6 ms·

Rand and Ron Paul denounce net neutrality and the public domain

35 points by joelhaus 14y ago

prpatel 14y ago
This makes no sense, Ron usually takes the freedom / libertarian angle on things. I'm sure there's some nefarious reason for their stand (campaign dollars?). sigh wish there was a way to 'hack' politics...
- kiba 14y ago
  A lot of people in libertarianism will actually oppose copyright and patents on property right ground. However It would seems that Ron Paul oppose public domain on property right ground. Even so, I think the libertarians are coming to the consensus that IP are something to be opposed. Ron Paul is just a little bit behind on the time.
  - dantheman 14y ago
    I wasn't sure what they meant by property rights, I assumed they were referring to physical infrastructure that runs the internet. Mandating sharing is a violation of property rights. I didn't see this as addressing intellectual property at all.
    - kiba 14y ago
      When they say "public domain", I assume IP rights are involved. Expansion of the public domain is the kind of things that any anti-IP libertarians will applause.
      - maratd 14y ago
        > When they say "public domain", I assume IP rights are involved. Why?
- kmanlives 14y ago
  His libertarian approach on this issue is that the government should be "hands off" and not make any legislation to control technology and the internet, including legislated net neutrality rules. He makes a good point in saying that legislation can't keep up with the speed of technology, but I'm not sure where I come down on his overall ideas.
- dantheman 14y ago
  What doesn't make sense? The only way to guarantee the free and open nature of the internet is to keep the government out of it. Once the government builds an apparatus to enforce net neutrality it's role will gradually expand to start controlling the internet. An argument can be made that government funding of teclos should come with certain restrictions - those restrictions must be present when the money is doled out. Government creating problems in order to solve them, is an easy way to further their involvement. Additionally, I believe the Pauls would be against the funding.
  - lclarkmichalek 14y ago
    I think you should probably remove the absolutes from your comment. It may come to pass that net neutrality legislation morphs into something larger, but suggesting that it is a given is just an attempt to dismiss the entire argument on that topic. Saying that keeping governments out is the only way to safeguard the open internet is stupid; many other interests are at play, and many commercial organisations would definitely like to see the current status modified in their favor, which may or may not be good for net neutrality, and related issues.
  - pvidler 14y ago
    If the government gives up any and all control over the internet, then they simply cede it to the ISPs and carriers; they win by default simply because our access must go through them. I don't want to be paying extra to access certain popular services, or to be rate-limited while accessing a service that my own ISP owns an alternative to. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. That said, I can benefit in some areas that would no longer exist with government-enforced net neutrality. For example, here in the UK BT offers an unlimited broadband deal with 'exclusions' -- without them I suspect there would have to be bandwidth caps: "We want to give everyone the best possible speeds at all times, so we only manage speeds on P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing networks at peak times. All other broadband use isn't affected – and there's no limit to how much you can download." -- from the products and services page on BT.com.
- ef4 14y ago
  There is a principled argument against net neutrality as it's usually proposed, whether or not you happen to agree. Given congress's track record, I think there are plenty of rational reasons to be wary of asking them to start telling ISPs how to run their networks. Why should we think such regulations wouldn't simply favor incumbents who are big enough to play the political game, like most of what congress passes? If the problem with the telcos is that they're wielding publicly-granted monopoly powers, then let's address that directly. For an example alternative, I like the model where neighborhoods or municipalities own their own last mile infrastructure, giving them plenty of leverage to buy transit at competitive prices. This solution is practically illegal thanks to the legal barriers supporting the existing monopolies. Streamline the process for startups to get approval to compete and I don't doubt we'd see many innovative new models.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  The manifesto has some serious problems, but the Boingboing piece is a long, long way from an unbiased interpretation of it. Saying that it opposes the public domain and argues for government monopoly on control of information is just twisted and simply not true. Read it yourself here. http://www.scribd.com/doc/99193487/The-Technology-Revolution-Final-Rev-629 http://www.scribd.com/doc/99193487/The-Technology-Revolution...
- mikeash 14y ago
  The idea is that network operators should be free to operate their networks as they see fit, including blocking traffic, throttling, charging for preferred access, etc. I happen to disagree, because internet operators tend to operate in a quasi-monopoly state in the US, but the simple freedom/libertarian angle here is against net neutrality.
- temphn 14y ago
  Google is a great company in many ways, but "net neutrality" is a political catchphrase. If Google changes your ranking, you lose traffic and visitors just as surely as if Comcast throttles your bandwidth and people bail on your site for slowness. But no one is talking about "search neutrality" and regulating Google's rankings. And Google owns its own dedicated fiber connections, which obviously prioritize its own traffic. Freeing up the telecommunications market is the solution here. With new protocols and new carriers, you could implement things like SPDY in hardware if carriers were free to discriminate between packet A and packet B.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- tzs 14y ago
  He is taking the libertarian angle: let the ISPs do whatever they want with THEIR PROPERTY (their network), and if consumers don't like it when the ISPs start imposing restrictions then competing ISPs will arise and the free market will work everything out and we'll all live happily ever after. Remember, there's no such thing as a natural monopoly in Paul's world, individuals are on equal footing in bargaining power against giant companies, there is no information asymmetry, any harm can be set right by a monetary settlement, and Nash equilibria always give the best outcome for all parties, and so free markets alway are best and don't need any regulation to make them actually work.
SpeakMouthWords 14y ago
That first paragraph is choked with hyperbolic language. I think I'd rather read a different source on the matter if one exists.
- saraid216 14y ago
  The first link has a scribd embedded with the document itself. You could go read that.
- tjic 14y ago
  Indeed. Boing Boing may be interesting, it may touch on topics that are relevant...but as far as "reporting" goes, it's worthless. I resolved to never read it again about a year ago, and I've been happier since then.
iProject 14y ago
>> evil "collectivists" ... are saying that "what is considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded." It is "collectivist" to release software (etc.) in public domain??? Something done only by collectivists? So that if I contribute to FOSS I must be labeled a collectivist? Maybe the Paul's better offer further explanations. [edited for clarity]
- baddox 14y ago
  You should read the actual manifesto: http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07/05/c4l-introduces-technology-revolution http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07... The boingboing author seems to be interpreting the manifesto incorrectly, because the manifesto is not using the term "public domain" to mean what we all use it to mean.
- maratd 14y ago
  Whoa! How did we go from A to B? Nowhere does either Paul mention open source. Read that quote again. They are decrying the expansion of the public domain onto private property. Like when you start telling somebody how to use their stuff? I'm sure you know what I mean. They have zero problems with people voluntarily contributing to the public domain. It's when that contribution isn't voluntary ...
ojbyrne 14y ago
Oh that internet, created by the wonders of the free market. We'll just forget about that whole DARPA thing.
- hollerith 14y ago
  DARPA, NSF and to a lesser extent, CERN and the governments of Britain and France. It is hard to identify significant influences on the Internet by entrepreneurs or private firms (excepting work done on government contracts) before 1992. The most influential one I can think of is the decision by Sun Microsystems in the mid-1980s to include a TCP/IP stack and basic internet client software with every workstation at no extra charge -- which was probably responsible for the biggest increase in the number of people with access to email in the 1980s -- but even there, doing so would not have occurred to Sun if the US government had not contracted with UC Berkeley to add those things to BSD. Summary: although entrepreneurs and the market had dramatic effects on the internet after 1992, the internet of 1992 was the result mainly of substantial spending by the US government every year for thirty years leading up to 1992. And the internet of 1992 was already very compelling and useful to those willing to master the "text-mode" (no graphical UIs) software used to access it.
fragsworth 14y ago
> Considering the Pauls were both instrumental in the fight against SOPA and PIPA, you would think that the two of them understood how copyright law is massively abused and how beneficial the public domain is. Not many people seem to understand their libertarian views on things. Their philosophy is neither for free Internet or against free Internet. Their philosophy is about less government intervention. SOPA and PIPA are both bills that impose new government control over certain things (controlling/limiting the rights and freedoms of individuals and ISPs). Net neutrality is also an idea that imposes new government control over certain things (controlling the rights of ISPs). To libertarians, almost all government control is considered bad, be it control over corporations or control over individuals. Thus they are against all of these things simultaneously. I'm not saying I agree with their exact philosophy. But it's simple, very consistent, and they never seem to stray far from it.
- waffle_ss 14y ago
  Totally agreed. Also, even if you don't agree with Ron Paul, how can you not applaud a Congressperson who clearly outlines their thinking on federal issues? I wish that all Congresspeople would consider this criteria before voting on federal legislation: 1. Is this a core function of the federal government? 2. Does it execute Constitutionally defined duties? 3. Does it protect Constitutionally defined rights? 4. Does it protect property rights? 5. Does it protect individual rights? 6. If the federal government does not do this, will others? 7. Will this policy or regulation allow the market to decide outcomes or will it distort themarket for political ends? 8. Is this policy or regulation clear and specific, with defined metrics and limitations?
  - toddh 14y ago
    5-8 are clearly extra constitutional and the constitution is so vague as to make 1-4 more or less unanswerable. The constitution is not a set of unit tests.
- tzs 14y ago
  > But it's simple, very consistent, and they never seem to stray far from it. That's my biggest objection to present day libertarianism. They are consistent and do not stray--even when the outcome is terrible. It's fine to develop a set of principles, and try to apply them universally and consistency, but if you ignore the outcomes you are just engaging in philosophical masturbation. A good example of this is Rothbard. He lays down his libertarian principles, then reasons from them and concludes that abortion must be allowed at any point up until birth. Then he continues and considers what happens if the parents decide they do not want the baby AFTER it is born. He reasons that accordion to libertarian principle the parents can no longer abort the child--it would be murder to actively kill it. However, because no one can be forced to care for another, the parents have no obligation to feed the child. They can let it starve with no legal consequences in an ideal libertarian society, Rothbard reasons. He admits that parents letting children starve is a terrible immoral outcome, but since his principles say it must be allowed, so be it. He doesn't think this would happen often because the parents could make money in the free market for babies, so they will opt to sell the baby rather than let it die. See: http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/fourteen.asp http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/fourteen.asp I think of principles as being to society as theory is to science. The test of whether or not you've found the right principles is whether or not they lead to outcomes that you consider moral, just as the test in science of whether you have found the right theory is how it fares when applied to experiment.
baddox 14y ago
Did anyone read the actual manifesto? [0] The wording sounds a bit confused, because I can't often tell if they're using precise technical definitions for terms or not, but I'm not seeing what this article's author claims to be seeing. The manifesto appears to denounce government-enforced IP law [1], and the only mention of "public domain" seems to be referring not to creative works without any license or copyright, but rather to the idea that websites run on privately-owned hardware should be considered "public" in some way (and therefore the government's business) [2]. From what I can tell, the main point of this manifesto is that governments are trying to establish control over privately-owned Internet resources, that the language they use is intentionally deceptive, and that governments enjoy a double standard whereby data collection is prohibited for private endeavors but allowed and even encouraged by governments [3]. Perhaps the boingboing author would also consider my views about the Internet and legislation radical and "pretty terrible," but while I consider this manifesto confusing and poorly written, I'm not seeing any evidence of many of his points, and I can't help but agree with many of the manifesto's points. One particular line from this article says "They also ... argue that government monopolies over knowledge should be extended, and that tax-dollars should be used to enforce them." Where is that in the manifesto? Is the author missing something, or am I missing something? [0] http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07/05/c4l-introduces-technology-revolution http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07... [1] "Among the most insidious are government attempts to control and regulate competition, infrastructure, privacy, and intellectual property." [2] "According to them [the Internet collectivists]: ... Private property rights on the Internet should exist in limited fashion or not at all, and what is considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded." [3] "Internet collectivists are clever. They are masters at hijacking the language of freedom and liberty to disingenuously push for more centralized control. 'Openness' means government control of privately owned infrastructure. 'Net neutrality' means government acting as arbiter and enforcer of what it deems to be 'neutral.' 'Internet freedom' means the destruction of property rights. 'Competition' means managed competition, with the government acting as judge and jury on what constitutes competition and what does not. Our 'right to privacy' only applies to the data collection activities of the private sector, rarely to government.
- ojbyrne 14y ago
gojomo 14y ago
On net neutrality, this isn't surprising and is in my view quite respectable. In Washington DC, where the legislators Paul operate, calls for 'net neutrality' typically mean putting some federal agency (like the FCC) in charge of what's truly 'neutral' and allowed. The FCC manages licenses for the exercise of free speech over broadcast media. It fines disapproved speech. It dictates that telecom equipment be wiretap-friendly. It's a board of 5 political appointees not apportioned by vote or region, but split between the two national political parties. The FCC could never be a friend of true 'neutrality', but rather what the national political establishment finds helpful. Even if initially adopted in the spirit of the 'nondiscriminatory transit' principle, after a few years you should expect 'network neutrality' to mean 'safe for children', 'copyright-protecting', 'wiretap-friendly', 'with set-asides for underrepresented viewpoints', and 'in compliance with campaign finance laws'. After all, it's not a 'neutral' net if it's filled with piracy, pornography, untappable criminal chat, ethnic/gender-insensitivity, and unregistered political activity. That's downright hostile to law-abiding Americans and their bipartisan protectors at the FCC! There's one small, vague and convoluted mention in the Paul statement about the 'public domain'. It reads roughly: According to them [government attempts to control and regulate competition, infrastructure, privacy and intellectual property]... Private property rights on the Internet should exist in limited fashion or not at all, and what is considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded. That mention isn't even necessarily referring to the rigorous intellectual property notion of 'public domain' (meaning non-copyrighted). It seems more the colloquial notion of 'public domain' as 'that which the government manages, like parks and roads and government buildings'. In order to ridicule this, Doctorow has to spin Masnick, who is himself heavily spinning the Pauls. So that one vague mention becomes instead... • for Masnick, "The Public Domain [is really an] Evil Collectivist Plot" • for Doctorow, "Rand and Ron Paul denounce... the public domain" This is a signature move of politics and click-grabbing headline-escalation. Create the an unfair, unfavorable, heavily-spun summarization of someone's views. Credit that summarization to the original source as if they'd said exactly that. Publicize to get a reaction. Collect the traffic-boosting glory!
- hollerith 14y ago
  Have you considered that for the first 23 years of the Internet/ARPANet's existence, the government was firmly in control of the entire network, including consistently being the largest purchasers of internet equipment such as routers, and being the instigator, planner and funder of the initial design and implementation? (They tried to interest AT&T in running it -- twice, in 1977 and 1987 -- but AT&T was not interested.) Have you considered that it is because of enlightened decisions made by the government that, e.g., Tim BL et al did not need to seek the government's permission to use the internet to deploy the WWW? That in 1999 Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker did not need to get the permission of the government to use the internet to deploy Napster?

35 points by joelhaus 14y ago

This makes no sense, Ron usually takes the freedom / libertarian angle on things. I'm sure there's some nefarious reason for their stand (campaign dollars?). sigh wish there was a way to 'hack' politics...

kiba 14y ago
A lot of people in libertarianism will actually oppose copyright and patents on property right ground. However It would seems that Ron Paul oppose public domain on property right ground. Even so, I think the libertarians are coming to the consensus that IP are something to be opposed. Ron Paul is just a little bit behind on the time.
- dantheman 14y ago
  I wasn't sure what they meant by property rights, I assumed they were referring to physical infrastructure that runs the internet. Mandating sharing is a violation of property rights. I didn't see this as addressing intellectual property at all.
  - kiba 14y ago
    When they say "public domain", I assume IP rights are involved. Expansion of the public domain is the kind of things that any anti-IP libertarians will applause.
    - maratd 14y ago
      > When they say "public domain", I assume IP rights are involved. Why?
kmanlives 14y ago
His libertarian approach on this issue is that the government should be "hands off" and not make any legislation to control technology and the internet, including legislated net neutrality rules. He makes a good point in saying that legislation can't keep up with the speed of technology, but I'm not sure where I come down on his overall ideas.
dantheman 14y ago
What doesn't make sense? The only way to guarantee the free and open nature of the internet is to keep the government out of it. Once the government builds an apparatus to enforce net neutrality it's role will gradually expand to start controlling the internet. An argument can be made that government funding of teclos should come with certain restrictions - those restrictions must be present when the money is doled out. Government creating problems in order to solve them, is an easy way to further their involvement. Additionally, I believe the Pauls would be against the funding.
- lclarkmichalek 14y ago
  I think you should probably remove the absolutes from your comment. It may come to pass that net neutrality legislation morphs into something larger, but suggesting that it is a given is just an attempt to dismiss the entire argument on that topic. Saying that keeping governments out is the only way to safeguard the open internet is stupid; many other interests are at play, and many commercial organisations would definitely like to see the current status modified in their favor, which may or may not be good for net neutrality, and related issues.
- pvidler 14y ago
  If the government gives up any and all control over the internet, then they simply cede it to the ISPs and carriers; they win by default simply because our access must go through them. I don't want to be paying extra to access certain popular services, or to be rate-limited while accessing a service that my own ISP owns an alternative to. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. That said, I can benefit in some areas that would no longer exist with government-enforced net neutrality. For example, here in the UK BT offers an unlimited broadband deal with 'exclusions' -- without them I suspect there would have to be bandwidth caps: "We want to give everyone the best possible speeds at all times, so we only manage speeds on P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing networks at peak times. All other broadband use isn't affected – and there's no limit to how much you can download." -- from the products and services page on BT.com.
ef4 14y ago
There is a principled argument against net neutrality as it's usually proposed, whether or not you happen to agree. Given congress's track record, I think there are plenty of rational reasons to be wary of asking them to start telling ISPs how to run their networks. Why should we think such regulations wouldn't simply favor incumbents who are big enough to play the political game, like most of what congress passes? If the problem with the telcos is that they're wielding publicly-granted monopoly powers, then let's address that directly. For an example alternative, I like the model where neighborhoods or municipalities own their own last mile infrastructure, giving them plenty of leverage to buy transit at competitive prices. This solution is practically illegal thanks to the legal barriers supporting the existing monopolies. Streamline the process for startups to get approval to compete and I don't doubt we'd see many innovative new models.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
The manifesto has some serious problems, but the Boingboing piece is a long, long way from an unbiased interpretation of it. Saying that it opposes the public domain and argues for government monopoly on control of information is just twisted and simply not true. Read it yourself here. http://www.scribd.com/doc/99193487/The-Technology-Revolution-Final-Rev-629 http://www.scribd.com/doc/99193487/The-Technology-Revolution...
mikeash 14y ago
The idea is that network operators should be free to operate their networks as they see fit, including blocking traffic, throttling, charging for preferred access, etc. I happen to disagree, because internet operators tend to operate in a quasi-monopoly state in the US, but the simple freedom/libertarian angle here is against net neutrality.
temphn 14y ago
Google is a great company in many ways, but "net neutrality" is a political catchphrase. If Google changes your ranking, you lose traffic and visitors just as surely as if Comcast throttles your bandwidth and people bail on your site for slowness. But no one is talking about "search neutrality" and regulating Google's rankings. And Google owns its own dedicated fiber connections, which obviously prioritize its own traffic. Freeing up the telecommunications market is the solution here. With new protocols and new carriers, you could implement things like SPDY in hardware if carriers were free to discriminate between packet A and packet B.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
tzs 14y ago
He is taking the libertarian angle: let the ISPs do whatever they want with THEIR PROPERTY (their network), and if consumers don't like it when the ISPs start imposing restrictions then competing ISPs will arise and the free market will work everything out and we'll all live happily ever after. Remember, there's no such thing as a natural monopoly in Paul's world, individuals are on equal footing in bargaining power against giant companies, there is no information asymmetry, any harm can be set right by a monetary settlement, and Nash equilibria always give the best outcome for all parties, and so free markets alway are best and don't need any regulation to make them actually work.

SpeakMouthWords 14y ago

That first paragraph is choked with hyperbolic language. I think I'd rather read a different source on the matter if one exists.

saraid216 14y ago
The first link has a scribd embedded with the document itself. You could go read that.
tjic 14y ago
Indeed. Boing Boing may be interesting, it may touch on topics that are relevant...but as far as "reporting" goes, it's worthless. I resolved to never read it again about a year ago, and I've been happier since then.

iProject 14y ago

>> evil "collectivists" ... are saying that "what is considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded." It is "collectivist" to release software (etc.) in public domain??? Something done only by collectivists? So that if I contribute to FOSS I must be labeled a collectivist? Maybe the Paul's better offer further explanations. [edited for clarity]

baddox 14y ago
You should read the actual manifesto: http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07/05/c4l-introduces-technology-revolution http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07... The boingboing author seems to be interpreting the manifesto incorrectly, because the manifesto is not using the term "public domain" to mean what we all use it to mean.
maratd 14y ago
Whoa! How did we go from A to B? Nowhere does either Paul mention open source. Read that quote again. They are decrying the expansion of the public domain onto private property. Like when you start telling somebody how to use their stuff? I'm sure you know what I mean. They have zero problems with people voluntarily contributing to the public domain. It's when that contribution isn't voluntary ...

ojbyrne 14y ago

Oh that internet, created by the wonders of the free market. We'll just forget about that whole DARPA thing.

hollerith 14y ago
DARPA, NSF and to a lesser extent, CERN and the governments of Britain and France. It is hard to identify significant influences on the Internet by entrepreneurs or private firms (excepting work done on government contracts) before 1992. The most influential one I can think of is the decision by Sun Microsystems in the mid-1980s to include a TCP/IP stack and basic internet client software with every workstation at no extra charge -- which was probably responsible for the biggest increase in the number of people with access to email in the 1980s -- but even there, doing so would not have occurred to Sun if the US government had not contracted with UC Berkeley to add those things to BSD. Summary: although entrepreneurs and the market had dramatic effects on the internet after 1992, the internet of 1992 was the result mainly of substantial spending by the US government every year for thirty years leading up to 1992. And the internet of 1992 was already very compelling and useful to those willing to master the "text-mode" (no graphical UIs) software used to access it.

fragsworth 14y ago

> Considering the Pauls were both instrumental in the fight against SOPA and PIPA, you would think that the two of them understood how copyright law is massively abused and how beneficial the public domain is. Not many people seem to understand their libertarian views on things. Their philosophy is neither for free Internet or against free Internet. Their philosophy is about less government intervention. SOPA and PIPA are both bills that impose new government control over certain things (controlling/limiting the rights and freedoms of individuals and ISPs). Net neutrality is also an idea that imposes new government control over certain things (controlling the rights of ISPs). To libertarians, almost all government control is considered bad, be it control over corporations or control over individuals. Thus they are against all of these things simultaneously. I'm not saying I agree with their exact philosophy. But it's simple, very consistent, and they never seem to stray far from it.

waffle_ss 14y ago
Totally agreed. Also, even if you don't agree with Ron Paul, how can you not applaud a Congressperson who clearly outlines their thinking on federal issues? I wish that all Congresspeople would consider this criteria before voting on federal legislation: 1. Is this a core function of the federal government? 2. Does it execute Constitutionally defined duties? 3. Does it protect Constitutionally defined rights? 4. Does it protect property rights? 5. Does it protect individual rights? 6. If the federal government does not do this, will others? 7. Will this policy or regulation allow the market to decide outcomes or will it distort themarket for political ends? 8. Is this policy or regulation clear and specific, with defined metrics and limitations?
- toddh 14y ago
  5-8 are clearly extra constitutional and the constitution is so vague as to make 1-4 more or less unanswerable. The constitution is not a set of unit tests.
tzs 14y ago
> But it's simple, very consistent, and they never seem to stray far from it. That's my biggest objection to present day libertarianism. They are consistent and do not stray--even when the outcome is terrible. It's fine to develop a set of principles, and try to apply them universally and consistency, but if you ignore the outcomes you are just engaging in philosophical masturbation. A good example of this is Rothbard. He lays down his libertarian principles, then reasons from them and concludes that abortion must be allowed at any point up until birth. Then he continues and considers what happens if the parents decide they do not want the baby AFTER it is born. He reasons that accordion to libertarian principle the parents can no longer abort the child--it would be murder to actively kill it. However, because no one can be forced to care for another, the parents have no obligation to feed the child. They can let it starve with no legal consequences in an ideal libertarian society, Rothbard reasons. He admits that parents letting children starve is a terrible immoral outcome, but since his principles say it must be allowed, so be it. He doesn't think this would happen often because the parents could make money in the free market for babies, so they will opt to sell the baby rather than let it die. See: http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/fourteen.asp http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/fourteen.asp I think of principles as being to society as theory is to science. The test of whether or not you've found the right principles is whether or not they lead to outcomes that you consider moral, just as the test in science of whether you have found the right theory is how it fares when applied to experiment.

baddox 14y ago

Did anyone read the actual manifesto? [0] The wording sounds a bit confused, because I can't often tell if they're using precise technical definitions for terms or not, but I'm not seeing what this article's author claims to be seeing. The manifesto appears to denounce government-enforced IP law [1], and the only mention of "public domain" seems to be referring not to creative works without any license or copyright, but rather to the idea that websites run on privately-owned hardware should be considered "public" in some way (and therefore the government's business) [2]. From what I can tell, the main point of this manifesto is that governments are trying to establish control over privately-owned Internet resources, that the language they use is intentionally deceptive, and that governments enjoy a double standard whereby data collection is prohibited for private endeavors but allowed and even encouraged by governments [3]. Perhaps the boingboing author would also consider my views about the Internet and legislation radical and "pretty terrible," but while I consider this manifesto confusing and poorly written, I'm not seeing any evidence of many of his points, and I can't help but agree with many of the manifesto's points. One particular line from this article says "They also ... argue that government monopolies over knowledge should be extended, and that tax-dollars should be used to enforce them." Where is that in the manifesto? Is the author missing something, or am I missing something? [0] http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07/05/c4l-introduces-technology-revolution http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07... [1] "Among the most insidious are government attempts to control and regulate competition, infrastructure, privacy, and intellectual property." [2] "According to them [the Internet collectivists]: ... Private property rights on the Internet should exist in limited fashion or not at all, and what is considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded." [3] "Internet collectivists are clever. They are masters at hijacking the language of freedom and liberty to disingenuously push for more centralized control. 'Openness' means government control of privately owned infrastructure. 'Net neutrality' means government acting as arbiter and enforcer of what it deems to be 'neutral.' 'Internet freedom' means the destruction of property rights. 'Competition' means managed competition, with the government acting as judge and jury on what constitutes competition and what does not. Our 'right to privacy' only applies to the data collection activities of the private sector, rarely to government.

ojbyrne 14y ago

gojomo 14y ago

On net neutrality, this isn't surprising and is in my view quite respectable. In Washington DC, where the legislators Paul operate, calls for 'net neutrality' typically mean putting some federal agency (like the FCC) in charge of what's truly 'neutral' and allowed. The FCC manages licenses for the exercise of free speech over broadcast media. It fines disapproved speech. It dictates that telecom equipment be wiretap-friendly. It's a board of 5 political appointees not apportioned by vote or region, but split between the two national political parties. The FCC could never be a friend of true 'neutrality', but rather what the national political establishment finds helpful. Even if initially adopted in the spirit of the 'nondiscriminatory transit' principle, after a few years you should expect 'network neutrality' to mean 'safe for children', 'copyright-protecting', 'wiretap-friendly', 'with set-asides for underrepresented viewpoints', and 'in compliance with campaign finance laws'. After all, it's not a 'neutral' net if it's filled with piracy, pornography, untappable criminal chat, ethnic/gender-insensitivity, and unregistered political activity. That's downright hostile to law-abiding Americans and their bipartisan protectors at the FCC! There's one small, vague and convoluted mention in the Paul statement about the 'public domain'. It reads roughly: According to them [government attempts to control and regulate competition, infrastructure, privacy and intellectual property]... Private property rights on the Internet should exist in limited fashion or not at all, and what is considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded. That mention isn't even necessarily referring to the rigorous intellectual property notion of 'public domain' (meaning non-copyrighted). It seems more the colloquial notion of 'public domain' as 'that which the government manages, like parks and roads and government buildings'. In order to ridicule this, Doctorow has to spin Masnick, who is himself heavily spinning the Pauls. So that one vague mention becomes instead... • for Masnick, "The Public Domain [is really an] Evil Collectivist Plot" • for Doctorow, "Rand and Ron Paul denounce... the public domain" This is a signature move of politics and click-grabbing headline-escalation. Create the an unfair, unfavorable, heavily-spun summarization of someone's views. Credit that summarization to the original source as if they'd said exactly that. Publicize to get a reaction. Collect the traffic-boosting glory!

hollerith 14y ago
Have you considered that for the first 23 years of the Internet/ARPANet's existence, the government was firmly in control of the entire network, including consistently being the largest purchasers of internet equipment such as routers, and being the instigator, planner and funder of the initial design and implementation? (They tried to interest AT&T in running it -- twice, in 1977 and 1987 -- but AT&T was not interested.) Have you considered that it is because of enlightened decisions made by the government that, e.g., Tim BL et al did not need to seek the government's permission to use the internet to deploy the WWW? That in 1999 Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker did not need to get the permission of the government to use the internet to deploy Napster?