President Obama pushes FCC to classify Internet as public utility, protect net neutrality

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Comments

  • Reply 221 of 304
    Disgusting.

    I have lost all respect for several forum members over the past few days.
  • Reply 222 of 304
    Disgusting.

    I have lost all respect for several forum members over the past few days.

    AI wins by injecting the Cult of Personality.
  • Reply 223 of 304
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    As I stated before, monopolies exist when business colludes with government. That is supported by all of the information I've provided and by simply observing political reality.

    A monopoly is the dominant or only player in a market. Your own private dictionary not withstanding.
  • Reply 224 of 304
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    christophb wrote: »
    Way to move the goal posts.

    Not only did I not move the goal posts that definition of a "public utility" is exactly what was being argued about. The telephone system ( largely the same back end as the Internet ) is privately owned but classified as a public utility.
  • Reply 225 of 304
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    roake wrote: »
    Memo, from Desk of Barack Hussein Obama:

    Hey, Joe!  Latest internet rumblings are kinda slamming me after the election.  Our plan to control the press (e.g. the Chavez plan) hasn't worked yet.  I have a pretty good idea about how we can fix this.  And the dumbasses who voted for me will eat it up!

    Step #1 - Grant the government heavy regulatory control over the internet.  How do we sell it to the gullible public?  Just tell them that we are going to make it fast and fair for everyone (it worked for ObamaCare; it'll work again).
    Step #2 - Classify the internet as a Public Utility - we sell this as a way to guarantee that everybody gets their share!  Then we can offer ObamaComputers to everyone that is unemployed (we need to do this, as this includes most of our democrat base)
    Step #3 - Wait until those Republicans refuse to pass a bill to me on this, then I pull out the ObamaHammer - Executive Action, baby!  Who needs congress.
    Step #4 - Now we add regulatory fees to every aspect of anything to do with the internet.  Hell, we could save the postal service with this; we could give them regulatory control over email, and charge First Class delivery rates for every email.  Do instant messages use the internet?  I'll bet we could make a killing off those.  I have already put together a team of advisers that tell me we could raise enough cash to buy the 2016 election, just like last time.
    Step #5 - This is the beauty of the whole plan... We create a central network that acts as the nexus for the entire internet!  Not just the U.S. Internet, but ALL of it.  Why?  So we can guarantee that services like YouTube and Netflix aren't getting special treatment.  Really why?  We see everything!  I'm thinking we spin off a section of the NSA, call it OOA - (Obama Octopus Agency).  We get to see every single packet of data in the world if it gets routed anywhere through the U.S.A. (any any other country that we have a tentacle into).
    Step #6 - Bask for a while at Camp David in the knowledge that while Al Gore may have invented the Internet, Barack Obama now owns it.
    Step #7 - Now this is the second beautiful part of the plan.  Once Congress gets their head out of their asses and figures out what is going on, they will raise hell.  They will likely try to impeach me... in fact, I'm counting on it.  This is where we throw Congress under the bus (Sorry, Harry!), and the open-mouthed public will swallow anything I feed them.  I'm going to, get this... I'm going to dissolve Congress.  Who would believe that I spent the last 6 years making Congressional Republicans AND Democrats look like inept morons just so I could lead up to this point.  Now, with Republicans in power, the citizens and illegals (both will be voting) will believe me when I declare that Congress has no meaningful reason to exist.
    Step #8 - Ownership of the Internet means ownership of all information... I will use the Federal Internet to show increasing support for me as perpetual, omnipotent ruler of this country.  Don't worry, I wouldn't leave you out.  I'm going to make Duke of Washington.  You will be steward for the country when I'm out golfing.
    Step #9 - Hell with ObamaCare - At this point, I can't plant any seed I want and it will instantly be full-grown.  Russia screwed up socialism, bad.  It's not about communism.  I'm going straight socialism.  Hell with Putin.  They never had the economy to make it work.  We do.  I was reading that book Chavez gave to me (I miss that guy) and I realized that all we have to do is make everything state-owned.  Better cash out your Apple stocks!  Ha!  Doesn't matter.  I think I'll make Mr. Cook Tsar over the the Federal Apple Agency that I'm planning.  Can you imagine?  No more ObamaPhones... Now, we will have ObamaiPhones!
    Step #10 - Ok, look... I'm not going to grow a short mustache or anything (never did grow much facial hair anyway), but once we take the internet, I think we could pretty easily take the world.

    What do you think?  I'll give you France if you want it!  Weren't you the one that liked cheese?

    B.O.

    Jesus the American right is totally barking. Nut jobs. A sensible decision by a president of use to all Internet users and you fantasise about the commies or Obama taking over the Internet. You know just like declaring the telephone lines a public utility means the government controls them. Not.

    Obamacare my ass. Nothing to do with this but spittle flecked rant needs to mention it because Cruz dog whistled it.

    Well good luck. Back Ted and his plan to replace Netflix with VerizonFlix, google with Verizon Cloud, dropbox with Verizon Box and iTunes with Verizon music. And all the other silos owned by the providers.

    Enjoy. This is an example of how broken American politics is - a similar act by a conservative leader like Cameron in Blighty would get vast support across the aisle from Labour members. And vice versa. It's not only that Cruz doesn't know his ass from his elbow, or that there is so much money in American politics but that the topics are so partisan that all Cruz has to do is dog whistle "ObamaCare" and the dogs respond to the whistle with their screeds.

    Not my country though. Enjoy your "free market" of locally throttled Internet access and regional monopolies.
  • Reply 226 of 304
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    And sell Apple stock because iTunes, Beat music and the future Apple TV are dead if net neutrality is not enforced.
  • Reply 227 of 304
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Splif View Post

     



    ...and you could say that people voted for Romney because he is white.


     

    I always assumed people voted for Romney because they're brain-damaged.

  • Reply 228 of 304
    pmcdpmcd Posts: 396member
    If you check all the first world countries in the world you will find in fact our free enterprise system failed us on this one. Cartel like activities in the US have us at the bottom end of speed and price.

    It's hard to imagine a case against net neutrality and the comments by President Obama are quite reasonable. Your statement regarding speeds and pricing is interesting. I find it hard to believe if you mean there are far better internet systems in place in countries of a comparable size. It's not quite fair, for example, to look at Sweden in comparison to the country when it comes to communications. Geography and the distribution of the population matter with respect to communications. It would be nice to have a specific comparable example that you had in mind. That being said, it does appear as though the communications' field is dominated by too few players, the video distribution system is broken and the whole local internet is at risk.
  • Reply 229 of 304
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by asdasd View Post



    And sell Apple stock because iTunes, Beat music and the future Apple TV are dead if net neutrality is not enforced.

     

    Not really. If ISP's were allowed to charge more for providing more bandwith to push contents of those willing to pay, then Apple is in better position than others to provide a better streaming service because they have the money to pay for pushing the extra bandwith. Imagine an Apple TV streaming its contents at a much faster rate than its competitors becasue Apple could easily afford to pay the ISP to do so. In this case, Net neutrality levels the playing field for the little guys.

     

    Of course, all bets are off it is the ISP that is competing with the Apple TV and the ISP throttles the Apple TV, in favor of its own device.

  • Reply 230 of 304
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    asdasd wrote: »
    Jesus the American right is totally barking. Nut jobs. A sensible decision by a president of use to all Internet users and you fantasise about the commies or Obama taking over the Internet. You know just like declaring the telephone lines a public utility means the government controls them. Not.

    Obamacare my ass. Nothing to do with this but spittle flecked rant needs to mention it because Cruz dog whistled it.

    Well good luck. Back Ted and his plan to replace Netflix with VerizonFlix, google with Verizon Cloud, dropbox with Verizon Box and iTunes with Verizon music. And all the other silos owned by the providers.

    Enjoy. This is an example of how broken American politics is - a similar act by a conservative leader like Cameron in Blighty would get vast support across the aisle from Labour members. And vice versa. It's not only that Cruz doesn't know his ass from his elbow, or that there is so much money in American politics but that the topics are so partisan that all Cruz has to do is dog whistle "ObamaCare" and the dogs respond to the whistle with their screeds.

    Not my country though. Enjoy your "free market" of locally throttled Internet access and regional monopolies.

    This is an accurate summary, except to note that the American right is actually, viscerally afraid of reason and progress. They cling to authoritarian figures and forms because they fear the inner liberation they see happening around them, for which Barack Obama is a symbol.

    Used to be you could look to Herbert Marcuse, Norman O. Brown or Hannah Arendt to start an analysis of what went wrong with this group of reactionaries, but the right has truly devolved beyond their darkest theoretic projections. We are also well beyond Orwell, since the masses now crave discipline while they shriek about liberty.

    Maybe Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" has to be dusted off, as well as Alice Miller's "For Your Own Good." I know of no one else who has a handle on this new development. Maybe it's the same old development that happened in Weimar Germany.
  • Reply 231 of 304
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    imac.usr wrote: »
    I always assumed people voted for Romney because they're brain-damaged.

    + 1, and then extrapolate from there. We have a case of mass brain damage. What happened, is happening, and how to fix it is our next job.
  • Reply 232 of 304
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismY View Post





    And he did that with Congress working against him at every step, regardless of the step he took.



    You can have different philosophies for how a nation should be run, but if you willfully put your party ahead of your country you are a traitor and, iMO, deserve to be hanged. Amazingly there are quotes from Republicans saying they will do the opposite of what Obama says. They are neither patriots nor public servants.

     

     

    And how do you know that all the things on that list are the results of President Obama policies? Maybe some of them are the results of Congress blocking some of his policies or at least putting up road blocks to his some of his policies until a compromise is met. Maybe the results wouldn't be as rosey if all of his policies went through Congress unchallenged or unaltered. 

  • Reply 233 of 304
    asdasd wrote: »
    A monopoly is the dominant or only player in a market. Your own private dictionary not withstanding.

    Now you're attempting to redefine what the word monopoly means? Sorry, you don't get to do that. In fact, "net neutrality" would turn internet access provided by government INTO A MONOPOLY:

    "DEFINITION OF 'MONOPOLY'
    A situation in which a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. By definition, monopoly is characterized by an absence of competition, which often results in high prices and inferior products.

    According to a strict academic definition, a monopoly is a market containing a single firm. In such instances where a single firm holds monopoly power, the company will typically be forced to divest its assets. Antimonopoly regulation protects free markets from being dominated by a single entity."

    http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp

    "1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action 2 : exclusive possession or control 3 : a commodity controlled by one party 4 : one that has a monopoly"

    http://i.word.com/idictionary/monopoly
  • Reply 234 of 304
    flaneur wrote: »
    This is an accurate summary, except to note that the American right is actually, viscerally afraid of reason and progress. They cling to authoritarian figures and forms because they fear the inner liberation they see happening around them, for which Barack Obama is a symbol.

    Used to be you could look to Herbert Marcuse, Norman O. Brown or Hannah Arendt to start an analysis of what went wrong with this group of reactionaries, but the right has truly devolved beyond their darkest theoretic projections. We are also well beyond Orwell, since the masses now crave discipline while they shriek about liberty.

    Maybe Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" has to be dusted off, as well as Alice Miller's "For Your Own Good." I know of no one else who has a handle on this new development. Maybe it's the same old development that happened in Weimar Germany.

    I find it utterly bizarre you choose to ignore the 6 years of authoritarian Left to blame the Right. If things were bad under Bush, theyve been just as bad, if not worse under Obama and his Congress.
  • Reply 235 of 304
    kibitzerkibitzer Posts: 1,114member
    Now you're attempting to redefine what the word monopoly means? Sorry, you don't get to do that. In fact, "net neutrality" would turn internet access provided by government INTO A MONOPOLY:

    "DEFINITION OF 'MONOPOLY'
    A situation in which a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. By definition, monopoly is characterized by an absence of competition, which often results in high prices and inferior products.

    According to a strict academic definition, a monopoly is a market containing a single firm. In such instances where a single firm holds monopoly power, the company will typically be forced to divest its assets. Antimonopoly regulation protects free markets from being dominated by a single entity."

    http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp

    "1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action 2 : exclusive possession or control 3 : a commodity controlled by one party 4 : one that has a monopoly"

    http://i.word.com/idictionary/monopoly

    Sloppy. Your phrase "a monopoly is a market containing a single firm" directly conflicts with the definition you cite in the preceding paragraph: "A situation in which a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market ..."

    Also - how much Internet access is "provided" by government? The overwhelming amount of Internet access in this country is sold to consumers by companies - profit-making Internet Service Providers whose shares are traded on the open market.
  • Reply 236 of 304
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    I find it utterly bizarre you choose to ignore the 6 years of authoritarian Left to blame the Right. If things were bad under Bush, theyve been just as bad, if not worse under Obama and his Congress.

    Well, thank you for addressing the distinction I would draw. I've seen in my lifetime government do some great things. Civil rights (1964), the space program, the protected monopoly granted the world's best telephone network at the time, leading to the Internet, which started an unprecedented world revolution in knowledge, a 500-year cultural shift—these kinds of things are never, ever going to be done by your vaunted individuals working in their own self-interest. Your Objectivist doctrine doesn't help you when it comes to the big things that can be done by "collective"—group or social—effort. Tomorrow the European Space Agency is going to try landing a probe on a comet. Europeans and Asians have better telecommunications than the US. Airbus is equal to Boeing now. Health coverage for Americans is much narrower than for other Western countries. We are generally falling behind when it comes to social development and domestic infrastructure.

    No inconvenient fallout borne by you grieving Libertarians from government social effort can match the death and destruction that the US has visited on the populations of Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Chile, El Salvador and Iraq. The case of Iraq is especially criminal, because of the transparently sinister and cynical manipulations of public opinion that were used to get us there. There is no chance that would have happened under a Gore administration. Nothing the successors of the neocons can do will make up for the millions of devastated lives that resulted from their lying manipulations. And you want to whine about the burdens of Obamacare. "Things were bad under Bush" indeed. You have no idea.
  • Reply 237 of 304
    flaneur wrote: »
    Well, thank you for addressing the distinction I would draw. I've seen in my lifetime government do some great things. Civil rights (1964), the space program, the protected monopoly granted the world's best telephone network at the time, leading to the Internet, which started an unprecedented world revolution in knowledge, a 500-year cultural shift—these kinds of things are never, ever going to be done by your vaunted individuals working in their own self-interest. Your Objectivist doctrine doesn't help you when it comes to the big things that can be done by "collective"—group or social—effort. Tomorrow the European Space Agency is going to try landing a probe on a comet. Europeans and Asians have better telecommunications than the US. Airbus is equal to Boeing now. Health coverage for Americans is much narrower than for other Western countries. We are generally falling behind when it comes to social development and domestic infrastructure.

    No inconvenient fallout borne by you grieving Libertarians from government social effort can match the death and destruction that the US has visited on the populations of Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Chile, El Salvador and Iraq. The case of Iraq is especially criminal, because of the transparently sinister and cynical manipulations of public opinion that were used to get us there. There is no chance that would have happened under a Gore administration. Nothing the successors of the neocons can do will make up for the millions of devastated lives that resulted from their lying manipulations. And you want to whine about the burdens of Obamacare. "Things were bad under Bush" indeed. You have no idea.

    You are calling neo-con Republicans... Libertarians? That's a core error in your argument. Not the same thing.
  • Reply 238 of 304
    onhkaonhka Posts: 1,025member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post

    Bravo Ted Cruz. Never trust a government bureaucracy to make things better for consumers.



    Bravo Ted Cruz. For being right. As you have stated:

    Quote:

    Socialized medicine is--and has been everywhere it has been implemented in the world--a disaster. 


     

    For having parents who moved to Calgary, Alberta before you were born, and then after your birth got you free vaccinations and paediatric care for the next four years before returning to Texas. What? So your Cuban born father could become a naturalized US citizen? 35 years later?

     

    I guess you can't fault Senior Cruz for taken advantage of socialized medicine when it is offered so freely to virtually anyone and especially where the infant mortality rate is so much lower, people live longer and with less critical diseases than in your longhorn state.

  • Reply 239 of 304
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    christophb wrote: »
    I'd guess 90%. 300,000,000/303,000,000 isn't bad. AND talk to your local PUC!! You choose to live in nowhere and expect the same access as the people who choose to live in somewhere? Hey somewhere people, prepare to get your access cost increase to pay for nowhere-man.

    P.S. Strange how Internet has morphed into a right. What hasn't hasnt the NYT bought into this and starting giving away ad free?

    I live in Comcast country (Jersey burbs of Philly). I only get Comcast. I would love competition.
  • Reply 240 of 304
    onhka wrote: »

    Bravo Ted Cruz. For being right. As you have stated:

    For having parents who moved to Calgary, Alberta before you were born, a<span style="line-height:1.4em;">nd then after your birth got you free vaccinations and paediatric care for the next four years before returning to Texas. What? So your Cuban born father could become a naturalized US citizen? 35 years later?</span>


    I guess you can't fault Senior Cruz for taken advantage of socialized medicine when it is offered so freely to virtually anyone and especially where the infant mortality rate is so much lower, people live longer and with less critical diseases than in your longhorn state.

    Oh, Canada... ????
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