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Pretty sure half of my post covers exactly that...
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The Worst Internet in America
- Thread starter Megalith
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Pretty sure half of my post covers exactly that...
+100
Monopolies NEVER result in lower prices.
What needs to happen is a break up of these ISP monopolies.
There either needs to a requirement that at least 2 broadband ISP's be available to 99% of the homes in an area (dial up or satellite doesn't count), or if there is only a single ISP, it needs to be regulated like a utility/monopoly.
The other option would be to break up the ISP's. Separate the lines from the data. Require that the lines be made available to all data providers at the same pricing.
That is not 100% true. What you are saying is false information that people are lead to believe and then turn around and say as if it is the truth.
Most areas don't have to deal with the government BS that you are trying to claim. That is only really true for some of the larger areas. Even then I really would have to call BS on that as something like Chicago, NY and other really large cities have carrier hotels where all the different carriers have a meet point for interconnects. They had to get their fiber there some how. The issue is the cost of being an ISP, that is it for most areas.
Google's problem was that they realized how expensive is it is to be an ISP and they choice to drop out because of that. Although they never really wanted to be an ISP to start with. That was all a game from the start. The reason they bought fixed wireless equipment is because that is the cheapest way to be an ISP.
w1retap
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The ISP's don't even need to be broken up.. federal/state/local governments just need to allow right-of-way access for anyone to run their lines. If I wanted to start an ISP in my city right now, I wouldn't even be allowed to run my own lines because they are exclusively AT&T and Comcast, which have a contractual agreement for exclusive rights to serve customers in all the subdivisions.
They are today. That is part of the trouble that you guys fail to realize. Don't like how much AT&T or Century charges you for internet, well they don't choice those prices. They are regulated and are told what they have to charge. Now Comcast isn't regulated so they can charge whatever they want. As for separating lines from the data. That is a horrible idea.
Ok, so what are you arguing? I don't care about your politics, and that seems to be the root of our disagreement here.
These cable companies make their own rules up. That should be ended, quick.
Look, I live in a small town in northern Maine, think real small. I've also had 1000/1000 FTTH for a year now, thanks to the federal grants. GPON footprint is expanding all the time, some towns w/ service have a smaller population than the one in the article. There's another large municipal project nearing construction phase right now in Calais, ME.. another very small town.
So I've seen municipal and privately owned fiber rise no problem in tiny ass towns, again, made possible by tax dollars. It's when you get dirt bag lobbyist money thrown into the mix, the problems always arise, and there's really no easy solution for it unfortunately, but I think to discredit the government's ability to help the situation is flat out wrong.
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Exactly.
Instead of enlisting the Federal Government's help to try to turn around local problems, which means more tax payer dollars going up, and not coming back down. They need to deal with these issues at the local level where they have a stronger voice and more control over their money.
dgingeri
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Yeah, they're monopolies because of people's propensity to hand off power to the government. They're monopolies because they pay off local government officials to make them monopolies using local ordinances. Government is the problem here, from beginning to end.
Because of course a large corporation could NEVER shut out competition from smaller businesses in a meaningful way without government...
You're right, but you aren't changing that. But at least at the local level you have a chance. Once you go above that, forget it.
dgingeri
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It would be like swatting flies, and after a while, the flies win from sheer numbers. In a free market, pricing always wins, no matter what a big company can do to try to fix things.
Besides, in a free market, big companies can't exist because of a lack of flexibility and inability to adapt to the market quickly enough. So, the government is wholly the cause of the existence of the big corporations we have today.
dgingeri
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Ever try to run for a local office? Ever try to oppose Comcast or TWC in a local election? They are the biggest providers of election funds in local elections, and anyone without their support has less than a tenth of the funds of anyone with their support. That makes it almost impossible to actually win any election. On top of that, you'd have to get someone by Comcast in multiple districts to actually get anything done to oppose them, and that would be almost impossible.
Comcast and TWC have become such huge forces specifically because of their support by the Democratic party in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They were able to get government funding for these projects to expand internet into rural areas because of their connections to the Democrats. (They got the money, and continue to get it, yet make no headway. Why do you think that is?) This allowed them to gobble up smaller companies left and right, to become the powerhouses they are today. They are still rabid supporters of the Democratic party today, and enjoy rabid support from the Democratic party in all their corporate mergers. In addition, with this support, they have managed to get the election campaign contribution laws to exclude their activities in local elections entirely, so they are able to spend the $16 million in contributions that they gave out last yet without the danger of being outside the laws.
Seriously, who do you think is the people's real ally in US politics? Nobody, that's who. The Democrats sure aren't.
I'm not sure I entirely agree. I think you are correct about the free market angle and I think you are also correct that without government intervention/influence, many big businesses wouldn't make it. But not all, not as a universal rule. I think their are some markets that haven't had to evolve much and are simply static industries with little need or pressure to change much. For instance, I'm not sure the tire industry has had to adapt much over the years. They change some tooling and adapt to some new technologies or other marketing drivers like the low profile tire flavor of the day type stuff. But I think at it's core, a tire is a tire, and there just isn't a huge drive to innovate beyond manufacturing and engineering processes and I think it's a business that makes small company competition a little tougher to pull off because factories demand some size to produce in competitive volume with the exception of specialty products.
I can't say about them. I do know that Red Flex jumped up on the scene here in Arizona several years back and cities throughout the State started putting in traffic cams to enforce moving violations at intersections, speeding, running lights, and failing stop at the proper line, etc.
The people here in Sierra Vista decided they didn't want the cameras, it was pushed to a vote and we not only voted the cameras out, we made all forms of photo law enforcement of traffic violations illegal in this city. Now I don't think that Red Flex compares in size and clout with Verizon or Comcast, but Sierra Vista isn't Tucson or Phoenix either. It didn't happen without a fight, but it did happen and it's relevant just the same. Of course this is Arizona and this state has other differences with other states in the Union. All states certainly are not equal so I would say this is another reason people need to deal with problems at their lowest level and resist escalating them higher. Not only does your voice count for more at the lower level, but it allows States in particular to try different things so we can all see how different approaches work, or fail to work.
EDITED: ie .... while Colorado is tightening gun control laws, Arizona relaxed them so much that anyone who can legally own a gun, can carry one. Concealed carry, open carry, in your home and in your car. There are still laws against a weapon in a court house and people must respect businesses who don't want firearms, but I like that and think that just as I have a right to carry, they have a right not too allow it on their property.
Give things some time and we'll see what the crime stats show between these two states and their differing approaches on this issue.
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Killahurtz
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they can figure it out , or do without...or move...I don't owe them my money for their life expenses...
"how the federal government should step in"...bullshit...should be asking why Colorado hasn't raised their taxes lefty style and handle their own business...hell they can divert their new found drug money to provide the funds...simple , I just came up with their answer and they didn't even pay me...nice
"how the federal government should step in"...bullshit...should be asking why Colorado hasn't raised their taxes lefty style and handle their own business...hell they can divert their new found drug money to provide the funds...simple , I just came up with their answer and they didn't even pay me...nice
Killahurtz
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"The number of people without access to affordable broadband (and are still on dial-up) is more like 9.4 million in America"...hahaha...so what
that means approximately 340 million people DO have access, that's a pretty good number for a country this large...and most libraries have access...and I guarantee you a good chunk of that supposed 9.5 million have a cell phone , ergo they HAVE access , and some are probably subsidized by tax payer paid smart phones and plans...
that means approximately 340 million people DO have access, that's a pretty good number for a country this large...and most libraries have access...and I guarantee you a good chunk of that supposed 9.5 million have a cell phone , ergo they HAVE access , and some are probably subsidized by tax payer paid smart phones and plans...
Master_shake_
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they are trying in fact.
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/09/golden-lafayette-colorado-communities-vote-broadband-internet/
a little back history of sb 152
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...comcast-written-protectionist-state-law.shtml
so these are protectionist laws lobbied by the corporations who are trying to protect you from government regulations by using government regulation to stop competition.
Ah yes...the usual "free markets fix everything" canard. Even Adam Smith knew better...more than two centuries ago. And to think that I clearly remember the day when it was taken as a given that the U.S. has a mixed economy!
Completely unfettered capitalism is just as bad completely unfettered communism.
Completely unfettered capitalism is just as bad completely unfettered communism.
Killahurtz
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Adam Smith , Karl Marx...couple of great guys
dumbass quote from Adam Smith
"Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another."
no they don't , dogs just try to rip each others throats out to get the bone...
dumbass quote from Adam Smith
"Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another."
no they don't , dogs just try to rip each others throats out to get the bone...
w1retap
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*according to socialist college professors
AT&T and Comcast own THEIR lines. You can get rights into the utility easement if you are a utility company or pay for access on poles and run your own lines. By law if you have the space and the request is reasonable you have to give people a price to be able to lease space on your poles. We do it all the time and have others do it to us.
In the case of AT&T where you live. Get a loan and just offer to buy them to take over your city, they are for sell from what their employees tell me and are trying to get out of the ISP business. So go buy them out and then you can do what every you want.
w1retap
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No, I'm talking about deployment barriers. It's contractually not even allowed. I couldn't even lease the right of way space if I wanted to. I'm surprised you haven't heard of this, because it's extremely common across the entire US.
Maybe the people in the large cities should not be getting the food grown in the rural areas, there is plenty of room on the roof tops of those high rise building to grow enough for everyone to have a lettuce leaf each day.
People in the cities love to have the low cost food the rural areas provide, but oh no, let's not give them anything like good internet service out there. I really irks me that people think just because you choose not to live in the center of a metropolis you are just a second class citizen. I don't expect 10GB fiber 30 miles out, but at least we deserve the 3-6MB DSL that the phone companies were paid years ago to install that never got installed. At 5 miles out of town I can only get 1.5MB DSL and the line attenuation is so bad I can barely stream SD content and still have to pay $40 per month for it.
The rural subsidy only applies to power and POTS - the services that are regulated as utilities. Utility companies are allowed to charge a surcharge to all customers to subsidize the installation for all customers - to ensure that everyone has access. It's a program called "Universal Services" and was put into law in the Communications Act of 1934.
Internet access isn't classified as a utility. The internet industry fights very strongly to keep it from being classified and regulated as a utility. There are some provisions, under a 1996 revision to the Communications Act - it mainly funds dialup, satellite, and radio access.
I work for a rural ISP. By law we have been able to go into cities and areas that the local telephone company is AT&T, CenturyLink or Frontier and do whatever we want as a competitor to them. This is the same thing that just about every single rural telephone company does. Any rural telephone company that still exist today only exist because they have created a second half of their company that goes into other cities and overbuilds. By the same laws we had a company come into the area that we are the local company and ask to lease space on every pole in our area. They are doing some type of cellular network where every 10th pole gets a small cellular station to take care of dead space for LTE networks. We don't want to give space on our poles to the competition, but we have no choice. By law we have to give them a bid to go on the poles. Didn't have to be a cheap one, but I also think it had to be within some realm of being realistic. If you are registered as a utility company you have access to any utility easement as long as there is space. The same goes for some things like rail road crossing. Federal laws state that state easements trump private so as long as you follow the requirements of the railroad for going over or under their tracks you can use the law to prevent them from holding you back forever. The only time I have ever seen an issue was due to too many other companies trying to go through one spot. Which was funny as it wasn't actually us directly that had the issue but the city putting in their own fiber network. There has to be a certain amount of space between everything and buried you had us, the local telephone company, gas, water, and Comcast. then on the poles you had fiber from three other companies and power. Normally an easement is 3 feet but they had widened the road and make it only 2. So there was no room for the city to go where they wanted so they had to redesign their plans to go on the other side of the road. We go into cities all the time that we are not the local carrier. Hell we have cities ask us to come in at times. Personally we have never once found a city that has given us trouble getting access to easements as a registered telecommunications company. I don't know of any rural telecommunications companies that had really ever had a problem with that, although I have only ever talked with people from about 150 different companies so I can't say for sure that nobody has. I can only say that being able to access easements if a very critical business measure for small companies to be able to grow. Most of the rural companies service a few hundred or couple thousand people they need to be able to grow so the way to get more money is to just go into a larger city near by and pick off some of the larger fish. One customer paying you a few thousand a month makes up for some you lost to cable or cell phones.
and USF really doesn't help the big guys like AT&T. They collect the money in large cities and it goes to the smaller guys building out in the middle of nowhere where. Plus the government takes their fair share of it. They were holding it back some a few years ago for what they were giving out to everyone. They have been talking about making it be for broadband, but every year at events they talk about how we will see that change in a few years... then it never happens.
Oh right, I forgot: Colleges are leftist brainwashing facilities. If ― and I stress IF ― you would actually like to discuss some of the well-documented shortcomings of an unregulated free market (gouging, monopolies, collusion, negative externalities, etc.), let me know. I'm not, however, holding my breath, as drive-by poo-flinging requires much less effort.
Meanwhile, I'll leave you with what I believe is a very pertinent quotation given your earlier reply:
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
― Isaac Asimov
― Isaac Asimov
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I'm sorry, but...that was incoherent. What was your point? And do you even know who Adam Smith was?
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w1retap
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Seems I touched a nerve. <inserts quote about ignorance to make myself seem intellectually superior>
We already have plenty of consumer protection laws on the books to protect against abuse in the system.
dgingeri
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1. price gouging - a positive thing. This increases the incentive for people with supply to bring in competition when a commodity is needed the most. Stopping price gouging ensures a lack of vital supplies, hurting the situation.
2. monopolies - can't happen under a truly free market. They are the result of government intervention, and always have been. The fact that you believe it is a result of a free market shows you have listened too much to your public school teachers and their leftist indoctrination. Try looking it up yourself.
3. collusion - Yes, this happens, and then competition comes in and undermines it. It cannot stand for long. If something is overpriced, competition will enter the market and bring prices down, in a truly free market. If you don't like what you have to pay for something, get into the market and compete.
4. "negative externalities" - A leftist concept of "fair". Life isn't fair. Life is never, ever fair. Try to 'fix' something you don't find 'fair', and you screw over someone else. Kind of like the pre-ACA healthcare market. To bring down healthcare costs, the government screwed over doctors and their staff, forcing larger workloads on them while trying to hold down prices, all in the interested if being 'fair'. Of course it didn't work. It never could. The supporters of it knew it wouldn't work. They'd declare that it was the opposition's fault for it not working and call for more power. It was all a ploy by the leftists to gain more power, as was every single thing Obama did in his Presidency. He was not honest even once about his intent. Every single thing he did had the claimed action, but twisted just enough to not work, all to blame the opposition and gain more power. It's good that many people saw through this.
Don't believe everything you're told. Look into it. Look carefully. You'll see the truth. I was once like you, believing in the leftist chants, but then I graduated high school and started to see the actual work life and how everything works, and realized just how badly I was lied to for so many years. It was about 7 years before I completely shed that misinformation from high school.
Your speculations about my emotional state are irrelevant. Poorly disguised poo-flinging.
Your speculations about my motivations are irrelevant. More poorly disguised poo-flinging.
If it matters, though, the quotation was intended to make you reconsider your attack on the very concept of expertise.
The first thing that you've written that is actually germane to the topic...and it's an implicit admission that some level of regulation is necessary and appropriate. Was that so hard?
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This is correct. I own a company and we put shit in the ROW all the time. It just takes a few forms and phone calls. What he's probably thinking about are cable franchise agreements. Back in the day cable companies told small towns they wouldn't bring in cable TV service unless the town signed this contract, most of which state something along the lines of "no one else can use our lines, and if another competitor comes in they must be able to serve 100% of the town prior to starting services". Which essentially kills cable competition, because no other company is going to run miles and miles of cable to every home in a town prior to selling service to a single customer.
w1retap
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I never mentioned any regulations. I mentioned consumer protections, which affords a customer recourse into resolving issues where unjust business practices can impair their purchase of a good or service. (i.e. excessive charges from direct withdraws of your bank account without notification, counterfeit items sold to you, etc) The company is not regulated by these, and they can choose not to follow them, as many businesses do -- then customers stop going there and they lose revenue unless they change their ethos or go out of business.Your speculations about my emotional state are irrelevant. Poorly disguised poo-flinging.
Your speculations about my motivations are irrelevant. More poorly disguised poo-flinging.
If it matters, though, the quotation was intended to make you reconsider your attack on the very concept of expertise.
The first thing that you've written that is actually germane to the topic...and it's an implicit admission that some level of regulation is necessary and appropriate. Was that so hard?
But keep up the elitist attitude of self righteousness.. it isn't fooling anyone.
This is more than a little presumptuous, but as believe your post was offered in good faith, I will respond in kind. You shared your background; allow me to share mine.
I'm forty-five years old, and with the exception of a 11-month stint after the dot com bust, I have been continuously employed for thirty years. I finished my undergraduate at the ASU college of business, and graduated as a member of the honors college. I do not simply believe everything I'm told, nor was I encouraged to during my post-secondary education. On the contrary, my best college instructors preached critical thinking, encouraging us to explore things for ourselves and draw our own conclusions. I'm sorry that you had a different experience, but please don't presume that I shared it.
This is arguable. I'm inclined to agree that the situation will eventually correct itself, but wonder about the human cost in the meantime. That said, I'll concede this one.
Your arguments are weakened, not strengthened, by including assumptions about me. You should leave them out. In any event, would you care to elaborate on why you believe, for example, that gilded-age monopolies arose because of government intervention. Do you have any examples?
It is very possible for colluders to block new entrants for extended periods of time, especially in markets with high barriers to entry.
Ok, you've lost me here. An example of a negative externality is pollution. What does pollution have to do with fairness?
…and now you're just ranting, leading me to believe I've wasted my time here. *sigh*
So your position is that consumer protections are not regulations? That is...interesting.
Elitist? Trying to get you to drop the personal attacks is "elitist"? You seem uninterested in (or incapable of) not making this personal.
And whom, pray tell, am I trying to fool? To what end?
To be honest, I find this entire line of discussion downright bizarre.
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dgingeri
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Here is what I found looking up "negative externalities"
http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Externalities.html
It talks about "social cost" and "socially efficient" which is a decidedly leftist ideal that has nothing to do with reality. It all about the leftist definition of "fair", which always leaves someone else screwed over, whom they just decide to disregard because they're 'rich'. That whole idea just pisses me off because I've been the victim of such mentalities repeatedly, despite not being rich. I just happen to be a white male, and that is good enough to be targeted by leftist hate, and I've lost two jobs and lost out on getting three more, simply because I'm a white male. It does get me on a rant, yes.
Your definition on "negative externallities" is different than what I found in a google search.
I'm a conservative libertarian, or a "minarchist" as some have labeled it. I do believe that government has a place, but it needs to be kept minimal. Pollution control would be one, but, again, it needs to be kept minimal. Political power will always be abused, without fail.
The current EPA is an absolute perfect example of it. They have gone after farmers and ranchers for building retaining ponds to water their livestock, under the guise of the Clean Water Act, ruined lives just for petty bureaucrats to prove they have power. They've started things that have cause massive pollution to widespread areas over petty bureaucrat power trips or subversive tactics to try to prove they're needed. (See the Gold King Mine in Colorado. It could be either one, and I prefer to think it was the second, but it was definitely one of the two.)The EPA was never supposed to be, according to the 10th amendment. Where in the Constitution does it describe the power for the Federal government to manage pollution? It doesn't. The states should be handling it, but the people are too stupid to keep track of their state races. Their power has grown FAR too much, and they have abused it on a massive scale. Several Presidents have extended their own power through fiat regulation changes in how the EPA does its work, and that is something that cannot stand. The EPA needs to be brought down.
So, as for "negative externalities", which is sounds like you've lebeled as pollution and traffic, such things are a place for government, but we MUST be very, very careful about granting such power to the government, and it MUST be changed very, very rarely.
Some other things that you might label as such, like using up a finite resource, that is something the market handles nicely. As a finite resource becomes more scarce, the cost goes up, with increased cost, people both use less and look for alternatives, and that pushes society forward. The problem of scarcity solves itself.
I meant "negative externalities" in the sense of the first sentence of that definition: "A negative externality is a cost that is suffered by a third party as a result of an economic transaction." If that was unclear, I apologize. Pollution and traffic are indeed examples. I don't think we fundamentally disagree that some regulation is needed, though I suspect we disagree on how much. And that's OK. Since I'm what you would likely refer to as a leftist, I appreciate you taking the time to engage me on a genuine basis. And for the record, I am also a white male, and I do not hate you. ;-)
You're absolutely right that the market handles finite resources quite well in most cases, though there are some notable exceptions. It's not hard to find situations in which individual players acting in their own best interest do not achieve the optimal outcome (tragedy of the commons/prisoner's dilemma, etc.). Take the Easter Islands, for example. The civilization there damaged their own ecosystem enough that the population collapsed. I suppose one could argue that the problem worked itself out in the end, but at what cost?
While I also believe that political power will be abused more often than not (though I try to avoid statements like "without fail," because they're easily refuted by a single counter example). However, I find the problem to be more general: *Power* will be abused more often than not, whatever its source or nature. So while I agree that bureaucrats need to be kept in check, I also believe that corporations need to be kept in check, and further, that market forces aren't always up to the task. There is no realistic market mechanism, for example, to punish a company for allowing toxic byproducts to leech into the water table (while there there are clear economic incentives for the company to do so).
In short, I believe that there is a balance to be struck. Free markets aren't a panacea, but they are really good at many things (efficient resource allocation, for example) that central planning is obviously disastrously bad at.
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dgingeri
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Indeed, there isn't any market mechanism for stopping a company from allowing toxic chemicals to leech into the water supply, and that is the arena of the law, just as there is no market or social mechanism other than law to prevent personal fraud or a simple mugging. Laws are supposed to be to protect the majority from the harmful minority. In the case of many environmental laws and their penalties, I say many don't go nearly far enough. Criminal charges should be brought against managers who intentionally withdraw or prevent the use of safety mechanisms that result in worker deaths. That would get compliance up in a BIG hurry. There absolutely should be a corporate 'death penalty' for certain, wide spread actions, such as fraud that affects a majority of their customer base or an accident with widespread damage that happens because safety mechanisms weren't used. (Examples: BP, Bank of America, and Citibank.)
However, I do strongly protest "regulations" that force companies to spend unnecessarily on things that should be the realm of government spending (SOX compliance, EPA electronics recycling program approvals) or where there are more sensible alternatives. Did you know that the EPA has a regulation in place right now that anyone who "assembles a computer for financial gain" is considered a computer manufacturer, and has to have in place a "method of recycling products at the end of their useful life" that must be approved by the EPA before they can sell a single computer. The cost of the approvals process? $150,000. Their recycling program must stay in place until the estimated end of the device's useful lifetime, as well. Sound a little heavy handed?
As for my "without fail" it isn't so simple to disprove. I have yet to find a single government power that has not been abused in any way. I just have to find one situation where a government power was abused to prevent it from being disproved. It's harder than you might think to find a government power that hasn't been abused. Impossible, I'd say. Try it some time. Think of a power the government, state, local, or Federal, that hasn't been abused in history, and then look it up in a google search. (The power to designate a 'day' for something? Been abused to give free advertising for many manufacturers. Driver's licenses? Been abused by racists on all sides to prevent legal driving by their hated race. Professional licensing? Been abused to solidify a monopoly in nearly every city in the country.) Any seemingly harmless power can be abused somehow, and human beings are very adept at imagining how to abuse that power.
Free markets aren't a panacea just like the human immune system isn't full proof, however, it is far better at handling things than artificial means, like government or medicine. It just needs to be allowed to happen, and bad things happen when they are restrained. (Big corporations and autoimmune diseases. See, the parallel works.
)I did not know that, and obviously that is insane. Clearly on the side of "way, way too much interference." And it is clearly the case that well-intentioned -- but poorly crafted -- regulations can be not only counter-productive, but outright harmful.
On the flip-side. I remain convinced that the laissez faire approach has its own share of problems.
I believe that we need to seek a healthy balance, but that reasonable people can and do disagree about exactly where that balance is. I suspect that, given time, folks like you and I could arrive at a workable compromise...but only if we engage with each other in good faith, as we have here. So thank you for that, and for giving me more to think about.
It seems like we're talking past each other here. Allow me to see if I can explain what I mean. Take the power of policing; obviously, it has been and continues to be abused on a daily basis. On the other hand, most police officers act in good faith, and there are countless examples of police officers protecting and serving their communities faithfully and effectively. It seems to me that the vast majority of the time, this power is NOT abused. I think perhaps I was saying that most uses of government power aren't abusive, whereas you were saying that any given power -- however one chooses to define it -- has been abused at least once. Which would, of course, be impossible to disprove.
Again, though, I'd point out that abuse of power is hardly restricted to governmental power. The government, composed as it is of humans, is deeply flawed...but I have yet to see a practical alternative for checking abuses of power by corporations, which are equally flawed.
I'm curious...do you see the abuses of corporations to be the fault of government, since corporations exist in the context of the legal system? Personally, I see the great threat in the collusion of government and private interests against he citizenry, as expressed in so-called "crony capitalism."
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harbingerofdoom
Gawd
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2007
- Messages
- 782
no....
whats pathetic is that we are already paying for this type of stuff through taxes and that the government is allowing the carriers to simply pocket the money instead of actually using for what it was intended for...... which is exactly this. And in this case yes, it IS the governments responsibility for such things. It became their responsibility the moment they started giving tax money to carriers and giving them sweetheart deals.