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I agree with you that government should be kept on a short leash, for the reasons you state, but we don't want to strangle it, either - Government has a job to

by T-R 16y ago

I agree with you that government should be kept on a short leash, for the reasons you state, but we don't want to strangle it, either - Government has a job to keep others from infringing on your rights. If ISPs are free to regulate traffic, then they have the power to strangle the business of a content provider by preventing their customers from accessing the content. Even if you argue that customers have chosen their infrastructure provider, how is the infrastructure provider not infringing on the rights of the content provider, which doesn't even do business with them?

1337p337 16y ago
I agree that the government's job is to keep others from infringing on individual rights, but I don't see a content provider's rights being violated. Let's say Verizon starts offering "everything on the net except NetFlix" as a package. They're not obligated to carry any traffic they don't want, and there's no law that stops them from blocking that traffic right now. They don't do it because they'd lose tons of customers; this is one evil thing that they have an incentive not to do. (If all ISPs, or even all ISPs in a given area do this, then rights are violated, and they'd get slapped with violations of the RICO Act; that's a different matter, though.) They lose money if they do it. What if the FCC decides to kill off NetFlix, though? The downside for them is that somewhere down the line (still waiting for this in the case of the DMCA...) a judge tells them they can't. Let's say it's fine for the FCC (or another government entity) to do this, though. What if I run open WiFi, but I block bittorrent traffic? Have I violated my neighbors' rights? I think I can do what I want with my pipe, but would this be under the FCC's authority? I'm not a business, sure, but what about the WiFi at, say, Starbucks? I trust a non-monopoly much more than I trust a government, which has a de facto monopoly over imposing its will by force on the populace. Built into the laws of this country is an inherent mistrust of the government., the idea that authority over the populace has a corrupting influence, and that it should be kept limited to the extent possible. You hope for the best (a benevolent set of leaders) but plan for the worst (a power-hungry group of totalitarians). The Constitution's plan for the worst is to avoid trusting in our leaders' benevolence and keep them from getting enough rope to string us up. It's what I love about this country. I think most of the commenters here agree on that principle, so I would like to apologize as it seems I've been a little abrasive, and we're all on the same side here (at least apparently). But I am secure in my belief that the government is too big already and its authority needs to be reduced, not expanded in any direction.
- T-R 16y ago
  We are really all on the same side - the concern on both sides is about centralizing power. Your concern is that we're giving government too much power, mine is that we're trading government power for corporate power, and we each see the power we grant as mitigated somehow - either by the 3 branches of government, or by the free market, and neither has faith in the other's mitigating force. Starbucks free WiFi is an excellent point, which sheds light on the underlying philosophical debate. If an organization provides a resource (WiFi, water, a job), but only to a select group of their choosing, at what point do we call it supplying a service, and at what point do we call it discriminatory starvation? Is the glass half full, or half empty? If there's competition, it's moot, but if there isn't any, we're giving the single supplier complete power over distribution (slippery slope to plutocracy argument). If we ban discrimination, it's also moot, but then we're giving government power to dictate rules for private organizations (slipperly slope to fascism argument).

by T-R 16y ago

1337p337 16y ago

I agree that the government's job is to keep others from infringing on individual rights, but I don't see a content provider's rights being violated. Let's say Verizon starts offering "everything on the net except NetFlix" as a package. They're not obligated to carry any traffic they don't want, and there's no law that stops them from blocking that traffic right now. They don't do it because they'd lose tons of customers; this is one evil thing that they have an incentive not to do. (If all ISPs, or even all ISPs in a given area do this, then rights are violated, and they'd get slapped with violations of the RICO Act; that's a different matter, though.) They lose money if they do it. What if the FCC decides to kill off NetFlix, though? The downside for them is that somewhere down the line (still waiting for this in the case of the DMCA...) a judge tells them they can't. Let's say it's fine for the FCC (or another government entity) to do this, though. What if I run open WiFi, but I block bittorrent traffic? Have I violated my neighbors' rights? I think I can do what I want with my pipe, but would this be under the FCC's authority? I'm not a business, sure, but what about the WiFi at, say, Starbucks? I trust a non-monopoly much more than I trust a government, which has a de facto monopoly over imposing its will by force on the populace. Built into the laws of this country is an inherent mistrust of the government., the idea that authority over the populace has a corrupting influence, and that it should be kept limited to the extent possible. You hope for the best (a benevolent set of leaders) but plan for the worst (a power-hungry group of totalitarians). The Constitution's plan for the worst is to avoid trusting in our leaders' benevolence and keep them from getting enough rope to string us up. It's what I love about this country. I think most of the commenters here agree on that principle, so I would like to apologize as it seems I've been a little abrasive, and we're all on the same side here (at least apparently). But I am secure in my belief that the government is too big already and its authority needs to be reduced, not expanded in any direction.

T-R 16y ago
We are really all on the same side - the concern on both sides is about centralizing power. Your concern is that we're giving government too much power, mine is that we're trading government power for corporate power, and we each see the power we grant as mitigated somehow - either by the 3 branches of government, or by the free market, and neither has faith in the other's mitigating force. Starbucks free WiFi is an excellent point, which sheds light on the underlying philosophical debate. If an organization provides a resource (WiFi, water, a job), but only to a select group of their choosing, at what point do we call it supplying a service, and at what point do we call it discriminatory starvation? Is the glass half full, or half empty? If there's competition, it's moot, but if there isn't any, we're giving the single supplier complete power over distribution (slippery slope to plutocracy argument). If we ban discrimination, it's also moot, but then we're giving government power to dictate rules for private organizations (slipperly slope to fascism argument).