Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
What if, theoretically possible, maybe, could, might, possibility. Blathering nonsense. Net neutrality is an Obama era invention. How did we ever get along all these years without it? Before net neutrality was AI ever blocked by some Windows person at a carrier? It didn’t happen before the government’s power grab and it won’t happen after either even though it is ‘theoretically’ possible. Labeling Internet service as a utility no different than natural gas or electricity so the government could control it was a mistake and I’m happy it’s going away.
The only restrictions I remember from the days before net neutrality was that websites told me to go away because I was a Mac user and wasn’t running IE as by browser. The government didn’t fix that, competition and innovation did.
AT&T blocked FaceTime, then they blocked Skype -- because they wanted users to rely on calls and then not-free texts. The FCC admits in the proposal today that Comcast blocked streaming video providers, and it was because they didn't want the competition for their cable bundles. Comcast later throttled Netflix traffic that it could identify. Verizon blocked contactless payments because they were working on their own.
And, those are just the big ones. Saying that ISPs never blocked anything before they were being watched by the Obama administration is a ridiculously false statement, and also ignores the market factors surrounding the internet's growth and usage in everyday life.
Exactly! Verizon also throttled Netflix until they paid them more, leading to the subscription price increase.
Netflix represents one of THE biggest bandwidth hogs on the Internet. They shouldn't have to pay more for excessive bandwidth usage? They should! In fact, them paying more would accelerate the build out of even faster Internet access.
That’s nonsense! They aren’t being charged because of the total bandwidth they need. They’re being charged because the big ISPs think they can get away with it. I’m paying for my bandwidth, whatever I do with it is my business. How I use it is my business. That means if I want to use Netflix 24 hours a day, I can. If they give me unlimited bandwidth, which FIOS does, then I can use it all.
what that means is that if I’m using Netflix, it’s actually my bandwidth, not Netflix’s. This is something that most people get backwards. They think that Netflix is using the bandwidth, when it’s actually their customers. When I see a video, i’m calling for the bandwidth in order to stream it. What Netflix does at their end is just in response to my demand. And I’m also a customer of the ISP. So I’m already paying for whatever bandwidth Netflix uses.
its BS that charging Netflix solves any problems except for making more profits for the ISP. The backbone companies continue to invest in their systems, because they have to. It’s been shown that their arguments are crap, and you’re just repeating them.
But that doesn’t mean we should allow it to continue to get worse, as you and the other right wingers in this country. Want, apparently.
Nope, I want the opposite. As do actual traditionalists. You’re the one who pretends corporations are people. Corporations are groups of people–people against whom the government is duty-bound to protect, particularly when they’re international corporations. Corporations do not have rights. People have rights. Any other statement is not constitutional, regardless of if it is currently enforced.
I understand right wing politics quite fine, thank you.
No. I’m sorry. You don’t. As evidenced by your, forgive me, delusion that Fox is a right wing media outlet or that the piece of shit owner of News Corp, Richard Murdoch, is right-wing (much less “far” right).
I have friends who extoll that every week. They also show a remarkable lack of understanding of economics and politics.
Then they’re either not right-wing or they know nothing about economics. That says nothing about the nature of actual traditionalist political policy.
i see way too much of the unfettered economic concepts from this administration.
It’s high time that liberals read the Constitution. I think they’d be interested to see just how much power the government actually has over such things. And news flash: if the Constitution doesn’t explicitly say that the government can do something, IT CAN’T DO THAT THING.
Sigh! You’re really oversimplifying. I’M not saying that corporations are people. It’s a requirement that a corporation is given SOME aspects of being a person for legal purposes. If not, then corporations can’t exist. The organizations needs to be treated as one body, not as a collection of all the people in it. This is pretty basic stuff. You should study it.
wow! If you can’t tell that Fox is right wing, then there’s hardly anything left to talk about there.
I find that pretty much all on the right fail the economics 101 course.
You’re actually wrong again. The Constitution was explicitly written in such a way that future generations could reinterpret portions of it, and add amandments, take away amendments, and have regulatory agencies. There is no such thing as a strict interpretation of the constitution, because such an interpretation is itself, just that, an interpretation.
See, I can do it, too. Almost makes you wonder if we have a one party system or something. Certainly not what anyone on the left or right wants, right? Identical core goals with superficial differences. Sad, really.
…a basic center position that CNN mostly resides in.
CNN was caught red handed being paid to promote marxist (that’s on the left, sweetie) political platforms. They do it every single day. I don’t care where your personal overton window is; truth is objective, as are the definitions of political positions and the tenets thereof.
As societies become more advanced, and enlightened
Humorous word choice.
…more things are decided to be rights.
That’s not what a right is.
Equal accesss to information is a basic right
1. Says who? 2. Then why aren’t you promoting that? 3. Or perhaps only for the information you want people to know, yeah?
in a democracy
Thank God we’re not one of those.
When that access is denied, because a company decides to not give a services because it st them more to do so
Or when the entire traditional media and all Internet social media and search engine platforms get caught colluding to hide that information…
Whether you like Tim or not, that’s a right.
It’s… not. I don’t have the right to pickles. I don’t have the right to a car. I don’t have the right to yellow paint. I don’t have the right to gigabit Internet. I have the rights to life (which means defense thereof), expression (which means no restriction thereof), association (which means no encroachment thereof), and opportunity (which does not mean the sum total of possible opportunities).
I know you want to go back to the 19th century in these things, as do some others here
Your argument against this being what? Sorry; wrong question. Your argument being what?
it in three years, they loser will be out of office, and things will go back to normal. Heh, the way things are going, he may be gone before that.
CNN is absolutely center. Its just that conservatives and republicans almost all now lean to the far right, so you don’t realize that what you call left if actually the center. There is no left and right in the US. There is the far right on one side and normal people on the other, you know people who trust science, education and morals.
You’re joking, right? Based on your posts elsewhere, I have to consider this nothing but a joke. It’s based on absolutely nothing factual whatsoever.
…our government and all that entails is your enemy while it’s capitalism run amok that really is.
The genocide of 100,000,000 in the last century kind of turned me off to your worldview. I don’t know what it is; that just doesn’t sit right with me. If capitalism was your enemy, you’d be living (read: starving) in the woods right now instead of taking advantage of the capitalist society that brought you the computer you’re using. Because nothing else ever has or ever will do as much for the economic state of humanity as capitalism.
Right... A false equivalency, one lies at least twice as much and pushes a distinct agenda.. You know that but you spouted whataboutism ...
Sites like snopes prove this point, but hey words and facts have no meaning now.
Guess you think that Trump tells the truth just as much as Obama huh, they're "all the same" (sic), one lies 95% of the time the other 1%... they both lie...
Provide evidence for your claims or don’t make them. Is it really that hard? Oh, and Snopes has been caught lying to serve the leftist political agenda in the past, so you’ll want to revise that part of your statement. CNN is the one that lies twice as much; yes, you’re right about that.
This totally idiotic point of view is so funny when you look at Europe and see people working 35 hours per week and having 5 weeks per year of paid vacation, healthcare for all and university at 1000$ per year. That’s not slavery, it’s paradise compared to the US.
You’re welcome for paying the defense bills for your entire continent so that you can pretend that communism works. When we leave NATO, will you still have such a good time? Particularly with the EU forming its own unified military force?
If you knew what objective truth is, you wouldn’t be posting the way you do.
Good. Let competition for customers determine what is acceptable, instead of biased or self-interested rules pushed by Washington.
You and many others on this site don’t seem to understand the true implications of this change. ISPs could charge the consumer more in regions where they hold a monopoly, but most likely wouldn’t in competitive markets. In reality ISPs will charge the Netflix, YouTube, Apple and Amazons of the world. In turn, these companies will pass costs on to the consumer over time, an ISP Trojan Horse. If there’s no direct accountability, why would an ISP not charge more to these companies? Truely consider that statement, ISPs can create new revenue streams in perpetuity without oversight or becoming the bad guy. Think you hate how cable companies bundle channels now, apply that concept to internet accessibility....
Alternatively, an ISP could block/slow any content competing with their own, or accelerate their own content free of charge while leaving competitors at subpar speed.
The problem here is that we lose protections from the wizards behind the proverbial curtain. I for one don’t trust a single ISP, maybe Apple’s satellite initiative will save us all.
In areas where only 1 provider has invested the capital to provide services, why should they not take advantage and hike the prices? If the price is so high, a competitor will see an opportunity to invest and sell at a lower price yet still profit, driving prices down again. This is the type of thing that is celebrated in America I thought, anything that aids the consumer and is anti-monopolistic was just reserved for us crazy Europeans who are all anti-big business.
But that’s not the way it is. Usually, a carrier comes in, and demands exclusivity in order to wire up. The community often has no choice. It’s either that, or nothing. In the early days of cable, that’s the way it was, even with big cities. Regulations broke some of this down. The idea that a company can raise prices to any level they want to when they’re a monopoly is one major reason the anti-monopoly laws were created back in the beginning of the 20th century. Even then, they understood the problems.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
How are “rights” being taken away? There’s no right to Internet access or computers, as far as I know. These are products and services.
I suppose you could say the same about clean air and water. Yes? Or the law against murder. I’d say society can be measured by what it deems basic rights of its citizenry. Access to clean air, clean water, equal access to employment, to justice, to protection under the law, access without prejudice or privilege to basic services like electricity, water, sewer, and internet/education are rights government should protect, not turn a blind eye to.
There are laws against murder and anyone can clearly see they are ineffective against a person (or persons) who are intent on carrying out such a plan.
The constitutionally protected rights the US Federal government legally observes are rather specific and narrow. It would be unwise to cede control over Internet access to the Federal government, lest that government eventually become hostile to whatever your or my particular views are.
And if the people of the US want their representatives to amend the Constitution to consider "access to information" a constitutionally protected right, then such a thing could be possible. I think it's both absurd and unlikely, but possible. I align with the point of view that products and services are not a "right" and never should be considered so. Forcing others to provide services or products to others amounts to state-sanctioned slavery.
That certainly helps explain your attitude towards the government providing services paid for thru taxes. Fortunately neither our policing agencies, military, nor highway system has yet been privatized to move those services out of government oversight.
Also, what is it about a Federal highway system that makes you think it is better than whatever the private market could provide? You should read some L. Neil Smith sometime.
so if we read what you read we will be convinced? This is a logical fallacy - appeal to the kind of authority that convinces me.
Private capital is often used to build roads, those roads are less popular than the free roads for obvious reasons. And it doesnt look like any single private capitalist (or group of them) would have built out the freeway system, some of it is obviously loss making as it goes through low populated parts of the country. Instead while some freeways ( or turnpikes) would have been built the result would have been piecemeal and concentrated in cities. Nothing would be joined up.
Similarly if capitalism had invented the internet it would have been like that too, built to different standards, with Apple users on their own little sandbox, Windows users on another, and so on. Instead it was the government and has remained open to this day.
There’s no such thing as a “free road”. You’re paying for it with your taxes or you’re paying for it via tolls.
They had private highways here, once. You paid a toll every few miles. The costs was vastly higher than the tax and toll system is now. Each road was different. I guarantee that if that existed today, you’d be screaming.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
How are “rights” being taken away? There’s no right to Internet access or computers, as far as I know. These are products and services.
There's no "right" to electricity either. Would you rather that had no consumer protections?
You're correct. There is no "right" to electricity. In fact, there are better options than centralized, state-owned or controlled electricity. "Smart grids" that allow people to buy electricity from any number of providers would bring competition to consumers and drive down costs.
I don’t think you get the idea here. No one is saying that everyone has to be willing to pay for it. It’s not at the point that everything is being given for free. What’s being said, and I’ve said it now several times, that ACCESS to these services should be required. So major airlines are required to service smaller routes that aren’t profitable. That way people in smaller population centers have ACCESS to that service. The same thing for telephone service for a century. We have the same thing for highways, and electricity, and clean water.
what you guys just don’t get, is that this is good for everyone. We can look at some countries where certain areas aren’t served, and it’s a major problem. Everyone needs to feel as thought they’re being treated equally. You can’t be in pure greed mode all of the time.
Mel, I understand your thinking on this and simply disagree with nearly all of it. It is the Federal government’s job to set the playing field for businesses to compete. It’s not their job to play the part of nursemaid to every special interest or scold to businesses which are better run and able to better compete against their competition. I think Ajit Pai is still playing too safe and he needs to radically downscale the FCC.
People cannot and should not be promised landline based Internet access in every backwoods area of the country. It’s absolutely NOT the function of the Feds to do this. Many people access the Internet over their cell phones and in the future people may choose Elon Musk’s satellite-based service. When and where it makes economic sense, businesses will pursue new customers in inaccessible locations and they’ll probably continue to pay a premium for that access for some time. That’s the way it works! People who absolutely must have fast and plentiful internet options will move to the cities which offer it.
You say it’s not their job, and that the opinion of the right. But you’re wrong. If we had what you wanted, which is unfettered capitalism, it’s likely that none of us here would be doing well, and I’m doing very well.
most business people are incompetent. I can say that from running business for about 35 years. I’m not saying that I was brilliant, but really, most of these people can hardly tie their shoelaces. It’s a mj]ajar myth that business peop,e know what they’re doing. Most don’t, AMD basically fall into a pattern. When the economy is doing well, everything does well, except the really incompetent, run businesses. During worse time, the majority of businesses show their lack of leadership. Almost anyone can do well when times are good. It doesn’t show quality.
we see this with business people in the government. They almost always are less capable than a professional government official. I know you disagree with that, but I expect it.
bo one is saying that every backwoods hermit should be able to access wired internet. But small communities should be able to.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
How are “rights” being taken away? There’s no right to Internet access or computers, as far as I know. These are products and services.
I suppose you could say the same about clean air and water. Yes? Or the law against murder. I’d say society can be measured by what it deems basic rights of its citizenry. Access to clean air, clean water, equal access to employment, to justice, to protection under the law, access without prejudice or privilege to basic services like electricity, water, sewer, and internet/education are rights government should protect, not turn a blind eye to.
There are laws against murder and anyone can clearly see they are ineffective against a person (or persons) who are intent on carrying out such a plan.
The constitutionally protected rights the US Federal government legally observes are rather specific and narrow. It would be unwise to cede control over Internet access to the Federal government, lest that government eventually become hostile to whatever your or my particular views are.
And if the people of the US want their representatives to amend the Constitution to consider "access to information" a constitutionally protected right, then such a thing could be possible. I think it's both absurd and unlikely, but possible. I align with the point of view that products and services are not a "right" and never should be considered so. Forcing others to provide services or products to others amounts to state-sanctioned slavery.
That certainly helps explain your attitude towards the government providing services paid for thru taxes. Fortunately neither our policing agencies, military, nor highway system has yet been privatized to move those services out of government oversight.
Also, what is it about a Federal highway system that makes you think it is better than whatever the private market could provide? You should read some L. Neil Smith sometime.
so if we read what you read we will be convinced? This is a logical fallacy - appeal to the kind of authority that convinces me.
Private capital is often used to build roads, those roads are less popular than the free roads for obvious reasons. And it doesnt look like any single private capitalist (or group of them) would have built out the freeway system, some of it is obviously loss making as it goes through low populated parts of the country. Instead while some freeways ( or turnpikes) would have been built the result would have been piecemeal and concentrated in cities. Nothing would be joined up.
Similarly if capitalism had invented the internet it would have been like that too, built to different standards, with Apple users on their own little sandbox, Windows users on another, and so on. Instead it was the government and has remained open to this day.
There’s no such thing as a “free road”. You’re paying for it with your taxes or you’re paying for it via tolls.
That’s semantics. However you didn’t deal with the main case I made - that private capital wouldn’t have built the freeway system to begin with.
There’s no way of proving that either way. Plenty of companies have turned parking lots into profitable businesses, perhaps an entrepreneur(s) would’ve eventually made a business case for interstate toll roads. Who can say with any certainty? However, the Federal government having managed to double the national debt under the prior administration is a good argument against continuing to misspend public tax dollars for all kinds of things that are mistakenly thought of as critical.
I think its quite clear that no private company was going to build out that system. Why would you run through Montana? And without that build out the US would be in a worse position than it is. The same is true of the internet. There was no real pressing reason for a private company to build that and make it open, but because it was a government project, it did happen. And it was open. The web ( i.e. the use of HTML over the already existing internet) is also a product of Government ( this time in Europe) as is networking protocols like TCP/IP, the military invested in GPS and on and on.
And of course theres a lot of waste in the Government, invasions of the middle east being an obvious one but R&D and infrastructure is not one of them.
None of this is related to Net Neutrality. A libertarian could (I would argue should) be in favour of net neutrality.
You're saying the state of Montana would never have found value in connecting to the other states for the purposes of inter-state commerce? If that was the case and their people so decided to not have connecting roads, then they shouldn't have a highway system.
Also, it's not clear you actually understand either Net Neutrality OR Libertarian positions.
I suppose if neighboring states could come together and agree on entry/egress points into their respective states, specifics on how they would be connected, and come together on use agreements so that one state's expensive interconnected highways aren't negatively impacted by another's, and avoid pissing off a neighboring states highway contractor or private highway owner...
Yeah eventually there would be some semblance of a relatively direct transportation network, with almost certainly various of speed limits, road rules, restrictions on commercial vehicles, travel costs, a wide range of road quality and maintenance based on a state's wealth and/or populace or willingness to cooperate.... sounds great! No doubt a wonderful embodiment of efficient interstate and coast to coast travel made possible by profit-maximizing private enterprise driven by various and sometimes competing agendas. Oh, wait, didn't we already have a good portion of that in the first half of the 20th century?
Sounds much like the haphazard state highway systems that private drivers and commerce navigated pre-interstate, only worse, with only directly profitable highways regularly maintained if it's left up to private enterprise to decide. Bring on ever bigger metros with more congestion, crime, population density, and demand on water and waste treatment resources in order to attract and maximize investment in travelways and fragile yet necessary infrastructure. Is that what you are really endorsing?
The United States is a 'legal union' between the individual states and in their union the Federal government is answerable to them and, above all else, to the Constitution. I fail to see how the Federal government creating a dependency situation for the states by the way of exacting more and more taxes on states to maintain a shoddy interstate freeway system helps to strengthen Federal adherence to said Constitution.
The individual States don't answer to the Feds, the Feds answer to the States and the People in the States.
You know, just as a side note... I seem to recall your arguments being far more intellectually rigorous years ago. What is going on? These comments place you in alignment with statists. Am I wrong?
The federal government isn’t answerable to the states. States have rights granted to them by the constitution, or they wouldn’t have agreed to the union in the first place. But the right in this country still thinks this is a confederation. It isn’t. We had that during the Revolutionary War, and it didn’t work, which is why we have a federal government, which allows some states rights. But make no mistake, the states are secondary to the federal government. Not the other way around.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
How are “rights” being taken away? There’s no right to Internet access or computers, as far as I know. These are products and services.
I suppose you could say the same about clean air and water. Yes? Or the law against murder. I’d say society can be measured by what it deems basic rights of its citizenry. Access to clean air, clean water, equal access to employment, to justice, to protection under the law, access without prejudice or privilege to basic services like electricity, water, sewer, and internet/education are rights government should protect, not turn a blind eye to.
There are laws against murder and anyone can clearly see they are ineffective against a person (or persons) who are intent on carrying out such a plan.
The constitutionally protected rights the US Federal government legally observes are rather specific and narrow. It would be unwise to cede control over Internet access to the Federal government, lest that government eventually become hostile to whatever your or my particular views are.
And if the people of the US want their representatives to amend the Constitution to consider "access to information" a constitutionally protected right, then such a thing could be possible. I think it's both absurd and unlikely, but possible. I align with the point of view that products and services are not a "right" and never should be considered so. Forcing others to provide services or products to others amounts to state-sanctioned slavery.
That certainly helps explain your attitude towards the government providing services paid for thru taxes. Fortunately neither our policing agencies, military, nor highway system has yet been privatized to move those services out of government oversight.
Also, what is it about a Federal highway system that makes you think it is better than whatever the private market could provide? You should read some L. Neil Smith sometime.
so if we read what you read we will be convinced? This is a logical fallacy - appeal to the kind of authority that convinces me.
Private capital is often used to build roads, those roads are less popular than the free roads for obvious reasons. And it doesnt look like any single private capitalist (or group of them) would have built out the freeway system, some of it is obviously loss making as it goes through low populated parts of the country. Instead while some freeways ( or turnpikes) would have been built the result would have been piecemeal and concentrated in cities. Nothing would be joined up.
Similarly if capitalism had invented the internet it would have been like that too, built to different standards, with Apple users on their own little sandbox, Windows users on another, and so on. Instead it was the government and has remained open to this day.
There’s no such thing as a “free road”. You’re paying for it with your taxes or you’re paying for it via tolls.
They had private highways here, once. You paid a toll every few miles. The costs was vastly higher than the tax and toll system is now. Each road was different. I guarantee that if that existed today, you’d be screaming.
There are toll roads in the Chicago area with toll booths every few miles and those are not private roads (they are, however incredibly well-maintained). There’s no reason they couldn’t be privately run. And by the way, if and when it ever becomes unaffordable to traverse public or private roads, there will be flying cars and underground Hyperloops everywhere... guaranteed.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
How are “rights” being taken away? There’s no right to Internet access or computers, as far as I know. These are products and services.
I suppose you could say the same about clean air and water. Yes? Or the law against murder. I’d say society can be measured by what it deems basic rights of its citizenry. Access to clean air, clean water, equal access to employment, to justice, to protection under the law, access without prejudice or privilege to basic services like electricity, water, sewer, and internet/education are rights government should protect, not turn a blind eye to.
There are laws against murder and anyone can clearly see they are ineffective against a person (or persons) who are intent on carrying out such a plan.
The constitutionally protected rights the US Federal government legally observes are rather specific and narrow. It would be unwise to cede control over Internet access to the Federal government, lest that government eventually become hostile to whatever your or my particular views are.
And if the people of the US want their representatives to amend the Constitution to consider "access to information" a constitutionally protected right, then such a thing could be possible. I think it's both absurd and unlikely, but possible. I align with the point of view that products and services are not a "right" and never should be considered so. Forcing others to provide services or products to others amounts to state-sanctioned slavery.
That certainly helps explain your attitude towards the government providing services paid for thru taxes. Fortunately neither our policing agencies, military, nor highway system has yet been privatized to move those services out of government oversight.
Also, what is it about a Federal highway system that makes you think it is better than whatever the private market could provide? You should read some L. Neil Smith sometime.
so if we read what you read we will be convinced? This is a logical fallacy - appeal to the kind of authority that convinces me.
Private capital is often used to build roads, those roads are less popular than the free roads for obvious reasons. And it doesnt look like any single private capitalist (or group of them) would have built out the freeway system, some of it is obviously loss making as it goes through low populated parts of the country. Instead while some freeways ( or turnpikes) would have been built the result would have been piecemeal and concentrated in cities. Nothing would be joined up.
Similarly if capitalism had invented the internet it would have been like that too, built to different standards, with Apple users on their own little sandbox, Windows users on another, and so on. Instead it was the government and has remained open to this day.
There’s no such thing as a “free road”. You’re paying for it with your taxes or you’re paying for it via tolls.
That’s semantics. However you didn’t deal with the main case I made - that private capital wouldn’t have built the freeway system to begin with.
There’s no way of proving that either way. Plenty of companies have turned parking lots into profitable businesses, perhaps an entrepreneur(s) would’ve eventually made a business case for interstate toll roads. Who can say with any certainty? However, the Federal government having managed to double the national debt under the prior administration is a good argument against continuing to misspend public tax dollars for all kinds of things that are mistakenly thought of as critical.
I think its quite clear that no private company was going to build out that system. Why would you run through Montana? And without that build out the US would be in a worse position than it is. The same is true of the internet. There was no real pressing reason for a private company to build that and make it open, but because it was a government project, it did happen. And it was open. The web ( i.e. the use of HTML over the already existing internet) is also a product of Government ( this time in Europe) as is networking protocols like TCP/IP, the military invested in GPS and on and on.
And of course theres a lot of waste in the Government, invasions of the middle east being an obvious one but R&D and infrastructure is not one of them.
None of this is related to Net Neutrality. A libertarian could (I would argue should) be in favour of net neutrality.
You're saying the state of Montana would never have found value in connecting to the other states for the purposes of inter-state commerce? If that was the case and their people so decided to not have connecting roads, then they shouldn't have a highway system.
Also, it's not clear you actually understand either Net Neutrality OR Libertarian positions.
I suppose if neighboring states could come together and agree on entry/egress points into their respective states, specifics on how they would be connected, and come together on use agreements so that one state's expensive interconnected highways aren't negatively impacted by another's, and avoid pissing off a neighboring states highway contractor or private highway owner...
Yeah eventually there would be some semblance of a relatively direct transportation network, with almost certainly various of speed limits, road rules, restrictions on commercial vehicles, travel costs, a wide range of road quality and maintenance based on a state's wealth and/or populace or willingness to cooperate.... sounds great! No doubt a wonderful embodiment of efficient interstate and coast to coast travel made possible by profit-maximizing private enterprise driven by various and sometimes competing agendas. Oh, wait, didn't we already have a good portion of that in the first half of the 20th century?
Sounds much like the haphazard state highway systems that private drivers and commerce navigated pre-interstate, only worse, with only directly profitable highways regularly maintained if it's left up to private enterprise to decide. Bring on ever bigger metros with more congestion, crime, population density, and demand on water and waste treatment resources in order to attract and maximize investment in travelways and fragile yet necessary infrastructure. Is that what you are really endorsing?
The United States is a 'legal union' between the individual states and in their union the Federal government is answerable to them and, above all else, to the Constitution. I fail to see how the Federal government creating a dependency situation for the states by the way of exacting more and more taxes on states to maintain a shoddy interstate freeway system helps to strengthen Federal adherence to said Constitution.
The individual States don't answer to the Feds, the Feds answer to the States and the People in the States.
You know, just as a side note... I seem to recall your arguments being far more intellectually rigorous years ago. What is going on? These comments place you in alignment with statists. Am I wrong?
The federal government isn’t answerable to the states. States have rights granted to them by the constitution, or they wouldn’t have agreed to the union in the first place. But the right in this country still thinks this is a confederation. It isn’t. We had that during the Revolutionary War, and it didn’t work, which is why we have a federal government, which allows some states rights. But make no mistake, the states are secondary to the federal government. Not the other way around.
yes. You’re wrong.
I’ll reply to more of your responses when I’m not on an iPhone, but to clarify things here... the Federal government does not assign or grant “rights”. Rights are inherent. That’s a fundamental “given” in our entire legal system. All the Constitution does is recognize some of these inherent rights and provides a means to legally protect them for US citizens.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
Agreed. It allows FOX to pay more for bandwidth forcing other less well funded "liberal" voices out of the marketplace. It also allows special interests to invest in news outlets thus giving them the capital to compete on the same level as big media, while effectively silencing poorly funded voices which represent those least able to represent themselves.
Yeah, right. Fox is a very rich company. They are also owned by a man who is almost a fringe rightest. His company is one of the biggest media companies in the world. He also supports smaller outlets of the same political bent.
Replace Fox with CNN and you will get the same correct statement. What was your point?
No, you don’t. Fox isn’t news. And while I know people who don’t like CNN because if it isn’t right wing, it’s left wing, because they don’t understand that there is a basic center position that CNN mostly resides in. If you want to usu CNBC as an example of a lefter position, go ahead.
CNN isn't news either. And what on Earth are you smoking to claim that CNN is center for you? There is no mass media "center" position in the US today, no matter how hard you want to believe in it. Period. Also, if CNN is so not biased and centered, why there are so many click bait ads onrelated to CNN that occupy 60% of their pages? That is because it is not news, but rather a click bait based website where people of left leaning type go to affirm their biases. I know it because I was one of them.
Yup, your post shows that the right wing in this country doesn’t recognize actual news or v]balanced discussion. If it isn’t FOX, well, then it isn’t news.
Fox is a bunch of lies, just like CNN. The difference is in the type of seasoning they use when serving lies. I never was right wing, btw. I just stopped being left wing, instead setting at the center. Now, you try dealing with your cognitive dissonance, which certainly should ensue... The fact that the left became vile and poisoned made me move to the center and rely on facts,instead of the ideology, whether it being left one or right one. That is why I despise both cnn and fox. Both are machines for making money via confirming viewers biases. But they are in no way news outlets.
"Yup, your post shows that the right wing in this country doesn’t recognize actual news or v]balanced discussion" Also, how will two source of lies and bias can create a (cough) "balanced discussion" exactly? Two pieces of BS from two BS sources can't be merged into a single useful fact. Just saying.
PS. I enjoyed you shooting yourself in the head, when you presumed me to be right wing just because I stated something that you deem as heresy, and then you continued to pontificate about a balanced discussion. You can't make that shit up.
Yup, your post shows that the right wing in this country doesn’t recognize actual news or v]balanced discussion. If it isn’t FOX, well, then it isn’t news.
Rights are something that we CREATE! If you don’t get that, then there’s no point in discussing it.
Since you don’t comprehend that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of freedom are not created, you can’t comprehend what the United States is, nor what natural law is, and thus can’t comment on the operation of our government at all.
The right started this whole fake news thing.
So CNN is right-wing now? You must be fucking joking. Or maybe the Washington Post is right-wing. Perhaps MSNBC? They’re obviously right-wing, what with their marxist corporate slogans. Note the dates. We’re talking Bush Administration media “reporting” here, and that’s only because I’ve proven my point and don’t want to waste my time on you by going further back. Speaking of dates, note them in the following quotes.
There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. – John Swinton, chief editorial writer, The New York Times 1860-70
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. – Michael Crichton
Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true–except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge. – Erwin Knoll’s Law of Media Accuracy, The Progressive The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions. The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue. As the newspaper seeks to purvey news, it seeks to purvey entertainment. – Edward Bernays, the “Father of Public Relations,” author of Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928)
I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public. But seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia–this is a point of no return. I’m going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past–to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia–and it is not right what my colleagues do and have done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people–not only in Germany, but all over Europe. – Dr. Udo Ulfkotte
but just remember that one reason we have a democracy
We don’t have a democracy.
the founders
Who explicitly did not make the United States a democracy, as the word appears nowhere in the Declaration or the Constitution, and all of them spoke out against the concept.
They were, and should still be considered to be an unholder of democracy, even if you don’t like what they say.
And yet they don’t give a flying fuck about truth anymore, nor have they for decades. And then the law preventing domestic propaganda was repealed last administration.
The entire point to the press, when the political world is concerned, is not to praise the government, but to criticize it.
Which doesn’t happen when a leftist is in power.
It’s needed, not a sycophantic press, but a skeptical one.
So why aren’t you complaining about the sycophancy? Why aren’t you complaining about the PROVEN. MEDIA. COLLUSION. WITH. THE. DEMOCRAT. NATIONAL. CONVENTION. during just the most recent race?
but then, I suppose you would make the point that a free press is also not a right.
lol, strawman harder; if YOU want to clam that rights are “created," who are you to even be AGAINST someone saying that a free press isn’t a right? It’s not like it matters to you, since if rights aren’t inherent–only “created”–then there is no objective set of rights that all people have. Therefore what right one person “creates” (or doesn’t) shouldn’t matter to you. But again, Spam obviously believes that free press is a right, as he believes that speech is a right. And I also imagine he knows that rights are inherent, not “created.” But I’ll leave that to him to say.
He vowed, when running fo Office to also change the libel laws so that he could sue anyone
And? You don’t seem to actually care about what the press is doing. As the press is granted special privileges not afforded to the general public, they are consequently burdened with special responsibilities not demanded of the public. To wit, the press must be prevented from lying–in any form–under penalty of imprisonment and/or broadcast license revocation. If, as YOU claim, the press is supposed to be independent and searching for the truth, what reason would they have to lie? If not, that is, for the sake of them NOT doing their actual jobs.
The organizations needs to be treated as one body, not as a collection of all the people in it.
I don’t imply that employees of a corporation should be collectively held accountable for the transgressions thereof (meaning punishment divvied between them). I mean the individuals of a corporation should be held accountable for their specific behaviors within said corporation that shapes its policy.
wow! If you can’t tell that Fox is right wing, then there’s hardly anything left to talk about there.
They’re left wing. Everyone else is just more left-wing. There isn’t a right-wing television outlet. There are a couple local radio outlets, but they’re not national. Thanks, FCC (cough the government cough), for telling us what we can and can’t hear on airwaves you don’t actually own.
I find that pretty much all on the right fail the economics 101 course.
You find objectively wrong, then, or your course is based in keynesianism and is therefore objectively wrong. Obviously an economic policy that is designed to be successful for longer than a century would fail that course. Pop quiz: what is money?
You’re actually wrong again.
The Constitution explicitly says otherwise. Try the FUCK again.
The Constitution was explicitly written in such a way that future generations could reinterpret portions of it, and add amandments, take away amendments, and have regulatory agencies.
Magical. THE CONSTITUTION SAYS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID. It has never been amended to repeal the 10th amendment.
There is no such thing as a strict interpretation of the constitution
There is, in fact, as the Constitution itself explicitly says that. You’re literally just insane, by the medical definition of the word.
10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Since you don’t give a shit what I say even when it’s fact, and since you don’t give a shit about anything but genetic fallacies, let’s see what the LIBERAL WEBSITE known as Wikipedia has to say about this.
It expresses the principle of federalism and states' rights, which strictly supports the entire plan of the original Constitution for the United States of America, by stating that the federal government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the United States Constitution. All remaining powers are reserved for the states or the people.
Oh gee. How about that. You’re OBJECTIVELY WRONG, despite you not believing in objectivity. Maybe now that you’ve been proven wrong, you’ll claim “since rights aren’t inherent–only “granted”–then powers must be inherent; therefore the Constitution can’t grant them and the government must have them regardless!” but I know you’re a better man than that. I think more you’ll just not reply to me at all, since you can’t reply carrying that same banner without looking an absolute fool.
melgross said: If you knew what objective truth is, you wouldn’t be posting the way you do.
Not even remotely close to an argument. Why are you incapable of answering my questions? Why are you incapable of refuting anything I said? If I’m wrong, why can’t you prove it?
Comments
That’s nonsense! They aren’t being charged because of the total bandwidth they need. They’re being charged because the big ISPs think they can get away with it. I’m paying for my bandwidth, whatever I do with it is my business. How I use it is my business. That means if I want to use Netflix 24 hours a day, I can. If they give me unlimited bandwidth, which FIOS does, then I can use it all.
what that means is that if I’m using Netflix, it’s actually my bandwidth, not Netflix’s. This is something that most people get backwards. They think that Netflix is using the bandwidth, when it’s actually their customers. When I see a video, i’m calling for the bandwidth in order to stream it. What Netflix does at their end is just in response to my demand. And I’m also a customer of the ISP. So I’m already paying for whatever bandwidth Netflix uses.
its BS that charging Netflix solves any problems except for making more profits for the ISP. The backbone companies continue to invest in their systems, because they have to. It’s been shown that their arguments are crap, and you’re just repeating them.
wow! If you can’t tell that Fox is right wing, then there’s hardly anything left to talk about there.
I find that pretty much all on the right fail the economics 101 course.
You’re actually wrong again. The Constitution was explicitly written in such a way that future generations could reinterpret portions of it, and add amandments, take away amendments, and have regulatory agencies. There is no such thing as a strict interpretation of the constitution, because such an interpretation is itself, just that, an interpretation.
They had private highways here, once. You paid a toll every few miles. The costs was vastly higher than the tax and toll system is now. Each road was different. I guarantee that if that existed today, you’d be screaming.
You say it’s not their job, and that the opinion of the right. But you’re wrong. If we had what you wanted, which is unfettered capitalism, it’s likely that none of us here would be doing well, and I’m doing very well.
most business people are incompetent. I can say that from running business for about 35 years. I’m not saying that I was brilliant, but really, most of these people can hardly tie their shoelaces. It’s a mj]ajar myth that business peop,e know what they’re doing. Most don’t, AMD basically fall into a pattern. When the economy is doing well, everything does well, except the really incompetent, run businesses. During worse time, the majority of businesses show their lack of leadership. Almost anyone can do well when times are good. It doesn’t show quality.
we see this with business people in the government. They almost always are less capable than a professional government official. I know you disagree with that, but I expect it.
bo one is saying that every backwoods hermit should be able to access wired internet. But small communities should be able to.
yes. You’re wrong.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/dubai-begins-testing-drone-taxi-service/
"Yup, your post shows that the right wing in this country doesn’t recognize actual news or v]balanced discussion"
Also, how will two source of lies and bias can create a (cough) "balanced discussion" exactly?
Two pieces of BS from two BS sources can't be merged into a single useful fact. Just saying.
PS. I enjoyed you shooting yourself in the head, when you presumed me to be right wing just because I stated something that you deem as heresy, and then you continued to pontificate about a balanced discussion. You can't make that shit up.
Since you don’t comprehend that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of freedom are not created, you can’t comprehend what the United States is, nor what natural law is, and thus can’t comment on the operation of our government at all.
So CNN is right-wing now? You must be fucking joking. Or maybe the Washington Post is right-wing. Perhaps MSNBC? They’re obviously right-wing, what with their marxist corporate slogans. Note the dates. We’re talking Bush Administration media “reporting” here, and that’s only because I’ve proven my point and don’t want to waste my time on you by going further back. Speaking of dates, note them in the following quotes.
There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. – John Swinton, chief editorial writer, The New York Times 1860-70
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. – Michael Crichton
Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true–except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge. – Erwin Knoll’s Law of Media Accuracy, The Progressive
The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions. The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue. As the newspaper seeks to purvey news, it seeks to purvey entertainment. – Edward Bernays, the “Father of Public Relations,” author of Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928)
I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public. But seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia–this is a point of no return. I’m going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past–to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia–and it is not right what my colleagues do and have done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people–not only in Germany, but all over Europe. – Dr. Udo Ulfkotte
We don’t have a democracy.
Who explicitly did not make the United States a democracy, as the word appears nowhere in the Declaration or the Constitution, and all of them spoke out against the concept.
And yet they don’t give a flying fuck about truth anymore, nor have they for decades. And then the law preventing domestic propaganda was repealed last administration.
Which doesn’t happen when a leftist is in power.
So why aren’t you complaining about the sycophancy? Why aren’t you complaining about the PROVEN. MEDIA. COLLUSION. WITH. THE. DEMOCRAT. NATIONAL. CONVENTION. during just the most recent race?
lol, strawman harder; if YOU want to clam that rights are “created," who are you to even be AGAINST someone saying that a free press isn’t a right? It’s not like it matters to you, since if rights aren’t inherent–only “created”–then there is no objective set of rights that all people have. Therefore what right one person “creates” (or doesn’t) shouldn’t matter to you. But again, Spam obviously believes that free press is a right, as he believes that speech is a right. And I also imagine he knows that rights are inherent, not “created.” But I’ll leave that to him to say.
And? You don’t seem to actually care about what the press is doing. As the press is granted special privileges not afforded to the general public, they are consequently burdened with special responsibilities not demanded of the public. To wit, the press must be prevented from lying–in any form–under penalty of imprisonment and/or broadcast license revocation. If, as YOU claim, the press is supposed to be independent and searching for the truth, what reason would they have to lie? If not, that is, for the sake of them NOT doing their actual jobs.
They’re left wing. Everyone else is just more left-wing. There isn’t a right-wing television outlet. There are a couple local radio outlets, but they’re not national. Thanks, FCC (cough the government cough), for telling us what we can and can’t hear on airwaves you don’t actually own.
You find objectively wrong, then, or your course is based in keynesianism and is therefore objectively wrong. Obviously an economic policy that is designed to be successful for longer than a century would fail that course. Pop quiz: what is money?
The Constitution explicitly says otherwise. Try the FUCK again.
Magical. THE CONSTITUTION SAYS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID. It has never been amended to repeal the 10th amendment.
There is, in fact, as the Constitution itself explicitly says that. You’re literally just insane, by the medical definition of the word.
Since you don’t give a shit what I say even when it’s fact, and since you don’t give a shit about anything but genetic fallacies, let’s see what the LIBERAL WEBSITE known as Wikipedia has to say about this.
Oh gee. How about that. You’re OBJECTIVELY WRONG, despite you not believing in objectivity. Maybe now that you’ve been proven wrong, you’ll claim “since rights aren’t inherent–only “granted”–then powers must be inherent; therefore the Constitution can’t grant them and the government must have them regardless!” but I know you’re a better man than that. I think more you’ll just not reply to me at all, since you can’t reply carrying that same banner without looking an absolute fool.
Not even remotely close to an argument. Why are you incapable of answering my questions? Why are you incapable of refuting anything I said? If I’m wrong, why can’t you prove it?