imgkit.com — There's been a lot of debate here about Ron Paul's views on net neutrality. I emailed his campaign committee a while back and finally received my response today. They told me, and I quote: "Dr. Paul is against net neutrality". Good intentions, bad decision. Quit with the Ron Paul cult following, and save the internet. This is important.
Sep 21, 2007 View in Crawl 4
prophasiSep 22, 2007
It's an incredibly important issue -- but not in the way that you mean. "Net neutrality" is a hopelessly euphemistic name for an effort to put another industry under stagnating and bureaucratic government control, rather than allowing the dynamic marketplace do its thing. "Neutrality" sounds admirable, but what's advocated is actually a mechanism, not a final result; there's no way the government can guarantee an end result of neutrality.The Internet -- beloved by so many Net Neutrality proponents on Digg -- has developed so quickly, and so anarchically, and so freely thus far, despite being under the sway of hordes of greedy companies of every type for a very long time now; and their solution is to introduce government into the mix? And not only that; they want to change the fundamental structure of operation for the Internet -- a proven system thus far -- in response to vague, imagined threats that have not even taken form yet. Now THAT'S foolish.
prophasiSep 22, 2007
Out of curiosity, can you cite any true market monopolies that you're having to deal with right now?
prophasiSep 23, 2007
Wow, you may've gone to MIT, but an acronym does not an education make (in this case, in the particular field of logic). You've cited something the federal government did right -- well, sorta right, and over 150 years too late -- and it was a fantastically brilliant federal success....um, sure. Am I then to imagine that you support FEDERAL corporate subsidies? FEDERAL estate taxes? FEDERAL surveillance programs, and war funding, and rendition programs, and expanded CIA/FBA/DHS operations, the DMCA, the tremendous successes of FEMA, ad infinitum? Whoops. I guess one federal success doesn't "prove" anything about the relative worth of local and federal governments.On top of which, you failed to understand the real point -- or intentionally sidestepped it -- with your strawman argument of federal vs. local governments. Whether the government is federal or local, there's nothing about the natural incentive structure that encourages its participants to ignore race; without the incentive of profits, all other factors about a job candidate matter more than they would in its presence. Given that we're arguing in the broader context of "abusive" companies or some such nonsense, you have to deal eventually with the fact that, due to that most hated of forces -- the almighty dollar -- the corporate world is far more naturally "progressive" in terms of race than government could ever be.If "thinking things through" somehow has led you to the conclusion that ceding more power to a central government is a safe, proper, and ethical avenue of action -- given the breathtaking expanse of human history available to be studied -- your definition of "thought" is shaky indeed. But hey, at least you've got that "civil discourse" thing down.
jigorokanoSep 23, 2007
As long as politicians take legal bribery from corporations, they will pass laws on their behalf.I see your ideal Libertarian government as being as impossible as an ideal Communist state.
prophasiSep 23, 2007
Of course they'll take bribes and pass laws, if they have the mandate to pass those laws. I don't think a perfect libertarian state will be achieved; but there was a time when $50K (what might amount to just over $1M now) in relief funds was seriously debated in Congress regarding its constitutionality. We've slipped from that point, and we need to return.The closer states have come to capitalist libertarianism, the better they have done; the closer they come to communist states, the more the social and economic rot infect their state until it collapses on itself. Would you then argue that it's a bell curve of effectiveness with communism and capitalism at the extremes, instead?
pafreedomSep 25, 2007
Dr. Ron Paul is the number one internet candidate for a good reason. He fights for a hands off approach by the government that may have good intentions in regulating it now, but will lead to governmental control in a more extreme way. Way to go Ron Paul, keep up the great work.
spoomeisterNov 1, 2007
So, if you're for net neutrality, and for Ron Paul, what do you do? I'm imagining the sound of several Diggers' heads popping from being unable to resolve this. Kind of like in sci-fi stories when they freeze or destroy a computer with a "this statement is true / the previous statement is false" sort of thing.
spikeleeDec 12, 2007
I doubt it. The man is for capitalism as well. Laizze affair.
spikeleeDec 12, 2007
You mean like meatpacking and the FDA?