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Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

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Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#181

Post by sangnoir »

puranjay wrote: post #167
ci5er wrote: post #31

Well, sure. In theory, he could do anything by fiat within the bounds of established regulatory discretion. Of course, I wouldn't worry too much about all of the stuff that "Trump could do" until he gets around to doing it. He talks a lot. And, I suspect he won't have time to do all of the stuff that people worry about him potentially doing... As frustratingly slow as congressional action is -- it's more resistant to…

In the NYT interview, he pretty much went back on everything he said during the elections. Prosecute Hillary? "We have to move forward" Torture works? "Well, General Madd Dogg Mattis thinks its not very important" Climate change? "I have an open mind about it" I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but what Trump could do is pretty much up in the air at the moment

Now more than anytime before, I believe the people who say Trump 'reads' a room and says what the audience expects. This should worry you if you look at the team he is building to surround him during his term.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#182

Post by rayiner »

mstodd wrote: post #139
rayiner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes it seem like federalism is a procedural issue orthogonal to any particular substantive policies. But the US is, Constitutionally, an economic free trade zone. As a result, states cannot use the most potent economic tools to ensure enforcement of their laws. Even if the majority of people would prefer to have environmental or worker protection laws, a minority of people in a few states can create a nationwi…

No, saying that an issue is for the states to decide is simply acknowledging that US citizens are individuals, and they know better than the Federal government what they want. Regulation at the Federal level removes choice and freedom.

You can't enforce many regulations at the state level, even if people want them, because the Constitution forbids discriminating against out of state commerce or citizens. If Californians wanted to have single payer health care, their system would be very susceptible to abuse because people should could cross the border when they got sick. Then Arizonans get the best of both worlds--they don't have to raise taxes to pay for healthcare, but they can still get the service if they need it. Same thing with environmental regulations. Even if everyone in California voted to have environmental regulations, that just creates an opening for goods manufactured in environmentally harmful ways in Arizona to undercut California goods in price.

Citizens don't really have the freedom to choose on issues like that unless they have the freedom to close their markets to people who do not play along. The Constitution takes away that freedom.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#183

Post by nerfhammer »

phailhaus wrote: post #115
cheetos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? Because it turns out that has a very strong effect on the power of your vote :) The electoral college exists to balance the voices of citizens in cities vs. "the country." It checks the power of highly dense populations who are more likely to vote for pro-city federal policies, so the needs of those in "the country" are not…

The bigger problem is that the EC is a winner-takes-all system. If California has 55 EV's, and Candidate A wins by 1%, why do they get all 55 votes? Nearly half the state voted for Candidate B! I have found that the debate on the EC has been over a false dichotomy: either have the EC, or have a popular vote. What about distributing electoral votes based on percentage?

A state can choose to allow this on its own. A couple do: Nebraska and Maine.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#184

Post by mch82 »

cheetos wrote: post #74
throwaway729 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too I'm from the midwest and I still don't understand this sentiment. Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? That seems extremely anti-democratic to me. It's not that people who don't live on the coasts shouldn't have a say. It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes , then t…

> Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? Because it turns out that has a very strong effect on the power of your vote :) The electoral college exists to balance the voices of citizens in cities vs. "the country." It checks the power of highly dense populations who are more likely to vote for pro-city federal policies, so the needs of those in "the country" are not…

The Electoral College was created for two reasons as a compromise so that all of the states would sign the Constitution:

1. To balance power between states that have slaves and states that do not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise

2. To provide a way for people with better information than the general public to choose the President [0].

Addressing #1, we thankfully no longer have slaves, but the need to address population disparity still exists. In 1929 the Republican majority in congress put a cap of 435 on the number of members of the House of Representatives [1]. That has led to a ratio of 1:700,000 representation, compared to the intended 1:50,000 ratio (and the 1:30,000 ratio advocated by George Washington). This alters the effectiveness of both the Electoral College and the House by reducing effective representation as larger coalitions need to form in order to influence the vote of a single representative. In 2012, CNN indicated the UK has a 1:90,000 ratio and the government we established in Iraq 1:100,000 [2].

The procedures of the Electoral College have changed since its creation, undermining the ability of the EC to perform #2 [0]. Electors are now often uninformed and simply act a pledged voters.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat... "Electoral College (United States)"

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap... "United States Congressional Apportionment"

[2]: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/09/opinion/flynn-expand-congress/ "CNN: What's wrong with Congress? It's not big enough."

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#185

Post by diggernet »

apatters wrote: post #136
TulliusCicero wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. Utter nonsense. Under a popular vote-based system, each person in a non-coastal state would have exactly as much say as each person in a coastal state. To the extent that coastal areas might have more sway as a whole because they…

> To the extent that coastal areas might have more sway as a whole because they have more people, isn't that the whole point of democracy? But the United States was never intended to be a popular democracy. In their wisdom the Founding Fathers acknowledged the problems inherent in democracy (it devolves too easily into two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner). Instead, they created a federal republic, in wh…

I regret that I have but one upvote to give for my country.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#186

Post by phailhaus »

lintiness wrote: post #180
phailhaus wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? I don't see how spending money on a campaign is related to spending money on, say, social security. Otherwise, you're suggesting that advertising companies would be fantastic at government. Like, "They got me to buy Coke, they must be great at managing our public education!"

i didn't qualify their "ability" to govern; i suggested a poor use of money spent campaigning MIGHT be indicative of one's poor use of money governing. do you have a logical counter, or are you and everybody else around still crying over the hillary loss?

My logical counter was that use of money spent campaigning has almost nothing to do with one's use of money governing. One is related to your ability to motivate a voter base, and the other is about policy-making and apportioning funds for public services. Completely unrelated.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#187

Post by sgnelson »

confounded wrote: post #138
jamie_ca wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're both, as is the US. They aren't pure democracies, though. http://www.diffen.com/difference/Democracy_vs_Republic

No. The UK and Canada are monarchies, not republics.

It's a monarchy in name only. They're both constitutional monarchies which are really strictly parliamentary systems. The actual monarch is head of state, not head of government, and the Queen has almost nothing to do with the actual running of the Government, especially in Canada (and Australia, and so on). In reality, a parliamentary system such as the modern UK and Canada acts as a republic, despite what it's named.

At this point, the Queen is nothing more than a vestigial organ. (as an example, did the Queen come out for or against the Brexit vote? Have you ever seen a head of government remain so quiet about such an important event?)

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#188

Post by maratd »

Frondo wrote: post #170
xahrepap wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is anti-democratic by design . Founding fathers didn't want a democratic election for presidents. I think a good example of what the electoral college is: you have a sports tournament. The winner isn't the person who gets the most points in all the games. It's the person who wins the most games.

You know what, though? This isn't their world any more, it's ours. One of the mistakes they made that we're all still suffering from was in how difficult it is in practice to amend the US constitution. Even the late great Antonin Scalia felt this way--in some interview he gave somewhere, he said that, if given a magic wand and the ability to change the constitution, he'd simply make it easier to amend. Happily, there…

> One of the mistakes they made that we're all still suffering from was in how difficult it is in practice to amend the US constitution.

Completely disagree. It keeps us from screwing it up. Don't mess with something that isn't broken. And no, it isn't broken.

There's a reason the US government is one of the oldest in the world. They got quite a few things right from the start.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#189

Post by mch82 »

ng12 wrote: post #175
throwaway729 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. And I think that would've been a good thing. Do you disagree?

I think this is one election where the Electoral College did it's job. One of the big issues Trump made this election was globalization. You know who benefits from globalization? People who live in metropolitan areas. Who pays the bill? People who live in small-town America. We are a federalist republic for this very reason -- to limit the ability of the majority to shoehorn the minority.

False, "blue states" largely pay the bill. For every dollar I get taxed in California, I get less than a dollar in Federal Government services. Florida gets over $4.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-st...

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