3 ms·

Unfortunately we have no alternatives to choose candidates from that understand neither extremes will work, and that you actually need a mixture of legislation/

Unfortunately we have no alternatives to choose candidates from that understand neither extremes will work, and that you actually need a mixture of legislation/regulation in the right places, and no legistlation/regulation in others.

ars 8y ago
That's why you make the parties fight. Like have the house and the senate controlled by different parties, or the president and the legislature different parties, etc, etc. There's a reason control usually flip-flops each election, it's the electorate trying to accomplish this. See here: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/07/mary-jordan/do-presidents-always-get-shellacked-midterm-electi/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep...
- craftyguy 8y ago
  While compromising may have worked in the past, each year brings a more polarized situation where each party is less willing to compromise. > Like have the house and the senate controlled by different parties, or the president and the legislature different parties, etc, etc. This two party system makes it too easy for one party to control all 3 branches (like now..). Having a true multiparty system (>2, preferably more) forces compromise, because you wouldn't have a government without it.
  - andrew_ 8y ago
    One can point to the 24-hour cycle media viciously vying for eyeballs, and the litany of pseudo-news outlets that have gained widespread audiences and which peddle in division for a major portion of the cause. The electorate are being manipulated by our own. Unless the media on all sides walk back the rhetoric it will only get worse in the years to come.
vonkow 8y ago
IMHO, the United States lacks a true left wing party and the Democrats are the party of moderate regulation/legislation (which is unfortunate for a number of reasons).
ikiris 8y ago
They aren't two extremes. Democrats are somewhere around center. It's just the spectrum in the US is shifted vastly right as a whole.
- ars 8y ago
  Or maybe the EU (which you are comparing to) is shifted vastly to the left? How do you know which it is? But it's irrelevant, for the electorate in question, Democrats are most definitely not center.
  - ikiris 8y ago
    Nowhere did I mention the EU at all. I was using an absolute scale, and yes, frankly the democrats are a bit right of center. I mean if you declare the electorate the spectrum, then nothing means anything, because its all a completely meaningless fluid definition which has no basis in actual reality.
rayiner 8y ago
To the contrary, there is broad consensus and what people are all arguing about is actually the mushy middle. The Republicans won on this one--the 1996 telecom act broadly deregulated the telecom industry. Most of Europe followed suit and deregulated their telecom markets similar to how we did it in the 1996 act. What republicans are worried about is attempts to undo the 1996 reforms. There are people who think that rate regulation, municipal utility boards deciding where infrastructure should be built, etc., are actually good ideas. Probably not a majority of people even in the democrat camp, but there are enough people who don't remember why the 1996 act was a good idea that it makes republicans nervous.
- techsupporter 8y ago
  > Most of Europe followed suit and deregulated their telecom markets similar to how we did it in the 1996 act. But one big problem with "attempts to undo the 1996 reforms" is that Europe kept (and expanded) linesharing and unbundled network element rules; the United States threw out most mandatory UNE rules and never expanded them to include companies operating networks over coax or new-build fiber optic networks. So now we have this farce where, in some areas, people served by DSL have the choice of several (slow) ISPs because the copper is still technically, kinda unbundled. But if you can't get DSL or can't get a sufficiently fast speed, your sole choice is likely your monopoly cable provider.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Most large European countries didn't expand unbundling to include cable and fiber either: https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf. None of the five largest EU countries (which comprise the majority of the EU population), applied unbundling to coax. Most don't apply unbundling to fiber either. U.S. copper unbundling rules are weaker than the U.S., but copper is also largely irrelevant in the U.S., because most broadband is over cable or fiber. Unbundling matters more in Europe, but primarily because DSL is much more common in Europe.
- tonysdg 8y ago
  The problem as I understand it is that deregulation helps a lot in situations where a compelling business case exists for companies to expand/compete, and it hurts a lot where said business case does not exist. As it so happens, crowded urban centers, where a single cell tower or fiber-optic network can serve thousands of paying customers, benefit a great deal from deregulation. Sparsely populated rural areas, however, where "last mile" really means "last 30 miles", get screwed over by deregulation since companies have minimal incentive to expand if it only means 10 new paying members. I'm not saying either extreme is perfect -- indeed, deregulation likely helps more than it hurts given increasing population density in U.S. cities -- but it seems to me that there are advantages to both sides of the equation.

ars 8y ago

That's why you make the parties fight. Like have the house and the senate controlled by different parties, or the president and the legislature different parties, etc, etc. There's a reason control usually flip-flops each election, it's the electorate trying to accomplish this. See here: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/07/mary-jordan/do-presidents-always-get-shellacked-midterm-electi/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep...

craftyguy 8y ago
While compromising may have worked in the past, each year brings a more polarized situation where each party is less willing to compromise. > Like have the house and the senate controlled by different parties, or the president and the legislature different parties, etc, etc. This two party system makes it too easy for one party to control all 3 branches (like now..). Having a true multiparty system (>2, preferably more) forces compromise, because you wouldn't have a government without it.
- andrew_ 8y ago
  One can point to the 24-hour cycle media viciously vying for eyeballs, and the litany of pseudo-news outlets that have gained widespread audiences and which peddle in division for a major portion of the cause. The electorate are being manipulated by our own. Unless the media on all sides walk back the rhetoric it will only get worse in the years to come.

vonkow 8y ago

IMHO, the United States lacks a true left wing party and the Democrats are the party of moderate regulation/legislation (which is unfortunate for a number of reasons).

ikiris 8y ago

They aren't two extremes. Democrats are somewhere around center. It's just the spectrum in the US is shifted vastly right as a whole.

ars 8y ago
Or maybe the EU (which you are comparing to) is shifted vastly to the left? How do you know which it is? But it's irrelevant, for the electorate in question, Democrats are most definitely not center.
- ikiris 8y ago
  Nowhere did I mention the EU at all. I was using an absolute scale, and yes, frankly the democrats are a bit right of center. I mean if you declare the electorate the spectrum, then nothing means anything, because its all a completely meaningless fluid definition which has no basis in actual reality.

rayiner 8y ago

To the contrary, there is broad consensus and what people are all arguing about is actually the mushy middle. The Republicans won on this one--the 1996 telecom act broadly deregulated the telecom industry. Most of Europe followed suit and deregulated their telecom markets similar to how we did it in the 1996 act. What republicans are worried about is attempts to undo the 1996 reforms. There are people who think that rate regulation, municipal utility boards deciding where infrastructure should be built, etc., are actually good ideas. Probably not a majority of people even in the democrat camp, but there are enough people who don't remember why the 1996 act was a good idea that it makes republicans nervous.

techsupporter 8y ago
> Most of Europe followed suit and deregulated their telecom markets similar to how we did it in the 1996 act. But one big problem with "attempts to undo the 1996 reforms" is that Europe kept (and expanded) linesharing and unbundled network element rules; the United States threw out most mandatory UNE rules and never expanded them to include companies operating networks over coax or new-build fiber optic networks. So now we have this farce where, in some areas, people served by DSL have the choice of several (slow) ISPs because the copper is still technically, kinda unbundled. But if you can't get DSL or can't get a sufficiently fast speed, your sole choice is likely your monopoly cable provider.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Most large European countries didn't expand unbundling to include cable and fiber either: https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf. None of the five largest EU countries (which comprise the majority of the EU population), applied unbundling to coax. Most don't apply unbundling to fiber either. U.S. copper unbundling rules are weaker than the U.S., but copper is also largely irrelevant in the U.S., because most broadband is over cable or fiber. Unbundling matters more in Europe, but primarily because DSL is much more common in Europe.
tonysdg 8y ago
The problem as I understand it is that deregulation helps a lot in situations where a compelling business case exists for companies to expand/compete, and it hurts a lot where said business case does not exist. As it so happens, crowded urban centers, where a single cell tower or fiber-optic network can serve thousands of paying customers, benefit a great deal from deregulation. Sparsely populated rural areas, however, where "last mile" really means "last 30 miles", get screwed over by deregulation since companies have minimal incentive to expand if it only means 10 new paying members. I'm not saying either extreme is perfect -- indeed, deregulation likely helps more than it hurts given increasing population density in U.S. cities -- but it seems to me that there are advantages to both sides of the equation.