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Each elected official has limited power. A President can expend all his/her political capital on just one piece of legislation and still fail to pass it--or pas

by jarrett 12y ago

Each elected official has limited power. A President can expend all his/her political capital on just one piece of legislation and still fail to pass it--or pass it, but in a severely watered-down form. Even after a law is passed or an executive order given, the courts may eviscerate it (which is and should be within the judiciary's power). Thus, it often happens that a candidate makes a promise, fully intending to fulfill it, but is unable to as a result of his/her limited power. Knowing as much, perhaps candidates should make much more modest promises. Except that would be campaign suicide in most cases. The rules of the game incentivize and reward over-promising. So even if a candidate is motivated purely by a desire to serve the public s/he must over-promise in order to be given the opportunity to serve.

microcolonel 12y ago
But this doesn't even look like that. Not even a watered down bill or attempt at one seems to have been documented... or at least it wasn't newsworthy.
- jarrett 12y ago
  You don't necessarily see every policy initiative a President tries to undertake. Often, policy initiatives begin in private consultation between executive staff, legislators, lawyers, and lobbyists. Sometimes, it becomes clear from those private consultations that the policy initiative cannot succeed. When that happens, it typically doesn't serve the President to publicly proclaim that failure. So it's quite possible (and I believe probable) that the Obama administration tried to do net neutrality, but ran into some kind of wall before the policy went very far.
  - microcolonel 12y ago
    If that's possible, it's equally possible that it's because they accepted campaign contributions from Comcast, one of the larger violators of net neutrality. Furthermore, is it not possible that they made it all up so that Comcast would give them a large contribution? While I don't like to go for conspiracy theories, I would like to point out that these are about as likely as the Obama administration actually intending to improve network neutrality.

by jarrett 12y ago

microcolonel 12y ago

But this doesn't even look like that. Not even a watered down bill or attempt at one seems to have been documented... or at least it wasn't newsworthy.

jarrett 12y ago
You don't necessarily see every policy initiative a President tries to undertake. Often, policy initiatives begin in private consultation between executive staff, legislators, lawyers, and lobbyists. Sometimes, it becomes clear from those private consultations that the policy initiative cannot succeed. When that happens, it typically doesn't serve the President to publicly proclaim that failure. So it's quite possible (and I believe probable) that the Obama administration tried to do net neutrality, but ran into some kind of wall before the policy went very far.
- microcolonel 12y ago
  If that's possible, it's equally possible that it's because they accepted campaign contributions from Comcast, one of the larger violators of net neutrality. Furthermore, is it not possible that they made it all up so that Comcast would give them a large contribution? While I don't like to go for conspiracy theories, I would like to point out that these are about as likely as the Obama administration actually intending to improve network neutrality.