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From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.

by teoruiz 16y ago

samt 16y ago
Which begs the question, WTF does it look like from the inside?
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  Like a functioning government, why do you ask?
  - thwarted 16y ago
    Are you implying that the workers in sausage factory think they are making filet mignon?
    - tptacek 16y ago
      What does this mean? Seriously. Sausage is delicious. The point of the sausage factory isn't that sausage is disgusting. It's that a delicious product sometimes requires production steps that appear repulsive to outsiders.
      - thwarted 16y ago
        I love sausage, I'm going to go have some right now at a picnic. The point of a sausage factory is to make sausage, disgusting or not. "sausage factory" is a reference to how it is made, independent of if it's delicious or not. See Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. I apologize if I offended sausage. Sausage, and the people who make it and eat it, will have to come to terms with the fact that it is not filet mignon. Do government workers and public servants, who have a view from the inside, think that it looks like a functioning government? Because from the outside, according to the past entries on this thread, it doesn't.
tptacek 16y ago
I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm queasy about enforced net neutrality; these are rules that govern what companies can do with their own infrastructure, and rules that could unintentionally retard progress instead of protecting it. Further, Congress has a legitimate gripe here. We don't elect FCC commissioners. They're appointed. We should be particularly concerned about them overstepping their bounds. Which a reasonable case can be made for here. I'm not sure I see what your comment adds to the discussion, other than "the duly elected Republican congress is doing something I disagree with!".
- jimktrains2 16y ago
  Wasn't that infrastructure paid for by taxes?
  - tptacek 16y ago
    No? Not really? Pretty sure AT&T and Comcast spend way way more of their own money forklifting in CRS1's and terminating circuits? From where do you get the idea that the major carriers are heavily subsidized? I'm sure they get breaks, but no, I don't think your taxes fund AT&T, Comcast, L3, &c.
    - jimktrains2 16y ago
      Land and subsidies to lay fiber?
- delinka 16y ago
  I think we're at a point where Internet access needs to be classified as a utility, like electricity and water. We are indeed in a situation where many companies have invested in their own infrastructure and maybe that requires consideration. I'm absolutely certain that jimktrains2 has a point: the U.S. taxpayers coughed up tremendous amounts of money to invest in infrastructure which makes those lines ours. (Sure, 'legally' AT&T et al own title and deed, but you and I still provided the money.) Ultimately the point is that it's time to classify access to the Internet as a utility and regulate it as such: separating ownership from operation, mandatory line sharing, various and sundry other mechanisms to make sure the consumer has choice amongst competitors. Then we can say net neutrality is not needed.
deleted 16y ago
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ascendant 16y ago
It's been a mess for a long time. And it's not just the Republicans. Anyone with a brain can look back over the past 20-30 years and see the fingerprints of both parties all over the collective disaster that is the current situation politically, financially and militarily.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Every time someone says this I think back to the politics of the 19th century, or the early 20th. It's probably true that we're at a depressing ebb of productivity and good faith in national politics, but politics 'twas ever thus. You think Fox News is bad? Try Hearst's papers in the 1890s. There are 307 million people in the United States. That the three million? people of in the original colonies managed to agree on a system of government that scaled this far and this well over so many diverse interests and conflicting worldviews is astonishing.
  - nkassis 16y ago
    So, is it possible that the system is starting to show cracks where it might no longer scale very well at 307 million people. Maybe giving more powers to states could potentially work. I don't know if I like that more or less.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      If it's showing cracks now, it's amazing we've held up for 100 years after the cracks we had when Teddy Roosevelt was President. I'm trying to advocate for perspective; I'm not saying things are great or don't need fixing, but remember that things have been much worse in the past.
      - jimktrains2 16y ago
        I feel a lot of the cracks are due to misuse of the system and misallocations in the system.
jerf 16y ago
There's other perspectives, such as "The political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess as the bill for decades of feckless spending and promises is coming due and only one faction in one party is even capable of admitting that, and for that they are being burned at the stake." (Which I consider a plain-and-simple case of shooting the messenger.) The mess we have right now is politicians trying to follow the time-honored bi-partisan tradition of kicking the can down the road and discovering there's not all that much road left.
- tptacek 16y ago
  The fact that you feel like you have to make a comment about spending on a thread about net neutrality is an indication that the thread has developed at least some ambient toxicity. Notice how little it takes for that to happen! Just a couple seed comments about "Republicans" and we're off to the races. (I'm not criticizing you).
r0s 16y ago
It seems that way if you think every bill is law before it reaches the Senate. From this time last year: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/83059-senate-sitting-on-290-house-bills http://thehill.com/homenews/house/83059-senate-sitting-on-29... Maybe the sky isn't really falling?
jacoblyles 16y ago
I don't believe such blatant partisanship belongs on Hacker News.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.

by teoruiz 16y ago

From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.

samt 16y ago

Which begs the question, WTF does it look like from the inside?

waterlesscloud 16y ago
Like a functioning government, why do you ask?
- thwarted 16y ago
  Are you implying that the workers in sausage factory think they are making filet mignon?
  - tptacek 16y ago
    What does this mean? Seriously. Sausage is delicious. The point of the sausage factory isn't that sausage is disgusting. It's that a delicious product sometimes requires production steps that appear repulsive to outsiders.
    - thwarted 16y ago
      I love sausage, I'm going to go have some right now at a picnic. The point of a sausage factory is to make sausage, disgusting or not. "sausage factory" is a reference to how it is made, independent of if it's delicious or not. See Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. I apologize if I offended sausage. Sausage, and the people who make it and eat it, will have to come to terms with the fact that it is not filet mignon. Do government workers and public servants, who have a view from the inside, think that it looks like a functioning government? Because from the outside, according to the past entries on this thread, it doesn't.

tptacek 16y ago

I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm queasy about enforced net neutrality; these are rules that govern what companies can do with their own infrastructure, and rules that could unintentionally retard progress instead of protecting it. Further, Congress has a legitimate gripe here. We don't elect FCC commissioners. They're appointed. We should be particularly concerned about them overstepping their bounds. Which a reasonable case can be made for here. I'm not sure I see what your comment adds to the discussion, other than "the duly elected Republican congress is doing something I disagree with!".

jimktrains2 16y ago
Wasn't that infrastructure paid for by taxes?
- tptacek 16y ago
  No? Not really? Pretty sure AT&T and Comcast spend way way more of their own money forklifting in CRS1's and terminating circuits? From where do you get the idea that the major carriers are heavily subsidized? I'm sure they get breaks, but no, I don't think your taxes fund AT&T, Comcast, L3, &c.
  - jimktrains2 16y ago
    Land and subsidies to lay fiber?
delinka 16y ago
I think we're at a point where Internet access needs to be classified as a utility, like electricity and water. We are indeed in a situation where many companies have invested in their own infrastructure and maybe that requires consideration. I'm absolutely certain that jimktrains2 has a point: the U.S. taxpayers coughed up tremendous amounts of money to invest in infrastructure which makes those lines ours. (Sure, 'legally' AT&T et al own title and deed, but you and I still provided the money.) Ultimately the point is that it's time to classify access to the Internet as a utility and regulate it as such: separating ownership from operation, mandatory line sharing, various and sundry other mechanisms to make sure the consumer has choice amongst competitors. Then we can say net neutrality is not needed.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

ascendant 16y ago

It's been a mess for a long time. And it's not just the Republicans. Anyone with a brain can look back over the past 20-30 years and see the fingerprints of both parties all over the collective disaster that is the current situation politically, financially and militarily.

tptacek 16y ago
Every time someone says this I think back to the politics of the 19th century, or the early 20th. It's probably true that we're at a depressing ebb of productivity and good faith in national politics, but politics 'twas ever thus. You think Fox News is bad? Try Hearst's papers in the 1890s. There are 307 million people in the United States. That the three million? people of in the original colonies managed to agree on a system of government that scaled this far and this well over so many diverse interests and conflicting worldviews is astonishing.
- nkassis 16y ago
  So, is it possible that the system is starting to show cracks where it might no longer scale very well at 307 million people. Maybe giving more powers to states could potentially work. I don't know if I like that more or less.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    If it's showing cracks now, it's amazing we've held up for 100 years after the cracks we had when Teddy Roosevelt was President. I'm trying to advocate for perspective; I'm not saying things are great or don't need fixing, but remember that things have been much worse in the past.
    - jimktrains2 16y ago
      I feel a lot of the cracks are due to misuse of the system and misallocations in the system.

jerf 16y ago

There's other perspectives, such as "The political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess as the bill for decades of feckless spending and promises is coming due and only one faction in one party is even capable of admitting that, and for that they are being burned at the stake." (Which I consider a plain-and-simple case of shooting the messenger.) The mess we have right now is politicians trying to follow the time-honored bi-partisan tradition of kicking the can down the road and discovering there's not all that much road left.

tptacek 16y ago
The fact that you feel like you have to make a comment about spending on a thread about net neutrality is an indication that the thread has developed at least some ambient toxicity. Notice how little it takes for that to happen! Just a couple seed comments about "Republicans" and we're off to the races. (I'm not criticizing you).

r0s 16y ago

It seems that way if you think every bill is law before it reaches the Senate. From this time last year: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/83059-senate-sitting-on-290-house-bills http://thehill.com/homenews/house/83059-senate-sitting-on-29... Maybe the sky isn't really falling?

jacoblyles 16y ago

I don't believe such blatant partisanship belongs on Hacker News.

deleted 16y ago

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