It�s Official � The FCC Will Vote to Take Over the Internet in December

[Robert Holtzman]

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 10:58:54AM -0500, Douglas Pollard wrote:

          .........snip.......

I'll preface this by saying this offshoot of the thread has gone on too
long. If you want to continue it lets do it off line.

>      Ok guys I am not even going to comment on world Government since I 
> have just discovered that I am a conservative zealot and as such we all 
> know where I stand.

Yup.

>      I guess I made a mistake of giving an example of governmental 
> intervention in my personal life on this list.   The girls single 
> handing across an ocean are breaking international law. They could be 
> arrested by any government official when they enter any port in the 
> world.  I have a six pack captains license and I delivered boats back 
> and forth across the Atlantic for buyers or sellers of boats and those 
> that want there boat taken someplace so they can use it to vacation 
> on..  If I do that today my license can be revoked.  Today If I  am to 
> deliver a boat over a long distance across an ocean I have to take 
> someone with me. That is the law!

That is/was a great gig!

Found some links that talked about the maritime law regarding solo
sailing and, by God, you were right. Any idea how long that's been on
the books?
 
>      This appears to some of us zealots to be a step in controlling the 
> high seas. Since the world is mostly ocean and is the only place that 
> people can go to to escape Government, it should be controlled by some 
> world organization. Heck, even the Antarctic has been devided up by the 
> worlds Governements.    I don't think any 30 ft boat has ever sunk a 
> ship and no boat sailing at 7 miles per hour is likely to sink any other 
> boat. I guess they are protecting me from being run over by a ship?

It's the same mind set that is obsessed with safety, not admitting that
you can't protect everyone from everything all the time. It's the same
thinking that gives impetus to gun control fanatics.

>      The government gave the phone companies the laws they needed to be 
> a monopoly.  They tried to take the cable and cell phone advocates right 
> to operate.  So the FCC was the very ones that faught against your 
> ability to use high speed cable for anything. Had they and the phone 
> companies had their way you would still be getting on line by the use of 
> telephone wires.
>      Companies smelling money began installing cable and selling it's 
> use.  The FCC seeing it was backing a dead horse in the phone companies 
> applauded cable and gave them a monopoly in the area they had installed 
> cable. Now they have a Government given monopoly so the FCC has to 
> control how they do their pricing. The cable companies now want to 
> change the pricing structure to cover the huge cost of putting in 
> hundreds of miles of cable to supply small towns with only a few people 
> in them to pay the cable bill.  Why didn't the FCC install their own 
> cables since they are so adept at running services like the Post Office 
> and Amtrak at a profit?

That doesn't even merit a reply.

>       I would answer some other questions that have been put to me but I 
> can't think of any.  I can only think of some name calling  I also 
> cannot think of a single argument anyone has made to back up their point 
> of view, that government should control the web in any or every way.

As has been noted before in this thread, the thing the Government is
trying to do is enforce equal treatment for *all* internet traffic. The
move by the FCC to do this was triggered by Comcast's attempt to give
preferential treatment to, IIRC, commercial users willing to pay a
premium. This in no way amounts to taking over the internet. By ignoring
this and continuing to claim that the Government is seizing control of
the internet, you're only feeding the stereotype of the right wing
zealot.

>      My argument is why don't we try the providers solution as to how we 
> pay for our Internet and if it sucks the government will be perfectly 
> willing to jerk the whole thing away from the providers and give it to 
> us free and raise the taxes to pay for it??  That way my year old mother 
> inlaw has no computer can help pay for it.

You're not taking the lobbyists into account. They will hold donations
over the legislators heads to leave the providers in control.

>      The Government can do this you know?  Companies had loaned General 
> Motors billions. When the Government took it over without showing  any 
> constitutional right at all to do it, it told without any authority the 
> holders of those notes to go fly a kit. Then they divided the stock up 
> giving organized labor huge portions of the debt free preferred stock.
>       I have disagreed with liberals all my life, but I have yet to have 
> an argument with one. I state my point of view and they call me names.  
> I can't figure out what they believe in or even if they believe in 
> anything except let the Government handle it.   Certainly they must 
> believe in Something and I wonder what it is?                  Doug

You can quit wondering. It's free market Capitalism. Just not so free that
corporate greed causes the system to become unbalanced.
 
Just remember one thing. Just for the sake of argument let's say you're
right about Government trying to exercise more control over different
sectors of the economy. In the last analysis, it was the corporate
community that brought it on themselves with their cavalier attitude of
profits at all costs. This is what the hardcore right wing refuses to
accept.

-- 
Bob Holtzman
Key ID: 8D549279
"If you think you're getting free lunch,
 check the price of the beer"
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