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Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#221

Post by mch82 »

briandear wrote: post #21
hx87 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly true of the libertarian right, but not of the social conservative right, who have been rather inconsistent in opposing "FCC legislating TV language and obscenity" and "DEA or Department of Health legislating controlled substances".

As a self-identified member of the libertarian right I absolutely agree. I get into this debate with so-called Conservatives frequently: smaller government and less regulation means marriage equality (at the state level,) the dismantling of the DEA (leaving it to states to make their own rules,) and the elimination of the Dept. of Education (leaving that to states as well,) among many other things. It also calls for…

> [California legislation] has no practical effect on people in Louisiana

People underestimate the side effects of state-level or city-level legislation. Due to the size of the California economy the laws in California absolutely have practical effects on people in Louisiana. This is why national and international laws and agreements matter.

For example, environmental regulations on automobiles (this interview transcript is obviously one example and needs to be evaluated in the context of alternative information, but I think it's adequate to demonstrate the point that interactions between states are significant to a degree that dismissing them is risky): http://e360.yale.edu/feature/californias_clean_car_rules_hel...

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#222

Post by mch82 »

mstodd wrote: post #155
briandear wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a self-identified member of the libertarian right I absolutely agree. I get into this debate with so-called Conservatives frequently: smaller government and less regulation means marriage equality (at the state level,) the dismantling of the DEA (leaving it to states to make their own rules,) and the elimination of the Dept. of Education (leaving that to states as well,) among many other things. It also calls for…

Aristotle said that a city should only be as large as to encompass everyone that could hear the sound of a ram's horn or trumpet. Beyond that, you weren't part of the city or it's governance. Seems like a good rule which would prevent taking money from Florida and giving it to Alaska.

Aristotle [1] lived in a world with less than 200 million people [2].

Florida isn't giving money to anyone [3].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_populati...

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

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#223

Post by ng12 »

mch82 wrote: post #189
ng12 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I meant a figurative bill, as in the socio-economic repercussions of globalizing manufacturing and low-skill service jobs. Why do you think low-income states need so much help? Because any industry they had closed down years ago.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#224

Post by 13years »

sgnelson wrote: post #132
13years wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That seems extremely anti-democratic to me. Exactly, and it is supposed to be. We are a republic and not a democracy. The founders strongly opposed democracy. One of the reasons being that minorities would have no representation if your government is by majority rule only.

This is not really true. While yes, the tyranny of the majority is a very important discussion, I would argue it plays no factor when it comes to the specifics of how we elect the president. And the tyranny of the majority has (arguably) been replaced by the tyranny of the minority (not any better imo.) The election process has changed dramatically since the founding of the country. For instance, the electoral colleg…

>Almost each and every change was designed to make the election of the President a more democratic process. To simply say that we are a republic and not a democracy misses the point, is untrue, ignores history, and is frankly, a lame excuse as to why we don't have a more democratic system for electing our president.

It does not miss the point, this was the intention despite what may have changed later. Certainly it might be better stated that we were intended to be a republic, but that has been weakened over time. The founders also stated that government would always move towards greater concentrations of power and that the constitution was only a parchment barrier. Assuming that later revisions are improvements would be a logical fallacy without understanding original intent.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#225

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#226

Post by wwweston »

joeclark77 wrote: post #12
throwawayIndian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wapo king of fake news[1] WaPo has been central to a lot of real news in recent history. Why do you say that it is fake? No matter which side you're on it is in our interest to not let net neutrality go down without any resistance.

"no matter which side you're on"... but what about those against net neutrality? Are we not a side ?

As it turns out, it doesn't matter if you're against net neutrality, it's still probably in your interest. Exceptions might include if you're a telecom rentier or an authoritarian interested in policing content.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#227

Post by matt4077 »

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…

That was actually the answer Scalia gave me when I asked him a question – must have been about 7 years ago.

(he had given a talk mostly criticizing the idea of enshrining rights in the constitution as an attempt to remove certain ideas from democracy)

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#228

Post by ng12 »

sgnelson wrote: post #198
ng12 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just no. The US economy relies on Urban areas. This is where the vast majority of wealth, innovation, and knowledge is created (at a much greater rate per capita, than rural areas). This is only increasing in part due to how knowledge is created/shared with agglomeration effects (in cities) and due to globalization (small factories could support small towns, with the loss of these factories, small towns die.) Small t…

Sorry, I mean the figurative bill. Small town America is dying exactly because of the socio-economic repercussions of globalization. That's the "bill" I was referring to.

> But trying to somehow "punish" Urban areas certainly doesn't make any sense.

It's not about punishing urban areas. It's about the direction we want our economy to take -- one that's increasingly focused on producing wealth in a small number of cities for a small number of people or one that provides for the greatest number of American citizens. We should be especially conscious of this divide as part of the tech community -- for all their economic weight Google/Apple/Facebook hire an incredibly small number of people compared to traditional American megacorps.

> And finally, do you really believe that it's better that a minority has the ability to "showhorn" the majority? Why?

A popular minority, yes. Population-wise the country would effectively be run by the Northeast and California who's needs and desires are not necessarily the same as the rest of the country. I believe direct democracy does not work in a country as large as the United States which is why we're (supposed to be) a federal republic.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#229

Post by quantazelle »

mozumder wrote: post #117
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…

> 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. So, how about this - instead of weighing electoral college votes by location, we could weigh electoral college votes by education level. That way, people with higher education gets more of say than people with lower education. Pr…

Because they provided food, historically.

Re: Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality

#230

Post by mcv »

xahrepap wrote: post #64
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…

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.

The reason it's undemocratic by design, is that they wanted the electoral college to be able to stop bad choices from the people. There is admittedly a petition going to convince the electoral college to actually do that, but I'm doubtful it's going to happen. It seems just undemocratic without any kind of upside.
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