Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality | Hacker News Reader

Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

arstechnica.com

74 pointslotusleaf1987143 comments

Notably, Boehner's top campaign contributer in the last election cycle was AT&T:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?type=C...

I'm not sure how to post this without seeming like a troll, but... is this guy campaigning for or against net neutrality? I can't tell from the article. He wants to protect "our most basic freedoms", right? So... he wants net neutrality? But then he says "no taxpayer dollars [should be] used to fund these net neutrality rules."

I'm sure I'm being either naive, stupid or both right now, but I'm honestly confused.

He thinks (mainly because of ignorance, I guess) that ISPs are competing in a decent approximation of a free market, and that consumers have a choice of providers offering various services at various competitive price points. That's how markets in the USA are intended to work, so I guess it's a reasonable assumption, if you're completely ignorant of the state of telecom in the USA.

Just as an example, Verizon decided that my home state of New Hampshire wasn't a desirable market any more for terrestrial broadband. So they sold their franchise (basically a state-granted monopoly over the region) to FairPoint. The state only agreed to give the franchise to FairPoint after FP promised to extend fiber deployment throughout the state, and meet certain access requirements to poor and hard-to-reach areas. (This is why the monopoly is considered a fair tradeoff: the company makes their money on a captive audience in the higher-margin cities, and the state gets guaranteed service to negative-margin rural areas.) Well, it turns out FP were lying through their teeth, have no fiber capability whatsoever, and don't have enough money to improve the infrastructure at all. Verizon shareholders lost over 1 billion dollars, but the trouble is that there is no competition for residential broadband left in the state. In some places, you can get 1.5 Mb/s DSL (which the FCC admits doesn't count as "broadband"), a few places you can get Comcast cable, but there are a lot of places where there's just nothing available. And since we're not a desirable market, there's no chance of getting any other companies to deploy to those areas. NH is screwed for the foreseeable future.

tl;dr No one on any side who's been paying attention would make those claims. Status quo is state-granted monopolies, so it's up to the state to enforce reasonable rules on the ISPs.

> He thinks (mainly because of ignorance, I guess) that ISPs are competing in a decent approximation of a free market, and that consumers have a choice of providers offering various services at various competitive price points.

No, he doesn't. John Boehner is an intelligent individual. His number one campaign contributor is AT&T.

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N0000...

He damn well understands the issues. He understands that AT&T wants something, and AT&T pays him a lot of money and AT&T wants a return on that payment. This is not rocket science.

That link tells you absolutely nothing, since there is no way to distinguish between 'John Boehner has this stance because AT&T is his biggest contributor' and 'AT&T is John Boehner's biggest contributor because he has this stance.'

I certainly contribute to causes I support, and if I were an American, I'd contribute to politicians whose causes I support. I would happily contribute money on behalf of my business to a politican who supported causes friendly to my business. There's no impropriety in that, on my part or the politician's.

This is exactly why we need campaign reform.

If you're business X, who's product is something that is provably not in the people's best interest you can ram through its legality with enough money thrown at the policy makers who are supposed to be serving the people who elected them.

AT&T did not elect John Boehner. John Boehner should not share _any_ ties with AT&T.

AT&T did not elect John Boehner. John Boehner should not share _any_ ties with AT&T.

This argument would apply as much to individual campaign contributions. Individuals have agendas just as corporations (and non-profits, and PAC's) do. If that were the rule then wouldn't electability just be based on the politician's personal wealth rather than the wealth of their supporters?

Nothing is provable in politics. You're not going to get consensus on 'the people's best interest'. You're not even going to get consensus on 'the people'. (Apparently the stockholders of AT&T aren't invited.)

Given that, 'campaign reform' just sounds like another way to keep participants out that you don't agree with. Businesses shouldn't participate. Unions shouldn't participate. Churches shouldn't participate. Non-profits shouldn't participate. Rich people can participate - as long as they aren't allowed to participate too much, and can't have any privacy when they do it.

If people who don't pay taxes are allowed to vote themselves benefits, I don't see how anyone can argue that a business owner can't donate whatever they want to whatever cause or candidate they like. Everyone participates and things shake out how they shake out.

You're absolutely right. It is exclusionary. Participation should be exclusive to those who can vote. This means, no corporations, no organizations, no churches, etc. Individuals _only_.

Not letting Canadians vote in our elections is exclusionary too, that makes sense to me. Just because it's exclusionary doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

Of course we can't get consensus on 'best interest' but at least we can limit participation to those who's interests are on the table.

If you're CEO of X-Corp participate all you want, but do it with _your_ money and _your_ vote and that's _it_. At least there's a chance I'll be able to reason with and engage in political debate with you.

I really wish more people would know about/use/and reference sites like http://opensecrets.org and http://opencongress.org when discussing politics and influence. Great and severly underused resources run by open initiatives and groups like the Sunlight Foundation and The Center for Responsive Politics. If you care, get educated and contribute to, help support, donate, code, whatever for OpenCongress. Great tool I check daily.

Full disclosure, I'm an active participant and donater to OpenCongress. Also, I am not the shii of shii.org fame, to preemptively stop questions about that...

His main source of info is probably also AT&T. He doesn't have to be evil, just misinformed. If you thought spear-phishing attacks were effective, just imagine having a multi-million dollar budget for the lobbyists to construct an alternate reality for this one guy.

It's evil when you know that AT&T's "information" is really an instruction, and disregarding it is likely to produce a sudden downturn in the donations they just "happen" to make, while producing an upturn in donations to anyone who "happens" to "agree with their perspective".

In truth, none of these guys are living in bubbles. They all know that what they're being told to do is anti-citizen. And they also know that if they don't pass it into law, they'll be replaced with someone even less ethical and more mercenary.

I mean, how do you think this guy got his job in the first place?

Or maybe ATT supports him because they like his position on the topic?

Perhaps a good model here is that Boehner's position and ATT's support are dynamically coupled ... each causes and maintains the other.

Kinda makes it tricky to assign blame (which is fortunate, for Boehner).

The thing is Boehner's position is so contrary to reality it's hard not to conclude that AT&T is influencing his position. Otherwise we'd have to believe that AT&T was lucky enough to stumble upon a Senator who misunderstands an issue in the exact way that benefits them.

Excuse me, but calling his position so contrary to "reality" is asinine. The internet has thrived and flourished for the past 20 years specifically because of a lack of government regulation - I don't know why it is so hard to believe that some people want to keep it that way.

Vinton Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee claim the internet flourished because of the maintenance of a common carriage agreement, which net neutrality advocates want to cement.

I can understand how common carriage rules lead to great things on the internet. I have a lot more trouble understanding how cementing these rules would stunt the internet's development, and by contrast, I can easily see how the dismantlement of these rules could lead to Bad Things.

Indeed, the clear truth (as numerous luminaries have also said) is that internet would never have existed without massive government intervention to require local telephone companies to allow data to be transmitted over "their" phone lines, which otherwise they would have prevented.

When FairPoint doesn't perform its obligations under contract, that's presumably something for the New Hampshire authorities to pursue, as they were the other party in the contract. How is that a federal responsibility?

since we're not a desirable market, there's no chance of getting any other companies to deploy to those areas

Again, is that really a problem the FCC should address? It seems you're extending the idea of net neutrality from regulating existing networks to guaranteeing network access for all.

edit: typo

The FCC already makes sure that absolutely everyone who can have access to a phone line does have access to a phone line. They've more recently announced their intention to extend this mandate to broadband internet access. The reason the feds are getting involved is because the states want them to. Anyway, the FP deal involved Maine, New Hampsire and Vermont. Vermont is considering banning FP from the state, Maine and NH have launched investigations already, and since Verizon investors lost $1B due to lies FP told, I think the feds should be getting involved on several levels. This is a bigger deal than just FP vs NH, and it fits right in with what the FCC is already moving toward.

Perhaps 4G wireless is the answer?

Ironically that's the mode of access most likely to be affected by not having net neutrality laws passed. Google was even willing to give wireless a pass in their pact with Verizon.

This may be the conspiracy part of me talking, but I don't think its Ironic at all. I'm vagueing familiar with LTE, the more I learn about it, and its future capabilities the greater I imagine its proliferation will become. I imagine my kids will view internet access the same way I view landlines today. It occurs to me that if I know this, the ISP's definitely know this.

He wants to protect "our most basic freedoms", right?

Matt Yglesias explains: Freedom’s Just Another Word for "I’m An Orthodox Conservative With Orthodox Conservative Views": http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/?p=41091

He also provides an example in: The Freedom to Build: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/the-freedom-to-bui...

Where freedom means the freedom to prevent a real estate developer from building what they want, on property they own, because you don't like it.

Also somewhat apropos: Freedom-Talk in Colonial Georgia: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/freedom-talk-in-co...

The Georgia dissidents rallied behind the revealing slogan “Liberty and Property without restrictions”—which explicitly linked the liberty of white men to their right to hold blacks as property. Until they could own slaves, the white Georgians considered themselves unfree.

George Orwell's Politics and the English Language (which should be required reading for everyone) has a section titled "Meaningless words" which contains this wonderful sentence:

"The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another."

I try to keep it in mind whenever I see someone mentioning freedom, openness, rights, etc. Generally it seems like these are used for emotional appeal rather an actual clear definition.

Edit: Link to the essay. It's short, and very well worth the read. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

There is of course some truth to that, but in this case I think it's a bit unfair to conservatives. The words "freedom" and "liberty" do have reasonably consistent and coherent conservative meanings. They're just different than what libertarians, classical liberals, etc. mean when they use those words (negative liberty) and what liberals, social democrats, etc mean (positive liberty).

But I do agree that Politics and the English Language should be read by everyone, so I'm always glad to see it linked to.

"Negative liberty" and "positive liberty" are at least as much a matter of phrasing as they are anything real.

For instance, do I have the positive liberty to compel others not to point loaded firearms at me? Do government officials have the negative liberty to not be compelled to hold elections if they don't want to?

I agree that those concepts don't really hold up to philosophical scrutiny, but they're useful for political categories. Libertarians, social democrats, and conservatives all mean something real when they say "liberty" and they are 3 different meanings.

Very true - those Koch Brothers, often discussing freedom, really are just pushing orthodox conservative views.

Like decriminalizing drugs, legalizing gay marriage, and ending the patriot act (their #1 political position, based on money spent).

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/frrth/stop_the_koc...

Based on money spent, they gave an awful lot of money in 2010 to people who not only disagree with those positions, but disagree with them LOUDLY and will call you a godless heathen, communist, terrorist, muslim or all of the above if the subject comes up. Just saying.

Maybe the Koch brothers don't watch Fox News. Someone should write them a letter and tell them where their money's going. After all, they helped finance the guy who beat Russ Feingold, the lone vote in the senate against the Patriot act in 2001 (99-1).

Feingold said corporations don't have a right to free speech, so I hardly think he should be supported by libertarians.

And based on that lofty single-issue standard, have you refrained from supporting candidates who voted in opposition to your views on the Patriot Act?

Well, yes, I'm a firm Democrat, and every Republican in federal office favors the Patriot Act, so yeah, coincidentally, my single-issue ducks are in a row there.

Feingold was one of like maybe 10 honest senators. Down to less than that, now.

Also, the Koch brothers supported Michelle Bachmann. Again, they are not libertarian, they are conservative. "Libertarian" just gets better press on boards like HN.

Lastly, I love the amount of self-programming that has to go on for you to call campaign finance reform, quote, "limiting the free speech of corporations". After all, why shouldn't my voice count nearly as much as theirs? Ohh, I get it.

Has your senator been Feingold or a Republican since the passage of the Patriot Act? Or did you not vote for one? If an anti-patriot act Libertarian ran against a pro-patriot act Democrat, who would you support?

You can support the lesser of two evils without being called an evil, right? Who are we (Obama incl.) giving aid to in the Middle East? Why do you hold the Kochs to such a high standard? Bachmann has a higher pro-free trade rating than any of her viable opponents did... are they supposed to let her lose to someone they dislike more??

BTW, Rand Paul and Ron Paul are Republicans and against the Patriot Act.

Bachmann is straight up fucking crazy. End of story. (If you ask me to justify this, I'll just refer you to google for some of her crazier quotes).

The Koch brothers supporting someone like her says to me that they're either more interested in profit than sound public policy, or they're fucking crazy too. More likely the first.

Look, just own it. "Conservative". You are what you do. Nothing wrong with it, 45% of the country agrees with you and them.

Bachmann is straight up fucking crazy

Justify it. And don't use Media Matters as a source. They recently accused Huckabee of endorsing "ethnic cleansing" because he suggested that Arab states should offer land for a Palestinian state, and Jews have a right to settle the West Bank. Using "ethnic cleansing" in that way is crazy.

Own what? Which sane candidate were the Kochs supposed to support?

I assume you voted for Obama. Was that vote in favor of his open opposition to same-sex marriage? If you didn't vote for Obama, did 60 million other Americans cast an anti-same-sex ballot? No. They took the bad with the good.

In that same vein, why can't a libertarian vote for a candidate that shares 51% of his views versus one that supports 15% of his views????????

What I'm saying is that the Republicans do very little for you. Especially if you believe in things like science. They'll occasionally make noises about cutting the smallest pieces of the budget, and do nothing else whatsoever for the libertarian cause. Especially when it comes to the whole idea of state authoritarianism.

You just asked me to justify calling Bachmann crazy?

Can I get you on the record first as saying "she's not that crazy"? I'd like to see how strongly you endorse her before I waste 90 seconds googling.

Are you claiming to be a small-l libertarian, as opposed to a doctrinaire republican who supports Michelle Bachmann?

Do you believe in the separation of church and state? What about the separation of your bedroom and state? Or the separation of our government and forcing our ideals on other countries? Why is it OK to advocate that the government not be involved in those things, but when it comes to advocating that the government not be involved in advancing science and simple economic transactions between two adults, we're labeled as crazy? I'm not lumping Bachmann in with me, but plenty of comments here think libertarian positions are crazy.

Republicans advocate a smaller, less intrusive government. They suck royally at implementing it. Democrats, on the other hand, advocate a larger government and you can do about 10 seconds of googling to see how successful they've been. Given that reality, please tell me why a libertarian should for 1 second consider voting for a Democrat.

Republicans tend to work against the people who want to limit my economic freedom. That does a lot more for the the libertarian cause than Democrats could ever do. An overwhelming number of Democrats have voted for the Patriot Act, so you can't make the argument that they both want to expand the government in different ways. Dems want more control over our lives, period. Advocating smaller government while passing the Patriot Act, starting wars and expanding Medicare might be considered Orwellian, but I don't remember Dems working against Republicans for libertarian values like Republicans are working against Dems now.

Republicans don't advocate a smaller, less intrusive government. They advocate spending cuts in things that help poor people and HUGE SPENDING INCREASES in the military, the war on drugs, and anything authoritarian or anything that puts money into a large corporation's pocket. The end result? Clinton balances budget. Bush blows it up. Repeat.

So, if you want to know why you should for 1 second consider voting for a democrat, I'd point to the results. Fast forward 6 years and we'll be able to point to a successful Obama presidency as well.

Oh, I see, Republicans work for corporations and Democrats don't. Have you been following campaign financing the last few election cycles? Democrats received more from corporations. They both have been bought off. Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than anyone else. Whoever is in power acts authoritarian. Obama could have repealed the Patriot Act. He could have expelled lobbyists out of Washington. But he didn't.

Fast forward 6 years and we'll be able to point to a successful Obama presidency as well

I suggest you taper your expectations back a little. The only way Obama can be successful is if he solves the debt crisis. Clinton did a great job starting in 95 when Republicans took congress. I believe in checks and balances. 93-95, 01-07, 09-11. What do those years have in common? Single party rule. No checks on power. Huge deficits (except for TARP in '08), huge problems. Why are you so gung-ho on Democrats? Social Security, Medicare can't be solved with what they advocate. We'll end up like Greece if they don't move to the center on government spending. Republicans too!

Clinton cut the budget by more in 1994 than any year with Republicans in congress.

I'll copy paste that for you, maybe it will stick:

Clinton cut the budget by more in 1994 than any year with Republicans in congress.

Here's the deal.. the deficit is bigger than the entire domestic discretionary budget. A political party that's only interested in cutting the domestic budget and has no desire to close tax loopholes or anything like that physically can't balance the budget. This is basic arithmetic.

3 words: Cold War over. Copy and paste all you want. It still doesn't change the fact the government will need to curtail spending, and perhaps raise taxes once the economy recovers if it doesn't want Greece II:

http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/national-debt-skyroc...

I know it's a conservative web site, but the chart is generated from WH OMB data. I'm all for closing loopholes. Flat tax! We'll just need to fight fewer wars, subsidize fewer corporate farms, and not give 90 year olds hip replacements for free. Oh, and raise the retirement age.

The Koch brothers are libertarians, not conservatives. See "Why I am not a Conservative" by F. A. Hayek.

That was sarcasm.

I know it was sarcasm. Why are you pointing that out? And what does it have to do with my response?

He's considering the basic freedoms of service providers to restrict access as they see fit - not the right of the consumers.

That's seldom an argument that I've never seen featured prominently on blogs that oppose network neutrality legislation, but on this little slice of reddit inside HN I suppose painting the worst possible picture of people you disagree with is all that matters. Most people who oppose regulation of the internet use utilitarian arguments, claiming that the quality and neutrality of the internet will be biased by government regulation.

Believe it or not, there is not a cabal of people getting together on wednesday nights to sacrifice children to corporate logos. Rather, there are many people who in good-faith believe that heavy-handed regulation is bad for the consumer.

Myself, I haven't made up my mind on the issue yet, but hivemind behavior just rubs me the wrong way.

I'm not trying to paint a prejudiced picture though. Hell - I'm not even trying to twist words. The core of the cognitive dissonance can be explained away by understanding for whom Boehner is speaking out for - the providers and their 'basic freedom' to regulate a service as they see fit. Obviously, net neutrality proponents understand the issue differently.

The conspiracy isn't particularly hidden -- this is just rational behavior by large ISPs. Like every producer of a service, the telcos don't want to see their product commoditized and subject to pure competition, and they are doing all they can to delay this.

The motivation for a company to want deregulation cannot be to increase market competition for their own product. To the extent that they claim otherwise they are being dishonest.

What a company/industry might honestly claim is that regulation will prevent the development of valuable markets, satisfying neither producers nor consumers. This is an empirical claim, however, that stands on evidence rather than ideology. And we have only to look to the countries with faster internet to see whether it holds.

That's true, and a good point in regards to legislation. Not everyone who oppose Net Neutrality is dong so because of the corporations. There are legitimate concerns about how the FCC would regulate the internet.

However, when speaking of freedom being restricted in opposition to Net Neutrality, it seems like the only possible freedoms being restricted are those of corporations who would wish to do things that would be restricted by Net Neutrality, not those of their customers. However, when this is mentioned, it's painted as "our" freedoms, making it look like it's everyone's freedom, when realistically it's only the freedom of those corporations, and not the citizens, as is implied.

I'm not really sure how net-neutrality (status quo) is supposed to be a "heavy-handed regulation". While a bunch of new regulation that ensures a heavily controlled and regulated and multi-tiered internet is not.

You're right. The blogs that oppose network neutrality are far less coherent than that.

Oh, my God. I understand it perfectly now. I don't know whether to thank you for helping me get it, or damn you for making me die inside a little. (Either way you get an upvote)

Perhaps so, but the ISPs must serve the consumers; they have no other path to profit.

The alternative is the freedom of government to restrict access as they see fit. And governments money comes from taxes (or inflation), they have no incentive to improve access or quality.

Who are their customers? It seems that the crux of the issue is that the ISP's want to extend their reach to include websites owners as customers as well.

I'll never understand the ideology that all regulation is bad. It's not only laughable, but demonstrably false.

When there is an alternative, but they are a utility, there are essentially no options.

People who oppose net neutrality don't trust the FCC to be a benevolent regulator of the internet. For example, this blog post has links to a number of longer form pieces that make the case against it:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-fcc-should-not-regulate-t...

And here's a post refuting the "money" argument:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/siding-with-the-geeks-on-netw...

Of course, once the right-wing gets its way on net neutrality, insuring that corporations can do whatever they want, they will then ALSO argue, as soon as Republicans hold the White House again, that the government has to be able to regulate the Internet as well, in order to make the world safe for Jesus and protect us from the terrorists.

This BS about opposing government control really just means they oppose government control that comes from Democrats.

>as soon as Republicans hold the White House again, that the government has to be able to regulate the Internet as well, in order to make the world safe for Jesus and protect us from the terrorists.

I don't agree with the political "back and forth" that is prevalent on both sides of the spectrum, but certainly this could have been rephrased to be a bit more objective.

Unfortunately on the Internet, Republican has become synonymous with racist radical Christian.

It's not without cause.

ummm I'd just prefer neither. I cringe to think of net neutrality in place next time there is a Republican majority.

The energy being applied advocating net neutrality could be a lot better spent lobbying for real freedom in the telecom space and undo'ing the legally enforced monopolies there.

I upvoted you because I agree that this true of many/most conservatives, especially those with an actual political career. But it's sad that this is the case. And it's certainly not by itself a very good argument for net neutrality or government control.

I agree that corporate rapaciousness and Republicans' pattern of serial lying is not a reason to support net neutrality. Net neutrality must stand on its own merits. I feel it does; others obviously will disagree. :) My only point was, it's laughable to think that Republicans are telling the truth about this, or to believe they will keep their hands off the Internet once they have enough power to mess with it again. I believe the recent historical record provides incontrovertible proof of this.

Cato supports its corporate masters:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Industries#C...

And Sourcewatch (AKA Center for Media and Democracy, AKA PRWatch) supports its union masters: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/02/10080/koch-denies-intere...

What's your point?

My point is that Cato's professed ideology is contrary to the fights it actually undertakes, while the fights it undertakes are in service of those who pay its bills. Cato's corporate funders are opposed to free markets, and so is Cato. Cato uses the rhetoric of free markets to advance the interests of its funders in keeping control of their markets.

How exactly is preventing the government from regulating the internet anti-free market? I agree with Cato most of the time. I haven't given them any money. Isn't it possible that they get financial support from the Kochs and vocal support from myself because of their support of freedom (i.e. limited government)?

"Preventing the government from regulating the Internet" is not on offer by anyone. Existing government regulations give certain companies oligopoly power, whose rents they are using to finance (via Boehner) opposition to further regulations intended to reduce those rents. "limited government" is Orwellian language. Again, I don't doubt your sincerity; I question your understanding of the motives behind the appealing rhetoric you quote.

"Existing government regulations give certain companies oligopoly power"

So your answer is additional regulations? Cato's solution for a more efficient and freer internet should be more regulation? I am not using "Orwellian language". Neither is Cato. When they say they want less regulation, they mean less regulation. Cato has always been opposed to Federal power not explicitly granted in the Constitution. Can you site me an example where they haven't been?

What supernatural power do you have to know the true motives of the Kochs and Cato? Just because their interests are aligned with AT&T's in this instance do not mean they work for AT&T. But I'm pretty confident if Net Neutrality wins, AT&T will still win. They have so many protections (laws and sympathetic politicians) in the government that they can only lose if the government loses power. The consumer and citizen who has benefited so much from an unregulated Internet will suffer with more regulation. Big companies don't mind regulation, because compliance and lobbying are so much more costly for their smaller competitors, mostly due to economies of scale.

Evaluating regulations by count is like evaluating software by lines of code.

Cato is DEFINITELY using Orwellian language: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2011/03/the-kochs-and-the-...

So Kochs = Cato, now? I think they have more than two people: http://www.cato.org/people/directors.html

And if you're going to make a wild accusation like Cato is DEFINITELY using Orwellian language, please use a little more brain power than just posting a link to someone else's stretch that not buying into man-made climate catastrophe means you don't care about property rights as a whole.

Cato gets 97% of its annual operating budget from individual donations.

As a libertarian, I would interpret protecting "our most basic freedoms" meaning the right to freely enter into agreements with whichever service providers we choose. If a service provider chooses to limit bandwidth to certain sites I would be free to buy Internet service elsewhere. But, as a libertarian, I also recognize the fact that this will never work as long as government continues to regulate these services in any way. If government gives special favours to big providers there will never be an opportunity for small ISPs to compete.

There's a third way that works for everybody: defining the market.

So government could simply say there are seven different types of internet service. Perhaps the lowest would be free service that forces you to watch ads. The highest service could be a SLA -- guaranteed bandwidth.

That way there is no regulation, _and_ the market is free to operate, _and_ you can have net neutrality, you only have to pay extra for it. What we have instead is problematic in many ways: the FCC taking control where it was not intended to go, and internet providers purposely obfuscating the issue with individual rights jargon.

This entire boondoggle is because of Congress not acting and the bureaucracy acting in its stead. The blame for inaction goes to both parties, not just one or the other. I doubt very many Congressmen could talk to net neutrality at the level of an average HN'er. They just get donations, pick sides, then spin the issue to conform to whichever principle their base could support.

I'm in favor of Net Neutrality, but it's a devil's bargain. The individual will lose more in the long run than they will gain. Why? Because the forces at work here trying to confuse the market to maximize profits will still exist after a net neutrality law is signed. They'll just go underground and start manipulating the regulators instead of the Congressmen. Then you get the same shitty deal except there's nobody you can kick out of office when it doesn't work. Oh yeah, and you get more government control over the net. We should all remember that the next time we rant about internet kill switches.

"So government could simply say... That way there is no regulation"

When the government says something, people, desks, computers, buildings, health plans, 401Ks, and occasionally arsenals, all need to be set up to prevent Joe Schmoe from saying, and more importantly, doing something contradictory. That's called regulation.

"The individual will lose more in the long run than they will gain..."

So why are you in favor of Net Neutrality again??

That would be OK if there was a functioning market for ISPs. But there clearly isn't. Most people don't have a choice of service provider and the cost of entry is too high for new competitors to come in.

Technological barriers mean high profits for existing players. This in turn brings more and more entrepreneurs looking to bypass the barrier (either through new technology, capital intensive partnerships, or other avenues) and reach the gold.

The fallacy here is the engagement of "long-run" reasoning, which assumes that market inefficiencies are static long enough for entrepreneurs to overcome the various barriers to entry (the long-run requires an assumption of stationarity).

It's an empirical question whether entrepreneurs can reach the gold when it's constantly moving, and whether the economic cost of doing so is less than the cost of some smart regulation.

If the incumbents close the opportunity by offering better service -- than the original parents problem no longer exists.

Businesses compete with potential competitors and potential technologies too. The higher the price, the more incentive for your users to look at alternative solutions (which includes starting a competing service). Greater demand for alternatives will be answered.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it requires a starting point of free actors entering into commerce with each other. If "government" were not involved here, none of these service providers would exist at all. They have been given legal monopolies / oligopolies over markets created by government investment. It is superficially plausible to think that "free market" reasoning might still be useful in sorting out how things should work, but as a practical matter the voices arguing loudest for libertarian ideology are paid for by rent-seeking oligopolists. (None of this is meant to challenge your sincerity, BTW.)

in a libertarian world who owns the cables to your house? How does someone with a better idea/business model get new cables out to everyones house?

libertarianism is often a placeholder for "a world where everybody has virtually unlimited piles of money for which they can pay for basic services like clean water or a functioning local road system"

No, libertarians understand the allocation of scarce resources. Politicians, on the other hand, act as if taxpayers have "virtually unlimited piles of money for which they can pay for basic services like clean water or a functioning local road system".

With $14 Trillion of mounting debt, you can continue to bury your head in the sand and pretend the wealthy will somehow be able to pay for it all and everything will be alright, OR you can perhaps use reason and facts to ascertain that government pyramid schemes (SS and Medicare), unnecessary wars, and corporate welfare (Ethanol subsidies!) have a little bit more to do with the problem than libertarian thinking.

We had surpluses under Clinton. What's changed since then? I can only think of a few major changes, the bush tax cuts, the wars, medical costs rose, and derivatives finally collapsed.

I don't think taxpayers have unlimited money, but I do think the super rich should pay more on capital gains which makes their tax rate lower than mine!

More on capital gains?? If I buy 1 share of GOOG with my after-tax income, and someone buys it from me for a $100 more with their after-tax income, why should the government get a cut of that, let alone more of a cut?

And I don't think they have a lower rate. The super-rich (top 1%) already pay 38% of all tax revenue, but they only earn 20% of total income (http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html). You can only squeeze them so much before they leave. Ask Mayor Bloomberg.

Let's say you bought microsoft early on and sold it for a huge profit. You then bought google early on and sold it for a huge profit. You then use that to buy apple 7 years ago, and you now sell it for a huge profit. Let's ay you made millions on this. You believe that you should pay a lower percentage on that than what I pay on my income as a programmer?

The rich weren't squeezed out before the bush tax cuts were they?

In order to make millions on my investments, I would have had to risked millions more of already taxed income to do so. The fact that others' after-tax income was transferred to me along the way in exchange for shares is irrelevant to the question why a positive or negative return on investment should involve the government for a second, third, fourth... time. It's called double-taxation, and it prevents people from buying and selling more than they actually would with the money the government lets them keep.

I don't think they were squeezed, but the bush tax cuts were a step back after decades of tax increases, when the wealthy were paying a larger share. Sure the top bracket wasn't the 90% pre-Kennedy rate, but the group of 38-42%'ers were paying a larger a share of GDP that they ever did before.

There is a point of diminishing returns on tax increases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve How else did the government fund itself when Kennedy cut taxes? Someone at the time must have thought the rich were being squeezed.

My pay comes from people who bought a service with after tax income. Why should you pay a lower percentage than me?

Your pay most likely comes from sales of goods and services, buyers of which are taxed at a lower rate. They are using after tax income, so it is double taxation there, too. But value was created in those instances, so one can say that the government helped create that value to justify it. I supposed the value of the stock can also be viewed in that manner, but why should it be taxed as much as income, when goods and services aren't?

because someone like warren buffet shouldn't pay a lower percentage of his income in taxes than the rest of us.

Hell, you're the one that is making the case that a worker generates more value than people who gamble on stocks.

News Flash: Warren Buffet pays more in percentage terms than you do: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/02/distribution_of_...

And he gives a lot more away to charity in percentage terms, too!

I pay way more than 17.7% of my income. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06...

Warren E. Buffett was his usual folksy self Tuesday night at a fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as he slammed a system that allows the very rich to pay taxes at a lower rate than the middle class.

Buffett cited himself, the third-richest person in the world, as an example. Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.

Buffett said that was despite the fact that he was not trying to av

If Warren Buffet only paid 17.7% of his income in '06, then other top-1%'ers pay a lot more than 31.2%! (see CBO Effect Tax Rates 2006: http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2009/effecti...)

Warren Buffet uses tax loopholes (perfectly legal) to keep more of his money, which he plans to give away to various charities by the time he dies. The solution is to close loopholes and encourage more charity among the super rich, so that the government doesn't need to do as much charity when it can't afford to, and the wealthy are still able to create jobs by not having an effective tax rate much higher than 31%.

They do pay less than us, and it's that way because they make a lot of their money as capital gains which are taxed at a rate far lower than the taxes we pay on income. The forbes 400 pays a significantly lower tax rate than I do as programmer. That's not debatable, it's a simple fact. I think they should pay at least the same rate as I do, don't you?

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/1126/042b.html

No, they do not pay less! The top 1% has an average effective tax rate of 32% -- much higher than yours! This includes capital gains taxes! It's whatever amount they send to the IRS divided by the amount they receive as income (including proceeds from stock transactions).

  Methodolgy 

  CBO's analysis of effective tax rates assumes that households bear the burden of the taxes that they pay directly, such as individual income taxes (including taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains) and employees' share of payroll taxes. The analysis assumes--as do most economists--that employers' share of payroll taxes is passed on to employees in the form of lower wages than would otherwise be paid. Therefore, the amount of those taxes is included in employees' income, and the taxes are counted as part of employees' tax burden. CBO estimates payroll taxes and individual income taxes, including refundable tax credits, with a tax "calculator" that applies the tax law for the relevant year to the tax return data from the SOI.
  Excise taxes are assumed to fall on households according to their consumption of taxed goods (such as tobacco and alcohol). Excise taxes that affect intermediate goods, which are paid by businesses, are attributed to households in proportion to their overall consumption. CBO assumes that each household spends the same on taxed goods as similar household with comparable income in the Consumer Expenditure Survey.
  Far less consensus exists about how to attribute corporate income taxes (and taxes on capital income generally). In this analysis, CBO assumes that corporate income taxes are borne by owners of capital in proportion to their income from interest, dividends, capital gains, and rents. Over the long term, however, some models suggest that at least part of the burden falls on labor income.

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2009/methodo...

"taxes that they pay directly, such as individual income taxes (including taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains)"

The CBO includes corporate taxes as a tax on shareholders income. The shareholders don't actually pay this themselves and one can make a strong case that the cost of those taxes aren't entirely borne by shareholders.

Warren Buffet's tax rate is lower than his secretary's, and no one in the forbes 400 took him up on his challenge to show him that it's any different for them.

You said "they make a lot of their money as capital gains which are taxed at a rate" and I said their effective tax rate of 32%, which is higher than yours, includes capital gains taxes.

You can make a strong case that corporate taxes are a tax on consumers, but those are only 1/6 of individual taxes, and even if all of it was passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, you're spreading it out over the entire economy. I highly doubt it pushes your effective federal rate above 32%!

The argument that corporate taxes aren't paid by shareholders is not a justification to raise rates on the super rich, it's a justification to make sure all that tax revenue comes from shareholders. You could lower the corporate rate and increase capital gains, I suppose, but there's no excuse that much of the world has lower corporate tax rates, because it's an inefficient tax - a tax that the poor are partially paying!

I think you misunderstood me. When the CBO says their (the top 1%) effective tax rate is 32% they are including the corporate tax in that 32% for people that earn money on capital gains. That seems odd to me since those people didn't actually pay the corporate tax. The corporation did! If you take it out, you get something like the 17% that Buffet pays, which is the true value of the taxes he had to pay.

HN isn't meant for this kind of back and forth so i've started a post on my site if you want to continue over there.

http://yakkstr.com/posts/2749-How-much-do-the-rich-pay-in-ta...

Who needs to own cables? You could rent cable in some areas, rent satallite for others, build short range wireless towers in others, use laser transmission here, build above ground infrastructure there, channel packets through power cables here, and phone lines there, and speed it up with local caching here, here and here.

Technology changes, don't expect the ISP killer to look like an ISP. Just as the land-line phone killer in no way looked like a better land line phone provider.

Who would you rent them from?

In a libertarian world who should have owned the cables for the past 20 years? How would competition happen when the cost of running new cables all around the country is extremely high?

As with everything, if you want something you either buy it or build it. If the cost to use existing infrastructure is too high, demand for alternatives will grow. If this demand can supplied, great, if it can't, then nothing can be done by market or government.

You've correctly pegged me as a Libertarian =), but I don't know who should be the title holders of the existing infrastructure.

The point is that a new business can't dig up everyones backyard if they think the current phone companies are doing a bad job, even if there is demand. I don't see how the libertarian model can work in this case.

Can I give you a link? http://server.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Ca...

Mary Ruwart (2008 Libertarian Party presidental nomination) answers a very similar question about roads.

The short answer is: Most of the infrastructure would be built and maintained by the people who lived next to them. A university and some nearby business(es) might build a high speed connection. Then some adjacent neighborhoods might tie in. As low-cost regional hubs grow, entrepreneurs might focus on cost effective inter-regional infrastructure.

s/cables/infrastructure/g

Why not just use a different ISP over the same cables? The cables could be maintained by a "home owner association" type license that connects you to a main tower or something similar.

Is the only possible way to connect to the internet by a State granted monopoly? I don't think so, but I feel our creativity has been shot because this is how it's worked for years.

So if I want a faster connection I'd have to gather a quorum of people who live in my area and convince them to force everyone in the area to chip in the money required to upgrade the cables?

When my internet is down and the ISP claims the cables are bad who do I call? Myself?

He thinks (or claims) that we have network neutrality right now, and doesn't want that to change. He thinks (or claims) that since we got to this point without any rules or laws in place, we shouldn't eff that up putting any in place. (Just to be clear, I do not agree with his perspective, just explaining what I think it is.)

Not quite. Seriously. The current conservative argument against net neutrality is to paint net neutrality as "regulation" and "regulation" is bad. Instead of looking at the specifics of net neutrality regulation, they just say "regulation" and hope that people's imaginations run wild. (If they went into specifics, conservatives likely would support NN, it's essentially how Reagan-era Republicans created the Internet: http://www.archive.org/details/igovernance_rawfootage_l2a)

Boehner doesn't understand it nor will attempt to understand it. His paycheck depends on him not understanding it.

> "our most basic freedoms"

"Our" here means media/telecom corporations.

'Net neutrality' is a plan for government to regulate ISPs. Ostensibly, the government will only regulate in the consumers interest --- but the egyptian gov showed the other side of regulation (censorship).

He says he is against net neutrality; he is against government regulation of ISPs.

More interesting than anything he said, is the quote "No man can serve two masters". Currently ISPs serve you, but after net neutrality passes they will serve the government.

Currently, ISPs serve their shareholders. If net neutrality or anything similar to it ever does pass, ISPs will still largely serve their shareholders, but will have slightly less freedom to gouge consumers, and to censor content they don't like.

All businesses ultimately serve their shareholders. That is not grounds for regulation.

After net neutrality does pass, how will the legislation (and associated regulatory body) actually decrease prices? Will starting an ISP be easier once they require a regulatory stamp-of-approval? Will censorship be rarer when all ISPs are subject to a single, central regulatory body?

> Currently ISPs serve you

I'm not a board member of Comcast. I don't even hold any voting shares in CMCSA.

Comcast is everybodys whipping boy since the bittorrent blocking fiasco. They acted against their customer base and have been paying for it since. Why regulate beyond what Comcast's customers thought appropriate?

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing America that freedom for corporations equates to freedom for individuals.

Corporation are MADE of individuals.

A corporation is not a person and does not think. There is an actual human on the other end, and it is that human to whom you are giving that freedom.

People have a tendency to anthropomorphize corporations. A corporation did this, wants that, etc.

"... Corporation are MADE of individuals. ^A corporation is not a person^ and does not think. ..."

Yes they are.

"... In the United States, corporations were recognized as having rights to contract, and to have those contracts honored the same as contracts entered into by natural persons, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, decided in 1819. In the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394, the Supreme Court recognized that corporations were recognized as persons for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. ..." ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#United_States

A dubious outcome in what was meant in spirit to uphold a person's (black or white) civil and political rights being interfered by any state. cf: 14th amendment ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_Uni...

Collections of individuals don't act with the same motivations and ethics as individuals, so they shouldn't have the same rights.

All of these stories point to one solution- re-decentralize the Internet. Depending on either corporations or the government for a functioning Internet is a recipe for disaster.

Decentralization depends on standards, infrastructure and property rights. That's all. Bureaucrats and corporations not required. If you want to hook up your network to mine, so your users can share data with mine and vice versa, all we need is power, hardware, ethernet and good 'ol TCP/IP.

Net "Neutrality" advocates would make better use of their time starting their own networks, where anything neutral goes, including equal prioritization of XXX porn and 911 VOIP packets. On my network, if you freely agree to the terms, your porn packets would not be neutral. If you don't like that, you don't have to use my network. Don't like it? Tough. It's called freedom.

There are a number of disturbing aspects of this news, but I find the new "no discussion, no consideration, no compromise" attitude of the Republican party to be extremely frightening.

It works pretty well though. Every issue is framed as a decision whether the country as we know it will be destroyed. Seems a lot of voters like this style.

Just a few years ago all the news was about how the American public was sick of this sort of "polarizing" style of politics, and wanted a kinder, gentler style epitomized by "compromise".

Of course, that was when the Democrats were coming in to power.

Now that the Republicans seem to be coming back in to power, it seems that "compromise" is off the table. Not that it ever was on the table for Republicans.

Until the mid term elections that's exactly what President Obama did. (He would claim he wants ideas from Republicans, but mention a few things that were no compromise, and it was exactly those things that the Republicans actually wanted a compromise on.)

Basically whoever has a majority talks that way - both parties.

I wish we could have at least 3 (very different) parties so that no one party could ever get an automatic majority.

Failing that I like the current situation where each house has a different party in the majority.

It's just not good for politicians to have too much power, forcing them to compromise and negotiate is very good for them.

The idea of net neutrality comes from the concept of Common Carrier in the Communications Act of 1934: carriers cannot block communications between any two parties (such as favoring their subscribers over those of another carrier). In exchange the carriers are not liable for the content of the communications.

Another thing that seems to totally ignored by Boehner et. al. is that you sometimes need regulation to protect basic rights, the Civil Rights Act for example. Net neutrality (hacker view) is the right to communicate whatever with whomever. The FCC has actually been protecting the Internet, bu ever since Powell the child's term as FCC chairman, the waters have been considerably muddied.

(In order to give my rant some measure of verisimilitude, I attempted to vet it against Common Carrier and Communications Act of 1934 over at Wikipedia. I found two of the worst and most incomplete articles that I have ever encountered. The Act itself is a 333 page PDF. tl;dnr So please be kind. :-)

Check the following totally misleading article put out by the Corporate front "Ameripac":

FCC: Information Superhighway Traffic Cops http://conservativeactionalerts.com/blog_post/show/2120

This looks to be a campaign intentionally designed to confuse with the goal of restricting a truly free Internet in order to benefit big money interests.

Frankly I've had more than enough of mega-corporations corrupting good governance.

Can someone tell me if net neutrality was to fail and big service providers did restrict access as they saw fit - what ways would there be around it without paying extra $ to line their pockets? VPN? Something else? (I don't know much about this stuff so sorry if this is a dumb question)

Summary:

Do you want corporations to act as unregulated "traffic controllers"? Then you're against net neutrality.

Do you want an accountable government agency with a lackluster track record for citizens' digital rights to act as a "traffic controller"? Then you're for net neutrality.

* Before voting me down, look at the actions the federal government has already taken in regards to traffic control (ala exempting wireless carriers, and kill switch legislation). This smells like traffic control to me.

Then you aren't familiar with network neutrality, which has nothing to do with the FCC dictating what kind of traffic is and is not allowed or controlling traffic.

No it certainly doesn't have anything to do with that. However it does set the precedent that the FCC can set rules for how businesses operate their networks, and once that precedent is set it will become much easier to extend it to regulation of traffic. Keep in mind that governments rarely give up a power once it's become accepted, but that they are quick to extend any powers they do have.

This isn't necessarily the first or last link in that chain, but it is a link in the chain.

Isn't the FCC already regulating the Internet through CALEA? I don't quite understand the idea that NN is the FCC's "foot in the door".

Yes that's a good point. I edited my comment before I saw your reply and once after I saw your reply.

I'm not too familiar with CALEA but it seems to be an example of the phenomenon I was describing. It began as a way for law enforcement to monitor VOIP but expanded in 10 years to cover all internet traffic.

A good little technical overview of what CALEA entails here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst6500/io...

Given that the government exists first to protect the interests of the people, and given that many of these carriers operate with government granted monopolies, I find it hard to shed any tears for these corporations.

Please remember, network neutrality isn't springing out of a vacuum. This net neutrality movement comes in response to real world events and corporate mergers.

Well put, thanks.

But we vote and elect our government. Don't we?

I still want a technical definition of what Net Neutrality is. No using words like "freedom", given me something that is not open to interpretation.

As I define it: No packet shaping based on what service users are accessing; all packets are created equal.

Wikipedia also has a quite good definition. A key line from it: "The principle advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication."

Sadly, it's a term which is used to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean. Political language does horrible things to words.

Actually, I want packet shaping as long as its under my control (my netflix is more important than the download of software updates).

"Sadly, it's a term which is used to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean. Political language does horrible things to words."

You nailed the words to my biggest problem. I see how bills are named, and really won't say I support something unless I have a real definition.

Oh, Republicans are against net neutrality, so we should be for it, right?

If there's one dominant theme I've seen over the years when politics rears its ugly head in an online discussion, it's that

  Republicans = Corporations (Evil)
  Democrats = Workers (Wholesome goodness)

Now, it's entirely possible that those statements are true 100% of the time, but isn't it much more likely that there are exceptions to them, and if you're intellectually honest, you can acknowledge them? I'm not sure if Google results are a trustworthy source, but look up "corporate donations by party" and you'll see countless examples of corporations taking advantage of whatever party is in power. So you must acknowledge that neither party is completely beholden to "wholesome goodness".

Whichever side wins in the net neutrality debate, some corporations will lose, and others will win. If net neutrality needs to be enforced, it means that politicians will hold more power. Do we really want to keep giving those people more power, especially over something that's pretty free at the moment? Give more power to the same people who just renewed the Patriot Act?!

I'm sorry, but I've heard a lot of topics from Boehner that include: "protecting our most basic freedoms".

Of course, by "our", he mostly means "Corporations" (IMHO, viewed as first-class citizen groups).

Just my opinion.

Deleted comment

My reading of the article uncovered the following from John Boehner's speech:

"As far as I'm concerned, there is no compromise or middle ground when it comes to protecting our most basic freedoms."

I reckon this is the genesis of the headline.

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