From the WSJ:
Even HuffPo thinks this is a bad idea:
According to all reports, the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow’s FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet.
The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it’s become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users.
You and I are one of those tens of millions. So the immediate question: With this newfound power, how long before it mutates beyond original scope, and websites that are critical of the government begin to be shut down, or simply IP throttled out of meaningful existence?
I would imaging that site like this one would be a target, since we don’t report what the government line on climate change is.
I can only imagine the future where I’ll be typing some story, like this one, and there will be a knock at the door and
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These are toxic people who fear the freedom of OPEN communication. Ruby Ridge, Waco, Elian Gonszalas are examples of government pretending to protect us from what?
The Patriot Act, Homeland Security, and TSA; just to name a few agencies protecting our posterior. Do you really want the internet regulated to the likes of the FCC, people who work their evil from closets? Remember who wanted to put postage on our email. The state I live in claims to own the rain water. Does that make them liable for any flooding? The words ridiculous, asinine, incomprehensible, and so forth do not wholly describe what we are putting up with.
As stated earlier, the new congress needs to be pressured to fix a few things. The power of the election is the power to fix.
W^L+ says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:22 pm
All that Net Neutrality is about is making sure that your provider, to whom you are a captive customer doesn’t misuse that position to prevent you from accessing the services you are paying for the ability to access.
============================================================
Absolutely, yes.
Smokey says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:44 pm
“If you’re too impatient to wait for technology to catch up – which won’t take long, according to Moore’s Law”
No, that is not what Moore’s Law states.
This thread has been as funny to me as when salesmen tell me they will “ping” me on an idea and I state I will keep ICMP open from them and look at me all stoopid.
Scott Ramsdell,
Moore’s Law appears to apply to much more than simply the number of transistors on a chip, and your throwaway line does nothing to negate what I said: the market will provide more individual freedom, along with a complete solution to the current, temporary bandwidth bottleneck.
But if the government is the “solution,” it will begin to control your life and take away your freedom. In the end, it will regulate everything you can say or write that is transmitted electronically. Word up. The entire U.S. Constitution is based on skepticism and distrust of government, based on bitter experience.
When you advocate allowing the FCC camel’s nose under the internet tent, you are asking for the same bureaucratic growth, suffocation and waste that we now endure with the immensely expensive and truly worthless Department of Education, and the thoroughly dishonest, power hungry, CO2-banning EPA.
Do you honestly believe that net neutrality will be a one time deal, and then the FCC will be done with meddlesome regulations? As if.
There will be another ginned-up FCC issue after that, and then another, and another. That’s how it works. It will never end, until unelected government bureaucrats totally control every facet of all your communications, including what they arbitrarily deem to be “hate speech,” and anything else they decide that you are, or are not, permitted to say. Note that the FCC vote was split exactly along party lines. Net neutrality is a partisan and political issue. Is there any doubt?
It’s in the nature of the agency beast to grow and control. The scorpion wants the frog to carry it across the river, and the frozen snake should show gratitude to the woman who brought it into her warm house and saved it. But the snake and the scorpion are bureaucrats, and the frog and the kindly woman paid the price for trusting them. It in the nature of bureaucrats to be self-serving at the expense of the public, and their true nature is that they are not your friends.
Let the free market do its job; it will perform better, cheaper, more honestly, and when/if the market is no longer there, it won’t live on, sucking up our taxes forever.
You, my friend, are the government’s mark. They will say anything, with a smarmy smile, to get your head to start nodding in agreement. Don’t listen to their words; watch their actions. They want control. Is that not obvious?
It is incredibly short sighted to believe that this power-hungry federal agency is acting out of altruism, or that it will fold its tent after this episode, and like Cincinnatus, go peacefully back to farming. I sincerely hope you’re not the kind of person who would sign a blank check and give it to a stranger for doing you a minor favor. Because that is a perfect analogy to this government “solution.”
Scott Ramsdell says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:23 pm
James Sexton says:
December 22, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Scott Ramsdell says:
December 22, 2010 at 6:06 pm
“NO, NO, NO!!!! You’re going to let the FCC decide what you can decide for yourself?”
====================================================
The FCC isn’t going to decide anything other than that the ISPs can’t decide what you can do online.
The FCC is not going to regulate where you choose to go, First Amendment and all that. The FCC is saying to the ISPs that they cannot monetize the new technologies that allow for deep packet inspection.
======================================================
Scott, first, that’s an idealistic view of which I’m envious. I truly wish I could believe what you stated was true. I don’t. But, whether I believe this to be the intent of the FCC or not, it doesn’t address the issue.
You stated earlier, “No business saw the always-on immediate download desire of users 10 years ago when these networks were built. CEOs and execs are clueless, go figure.” I agree.
Because of the short sighted CEOs and execs, THERE IS NO INFRASTRUCTURE THAT CAN MAINTAIN THE REQUIRED BANDWIDTH. It doesn’t exist. We can’t all “Netflix”, “bit torrent”, “VOIP”, and participate in “webinars”, all at the same time texting a humorous picture of your grandchild to the tune of “jingle bells rock”. It isn’t there. It doesn’t exist. It can’t happen. You think prioritizing won’t happen with this ruling? It has to. This has been warned against for the last several years. All the while the clever people have invented more and more ways to suck up bandwidth without paying for it. Guess what? There’s no such thing. What a big surprise! What we are engaging in at this very moment, it isn’t free. There are lines to be laid. There are lines to be maintained. There are servers to be bought. Admins to be paid. Technology to be advanced. Who paid for that? Did our fathers back in the 60s or 70s when they put the telco lines in? Who is advancing such? Is it the FCC or Netflix?
I’m truly sorry about the bluntness, I pray no one takes offense. But it seems to me, people live in an idealistic world where things would be right if assumptions were true, but they’re not.
Right now, the telcos can’t keep up with the demand. To demand a higher level of response demands more cost. Where do you think that comes from? Companies like AT&T are famous for absorbing costs for the benefit of their customers. I’m going with that. Or, there will be no additional costs and the FCC is the benevolent protector of all that is good in internet discourse. I could go with that, too. Thank God, we all have the right to equally download “Gigli” and “The Hottie and the Nottie”
But more than that, now the feds believe they have the right to interject. This thought given to them by the voice of the people. Thanks. My children will thank you. My grandchildren (whose pictures I’ve never texted),…. I will teach better.
W^L+ says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Thanks for the exchange of ideas. Its welcomed. Sadly, I’ve imbibed in too much holiday spirit, so I’ll attempt to keep my response brief and to the point. Please forgive any perceived curtness. It isn’t intentional.
“In much of the country, there is no such choice. You are confusing a right with a privilege. Rights, this nation has an obligation to maintain and enforce. Privilege, this nation has no compunction or impetus to be involved.
See Internet Explorer 6 for a very clear example. And see a very non-intrusive Firefox for a remedy. I could go for days about Netscape and AOL and a myriad of others being greedy, shortsighted twits in facilitating IE6. Fact is, it was the best around for a few years. And I’m glad it was there. The internet wouldn’t be what it is today without it, for better or worse. But it beat the pants off of their competitors and served mankind well for a few years. That a company wants to protect itself isn’t unnatural nor inherently evil. In the capitalist world, they call that business. We would do well to reflect upon the advancements that occurred while we all suffered under IE6……evil MS!
“They made this ruling less than ten years ago, and except for areas where fiber-to-the-home is available, net speeds haven’t improved much since. (This is a common effect of a monopoly. …)” Uhmm, no, that isn’t my experience. It may be different in places I haven’t been, but in the last 10 years, I’ve gone from really poor dial-up to a …..let me check…..3.2 down, 1.3 up, that’s fairly low for typical, but he’s in the midst of some changes and I’ve got 4 peeps on right now. In less than 8 years, I went from 28k for $69.99 to $45.99 for 3.2 m. My sis, in south Texas, she can get it quicker and cheaper. Maybe its different in other areas, IDK, but in my opinion, it is significantly better now than then. That stated, you may be able to see why I don’t want people messing with this progress. In my estimation, there isn’t anything to whine about. And I damned sure don’t want the FCC to come fix it for me. I can see, given the rate of increase and rate of decrease in price, I could easily be paying half of now for twice as now with in the next 10 years. Again, I’m rural, 6 miles from the nearest convenience store in a town of less than 2000. Nearest town over 10,000 is 30 miles away.
All that Net Neutrality is about is making sure that your provider, to whom you are a captive customer doesn’t misuse that position to prevent you from accessing the services you are paying for the ability to access.
I’ve stated this before, our ISPs don’t care what you’re doing as long as you don’t interfere with their ability to provide for their other customers. Porn, music, netflix, VOIP, or WUWT, they don’t care. It is their ability to cope is what they care about. Now, the FCC is going to fix that for us………….forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical.
On related news, this just in, for me……http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/22/republicans-aim-block-fccs-new-internet-rules-effect/?test=latestnews
Scott Ramsdell says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Smokey says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:44 pm
“If you’re too impatient to wait for technology to catch up – which won’t take long, according to Moore’s Law”
No, that is not what Moore’s Law states.
===================================================
No, not specifically. But it may apply. Certainly, the general ability has progressed congruently with processing. Else we wouldn’t have………….
Scott Ramsdell says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:11 pm
This thread has been as funny to me as when salesmen tell me they will “ping” me on an idea and I state I will keep ICMP open from them and look at me all stoopid.
===================================================
Nice Scott, here’s a message to you. You’ve never once addressed available bandwidth. And you didn’t address Moore’s law and the implications. Do you believe it is only applicable to processors? Is an integrated circuit much different than an external circuit that is subject to the same forcings? You know what’s “stoopid”? Expecting stuff you didn’t pay for nor earn. It doesn’t take a CSM to understand that it isn’t reasonable to expect some things static while other dependent subjects change. I don’t care what protocol we use, it doesn’t happen that way. You want an SMTP or a UDP message?
It isn’t there. You want to address the issue stated or call names or compare computer net abbreviation sizes? Mine’s bigger.
There isn’t enough bandwidth. The FCC will fix it for you and all of the other big gov. sycophants.
Scott Ramsdell said “The issue with so called “bandwidth hogs” is down to the concept of “over subscribing”. An ISP
will not have the capacity to provide the level of service it contracts with its customers. An
ISP or cellular company makes an assumption that not all of the users will be on the network at
once and sells more customers access than can be provided at any one time.
This is how it works.
Business models of yesteryear did not forecast Netflix, etc. and the businesses haven’t invested
in the capacity to allow for all of us to do what we want all the time.
Tough cookies. Up the bandwidth, spend the capital. Don’t use propaganda to confuse the populace.
This isn’t a freedom issue, this is an issue with over subscribing the network. The FCC wants to
say, “tough”, and the ISPs want to not build
the infrastructure.”
******
I probably should not have used the term “bandwidth hogs” since some people misinterpreted it as a perjorative. The real problem is that people are clueless about what their kids, or even they themselves are doing on the internet. An oversubscribed network is not the root of the problem, most of the time our 3G network is empty. But during peak time the clueless people overwhelm our rather meager rural bandwidth.
I said the ISP has two choices, now Scott has brought up a third choice: expand the bandwidth. Unfortunately Scott, they can’t, it doesn’t pay for itself. That leaves my two choices: usage caps or real-time bandwidth restrictions. There are a variety of ways to do that, deep packet inspection is certainly not the only way, nor is it useful with encrypted content and systems that can easily muck with packet headers to foil any DPI. The internet always works around crap like that. Thus it is always a race between the ISP who wants to provide decent service to all and the “bandwidth hogs” who make that goal very difficult.
The real bottom line is that the private sector can easily provide the needed bandwidth given sufficient freedom to do at least some of the things that Scott hates (like charges based on DPI). Unlike Scott I don’t run to nanny government to tell them to ban DPI. If I wanted to, I could easily route around it (e.g. through my own off site servers). I would love if my provider did DPI and killed (or charged more for) my local BW hogs useless streaming video so I can use the internet for text and small emails. But I live too far out to have that luxury yet.
On the Wikileaks useful function as an excuse to police the internet at will, this is interesting:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22357
Excerpts:
Most important, the 250,000 cables are not “top secret” as we might have thought. Between two and three *million* US Government employees are cleared to see this level of “secret” document,[1] and some 500,000 people around the world have access to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRnet) where the cables were stored. Siprnet is not recommended for distribution of top-secret information. Only 6% or 15,000 pages of the documents have been classified as even secret, a level below top-secret. Another 40% were the lowest level, “confidential”, while the rest were unclassified. In brief, it was not all that secret.[2]
[…]
What is emerging from all the sound and Wikileaks fury in Washington is that the entire scandal is serving to advance a long-standing Obama and Bush agenda of policing the until-now free Internet. Already the US Government has shut the Wikileaks server in the United States though no identifiable US law has been broken.
The process of policing the Web was well underway before the current leaks scandal. In 2009 Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller and Republican Olympia Snowe introduced the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (S.773). It would give the President unlimited power to disconnect private-sector computers from the internet. The bill “would allow the president to ‘declare a cyber-security emergency’ relating to ‘non-governmental’ computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat.” We can expect that now this controversial piece of legislation will get top priority when a new Republican House and the Senate convene in January.
The US Department of Homeland Security, an agency created in the political hysteria following 9/11 2001 that has been compared to the Gestapo, has already begun policing the Internet. They are quietly seizing and shutting down internet websites (web domains) without due process or a proper trial. DHS simply seizes web domains that it wants to and posts an ominous “Department of Justice” logo on the web site. See an example at http://torrent-finder.com. Over 75 websites were seized and shut in a recent week. Right now, their focus is websites that they claim “violate copyrights,” yet the torrent-finder.com website that was seized by DHS contained no copyrighted content whatsoever. It was merely a search engine website that linked to destinations where people could access copyrighted content. Step by careful step freedom of speech can be taken away. Then what?
Cartoon
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Mpd1ozuoa64/TRNfBzPivTI/AAAAAAAAC3Y/GYgLXMzOpNc/s1600/Cartoon+-+FCC.jpg
Re James Sexton
I think as always, the devil is in the detail and whether the regulation acts for or against consumer interests. Which is not necessarily the first priority of telco regulators. In the old days, self regulation worked well and was often informal, eg identify an issue, grab the relevant people at a NANOG, ARIN, RIPE or LINX meeting and thrash out a solution over a few beers. As the ‘net grew and became more commercial, that became harder to do and started involving lawyers.
The ‘net has been a disruptive technology and sometimes the law’s had to play catch-up. The history of the UK’s IWF is a nice example, the initial police proposal was unacceptable. ISP’s proposed and created an alternative, but initially the IWF had no legal protection performing it’s function until legislation caught up.
VoIP is another area where some formalising and legislation has become necessary. When it was an occasional thing, no real need. When people started relying on VoIP for all their telephony it became more critical because people died when they couldn’t make calls, or emergency services couldn’t locate them.
Current legislation in the UK and US also includes legislation that could be used for interconnect agreements, or inter-ISP settlement payments. Previously they’ve been dealt with informally or the FCC’s said they’ve had no power to intervene. Now they may be able to and that could be a good or bad thing depending on how they intervene or rule. Historically peering’s been based on mutual benefit and roughly equal traffic exchange, but new services have started to make the cost/benefit highly imbalanced and arguably unfair. The ‘net is still facing the same problem the voice world did over a century ago regarding settlement payments and probably needs a similar regulatory framework to manage which the FCC can provide. Without money, access networks can’t afford to add capacity to give their customers what they think they’re paying for.
Verizon’s FiOS network is possibly a good example of the economics. They’ve been spending billions providing fibre to the home. Verizon offer value-add services over that, like video. If they prioritise their video to ensure service delivery against customer SLA’s, should they also be expected to offer the same service to competitors who contribute nothing to the cost of building or operating that network? If competitor’s services are left best efforts, does that mean Verizon’s degrading those services? If content providers won’t pay though, the only people that can be charged are the end-users, so access costs increase which disadvantages people that can’t afford it.
Rural users still suffer the most. Cost to service those customers with high capacity networks, ie fibre is very high. If there’s no ROI, those networks won’t get built so communities have to put up with inferior services. Sometimes that’s made worse by licensing inferior solutions like 3G or wi-fi, but those are cheap and let operators maximise profits from customers and subsidies. If content providers were paying into universal service funds, there’d be more money to fund proper network buildout. They don’t want to, even though they’re generating the demand.
A little OT, but here is a good article about how our government helped bring on the present financial situation: http://www.american.com/archive/2010/december/how-government-failure-caused-the-great-recession
In response to Scott’s post: I totally agree. Once the FCC is involved our buying power will mean much less. For example, as of now satellite internet companies have realized they need to improve their network infrastructure to remain competitive in the long term. Under FCC rule their will be no need for this type of innovation, because customers are forced to pay for what the the government mandates. I have an entire blog on this topic at mybluedish.com/blog and would love for you to check it out.
Gotta love the latent marxists who see no problem with shared misery..
I’ll take unequal prosperity any day.
We all know what equality of result (equity, not equality) leads to.
Van Grungy says:
Yes, but we also know what the Third World-like inequalities lead to, where nearly all of the wealth is shared by just a few of the people at the top and the government essentially just works to enrich those few. The point is to avoid both extremes.
With income inequality in the U.S. likely the highest that it has been since the 1920s (and even “latent marxists” like Alan Greenspan finding it a “very disturbing trend” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States ), I think we are more in danger of erring on one side than on the other.
The following may seem a bit too cryptic:
so let me be explicit:
Government comprises individuals and their pressure groups. They are sitting on and in a source of almost unlimited power. (Total governance.) They will use it as ethically as others use business influence, and no more: there is no filter allowing only “good” people to get into power. The reverse may be true: political parties favor and elevate those good at playing the game(s) of government (log rolling, establishing unkillable taps into the public purse, etc.)
So the only safe assumption is that any new tool and opportunity to oppress the populace will be exploited.
Some typos are like Freudian slips! Inadvertent accuracy … investing in Washington D.C. lobbying is indeed expensive. But the lobbying parties don’t enter it as part of their capital (assets minus liabilities). 😉
As for booms and busts, some statisticians and economists recently did a study of the micro-bubbles and the macro-bubbles in markets under various levels of regulation, and found that they have a) the same shape and pattern, b) the same immunity to regulation, and c) the same inevitability.
IOW, it’s part of how people deal with each other, and it can’t be stopped. The only “solution” is to adapt, not “mitigate”. I.e., be ready to recover as fast as possible. Which, historically, has meant pulling a Reagan: do nothing and let things readjust. Attempts to “fix” stuff prolongs and worsens the agony.
Joel Shore, social scientist. And now, with a new and improved Wikipedia education.
Naturally, Joel’s one-sided post omits the fact that the bottom half of Americans pay almost no federal taxes at all. And the top 5% pay almost all the taxes.
What Joel can’t understand is that a country’s growing wealth allows people to become prosperous despite confiscatory taxes.
Also, Joel fails to understand the Marxist belief that the proles will rise up and take over is utter hogwash. World War I proved that beyond any doubt. In fact, Marx and every one of his deluded followers are pathetically ignorant of basic human nature. That’s why Marxism has abjectly failed every place it’s been tried. No exceptions.
There are no “poor” in America. There are only those with less:
The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes.
The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher. [source]
75 years ago those “poor” would have been in the upper class strata. None of them are starving [unless they make bad personal choices like drug use, gambling, etc.] None of them lacks medical care.
The truly despicable vermin in this society are those who promote class warfare by telling groups that it’s right that they should covet their neighbors’ goods, and lie to them that they are victims.
[Also, regarding Net Neutrality, here’s an interesting WSJ article on the subject: click]
For anyone still interested, here is an excellent graphic demonstrating what us techs have been saying for years about Net Neutrality: http://www.theopeninter.net/
A good analogy might be that the water company cannot charge me more for water used to make ice than water used to take a shower.
This is a very important issue and we have to get it right.
Smokey says:
That’s because:
(1) It’s not true. What your statements apply to is the federal income tax, the most progressive tax (other than the inheritance tax), not the payroll taxes. Also, while federal taxes are, overall, somewhat progressive, state and local taxes are usually in net regressive (e.g., sales taxes disproportionately affect those who spend all that they earn…and spend more on goods than on services).
(2) The problem with statements about what percentage of taxes a certain income group pays it that it agglomerates together the effects of unequal income distribution and different rate of taxation. The primary reason that the richest pay the large share of the taxes that they do is because their income share is so large.
As for the rest of your post, do you ever read anything at all that is not filtered through right-wing sources? The Heritage Foundation is not known for giving a balanced presentation of facts. And, their claims about poverty have been well-debunked elsewhere.
And, the “article” from WSJ that you link to is not an article at all…It is an opinion piece. It is helpful to understand what the difference is.
Joel Shore says:
“And, the “article” from WSJ that you link to is not an article at all…It is an opinion piece. It is helpful to understand what the difference is.”
Joel me boy, look at the heading of the article: http://tiny.cc/6bz6m It says “ARTICLE.”
Next, who elected you to presume to decide that the Heritage foundation is not “balanced”? Their figures are taken directly from government sources. No doubt you worship George Soros, and believe he is “balanced.” But you could pick a better hero than a former Nazi “judas goat” and convicted felon.
What you Leftists call “Right Wing” refers to those of us who, unlike the Left, believe in the original U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Conservatives want less government, as opposed to liberals, who are motivated by greed, coveting the goods and property of others that the looters never earned. Outright theft is acceptable to you, as when Obama extorted $20 billion from an energy company, based on no enabling legislation whatever – and then warned everyone that he would spend the loot any way he wanted.
Conservatives are none of those things; liberals have those sticky-fingered tendencies. One of the most obvious examples is the fact that conservatives are much more personally charitable than liberals – but libs claim to be generous, too. The difference is that liberals – oh, ‘scuse me – “progressives” are generous with other peoples’ money, but skinflints when asked to voluntarily dig into their own pockets.
[And I’m used to misrepresentation from someone who claims models trump observations. For example, I never mentioned payroll taxes.]
The fact is that liberals are totalitarians. They may not even think about it that way, but I will demonstrate the truth of the matter: explain to us exactly where the maximum line should be drawn regarding “progresive” income taxes, after which there will never be a more progressive [steeper] tax burden based on earnings. Keep in mind the original promises made when the Income Tax Amendment was first proposed. IIRC, tax on the first $4,000 was the promised limit that would never be exceded.
You can’t identify that line because it is based on the greed of the Left; until all the income of “the rich” is confiscated, the thieves will never be satisfied. Sweden’s 104% tax rate was a case in point. They only reversed course because of the looming disaster that their theft had brought about.
The entire philosophy of the Left is based on theft, greed, and class warfare. Envy consumes these people, and by hook or by crook, they intend to steal what others have legitimately and honestly earned. The ravenous greed of the statist hyenas is a wonder to behold. It is simply theft, and those who support it are of the same ilk. They covet what was honestly earned by others. Despicable.
It would be different if there were people truly starving in this country. But the “poorest” are also the most obese. No one is denied medical care. The crocodile tears shed over “the poor” ignores the fact that what they’re talking about is only income disparity.
Since there is no need to give another color TV, cell phone, or refrigerator to “the poor”, then it is clear that liberals are simply conniving to buy votes in return for the confiscated earnings of honest workers. Liberals are ethically-challenged. Their actions are no different than if I promised to confiscate your savings account because I could, and hand the money over to your neighbor in return for his vote. That would make both me and your neighbor no different than common thieves. Yet that is the same policy you support.
I personally give tens of thousands of dollars to a local black charity and have the receipts to prove it, and thousands more to other charities. I volunteer my time to another charity. And I despise the self-satisfied liberal mindset that congratulates themselves whenever they manage to raise another tax on “the rich” [which I am not], and give more of my pension earnings to people who do not need the money, but only want it, and will give their vote to get their hands on it.
The people I help out all have one thing in common: not one of them has created a job. The bottom quintile doesn’t create jobs. Without the rich that you are so obviously envious of, there would be no jobs – including yours.
The class warfare and jealousy stirred up by these people always ends in disaster. Always. But along the way they steal as much as they can, using their favored means of theft: big government. And because of the unethical fanboys who carry their water, now we have to go through the cycle once again.
It comes down to this: conservatives, which comprise the biggest part of the American population, want individual liberty. But liberals want a collectivist and ultimately totalitarian society, and they use the tribal concepts of racism, feminism, hatred, and envy to collect votes.
Most Americans are on the right side. So-called “progressives” are totalitarians at heart. I prefer freedom and small government. Most Americans agree with my point of view; self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals by about 2 – 1. And as of last November, the worm is turning.
Scott Ramsdell,
The way to get so-called “net neutrality” right is to let the market work it out. If you didn’t read the WSJ article, I highly recommend it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703886904576031512110086694.html?KEYWORDS=john+fund