net neutrality falls in this area. The people who pay the cost of non-neutrality (or of neutrality) are the end-point users, but they are not participants in the backbone bandwidth market.
They may or may not actually be confused, but I think the crux of the matter is that they view any additional regulation as a progression of a philosophy that they reject and as such would only serve to make the situation worse in that it would further diverge from their ideological goals. Whether the Internet or the world in general suffered as a result would be a secondary concern that would surely be remedied by the market more efficiently in the long term. Or faeries.
This isn’t the end of the internet as we know it, but possibly the end of the internet in the US. If this gives a green light for the telcos to protect themselves by filtering different types of content and charging for it, or charging more for requests to certain web sites, it’s time to get out of the US. This is what the telcos want – web sites like Google or users paying more to access their web site or services.
Without the content on the internet, there is nothing and the telcos can’t sell broadband and networking services to people because the demand will just nosedive. This is what the telcos don’t understand, and if this moves in the direction the telcos want you’ll see the US become an internet ghost town overnight with big demand from people for alternatives.
The market will find a way in the end, but the telcos are trying to fight against something that they know will be the end of them. It’s just inevitable really.
Edited 2006-06-09 15:00
Where I live there are 2 local providers of high-speed internet access.
Sprint and Cox.
What do I do if they both drop net neutrality?
Go back to the 56k internet drip?
I could get high speed through Qwest, but that would mean paying about $50 a month for a slower connection than I have right now for $40 a month with Cox.
My only hope is that the Nevada System of Higher Education and the County Library District will lean very hard on Sprint and insist on net neutrality as part of the contract.
The way I see it…
The big anti-net neutrality are not the people, but cooperations such as, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. I have gotta say… When you see companies unite against the common desire of the people, that typically means something is very wrong.
For those of you suggesting that keeping the government out of this is whats going to save the net… Then I say to you:
I see this as shooting down a form of anti-discrimination law against the smaller independent people on the internet. I run several large sites, but make ZERO in profit from them. Some of them are fairly high bandwidth. Now I pay my ISP bill and hosting costs, I pay for that bandwidth.. But there is NO WAY I could also pay extortionist money to Verizon and AT&T … I feel like I am a small shop keeper and they are the mob!
For those of you are are happy this was shot down… Please take 10 minutes and read:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5063072.stm
As much as I hate it, when it comes down to it, greed is to powerful and there are times when we NEED the government to protect us… I mean… That is what they are suppose to be for… Well, I guess thats what I hoped.
Edited 2006-06-09 15:44
Never let the markets decide anything. The markets will end up favouring the rich and powerful and opressing the weak.
That is the fundamental reason we require government: to protect the weak and control the powerful.
I just hope the fallout is restricted to there and no one gets the dumb idea to do as the carriers have been bleating about (leading to this legislation attempt) outside the USA.
Oh well.
Edited 2006-06-09 16:12
I’ve got a pair of wire cutters handy to try out the idea of “land neutrality”. I think the telcos should pay me more rent money if they run fatter pipe across my property! Where’s my basic freedom of control of my property at.. Oh wait, the STATE declared Eminent Domain and claims space on EVERYONE’S property they “rent” to the telcos. In addition the STATE grants only a few telcos access so not everybody can string their lines on the “commons” either. With out “land neutrality” there wouldn’t be telcos, it would be a hassle to negotiate “fair” deals with every land owner and handle every change of land ownership like should happen in a good libertarian society.
Too few people remember the days when Ma Bell OWNED the phones.. the whole thing! We rented phones.. and using our own device was ILLEGAL. It wasn’t until ATT was broken up we could own our own dial-up modems. The doctrine of “telephone neutrality” that the customer bought the “line” and the telco was obligated to connect to any telephone number you dial without restriction to the purpose as long as you paid the bill. If you started a company that used your POTS lines to connect to a data service with a T1 they couldn’t stop you. Once that was in place the Internet took off. Even though the telcos in many places deliberately sabotaged the ma-n-pop ISPs by installing poor grade equipment for modem usage even after 2000!! Ever since the prospect of DSL the phone companies have been begging for a return to the Ma Bell days so they can own everything again. They’re acting like little kids that keep begging over and over until the parent gives in because they can’t remember why they said no in the first place!!!
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. These ISPs want to encourage traffic to sites in which they have a vested interest. However, they forget that by and large, the reason why we consumers pay them to have the priviledge of accessing the Internet is not so we can visit the one or two sites they own or are affiliated with, but so that we can visit pretty much any site that tickles our fancy. And we pay ISPs a premium so that we can have fast connections. Slowing connections to Web sites that they have no vested interest in is just wrong. If the Web didn’t burgeon so quickly due to the large amount of free access content, then the people who run these ISPs wouldn’t be sitting on bags of cash. There were low barriers to entry for web publishers – content multiplied like crazy – people foamed at the mouth to have access to this content – ISPs got rich! They have independent and/or third party web content providers to thank for their success. And they thank them by potentially taxing them for bandwidth (that ISP customers already pay for) or slowing traffic to their Web sites.
*** EDITED SOME TYPOS; ADDED A SENTENCE.
Edited 2006-06-09 17:54
Not to mention the CEO’s of these ISP’s are Right Wing KOOKS. Give them the ability to put Left Wing blogs on the SLOW lane and that’s just what they will do.
Just look at FOX “News”.
Continuous LIES posted as news.
That’s what you’ll get on the internet.
And Left Wings like you are any better?
Considering the crimes committed against humanity by leftists, I think you ought to find another world to live in.
Come, now. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, all of these nice people were rightists. Let’s call it a draw, m’kay? 🙂
Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were leftists. Pinochet however… Hmm.. he is no a rightist (in any european sense) because the european right == libetarians and outmost right is anarchism.
The problem is that there are so many different definitions on right and left.
I consider “right” to be “as much personal freedom as possible” (therefore anarchism as most right wing) and “left” to be “totalitarian” (the exact ideology doesn’t matter for those who suffer from the regime).
However, leftists have a different way to define it, and since they have controlled the media (at least in Europe) for the last 5 decades, they have managed to confuse the definitions, so we today have totalitarian systems as the left, the right and the middle.
Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were leftists.
I strongly disagree. Everyone recognizes that fascism and nazism are at the extreme right of the political spectrum. They were very friendly towards private enterprise, and they exterminated socialists, communists, anarchists, and basically everyone one that was left of center.
Pinochet however… Hmm.. he is no a rightist (in any european sense) because the european right == libetarians and outmost right is anarchism.
See, that’s where we disagree. To me, you can be both libertarian/left or libertarian/right. Chomsky is an example of a left libertarian, while Friedman is an example of a right libertarian.
I consider “right” to be “as much personal freedom as possible” (therefore anarchism as most right wing)
Anarchists in Spain (prior to the Spanish War) were definitely left of center.
“Right” means “no government intervention in the economy”. It has little to do with personal freedoms, because corporations are not people (despite the fact that they are considered as moral persons).
You can have right-wing authoritarianism (Hitler, Mussolini, for example) or left-wing authoritarianism (Stalin, Mao). Both are bad.
and “left” to be “totalitarian” (the exact ideology doesn’t matter for those who suffer from the regime).
Actually, it does. I’d rather be a rich industrialist in Nazi Germany (I’d get big contracts and cheap labour) than in Stalinist Russia (I’d be sent to the gulag).
However, leftists have a different way to define it, and since they have controlled the media (at least in Europe)
Aw, come on. Next you’ll be trying to convince me that Berlusconi is a leftist.
for the last 5 decades, they have managed to confuse the definitions, so we today have totalitarian systems as the left, the right and the middle.
As it should be, just like you have libertarian left, middle and right.
Language is defined by consensus. Your interpretation is so far from consensus that it is meaningless. Let’s just agree that totalitarianism is bad and that libertarianism is good, and let’s debate the merits of a planned economy vs. a free market (or a balance between the two) separately, because they are in fact separate matters. 🙂
I strongly disagree. Everyone recognizes that fascism and nazism are at the extreme right of the political spectrum. They were very friendly towards private enterprise, and they exterminated socialists, communists, anarchists, and basically everyone one that was left of center.
Not everybody. Leftists agree on it, but not the rest of us. Nazism is socialism practised with a racistic goal (a biological view on the world – the term alone shows how sick it is). Instead of workers against everybody else, it’s white against black. Fascism is socialism too, but instead of international socialism it is national socialism.
Socialdemocracy can be considered as softcore Fascism. Remove the democratic element in Socialdemocracy and you have pure fascism. International socialism is also known as Communism (or Bolschevism to use an old word).
Communism can be split into many groups, marxist-leninism, mao-communism, reform-communism, and a gazillion other subgroups which truly boggles ones mind.
Your definition of “Right” is supported by leftists, and as such I cannot support it. I see everything as a matter of freedom granted to each individual, and consider all forms of totalitarianism as related to each other.
If we have to use your definition there is no place for libertarians.
Anarchists in Spain (prior to the Spanish War) were definitely left of center.
Well, I’m not sure about that. Some of them were clearly leftists, but that’s one of the funny things. I’ve met persons from socalled leftist groups who turned out to be more rightists (in my definition) than had I thought it possible.
Leftists are all that support severe limitations of freedom.
Actually, it does. I’d rather be a rich industrialist in Nazi Germany (I’d get big contracts and cheap labour) than in Stalinist Russia (I’d be sent to the gulag).
For those who ended in Gulag it didn’t matter why they ended there. For those in KZ-camps it didn’t matter why they ended there. What did matter was that they ended there.
Aw, come on. Next you’ll be trying to convince me that Berlusconi is a leftist. He is a semi-fascist, so yes. He is leftist. The left is Dictaturship. The right is Freedom. The middle is Conservatism and Socialdemocracy.
As it should be, just like you have libertarian left, middle and right.
That’s NOT the way it should be. The Left-Right definition should be based on how the society is formally organized. Is it democracy or not? The more freedom the more right, the less freedom the more left. We can reverse the scale if you want to, but there is no reason for it, since all kinds of socialism limits freedom. So the scale works perfectly from a libertarian POV.
Libertarians are not left, middle and right in your system. There is no place for us at all. There is only dictatorship on the left, the right and the middle. As opposed to dictatorship we cannot be there. We support complete freedom in personal as well as financial matters. So we don’t fit into your model.
Language is defined by consensus. Your interpretation is so far from consensus that it is meaningless. Let’s just agree that totalitarianism is bad and that libertarianism is good, and let’s debate the merits of a planned economy vs. a free market (or a balance between the two) separately, because they are in fact separate matters. 🙂
Language is defined by consensus. However consensus may be wrong, and consensus can be changed, and just because you live with people agreeing with your leftist definition does not mean the rest of us agree. Your definition is so far from consensus it is completely nonsens.
Totalitarianism is bad and Libertarianism is good. I’ll grant you that. Don’t forget Socialism == Totalitarianism.
Planned Economy is unacceptable. Planned Economy are mutually exclusive with Free Market. You cannot have a free market with planned economy. The in-between solution which is called “Blandingsøkonomi” in Danish is unacceptable as well, since it’s merely a softened version of Planned Economy. A completely Free Market means you can decide how much to produce and what price to sell at, while Planned Economy means somebody else tells you what to produce, how much to produce, and at what price to sell. Completely unacceptable.
Nazism is socialism practised with a racistic goal (a biological view on the world – the term alone shows how sick it is). Instead of workers against everybody else, it’s white against black.
See, you just shown how contradictory your definition is. One of the fundamental tenets of socialism is that all humans are equal. You cannot have “racist socialism”, because one excludes the other.
I understand that you are opposed to a planned economy, but to go from there and conclude that left=authoritarian, and therefore that Nazis and Fascists were socialists, is both factually and morally wrong.
How do you explain that Nazis and fascists vehemently denounced socialists and their ideals, and executed them? I’m sorry, but you’re trying to rewrite history here.
ibertarians are not left, middle and right in your system. There is no place for us at all.
Sure there is. There are right, center and left libertarians, just like there are right, center and left authoritarians. The left/right axis concerns itself with economical questions, while the libertarian/authoritarian axis deals with personal liberties. Your view of the world is much too simplistic.
Leftists are all that support severe limitations of freedom.
No, it isn’t, and I can easily prove it: I am a leftist, and yet I am in favor of personal freedoms.
Totalitarianism is bad and Libertarianism is good. I’ll grant you that. Don’t forget Socialism == Totalitarianism.
No, totalitarianism == totalitarianism. Stop trying to demonize the left, it makes you lose credibility.
just because you live with people agreeing with your leftist definition does not mean the rest of us agree
Don’t speak for “the rest of you”, please. Extreme free-market advocates such as you are few and far between. Most people take a moderate approach to these issues, and accept that both the left and the right have some good in them. In general, though, you’ll find that most people lean more to the left than the right (if only because there are more poor people than rich ones, and the rich tend to vote right while the poor tend to vote left).
Planned Economy is unacceptable. Planned Economy are mutually exclusive with Free Market.
A totally free market is unacceptable, because it leads to concentration of wealth, monopolies and economic meltdown. Just look at what happened in 1929!
There’s a reason why successful economies like the U.S., Japan and Germany have mixed economies, because a completely free market simply doesn’t work (just like a completely planned economy doesn’t work either).
archiesteel is right, you really need to start viewing the political spectrum in two dimensions rather than one. Basically this is your scale:
bad <——|——> good
Which is find in elementry school, but by now you should understand its not like that but more like the a plain ole graph you did in high school with two axises
See, you just shown how contradictory your definition is. One of the fundamental tenets of socialism is that all humans are equal. You cannot have “racist socialism”, because one excludes the other.
Well, not everybody is equal in a socialism. Workers are more than the rest, and the individual is nothing. Everybody who opposes the socialistic regime is to be butchered. Instead of oppressing people due to racial differences, they oppress people due to “class” differences. That’s no better than racism.
I understand that you are opposed to a planned economy, but to go from there and conclude that left=authoritarian, and therefore that Nazis and Fascists were socialists, is both factually and morally wrong.
Left is about taking freedom away from the individual and therefore it is totalitarian. Planned economy is just one of many ways to oppress the individual.
There is nothing wrong with calling Fascists and Nazis for Socialists. Because they are Socialists. Nazism is a short form of National Socialism (though it should be Racistic Socialism), and Fascism is merely a nationalized version of Socialism, and as such in opposition to International Socialism.
It can definitely never be a moral issue. The only immoral thing is to consider Communism good.
No, totalitarianism == totalitarianism. Stop trying to demonize the left, it makes you lose credibility.
I don’t have to demonize the Left. It handles that very well on it’s own. Taking away freedom from the individual is never a good thing. I will not stop making people aware of the crimes committed by the Left against Humanity. Just take a look at Bill Clinton. He’s no better than Mussolini. Just take a look at his disgusting Appeasement Policy during the Cartoon Crisis. I thought people had learned from the Munich Disaster that Appeasement is never an option.
Don’t speak for “the rest of you”, please. Extreme free-market advocates such as you are few and far between. Most people take a moderate approach to these issues, and accept that both the left and the right have some good in them. In general, though, you’ll find that most people lean more to the left than the right (if only because there are more poor people than rich ones, and the rich tend to vote right while the poor tend to vote left).
In general people tend to lean much more to the right than to the left, at least in Denmark. Sweden might be different, but Sweden no longer has free speech, so it could be different. I know that they lean much more to the right in Scania (but that’s hardly a surprise, their Danish roots considered).
In Denmark rich people tend to vote for the center or center_left while the rest tend to vote center_right or right_right (where I appears to be – at least using my own definition – with your definition I’m nowhere). Very few poor people vote for the left_left in Denmark. That’s usual something reserved for certain students from certain colleges and humanistic education centres.
A totally free market is unacceptable, because it leads to concentration of wealth, monopolies and economic meltdown. Just look at what happened in 1929!
There’s a reason why successful economies like the U.S., Japan and Germany have mixed economies, because a completely free market simply doesn’t work (just like a completely planned economy doesn’t work either).
The market crash in 1929 did not come from unlimited free market, but from a limited free market for certain classes, and from a huge difference in education between classes, as well as government fiddling with the market laws. The crash would not have happened with a true free market. USA, Japan, and Germany has a lot more capitalistic, free market than we have in Denmark. If Germany has a slightly mixed economy but much less than in Denmark. Japan is a very free market compared with Denmark. So is USA (at least in certain areas).
USA, Japan and Germany are more free market than they are mixed economies.
Sweden are more planned economy than mixed economy. Denmark is pretty much a 50-50 mix between planned economy and free market.
A totally free market leads to spreading wealth, lack of monopolies and prevents economic meltdowns. Meltdowns only happen when the market is not free. And the market was far from free in 1929.
Well, not everybody is equal in a socialism. Workers are more than the rest, and the individual is nothing. Everybody who opposes the socialistic regime is to be butchered. Instead of oppressing people due to racial differences, they oppress people due to “class” differences. That’s no better than racism.
In English we would call such a statement a strawman, since you posit a definition of socialism unrecognizable to any socialist.
In point of fact, your philosophy, as expressed here, lies close to that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and François-Noël Babeuf, who are often considered the originators of socialist thinking, or more precisely, since cooperation seems to play little role in your ideology, closest to the anarchic socialism of Mikhail Bakunin, who sought the abolition of both property and the state.
Your attempt to redefine terms from their common meaning is positively Orwelian
In English we would call such a statement a strawman, since you posit a definition of socialism unrecognizable to any socialist.
Of course they would not recognize it. Nazis don’t recognize our description of nazism either. And libertarians often do not recognize the description given by other political groups. That is to be expected.
In point of fact, your philosophy, as expressed here, lies close to that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and François-Noël Babeuf, who are often considered the originators of socialist thinking, or more precisely, since cooperation seems to play little role in your ideology, closest to the anarchic socialism of Mikhail Bakunin, who sought the abolition of both property and the state.
Considering my knowledge of Rousseau, you could be actually be right. But I don’t really consider him a socialist thinker, though I can see why some would. It could explain my understanding of socialism.
I consider the position of individual rights to be essentiel and therefore likely to define socialism differently than socialists.
As a libertarian I do not support abolition of property (at least not by force – abolition of property by free will is a different issue). But abolition of the state. I like that thought. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to achieve, so I probably have to settle with less.
Your attempt to redefine terms from their common meaning is positively Orwelian
Orwellian in what sense? I can see a couple of ways one might consider it orwellian. I am not redefining anything as such. I’m merely describing something from my POV.
I consider the position of individual rights to be essentiel and therefore likely to define socialism differently than socialists.
You’re “essentially different” than a socialist because you agree with them on human rights?
Your attempt to redefine terms from their common meaning is positively Orwelian
Orwellian in what sense? I can see a couple of ways one might consider it orwellian. I am not redefining anything as such. I’m merely describing something from my POV.
You state that you agree with the founder of socialist thinking, but then say that he wasn’t a socialist. You’ve confused marxist economic theory with socialism and refuse to disentangle them. You basically arbitrarily attribute to “the left” that which is bad in your philosophy and to “the right” that which is good, even though neither the left nor the right would agree with your definition.
That’s pretty Orwellian.
You’re “essentially different” than a socialist because you agree with them on human rights?
Socialists do not agree on the deeper definition on human rights. They agree on some words, but so do conservatives. Using the right words means little to me. Fact is the individual has no value in Socialism, no matter what they claim. I don’t care about their claims, I care about what they actually do. And their words do not fit their actions.
You state that you agree with the founder of socialist thinking, but then say that he wasn’t a socialist.
I don’t think he was a socialist thinker. Socialists may however find elements they consider socialism, but a libertarian can find elements, which can be considered libertarian.
Heck, even conservatives can find elements they consider conservative, and some of these elements are identical to those found by socialists and libertarians.
And read my post again. I did not write I agree. I did however write that he may have influeced my line of thinking, but that does not qualify as agreeing.
You’ve confused marxist economic theory with socialism and refuse to disentangle them.[i]
Please state your definition of socialism.
Socialism is an umbrella, covering all variations on the original Socialism (usually known as International Socialism or Communism).
I’m aware that modern socialists are redefining the meaning of Socialism, but that is irrelevant. They do not have patent on the definition.
[i]You basically arbitrarily attribute to “the left” that which is bad in your philosophy and to “the right” that which is good, even though neither the left nor the right would agree with your definition.
The right and the left is defined in different ways depending on who you ask. I don’t care about your definition. It’s non-european and typical for american leftists. I’ve seen numerous two- and three-dimensional scales as well, and at least a dozen different left-right scales.
I am – in the european sense – right wing (sort of, I think – on certain issues I’m left wing – go figure), but in the american model I am nowhere.
The one I use has complete personal freedom as the right and the lack of these (tyranny) as the left.
This is different than the american model, where there is no place for a libertarian, nor place for a liberalist. It’s basically a fake model, created by socialists so they can take patent on the truth.
That’s pretty Orwellian.
I dare to disagree, but at least you got the spelling right this time
I’m not redefining anything – I am just using a definition different that the one modern Socialists want us to use. The definition however is flawed and misleading, therefore I won’t use it.
It’s the Socialists who are behaving in an Orwellian manner (not that all senses of “Orwellian” is bad, btw.)
I’m not redefining anything – I am just using a definition different that the one modern Socialists want us to use. The definition however is flawed and misleading, therefore I won’t use it.
Nonsense. For example, Jimmy Carter, former US president, and noted humanitarian, founder of the Carter Center, and active in Habitat for Humanity, is a classic socialist, and defines socialism in a manner that makes human rights essential.
You are raising a strawman, plain and simple.
Jimmy Carter is not a classic socialist. He’s so right, he’s hardly even a Socialdemocrat.
Of course, he’ left according to the American Leftists right-left-definition, but he’s not exactly a classic socialist. No more than the Danish Social-Liberal party is socialistic.
The only way to consider Carter a classical socialist is to redefine the entire nature of socialism. Heck, I’m probably more socialist than he is. And I’m not even the least bit socialist.
Wow. this is your most orwellian post to date.
Now you’re just spouting nonsense. I have shown examples of Carter’s behavior that demonstrate that he meets the classic definition of socialism. You can not wish that away simply by declaring to the contrary.
It is you, and no one else, who is refusing to accept the meanings of terms and redefining your own private language.
I have shown examples of Carter’s behavior that demonstrate that he meets the classic definition of socialism. You can not wish that away simply by declaring to the contrary.
What examples? I’d like to see those. If you can prove he is a classic Socialist, I wouldn’t mind to stand corrected. But he is more right-wing than the Danish Socialdemocracy, and he is far right compared with the Danish Socialist People’s Party, not to mention “Enhedslisten” (“Unity List”) which is composed of several ex-communistic and left socialistic factions.
If I should find a danish Socialist close to how I perceive Jimmy Carter it would be Christine Antorini, an ex-member of Socialistic People’s Party. She is however not exactly a classical Socialist. I’m not even sure she qualifies as socialist at all. She’s so right wing (european and american), it makes my blood freeze.
A list of classic Socialists: Frank Aaen, Gert Petersen, Ulrike Meinhof, Søren Søndergaard, Ole Sohn, and Villy Søvndal.
Apart from Ulrike Meinhof all of these are Danish Socialists. And all of them have a past as either Communists or Nazis – Gert Petersen even as past as both (being a nazi in his youth during the 2nd World War). Ulrike Meinhof does not need any presentation, right?
Ole Sohn was the president of DKP (Denmarks Communistic Party) in the end of the 1980’es, and 1990’es but later switch to Socialistic People’s Party. I’ve had the “pleasure” of engaging in a debate with him back in 1998. Not exactly a nice guy IMHO. And not even a match for me. Very disappointing.
The italian Fascist Party was the successor to the Italian Socialist Party, as the swedish Socialist Party was a Fascistisc party during 2nd World War. Many fascists became a part of the swedish Socialist Party after the 2nd World War. It seems clear to me, that your definition of classical Socialism deviates greatly from european Socialism. There is however a movement between some of the young socialists in Denmark, redefining Socialism, trying to remove the old inheritage from Karl Marx. But all Socialist Parties pays tribute to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and of course to the Manifest.
It is you, and no one else, who is refusing to accept the meanings of terms and redefining your own private language.
Incorrect. I have proven my words to be true. You however, are redefining a lot.
What examples? I’d like to see those. If you can prove he is a classic Socialist, I wouldn’t mind to stand corrected.
I have. The examples are in this thread. You have made no attempt to refute either of them.
But all Socialist Parties pays tribute to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and of course to the Manifest.
Hardly. Socialism predates Marxism and Marxist communism. Your grasp on this material is strikingly thin.
I have. The examples are in this thread. You have made no attempt to refute either of them.
I have seen absolutely no examples of Jimmy Carter being a classic Socialist. You did however claim in one post that he is classical Socialist. But that is not a proof, but merely a claim.
You have not in any replies to me giving any examples of Jimmy Carter being a classic Socialist.
Hardly. Socialism predates Marxism and Marxist communism. Your grasp on this material is strikingly thin.
Well, the socialists don’t agree with you. Please point me to websites supporting your claim. All socialist parties world wide (with the possible exception of GB and USA) traces their inheritance to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They may have a wrong definition of Socialism, of course. However, I seriously doubt that.
Your definition seems to be akin to the post-Cold War definition, and is a redefinition of Socialism.
I have seen absolutely no examples of Jimmy Carter being a classic Socialist.
It would help if you read what you were responding to.
You have not in any replies to me giving any examples of Jimmy Carter being a classic Socialist.
I’ve given two. You have addressed neither. You have, in fact, addressed none of the criticism directed at your assertions, other than by issuing other assertions.
Hardly. Socialism predates Marxism and Marxist communism. Your grasp on this material is strikingly thin.
Well, the socialists don’t agree with you. Please point me to websites supporting your claim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Early_socialism
This site http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook33.html has many pointers to non-marxist socialism.
Rousseau’s Confessions
The writing of Emma Goldman, particularly “My Dissilusionment”
Rousseau’s “Confessions”
Sweden.
It’s becoming fairly clear that you’re either trolling or living in a fantasy.
Please feel free to continue denying reality as long as you like. It’ll help me figure out which.
(fixed typo)
Edited 2006-06-10 05:10
It would help if you read what you were responding to.
I did.
I’ve given two. You have addressed neither. You have, in fact, addressed none of the criticism directed at your assertions, other than by issuing other assertions.
You have not given me any examples on Jimmy Carter being Socialist. You did twice claim it, and I did it refute it the first time. Second time I asked for examples. None has come.