“The FCC in voting for its net neutrality rules cited Android as a reason for softening the conditions for wireless neutrality,” Electronista reports. “‘We recognize that there have been meaningful recent moves toward openness, including the introduction of open operating systems like Android,’ FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said. ‘In addition, we anticipate soon seeing the effects on the market of the openness conditions we imposed on mobile providers that operate on upper 700 MHz C-Block spectrum, which includes Verizon Wireless, one of the largest mobile wireless carriers in the U.S.'”
“The connection is tenuous as Verizon has already exploited the openness of Android to ban certain features and block apps, often in direct contravention of the no-blocking rule instituted today,” Electronista reports. “It prevents Skype from using legitimate VoIP calls on 3G and, on some phones, blocks Google search widgets from running or even being installed in favor of Bing.”
Read more in the full article here.
Nilay Patel writes for Engadget, “We’re not sure any of that has anything to do with net neutrality — it doesn’t matter how open your OS is when you’re stuck with a filtered and throttled connection, and it’s a pretty huge stretch to think Android’s openness (however you want to define it) has anything to do with network access itself. And let’s not forget that the primary proponent of the 700MHz open-access rules was Google, which promptly flip-flopped on the issue when it became Verizon’s policy BFF after the Droid launch — if we were slightly more paranoid, we’d be pretty sure there’s a link between the FCC’s Android mention and the combined furious lobbying of Google and Verizon. Nice try, boys — but how about you make with the actual rules now?”
Full article here.
John Fund writes for The Wall Street Journal, “The Federal Communications Commission’s new ‘net neutrality’ rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote yesterday, represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal activist groups and foundations. The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by regulations that treat the Internet like a public utility.”
“There’s little evidence the public is demanding these rules, which purport to stop the non-problem of phone and cable companies blocking access to websites and interfering with Internet traffic. Over 300 House and Senate members have signed a letter opposing FCC Internet regulation, and there will undoubtedly be even less support in the next Congress,” Fund writes. “Yet President Obama, long an ardent backer of net neutrality, is ignoring both Congress and adverse court rulings, especially by a federal appeals court in April that the agency doesn’t have the power to enforce net neutrality. He is seeking to impose his will on the Internet through the executive branch.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Net Neutrality” seems to have been bastardized. The term is now a misnomer. In fact, at least according to Fund’s article, it may have always been nothing more than a means to an end; a “solution” in search of a “problem” or, worse yet, perhaps a “problem” concocted in order to arrive at a specific “solution” that’s really designed to “remedy” something else entirely. It’s so convoluted right now, it’s hard to know what to think; perhaps this too is by design?
Or, maybe, this “Net Neutrality” is a wonderful thing and the FCC, Google, and Verizon are just looking out for our best interests, angels that they are?
Somehow we doubt it.
“Here’s the dirty little secret about Android: After all the work Apple did to get AT&T to relinquish device control for the iPhone and all the great efforts Google made to get the FCC and the U.S. telecoms to agree to open access rules as part of the 700 MHz auction, Android is taking all of those gains and handing the power back to the telecoms… By some reports, the Open Handset Alliance is in now shambles. Members such as HTC have gone off and added lots of their own software and customizations to their Android devices without contributing any code back to the Alliance. Motorola and Samsung have begun taking the same approach. The collaborative spirit is gone — if it ever existed at all. And, Google is proving to be a poor shepherd for the wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing that make up the telecoms and the handset makers in the Alliance… As a result, we now have a situation where the U.S. telecoms are reconsolidating their power and putting customers at a disadvantage. And, their empowering factor is Android. The carriers and handset makers can do anything they want with it. Unfortunately, that now includes loading lots of their own crapware onto these Android devices, using marketing schemes that confuse buyers (see the Samsung Galaxy S), and nickle-and-diming customers with added fees to run certain apps such as tethering, GPS navigation, and mobile video.” – Jason Hiner, TechRepublic, August 23, 2010
They shake your hand and they smile
And they buy you a drink
They say we’ll be your friends
We’ll stick with you till the end
Ah but everybody’s only
Looking out for themselves
And you say well who can you trust
I’ll tell you it’s just
Nobody else’s money
Money changes everything
Money changes everything
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Lame .
I hate the way this has gone, but for AAPL it plays right into their hands. Soon people realize the favor Apple did for them and will be seen as the best solution for avoiding the crapware and nickel & dime approach of the other carriers.
The carriers will rebel at some point because the iPhone will take their more lucrative sucker market away from them, then Apple will launch their own network and kick all these aholes to the curb.
Best government money can buy!
Fsckers.
Oh yeah, there’s a platform to bank on.
The FCC is a huge disappointment and Andy Rubin gave them the false hope that by simply calling Android “open” there is hope that even under the massive weight of all the cable companies, if a platform like Android can flourish, then the public can rest assured they will have access to a free and open internet.
Bullshit!
Android is hardly a barometer with which to gauge the robustness of the wireless market!
This is regulation that is undefined. It is being promulgated by an agency against the will of thelegislative body that has the real authority. There is zero public demand or interest served by this.
What this is is very simple – an authoritarian Federal government seeking to increase its power in a completely arbitrary way. It is Chicago thug politics dressed up with fancy techno regulator talk. It is anti-individual freedom. Freedom lovers of all viewpoints should be fighting this naked power grab.
Most of you Apple fanatics voted for that socialist so now you’ve got to live with it !!!
I’m sure that the MDN censor will delete this comment no matter how relevant it is to the topic.
How do you equate an “Open” operating system with carriers and ISPs not affecting net-neutrality? Great, your operating system is open, you can install or modifiy it. But your ISP or wireless carrier just want more money from you, so they come up with new ways of charging for different “kinds of data” or the different webpages that you visit. What will keep them from doing something like that? The goodness of their heart? Give me a break!
They want to silence free speech because their socialist shit doesn’t sell (Air America, MSNBC, etc.).
This is ultimately an attempt to revive the Fairness Doctrine in order to mute or attempt to drown out wildly successful political media like Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Beck, Hannity, etc.
Thankfully, there are still people who can see through these nasty machinations.
In the same manner our financial institutions drove the country into a ditch, the telecoms and cable companies will do the same for the interwebs.
Trust us, they’ll say to the government, and then it’s everyman for himself. In twenty-years, two or three companies will own every onramp to the internet. Once your on it, you’ll be free to move about well enough, however, the price of admission will be reserved for those who have money. Anyone making minimum wage won’t be able to afford the internet.
Most of you Apple fanatics voted for that socialist so now you’ve got to live with it !!!
That is so unfair and you know it.
Socialism – the rich taking care of the poor.
Capitalism – the poor taking care of the rich.
Either way, it sucks to be poor. You must be living large Greg M.
This is about the government getting it’s foot in the door for control over the internet. Sad situation.
I agree with G4Dualie. The comment is unfair.
I voted against the Socialist, but we got him anyway. The sad part is the people who voted for him, not realizing he was a socialist and therefore an advocate of a big state government coercing people to do as it wishes, these people will not admit the threat he now poses to individual freedom. Pride prevents them from doing what they should – admit the mistake and take on the important job of defending freedom. This government is intent on running everything via dictates. It is much like the Hugh Chavez or Castro model. If you believe in freedom you should fight this. The free and unregulated internet is the best defense against tyranny. Look at despotic regimes around the world in Iran, Cuba and North Korea. Those places already have their versions of Net Neutrality which is simply bureaucrats deciding what is acceptable behavior on the internet. True liberals should fight this. True liberals do not believe in dictatorship. But socialists do.
I remember when U.S. Liberals were anti-government and fought for individual freedom at the drop of a hat.
Yes, it was a long time ago. I’m old.
Right out of the pages of community organizer Saul D. Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.”
just goes to show how desperate they were to fix a problem that didn’t exist.
Most of you Apple fanatics voted for that socialist so now you’ve got to live with it !!!
flamebait.
What does a supposedly “open” OS have to do with net neutrality?
You neo-con dipshiats can continue to pretend this has something to do with Obama, but it’s probably time for the whole of the USA to wake the fsck up to the fact that decades of deregulation spearheaded by Republican and certainly not challenged by Democrats has led to a system that doesn’t even bother to pretend it has consumer protection in mind. Instead you have a system controlled by kleptocracts and cheerleaded by morons who believe that by allowing corporations to become as rich as humanly possible, the people not in the loop will somehow get a piece of that pie.
Tell me, neo-con retards and keep the rich rich less and less taxes types… How has that been working out? Has any tax cut and deregulation made you lives better in any conceivable way? Or do you sit at the sidelines while lobbyists control your money and your government, billionaires herd you with fake grassroots populism, and more people are out of work to fatten profit margins?
Inept rules leaving a huge gap for the wireless distributors to rape us.
FCC = Fools Craving Cleverness.
Tell me EXACTLY how you’re less free under the current president, Kent.
I assume you don’t give a sh*t about your fellow citizens who are out of work or lack health care.
So why not just say it instead of hiding behind concepts you don’t understand like “socialism.”
Googlroid is “open” to spying on us all.
This is quickly spiraling into a political debate from which there will lots of BS flung about but few actually looking at the core problem.
The telcos have been relentless in finding ways to cheat consumers out of every cent. I was being nickel ‘n dimed by the telcos prior to 2008, I’m still being nickel ‘n dimed by them. I was nickel ‘n dimed for a longer period of time under a Republican administration. Far as I can surmise, the problem with this issue isn’t with EITHER administration.
So… Here’s my question: Don’cha think the problem actually lies with the telcos?
G4Dualie- You are right, there will be only 2 companies that will own the onramp to the internwebs, however, one will be a government run company. However, you are wrong in saying that it will be too expensive. It will be expensive for those with money who will go with the one other public company that has the best service. This company will be forced to service the government company infrastructrure, and to supply bandwith to the government company. The government company will be for those customers who cannot (or will not) pay for faster connection. Then, the government will highly tax the data plans for customers on the public company. This tax will be under the guise of providing access to the poor, etc. but will in effect the money will be skimmed off by those in the government run company for their own private bonuses, ie Freddie/Fannie. Aint nothing new here. Power, money connections. Socialists love power and money even more than Capitalists.
Evil Liberals love to distort and twist language to sound like it means one thing but actually means exactly the opposite. Scum Bags.
Apple TV and iPad are awesome.
I can’t speak to the effectiveness or fairness of the policy, since I can’t make heads or tails out of what’s actually happened, but I can say that characterizing this as a non-issue is just wrong. Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that Comcast and its ilk have been making noises about wanting to control who gets bandwidth and how much they get AND how much they can be charged for it for some time. The impact would be to make it cost prohibitive for common people, bloggers, people hosting sites for their kids’ little league teams, students creating their own sites, etc. to have any access to the net at all. Now, I guess it remains to be seen whether this gobbledygook has an impact or just fscks things up. It wouldn’t be the first time the dems have caved to big biz regarding FCC policy; it was during Clinton’s term that the FCC “opened up” policy regarding media consolidation, screwing over locally-owned radio and television and allowing companies like Clearchannel and Viacom to sweep up most of the outlets across the country, making American media as bland as a suburban strip mall.
I would like to point out that android os and linux are not realy “free” and “open”
go ahead and try and write a piece of commercial software using source code from either one, you’ll run into this lovely thing called the “G.P.L.” invented by the wonderful lawyers over at G.N.U.
mm. they make me feel so warm and fuzzy inside 🙁
Can we all at least agree that the FCC’s comment about Android is pure idiocy? It does not inspire confidence about their convoluted “neutrality” policy. The only real “protection” consumers can have is if there is real competition among providers. Everything else is empty political posturing designed to fool the gullible into voting for a particular party or elected official.
The internet has grown into something pretty spectacular for consumers with almost no govt. involvement. The most likely impact of the FCC mucking around will be to screw it up.
@G4Dualie
“Socialism – the rich taking care of the poor.
Capitalism – the poor taking care of the rich.”
WTF are you smoking…
name ANY time a socialist country actually took care of the “poor” socialist countries have some of the poorest poor… stepped on constantly by the government.
You can be as poor or as rich as YOU want in a capitalist country. YOU control your destiny. not the government, not the “rich” YOU.
if you choose to stay put in one city and limit your possibilities in life, if you choose to drop out of school, if you choose to go into debt to feed your “need” for material things… you can. NOBODY forces you too.
” “The connection is tenuous as Verizon has already exploited the openness of Android to ban certain features and block apps, often in direct contravention of the no-blocking rule instituted today,” Electronista reports. “It prevents Skype from using legitimate VoIP calls on 3G and, on some phones, blocks Google search widgets from running or even being installed in favor of Bing.” “
Here’s the thing i dont see too much of a problem with..
Verizon (who i hate) is a PRIVATE company.
Skype, Google, Bing (MS), Apple, ETC. Are ALL PRIVATE companies.
If Google makes a deal with Verizon to put their phones on Verizon’s network, and Verizon says they reserve the right to put certain apps on Googles phones… and Google signs the agreement (which they did). Why is it the government thinks they need to intervene?… Because AT&T made a similar contract, but did not have the extra apps put on the phone?
So AT&T or Sprint or T-Mobile had a better contract with Google, and that’s just not fair for Google that they couldn’t get a better deal with Verizon…. So the Government gets involved?..
If verizon wants to be restrictive on apps, they can.. there is NO contract between the government and any Carrier requiring certain apps to have full access to Verizon’s network.
That decision is VERIZON’s… Not the government, and not the App maker.
this whole Net neutrality crap is total BS. They dont have the power, and i doubt it will stick.
To JAKEB
You say – “Tell me EXACTLY how you’re less free under the current president, Kent. I assume you don’t give a sh*t about your fellow citizens who are out of work or lack health care. So why not just say it instead of hiding behind concepts you don’t understand like “socialism.”
How are we all Less Free?
1. We just had unknown rules and regulations (still to be written by unelected bureaucrats) to be put in place. These will eliminate choices we all in a free market.
2. Health Care – government “mandate” that I buy an insurance plan designed by bureaucrats, but not even describable by the legislators who voted for it, because they did not read the bill. I am no longer free to arrange for my own health care.
3. Health Care – government steals money from working citizens to pay for the “government-mandated” plan for people who don’t work. This is the loss of private property, personal wealth, which the government steals to provide subsidized health care.
4. Investments – Under Obama, bankruptcy laws which provide protection for bondholders (including pensioners) were suspended and bondholder investments wiped out by fiat declaration that UAW investments would be given favorable treatment to the legally protected bondholders. Loss of right to investment.
5. Debt – Obama has added $2 trillion to the debt since coming to office, while he campaigned against Bush deficits. This huge increase in debt destroys the currency and steals money from all citizens through debasement of the currency. This is theft by the government.
6. Legislative Corruption – The Democrat Congress never bothered to produce a budget. That way the only way to operate the govt is with an “omnibus” spending bill. No debate on spending levels, no public hearings. Just corrupt back room deals stealing tax money.
7. Use of Czars In Place of Department Heads – Obama uses czars (probably over 50 of them) to avoid having Senate approval of key administration appointments. Loss of democratic input.
8. Energy – executive fiat decisions like ending all Gulf oil leases and all exploration and recovery of resources in the US. This is theft of national resources. Loss of access to energy at free market prices. Makes us dependent on unstable foreign governments for energy. Also, Obama eliminates millions of US energy jobs by choking off the access to US resources. He does this on purpose.
That is a few examples of lost freedom. Obama is a dictator. Pure and simple. Some people just are OK with being dictated to if they like the orders.
And before anyone attacks Kent for saying “(probably over 50 of them)” about the Czars.
Obama has 42 “Known” czars at the moment. so over 50 is NOT a stretch…
http://www.judicialwatch.org/czar-investigations
(@kent: I just read your post and saw that line, i know someone would attack the whole post just cause you said “Probably”)
“Instead you have a system controlled by kleptocracts and cheerleaded by morons who believe that by allowing corporations to become as rich as humanly possible, the people not in the loop will somehow get a piece of that pie.”
EXACTLY!!!
“If Google makes a deal with Verizon to put their phones on Verizon’s network, and Verizon says they reserve the right to put certain apps on Googles phones… and Google signs the agreement (which they did). Why is it the government thinks they need to intervene?.”
Because Verizon has a government issued license to use a particular band of frequencies in the publicly owned RF spectrum IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST. If the two or three companies that have such licenses in the future conspire to fix prices, or deny service, or deny access to content producers, or limit services then IT IS THE GOVERNMENT’S BUSINESS.
Thanks, Backlash.
I think all thinking citizens should reject authoritarian government initiatives. I grew up in the 60s and the “hippies’ were anti-authority. Now, the same people like nameless bureaucrats telling them what to eat, what they are allowed to do on the internet, what products they are allowed to buy, where to set the thermostat, what kind of car to drive, what light bulb to use. The hippies I remember of the 60s rejected the “commands” of the government. Now, the same people think they have one of their own issuing command about the internet and they somehow forget “question authority”. Instead, they go into full Nazi mode and tell you to just follow orders, even the “orders” don’t even have a basis in constitutionally passed laws. If these ideas of theirs are so brilliant, they should be able to pass them through normal legislative processes. The problem is their ideas are rejected by vast majorities of the population, so they resort to “regulatory” solutions that have no legislative basis. These “liberals” of today are nothing more than useful idiots of the socialist machine. They are collaborators in ending “freedom” in America.
Threads like this one serve as a reminder that the median IQ is 100.
re: backlash
“name ANY time a socialist country actually took care of the “poor” socialist countries have some of the poorest poor… stepped on constantly by the government.
You can be as poor or as rich as YOU want in a capitalist country. YOU control your destiny. not the government, not the “rich” YOU.
if you choose to stay put in one city and limit your possibilities in life, if you choose to drop out of school, if you choose to go into debt to feed your “need” for material things… you can. NOBODY forces you too.”
Excellent points, couldn’t agree more!
re: Kent – also excellent points!
Socialism = tyranny, oppression and poverty for the masses, while their masters live anyway they please off the backs of the masses.
Capitalism = the freedom to choose your destiny, rich, poor or middle of the road.
government needs to GET & stay the F__K out of our lives!!!
@ dialtone
Clearly, you’re overestimating that value. The typical IQ demonstrated in this thread is more akin to that of a nice piece of gneiss.
The idiots have taken to their keyboards.
@ 2112
My word, isn’t it amazing that 99% of the 300,000,000 people in the US have *chosen* to give the other 1% more than half the wealth in the country. Stunning isn’t it? Or could it be that your definitions of capitalism and socialism are the ones from a 3rd grade class in a parochial school? I suspect your penchant for anarchy would quickly disappear if you actually lived under it.
8^p
How you came up with ‘my penchant for anarchy’ out of what I said tells me something is a little loose upstairs.
And socialism spreads the wealth fairly to those who didn’t earn it? While the government immorally steals it from those who do – right.
Don’t lay this one on Obama… it should have been much more comprehensive. This whole net-neutrality “thing” today is a smokescreen… it actually permits non-neutrality for the public airwaves. When our broadband providers (which I like to think of as more like utilities) want to get into the act of controlling our internet experience we lose our freedoms. So many here don’t get that that’s the problem, and the FCC only went a little way in regulating fairness, and let the ATTs and Verizons have what they wanted in the first place. I don’t know about you, but I want my broadband, whether wired or wireless, to be a dumb pipe. I’ll be willing to pay for how much I use, but with no restrictions on how I use it. I can imagine there would be a serious outcry if the electricity or water utilities started basing their rates or delivery access on what brand appliances you were using, or what you were doing with “their” product. It just wouldn’t fly, and the people would demand their government regulate against that kind of monopolistic behavior. Why is internet access so different. Choice… well, to some degree we still have some choice, but it’s quickly being consolidated by the big corporations, and they’re also now competing in the content delivery arena, so are motivated to use their power of access to weaken competition. Comcast has worked hard to do this in cable (Comcast Sports Network…) and the cellular/wireless providers are no different. I believe they should be paid fairly for their service — broadband access, but keep their hands off of how I use it. Let them compete on speed, reliability and price, not by unfairly blocking smaller companies who bring something different to the table that they then decide to offer as well.
To follow up on my previous post… looks like the Woz feels the same way I do. Maybe he explains it more clearly…
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/steve_wozniak_net_neutrality_rules_dont_go_far_enough/
Woz has this right. Regulations, in and of themselves, don’t restrict freedom, as many would suggest. Some do, some don’t. Net neutrality regs should include the wireless spectrum as well as the wired internet access, which would be a case of regulations actually ensuring more freedom for all of us. Knee jerk politics not invited.
There is no legal basis for net neutrality. It is a pure exercise of naked political power by Washington bureaucrats. The same people who are okay with this would accuse George Bush of sins against humanity if he suggested controlling the Internet from the Federal government in this same manner. Liberals are okay with liberal controlled tyranny.
Fundamentally, net neutrality appears to be a good idea *if properly implemented*.” You could almost consider it to be antithetical to traditional regulation. By declaring that all data is created equal, the government is saying “do the right thing by the public.”
The current setup essentially coerces the consumer into buying bigger plans than typically needed just to avoid getting slapped around with overage charges. You also generally have to buy multiple plans to cover different devices accessing the same data sources. Unused minutes/GB are gravy to the provider.
Under true net neutrality, data could take the form of iTunes music, apps, movies, tweets, or text messages, but the cost would be based on volume, not data type or data source. The end user should pay for bandwidth, and I personally believe that should mean the end of the “blocks of data” plans (e.g., 200MB of data per month for $15 or 2GB per month for $25) and the start of pay-as-you-go plans. The cost of data access could be tiered, much like electrical power, to address economies of scale for major users. But you wouldn’t be locked into paying for a fixed amount per month, even if you did not need it for a few weeks, or penalized to extremes for going slightly over that figure once in a long while.
The ISPs, in turn, should pay for their pipelines to the backbone providers. Everyone gets payed for service and value-added.
Consumers have been screwed over by telcos and cable companies for decades. Those same “screw you” policies have been extended to internet access and wireless access. Take a moment to add up how much you spend on TV (cable/satellite), wire home phone (if you still have one), cell phone (data and text messages extra!), and internet/ISP. You might find that it adds up to a few thousand per year. The providers rake in a huge revenue stream for providing the potential for you to access these services, even if you don’t use them.
Apple is the only company that readily comes to mind that has made a significant positive difference in how consumers are able to access wireless data. You can bet that Verizon is terrified that it will become AT&T number two. And that fear, combined with the current U.S. exclusivity of the iPhone to AT&T, is why the rest are clinging to Android as the savior. Android represents a last ditch opportunity to maintain the power and profit structure of the status quo. Assuming that the iPhone is released on Verizon, I will be very interested in how that arrangement differs from the one negotiated with AT&T. Has Android provided Verizon with enough leverage to erode the progress that Apple made with AT&T?
The internet has become essential to commerce as well as education, entertainment, and communication. In that respect, it is not much different from electrical power or the national system for air traffic control. I am pro business. But that does not mean that I lube up and bend over for corporations and their lobbyists. Individual shareholders technically “own” a significant portion of U.S. corporations through retirement plans and personal investments. But the true power is concentrated in corporate upper management plus a relatively small number of major shareholders and investment companies. Most of these people suck on the teat of corporations at your expense, wielding corporate money and influence as their own, and functioning much like the titled nobility of yesteryear.
Regulation should be as minimal as possible. But don’t be fooled by the GOP mantra that the private sector will take care of everything. The upper management of these soulless corporations do not live in the communities that suffer from the toxic strip mining debris dumped into the valleys. And they often don’t seem to worry about making tens of millions of profits while creating billions of dollars in future liabilities for the public in cleaning up the toxic products dumped into the environment. The fact is, history has shown that regulation is necessary, and that good regulation can benefit everyone. We need to revise poor or outdated regulations to reduce the regulatory burden to the extent possible. But treating regulatory oversight as anathema to the U.S. economy is both ridiculous and disingenuous on the part of the powerful elite and their pet politicians at the federal, state, and local levels.
“government needs to GET & stay the F__K out of our lives!!!”
I agree…oh wait, that means there won’t be any corporations, as they are the creations of government, limited liability and all that. Can capitalism exist on sole proprietorships and partnerships only? Let’s buy in to the conservative ideology and find out.
KingMel has no idea what the ultimate regulations of the internet will be from Net Neutrality. The FCC has no basis for this intrusion into personal freedom. The FCC was created to regulate the ATT and Western Union monopolies. Those no longer exist. There is no public issue involved here that pertains to the FCC charter. Pure power grab. The regulations will be written later and expanded constantly. They will limit choice and innovation. What expertise or right does the government have to regulate these things. The GOVT created and regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two financial institutions at the heart of the financial collapse. The government has no right or ability to regulate anything in a positive way. The government is a destructive and tyrnannical force. Democrats are now on the side of tyranny. That is their game. Government mandated health care, light bulbs, toilets internet. The government is the Master in the liberal view. Screw the government.
Kent, are you an anarchist? I suggest you move to Somalia or Yemen and find out what it’s like.
Has your psychiatrist tried to help you? Have your friends (if you have any) tried an intervention?
Don’t you really mean by “government” that n1gger in the White House? I’ll bet you didn’t have any problem with the government when Bush was destroying the country.
I can’t believe anybody is getting their panties in a wad over this. After all the lawsuits and the dust settles, we’ll see. My brother’s a CPA, and he calls any change in the tax laws the Accountants Full Employment Act. This action by the FCC is the Lawyers Full Employment Act.
to NeoMonkey
You are an idiot. No, I have no objection to a “negro” as you call our President. I voted for Ken Blackwell as Governor of Ohio and rely on Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams for the best economic analysis and teaching available. You don’t like a black in the White House. You love the idea of a “liberal” black though, as long as he does not mess with the black plantation and break up the welfare system that keeps blacks in chains, or the public education system in the inner city which dooms blacks to generations of ignorance and welfare. Your favored blacks – Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and Luis Farrahkhan, all help to keep blacks in their place.
I do object to authoritarians who rule outside the law. And I once thought liberal did to. When this same government tells Apple Computer how to make computers, like it issues instructions to the car industry and the energy industry, maybe then your brain will engage and you will for once begin to understand that “freedom” is a rare commodity in this world. And it does not get defended by hack politicians who come out of the Chicago political system and Marxist training at Columbia. Or doofuses like you who don’t have a clue about how the Constitution is structured, the Federal system, private property, rule of law, and other quaint concepts like these.
@kent
“KingMel has no idea what the ultimate regulations of the internet will be from Net Neutrality.”
Neither do you, kent with a small k. You also have no idea of what might happen without such proactive guidance. Your point is valid without having much substance.
“The FCC has no basis for this intrusion into personal freedom.”
Your definition of “personal” is unclear to me, but according to judicial ruling the FCC does indeed have authority in this area. Other than not going far enough (including wireless as well as wired backbones), I don’t see a problem with the concept of net neutrality at this point. However, there is a bit of wisdom in your unreasoning paranoia. The key to democracy is to stay vigilant lest the rules and the rulers become corrupted.
“The regulations will be written later and expanded constantly. They will limit choice and innovation.”
Unlike me, you apparently *do* have knowledge of the future of net neutrality. Congratulations. Your prescience must serve you well in the stock market. This is sheer speculation.
“The government has no right or ability to regulate anything in a positive way.” On the contrary, the government does have the right to issue regulations. And there are many examples of positive regulations. Examples include environmental regulations resulting in cleaner air and water, fishing and hunting restrictions to protect the ecosystem, etc. You should learn not to undermine yourself by arguing in absolutes.
“The government is a destructive and tyrnannical force.”
If that is true, then the Declaration of Independence should be your guidance. If you do not understand that statement, then you are unworthy to comment.
Oh, kent…screw you.
@kingmel
I understand that you are fine with all these undefined regulations or “net neutrality” which is not a specific term. You trust the government.
Can you please remind me what was your position when George Bush proposed the Patriot Act, which included well defined and heavily debated surveillance and judicially authorized monitoring of certain individual behaviors to prevent a future terrorist attack, like 9-11? I take it you were in full support of the Patriot Act, because it had a noble goal and was designed for a good purpose – national security?
Am I right?
You extrapolate beyond my statements to suit your own ends. What I said was that “I don’t see a problem with the concept of net neutrality at this point.”
In the case of the Patriot Act, your assumption is dead wrong. I abhorred the Patriot Act. It was a sellout based on fear and a disgrace to the people who risked and sacrificed to found this country. Rather than “Give me liberty or give me death,” all I heard was give me security at all costs. It would not surprise me historians in the distant future tagged that legislation as the beginning of the downfall of America in terms of personal privacy and freedom.
Let me make this clear. I do not trust the government. I do not trust corporations. They are both soulless organisms that gradually build their own agendas which often run counter to the desires and the well being of society.
Personally, I see a big difference between the Patriot Act and Net Neutrality. The PA eroded many aspects of American society that I consider to be fundamental to the ideals of our country. The concept of NN is focused on *not* allowing the organizations controlling the internet backbones (which have effectively become “data utilities”) to twist and squeeze those pipelines. Whether or not NN will be effectively implemented and regulated remains to be seen. Based on history, the results of NN regulation will likely not be as bad as feared or as good as hoped. That is the typical result of legislation and regulation in a democratic state.
That is about as clear as I can be, and is all that I plan to say on this subject until the dust has settled and data becomes available to form educated judgments on the matter. But I will say that I do not believe that NN will be the unmitigated disaster that you apparently envision.