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Special Report
Net Neutrality Is Theft
Obama’s FCC lays the groundwork for government control of the Internet.
(Page 2 of 3)
The solution is for broadband operators to charge heavier commercial users of their service heavier fees to cover the costs. Those heavier fees can then be used to build even bigger and better broadband and Cyberspace access, sufficient to fully accommodate even the heaviest commercial broadband users.
But that doesn’t involve the expanded government power that Obama’s FCC and net neut advocates like Free Press are after. So it is not on the table as the answer. Government takeover is the only answer they will consider, just as in health care. But if the government is going to take control over the big investment bucks broadband providers put in the ground or into orbit, America is not going to get the Internet investment and access it needs. That is why America’s Internet access is already lagging behind other countries.
Democracy and the Rule of Law, or Not?
On April 6, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Comcast Corp. v. Federal Communications Commission that the FCC does not have the power to issue net neutrality regulation. That decision resulted because the FCC already tried to impose an earlier, more limited version of net neutrality regulation through administrative adjudication of a particular case, rather than by broader rulemaking.
The case arose when Comcast responded to commercial users trading large files directly on its broadband service, rather than the users going through a central server. The FCC claimed authority to regulate the network management practices of Internet service providers like Comcast based on statutory language which authorizes the Commission to “make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.” This is Hugo Chavez style reasoning.
Rejecting that reasoning in an opinion written by one of the Circuit’s more liberal Judges, David Tatel, the Court had to remind the FCC that “administrative agencies may act only pursuant to authority delegated to them by Congress.” The Court said regarding the FCC’s reasoning, “if accepted it would virtually free the Commission from its congressional tether.” The Court added that “without reference to the provisions of the [FCC’s governing] Act directly governing broadcasting, the Commission’s ancillary jurisdiction would be unbounded.” Indeed, the FCC’s lawyers suggested to the Court in oral argument that in the agency’s view it already has the power to impose price controls and rate regulation on Internet service providers and broadband operators.
Yet, the FCC just flouts this decision in going ahead and issuing its net neutrality regulations by rulemaking last week. Moreover, McDowell explains in the Wall Street Journal that it also flouts Congress, as before the FCC issued the new net neut regs, “More than 300 members of Congress, including 86 Democrats, contacted the FCC to implore it to stop pursuing Internet regulation and to defer to Capitol Hill.” McDowell adds that this was “a rare event in Washington: a large, bipartisan majority of Congress agreeing on something.”
And the FCC’s action also flouts democracy and the American people. In the last election, net neut schemers like Free Press concocted a net neutrality pledge for candidates to run on. They got 65 pledge signers. All 65 lost at the polls. That is because the people are smart enough to recognize that government regulation over the Internet is going to be the opposite of Power to the People.
This FCC episode raises a broader question about the Obama Administration in the next two years. Because what we see here is what we are already seeing elsewhere in the Administration as well, from HHS Secretary Sebelius’s takeover of health insurance, to the EPA’s takeover of the economy based on global warming fantasies. That broader question is: Are we going to be governed by democracy and the rule of law in America, or not? What these opening skirmishes indicate is the Administration will severely test that proposition in the next two years rather than work with the newly Republicanized Congress.
The Republican majority in the House must be equally tough in responding to this fundamental challenge to the governance of America. One of those responses must be to act to remove Administration officials who attempt to flout the courts, the Congress, democracy, and the will of the American people.
The House should open hearings on removing FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski for failing to abide by the ruling of the Federal appeals court, as well as blowing off Congress, and the American people. Those hearings would be all about stopping the government’s takeover of the Internet, an issue on which the American people overwhelmingly agree with the Republican view. The hearings should focus as well on removing FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who has more openly expressed his opposition to freedom of speech for people with whom he doesn’t agree, a viewpoint America cannot allow to anyone in position of authority.
Let me reiterate that Republicans can never consider impeaching Obama himself, no matter what he does. I have suggested before that one of the reasons to vote Republican for President is that Republican Presidents are subject to the rule of law, a principle established in the early 1970s. But Democrat Presidents are not subject to the rule of law, a principle established in the late 1990s. Democrat Presidents are free in our system of government to flout the law with impunity.
But Republicans can and must send the message that Administration officials perfectly prepared to assist in a slow motion coup against the rule of law and democracy will themselves be removed.
The ultimate solution, however, to protect the Internet, and freedom of speech in America, is to privatize the FCC. That would be accomplished by auctioning off property rights in the airwaves and broadcast spectrums. In the free market, private owners would use those resources to best serve the public, in order to maximize the value of their investment. That would apply to all radio broadcasting and TV broadcasting licenses. The FCC would not be needed then for any purpose, and should be abolished. The spectrum auctions would raise funds to be used to help balance the budget.
Senate Majority Leader Joe Manchin
About the Author
Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (145) | Leave a comment
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Daniel| 12.29.10 @ 6:24AM
Check this out. I said the FCC power grab for the net would be for "free" internet for the welfare class. Free means the taxpayers pay for it as usual.
**Tama Housing Authority to give free internet, using Federal "Grants." http://bit.ly/e1KWFR
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2648390/posts
File that under Socialist Wealth redistribution 101. After testing the waters, getting folks used to this underhanded scheme, they won't need "grants." They will just do it, and you will see your own internet costs go up to pay for the lovely parasitic suppporters of the Socialist Dem party of today. ( So they can have it "free") Expect new internet "taxes and fees" soon too.
Paul D| 12.29.10 @ 1:22PM
Hopefully, the new Congress will squash the FCC like a (parasitic) bug.
Ron| 12.30.10 @ 4:00PM
When Obama was elected I thought that sooner or later during his administrastion the Congress would become irrelevant. Will we really have a presidential election in 2012? Chavez asked for dictatorial powers. Obama and his crowd are just assuming those powers here!
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.29.10 @ 6:44AM
Peter,
Again, thank you.
These agencies are perpetrating theft alright; theft of our lives and liberty.
They are doing it purely as a power grab, a power "consolidation" if you will.
They want the cash, (livelihood), of every key industry in our country to go through the funnel of government.
"Defacto communism", (pardon the shorthand), with the nomenklatura (sp?) calling every shot in our lives, while scraping off a nice share of our labor-value.
You know, I am still waiting for SOMEONE on the staff here at TAS to begin offering options and solutions...or these informative articles recede into mere grumbling and bellyaching.
Thanks again and best regards
T. Goldberg| 12.29.10 @ 11:39AM
More AmSpec hysterics! Much ado about nothing.
Not a word about ONLINE PORNO, which the government needs to regulate now to keep it out of the hands of children.
I wonder how AmSpec readers feel about the proliferation of the most violent, mysoginistic porno the mind can imagine being easily available to children.
HARDCORE PORNO is only a mouse-click away, and tiny fingers know how to click the mouse. Very young children are accessing PORNO on the Internet. School children tell each other how to do it. I know because my neighbor's 10-year-old son was told at school by a classmate how to dismatle parental controls.
I wouldn't think this is a matter that would concern you much, since you are so obviously the phoniest online stalwarts of morality. Besides, the readers of AmSpec are more likely to enjoy porno, to lap it up.
Three separate studies have shown that states that are more conservative and religious are among the heaviest consumers of online porn.
I, for one, want the government to establish another domain for pornography to make it less accessible to children.
You filthy old men will still be able to watch the most degrading perversions in the privacy of your own sacred homes. You will have to enter a code to view it, that's all.
Home, Sweet Home. And what could be sweeter than to invite PORNO into it.
This is all I have to say to you PORNO PERVS.
Ta,
ECM| 12.29.10 @ 11:44AM
So, in other words, "do it for the children", right? Tyranny, in the modern age, rides on the back of "children".
Elizabeth R.| 12.29.10 @ 11:55AM
T. Goldberg,
There are few women who read A.S., and I am one of them, and I want you to know that I share your concerns.
My thirteen-year-old grandson was accessing horrific, violent pornography on his laptop. His mother did a History Search and was horrified to see the sights he had visited over and over again.
Children are viewing hardcore pornography, and it appears to me that our leaders are showing little concern if any.
Most of the readers of A.S. are old men, and most of them are fanatics, and they are a hateful bunch. You will get little support from them.
Ryan| 12.29.10 @ 12:00PM
Filters and firewalls. She should have something on her computer to block those sites and monitor his use regularly.
Though I support an ".xxx" simply to separate the porn and make it easier to block and filter, it IS the PARENTS, not the government's, responsibility to monitor their children's internet use.
Innocence Tarnished| 12.29.10 @ 12:04PM
The Internet is a Pandora's Box. It has released a hurricane of evil upon the world.
At last count, I believe I read that there are over 400 million pages of hardcore porn on broadband. Four hundred million pages!
Indeed, we need a little government intervention here.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 12:12PM
There is no law requiring you to have the internet. With all technology there is a capacity for evil. Police yourself. You are deluded to think that some bureaucrat will make you safe; indeed you are building your own jail cell.
Edward White| 12.29.10 @ 12:13PM
As Ryan suggests, I, too, think a ".xxx" domain, or whatever you call it, is needed urgently.
The government should pass regulations requiring this.
And how about all the child porno sites? Why aren't they shut down? It boggles the mind that they are allowed to operate.
I am all for freedom of speech, but child porn, and violent, degrading porn--the kind where women are degraded and defiled, and that is how they are treated in most porn-- go too far, in my opinion.
Yes, government control is what we need before our country slides even farther down the sewer pipes.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.29.10 @ 12:31PM
Folks,
I'm not trying to be mean...but how do you all know this stuff?
Have each of you visited 400,000 pages of porn?
Have any of you actually seen child porn, and if so, how often?
Are you going with someone else's word?
Just curious.
2011| 12.29.10 @ 12:44PM
Ken, surely you have read about the men who have accessed child porn from child porn sites on the internet, and they have been arrested for doing so.
As for the number of porn sites on the internet, porn makes up the majority of sites.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 12:55PM
2011,
You are correct. Porn was the first successful business on the internet (I am not involved). It would not exist if no one was paying for it. It's the drug war all over again.
Alky| 12.31.10 @ 8:28PM
What are you asking from a Government that has an school czar that is a gay pedophile, c'mon libs, cut the bull and police your own kids!
Negro X| 12.29.10 @ 5:22PM
Innocence, Having trouble with free thought are we?
vladdy| 1.1.11 @ 7:28PM
Woh -- two glaring giveaways that this is political, not actually a concern about porn.
1. The ad hominem attacks about "old men," etc. on AS. (The young Left are the only ones to use "old" as a pejorative when referring to people.)
2. College campuses are huge purveyors or porn, including having "porn nights" where they show movies. No comment on this from the left.
And about that grandmother -- you mean no one has been monitering that 13-year-old' s web use? Sounds like a family not responsible enough to have the internet in their house.
To see the left, those most approving of "freedom of speech" that permits porn in movies and in rap music suddently worried about sex on the net is a complete joke. Admit it -- this is an attempt to get rid of conservative bloggers. Can't you just do it by providing a better product on left-wing sites, so no one will go to the conservative ones anymore? Hmmm....
Bruce| 12.29.10 @ 12:30PM
Absolutely correct. This is a matter of parental responsibility - not government regulation. Parents give their kids computers to keep them amused and ignore them - like they do with schools, now a defacto day care center. Parents, it is YOUR responsibility to monitor what your kids do on their computers. As an adult I have the right to see anything I want on my computer whether you like it or not. There are dozens of applications and more free ways to keep your damned kids off adult oriented sites. USE THEM and keep your nose out of everyone elses business.
Jim Harrison| 12.30.10 @ 5:09PM
You are right, Bruce. If parents do not take control of their own children, the nanny state will rush in to fill the vacuum. Without strong Christian families rising to the rescue, God Himself will bring judgment on the nation with tyrannical government, and it won't be the first time in history He has done so. Only a national repentance can reverse this trend. God is not mocked.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 12:09PM
Elizabeth R.
Porno is a problem, no doubt. Absolutely nothing in the FCC takeover will have the tiniest impact on this problem. As one who tackled this problem, unsuccessfully, ten years ago I can tell you that a "drug war" type solution will not work (I'll elaborate if you ask). If the little darling is surfing porn on his laptop in his bedroom the solution is more parental involvement (I am a parent) and the placement of the only internet connected computer in the living room in plain sight.
Whether I am an old hateful fanatic, or not, you will get little support from me, either. Anyone who commands me to do something based on the false moral claim that it is for someone else's good is, to one degree or another, a tyrant.
2011| 12.29.10 @ 12:24PM
Hey, John,
Ever heard of internet on cell phones? I saw a group of young boys--ages 13-16 maybe-- outside our local coffee shop nudging each other, and making hush-hush, suggestive remarks.
Since all the boys' eyes were rivteted on the screen, I walked over and stole a glance at the screen, and it was a hard-core orgy scene.
I asked the boy with the phone if his parents knew he was watching pornography on his phone. He blushed, said no, and walked away. All the boys seemed embarrassed. These were clean-cut, polite boys.
No, parents cannot control what their children see. No way!
Bruce| 12.29.10 @ 12:31PM
Uh ... how about responsible parents NOT allowing net access on a 13 year olds phone maybe?
vladdy| 1.1.11 @ 7:32PM
Bruce: the voice of reason. Thank you.
Marilyn T.| 12.29.10 @ 12:32PM
I am commenting on 2011's post.
My son had a soccer friend over for a sleepover. He has his own desktop in his room. A couple of days later my husband checked the my son's computer, and the search engine was full of gay male porn sites.
My son told his father that his friend had pulled them up, and we believed him since that was the only time porno sites had been found.
We thought we had controls, but somehow this friend got around it. Kids are very clever at figuring out how to use computers in ways we would never imagine. And as we all know, they are very curious.
2011| 12.29.10 @ 12:47PM
How right you are, Marilyn.
Kids are computer savvy--far more than I will ever be.
You can get around "controls," and kids have figured out a way to do this.
Anon| 12.29.10 @ 12:55PM
My niece, a sophomore in a Christian academy in Louisiana, came home from school one day upset. Her parents kept asking her what was wrong, and she told about another girl--her classmate--showing her a pornographic image she had printed and copied off her computer.
My niece is very innocent, so the parents thought the classmate had done this to harrass her. My niece begged her parents not to contact the school to report the student. However, they did contact the parents, and they were shocked.
I agree with the comments above. Children are seeing these disturbing images and they are far to young to process the disturbing brutality of the images.
Porno is not pretty.
This girl had printed the image from her parents' own computer. She then erased the history so her parents would never know.
This is happening all over.
iamindisbelief| 12.29.10 @ 10:24PM
I have a way to get around this and it's quite simple. Check the cache on the computer to look at the sites your child has visited. If there is porn, or he or she has wiped the site, take away the computer. Tell them that if they cannot be trusted to follow your rules that they will have to use the computer at the public library.
vladdy| 1.1.11 @ 7:35PM
But you can't get around a parent over the shoulder, and, as one commenter suggested, one computer in a common area.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 12:50PM
2011,
Of course one cannot police one's children at all times without imprisoning them. The role of a parent is to develop one's children so that they make careful choices as adults. Anyone with teenagers knows that they will fail - too often, willingly.
Your last statement , while true, is not instructive. First, we can control what we can control and we can influence with whom are children associate. Do you suggest that the FCC can do a better job? We can, as I did, not provide data enabled telephones to our children. My children had no text messaging until they went to college. They survived, despite their assurances to me that they could not.
It takes almost no effort to setup a web site. A connection to an ISP and a DNS record to point the name to the site and you are in business. Try to shut them down in the U.S. and they go offshore like gambling or InTrade.com. You will never be able to rid the internet of porn sites without taking down the internet. It is a sad fact of life and the government cannot help you.
2011| 12.29.10 @ 1:07PM
I don't care what adults see, as long as it is not child porn or violent, physically and emotinally degrading porn--rape, for example.
Here's what I want, and I know there are millions who want the same:
I want the government to establish a separate space for porn so that it is not a mouse click away for everyone in the world.
Some people find it disturbing that porno is in their home without their permission. It's here on my computer right now.
And one last thing: Children can pull up porn sites ACCIDENTALLY. Many porn sites have innocent names.
McBride| 12.29.10 @ 1:11PM
Pull up porn accidentally?
I was helping my daughter--a sports major in college-- with a research project, and we typed a subject and pulled up a porn site. We did not click on it, but there it was.
The subject we were researching was "water sports." You'll have to use your imagination.
Never mind. Too disgusting.
joli| 12.29.10 @ 6:48PM
Try "Santa Claus". Yep, it's there.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 1:19PM
2011,
Setup the 'xxx' top-level domain if you like. It's harmless. It's also ineffective - for the very reasons you suggest. Years ago, my son was looking for "X-Men" comics and found a porn site accidentally.
So you block all .xxx sites from your browser and the porn producer registers .com, anyway, and hosts the site in Nigeria. What will you do then?
The ONLY way you will keep children from accessing porn on the internet is to keep them from the internet. I worked on a porn filter ten years ago looking for words. It was reasonable effective, required maintenance of white and black site lists and was totally fooled by sites consisting of graphic images, only.
In the end, it's more effective to teach people not to worship the devil than to try to destroy the devil. If you study the technical aspects of the issue, I believe you will arrive at the same conclusion that I have.
Edward White| 12.29.10 @ 2:13PM
Thank you, John Navratil for sharing this. Obviously, you know much about the complexities of policing the internet.
Questions: Does the host porn site have to register it with a human name and a geographical address? Can it be verified before the site is actually set up on the WEB?
Would there not be an advantage to porn sites registering as such in a "special section" of digital space (I lack the terms to express myself) so that they could not be accidentally accessed?
Digital space is such a mystery to me. If you can answer these poorly-worded questions, I would appreciate it.
Thank you.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 4:15PM
Mr. White,
I am keeping things a bit simple here in order to present the concepts while glossing over irrelevant details. I apologize for the length.
One purchases a domain name from a registrar (godaddy.com for example). This can be any name which is not already in use. As there is nothing stopping someone from registering 'dinsey.com' and exploiting the mistyping of 'disney.com', you will find that Disney also owns dinsey.com. When you register, you provide administrative and technical contact addresses which can be anywhere in the world. I know of no means to verify the address or identity of the contacts before the name is assigned. Even if the address were verifiable, there is no verification of the person registering the name. A credit card is all that is needed.
Setting up the site entails running a web server on a computer and listening for requests from the internet. Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address which uniquely identifies that computer across the world (I'm glossing over a lot here). Your home computer has one which is assigned to you when you connect to your ISP and while there are some hurdles to overcome, there is nothing stopping you from running a web site from your house. Practically this is a non-starter because the ISP frequently blocks web service requests to its IP addresses.
A service called DNS (Domain Name System) is used to map the name you have registered to the IP address you have. When you type www.xyz.com, it is this service which translates that name to the IP address assigned to the web server hosting the 'xyz.com' site. The owner of the domain name simply registers the name/IP connection. Many domain names may be mapped to the same IP address. And while you may lookup the IP address from a name, that IP address provide very little information as to where the server is physically located. Even if you do know where the server is, nothing stops the server from just being a proxy for another one located anywhere else in the world.
Setting up the .xxx top level domain has been in the works for years and ICANN finally approved it in June of this year. However, as with all top level domain names (.com, .org, .xxx), its use is intended to describe the type of site and is voluntary. The pornographer would have to choose to use it. The pornographer may well choose to do this, but it does not require that he not use any other domain name at the same time.
Those considering regulation may wish to contemplate the effectiveness of the 2003 PROTECT act which includes the Truth in Domain Names Act which intended to criminalize the registration of a misleading Internet domain name with the intent to deceive a person into viewing obscenity.
I hope this helps!
John Navratil| 12.30.10 @ 10:41AM
Correction: ICANN has allowed the .xxx application to go forward in it's June meeting. It's not done yet.
Edward White| 12.30.10 @ 9:07PM
John, I have just returned from an out-of-town trip, and I have just finished reading your very helpful post.
Thank you for explaining the labyrinthine intricacies invovled. It's way over my head, I'm afraid, but I now understand the herculean task of attempting to police the WEB.
Thanks again for the details.
joli| 12.29.10 @ 6:53PM
John, that is a profound observation, and one that I have worked hard to instill in my own children. Often times they ask me why they are not allowed to do something, and my answer is either "It's not appropriate for a child of your age" or "It is not pleasing to God" (often with a Biblical explanation of why). Problem solved. They have been trained since birth that God is the final authority... and have, on occasion, challenged my interpretation and won. ;-)
Impeach Don't Wait| 12.29.10 @ 2:56PM
I share your concern about children using porn, plain and simple. But this power grab isn't about that--is it? I'm just curious... How many times has the FCC given porn as the reason for taking control? Just curious...
Nick77| 12.29.10 @ 4:42PM
'Hateful' is just a label that lefties throw at people who won't enable and validate their naive and idealistic misconceptions.
Anthony| 12.29.10 @ 5:03PM
Hateful bunch of fanatic old men did you call us Liz? Gee, that was mighty fast, you "No Labels" crowd dropped that silly ploy right quick, eh Liz?
Oops, I forgot, the no labels kick is to prevent thinking folks like us from calling out morons like you.
Yes, I do believe moron is a suitable label.
Negro X| 12.29.10 @ 5:19PM
Golberg and Elizabeth trolls, If you can't keep your children under control perhaps the nanny state should take them away from you, they alraedy do your thinking for you.
joli| 12.29.10 @ 5:55PM
As one of the women who does read A.S. regularly, pick up your barbies and go home. If you mistake honesty and humor for hate, it is only because it exposes your own faults.
GavInTucson| 12.30.10 @ 3:37PM
Has your daughter ever heard of parental controls?
NavyBrat | 12.29.10 @ 12:03PM
Maybe you missed all the services that parents can purchase to filter out all that content. Nah, you'd just rather call everyone here a porno freak. Which is ironic, since its turds like you who tell us that rap music represents black culture & should be embraced. Its turds like you who tell us that a statue of the Virgin Mary made out of elephant shat is "art." Its turds like you who promote the gay agenda & have NO PROBLEM with our "Safe Schools Tsar" being a fan of handing out "fisting kits" to middle & high school kids. Spare us your selective outrage.
y| 12.29.10 @ 2:46PM
The words NavyBrat has used to express his opinion tells us much about his character . . . or lack of.
NavyBrat | 12.29.10 @ 3:09PM
And I give a rat's tuchus about your opinion of my character?
Anita| 12.29.10 @ 2:15PM
Hmmmm. Me thinks you doth protest too much about porn.
Into it, huh?
GeorgeTrue| 12.29.10 @ 3:22PM
Projecting are we, Mr Goldberg?
Filofox| 12.29.10 @ 3:56PM
According to T. Goldberg, "PORNO is only a mouse-click away..."
According to me, it's my job as parent, not the job of a goose-stepping FCC weasel, to control what is and what is not available to my children on the PCs in my home. As far as the other parents in our neighborhood are concerned, we know which is responsible and which is not and the kids are not allowed to visit kids whose parents allow them to act like Beavis and Butthead clones.
I especially don't need T Goldberg and those in lock step with her to call me a porno perv.
Anthony| 12.29.10 @ 4:44PM
Well said Filofox. Goldberg and his lefty friends will glom onto any "reasonable" concern (porn & kids) and segue it for its ultimate control by government.
Do Goldberg and his ilk actually believe government control will prevent the problem? I suspect not, but the warm feeling of government control probably gives Goldberg Chris Matthew's -like tingly legs.
Goldberg's hyperventilation about porn smacks of Rham Emmanuel's maxim that a "Crisis is too valuable to waste".
Mussolini's famous maxim went something like: "all to the state, nothing outside the state, nothing bad about the state".
Goldberg would appear to be a suitable candidate for Obozo's citizens brownshirts, that, or a commissioner of the FCC.
vladdy| 1.1.11 @ 7:47PM
There was a time when porn was hidden and shameful. Then came a turning point.
Two Live Crew took the obscenity case filed against them to trial and called out leftist college professors to testily that their lyrics denigrating women and describing graphic sex were art. The standard up until then had been, it can only be acceptable if "art" by the standards of the particular community, and communities had policed themselves.
After the Two Live Crew case, the entertainment busiiness went wild with lyrics, movies, etc., with graphic content. Leftist critics like Roger Ebert helped the cause by saying adults should not be stopped from seeing anything, no matter how disgusting or harmful to society. Media maven Danny Goldberg gave a First Amendment Award every year -- one year to those responsible for the Larry Flint movie (also honored with many Oscar nominations.) Soon every other movie featured the obligatory hooker or scene in a strip joint, and pole dancing was pushed as a form of "exercise."
Parents didn't bother to check what their kids listened to, and leftist college campuses began sponsoring porn nights and sex toy displays. Porn went mainstream. The genie was out of the bottle.
And now the left is worried about porn?
Anthony| 12.29.10 @ 5:23PM
What liberties hackneyed fools such as yourself, Mr. Goldberg, are willing to forfit, all in the misguided quest that the "benevolent" power of government will make all things warm, fuzzy and right.
With a name like Goldberg, you'd think history might have tempered your lustful desire for government control, but I guess history isn't your strong suit, is it Mr.Goldberg?
By the way, don't you dare call us Porno Pervs, when it's useful idiots like you, peverting the Constitution, who will once again lead the lambs to slaughter. Ta, and Baaaaa to you lady!
iamindisbelief| 12.29.10 @ 10:36PM
Well, I am not a man and I am not old. But I am incredulous that you would support government takeover of the internet as well as censorship because o-my-god children might see porn. When I was a young girl parents were concerned that we might encounter dirty books or magazines. You know what? We did. Plenty. And those of us who were brought up with supportive parents and a normal, healthy views on sex and sexuality were not damaged by it one iota.
Does it not occur to you that our country, as one of the few surviving democratic countries on earth is rapidly turning into a Marxist state? Have you noticed the massive nationalization of industries? Don't you think that this is a far more pressing concern than your child seeing naked people? Don't Americans read history books anymore? Your president is ruling by decree. The FCC is ignoring both the judicial and the legislative branches of government because the head of the FCC was a buddy of Obama's from Harvard. According to the Gini index, distribution of wealth in America is the most uneven it has ever been in its entire history - on par with places like Uganda and Venezuela, in fact - places that this country is rapidly beginning to resemble. What does it take the wake people up to what is happening here?
Kingofthenet| 12.30.10 @ 12:21AM
Do you have any links to this DISGUSTING,VILE HARDCORE PORN, I want to see what FILTH our children have access too. Now don't give me links to softcore or pay sites, just the FREE GRATUITOUS NASTY WET stuff.If it involves DIRTY SICK PERVERSIONS AND FETISHES or LIPSTICK GIRL ON GIRL ACTION so much the better.
LiveFreeOrDie| 12.30.10 @ 2:19PM
Here you go:
www.democrats.org
GavInTucson| 12.30.10 @ 3:39PM
LMAO... good one.
Dave| 12.30.10 @ 2:23AM
Look whackjob, we don't need the government to regulate the internet. If you don't want your children to view porn - regulate your children!
OMG! What a concept!
Responsibility - Take it. Use it. Accept it.
John Habernathy| 12.30.10 @ 4:00PM
Why don't all of you "moral" people take some PERSONAL responsibility and install the free filters that are available for your computers. Why must the Taxpayers of the United States have to babysit you all. If you want to effect some change,,,,,BE PROACTIVE and do something yourselves. I am so tired of everyone crying about this and crying about that. Be a real AMERICAN and set an example by being able to take care of you and stop worrying about everyone else.
ECM| 12.29.10 @ 11:47AM
The solution is to elect people that share your viewpoint, a project that began this past election cycle.
That said, he did offer solutions, starting w/ removing multiple people on the FCC, privatizing it, and installing a new Senate majority leader. If those aren't "solutions" (albeit imperfect), then you and I don't have the same definition for the word.
Pmedi| 12.30.10 @ 9:41AM
Ken, here's a solution for you. The people have awaken and arisen in the form of the Tea Party. The time has come for our corporate citizens to join the party. We need to see some massive acts of corporate defiance. We need to see the ISP's and network operators collectively extend the one-finger salute to the FCC and the federal government and tell them they can "rulemake" all they want, we are no longer going to play the game, and then continue to operate as they always have. JUST IGNORE THE NET-NEUTRALITY "RULE." For added emphasis (like a 2X4 across the skull of a jackass to get his attention) they should take the internet down for a week or two. The same goes for energy producers regarding the EPA'a intention to impose the cap and trade stupidity by "rulemaking" fiat. Energy producers should tell the EPA to shove its rules where the sun don't shine, and forcefully declare that they won't participate. JUST IGNORE THE CAP AND TRADE "RULE." Then, take the entire electrical grid down, coast to coast, for a week. Accompany all of this with massive anti-government protests in the streets of every city and town in America and we may finally bring this rogue governemnt to heel. JUST SAY NO TO THE GOVERNMENT! JUST SAY NO TO THE GOVERNMENT! JUST SAY NO TO THE GOVERNEMNT! F*** THE GOVERNEMNT! F***THE GOVERNEMNT! F*** THE GOVERNEMNT. I encourage everyone who reads this to start e-mailing the board of directors of corporations that will be affected by this "rulemaking" to encourage this type of defiance. Asssure them that the people will have their back. WE SHALL OVERCOME!
Ret. Marine| 12.29.10 @ 7:13AM
You have just wasted an otherwise good essay on preaching to the "CHOIR". Social justice demands this as in the first steps of control, because someone else is always going to be envious of what others have vrs. free market idea's. The government wants control over the truth as they proclaim it and the investors are then required to lie on their behalf while trying to keep afloat. What cha gonna do when we come for you? KEN, I had the same question, thanks.
Melvin| 12.29.10 @ 7:37AM
The FCC taking over the Internet is one of the most egregious misuses of government power. This is even easier to understand than Obama Care.
The vast majority of the youth in this Country cannot comprehend what Obama Care means to them, but one that will sure as hell grab their attention is the control of their beloved Internet being it hardwired or wireless.
I know I'm beating this dead horse to death but FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski needs to be slapped down like the little bureaucratic bitch he is.
Both Democrats and Republicans need to join together again and show this little Obama lap dog, that he isn't the little Lord Fauntleroy that he thinks he is.
Ignoring a Federal Judge and ignoring Congress should not be overlooked and hopefully John Boehner will light a fire under Jules that is so hot he'll come flying off his FCC thrown like a Saturn Rocket never to return.
Rest assure Jules and his crones are working feverishly to creating rules that will be hidden from oversight and even if the Republicans & Democrats jerk the rug out from under him, the end result of what Obama wanted will still be operating in the shadows, just like the resurrection of the Death Panels by regulation. Julius Genachowski is the type of little weasel that you want to come up behind and give him a double handed wedgie from hell. And then watch with amusement as the little rodent scurries around and yelps in pain.
MikeD| 12.29.10 @ 8:16AM
Since no rational ppeople would act like obama, reid, and pelosi aftert the beating they took on election day, my concern is that they are either NOT rational, and thus unqualified for office; or have already 'fixed' the elections through vote fraud, force, and the 'creative' use of their propaganda wing, the media.
These democrats have proven over and over that they will do ANYTHING to gain, and/or hold, power. I'm wondering if a pre-emptive strike might not be the only way to preserve our Country.
Before the elections in 2006, Republicans and Conservatives screamed about what crazy things a congress headed by pelosi and reid would do. It has been worse than our most rediculous fears. These democrats are pure evil; and can get away with anything they want; as they have demonstrated time after time. It's sort of like when two people fight outside a bar. As they're wrestling and punching, with their 'friends' egging them on, they all expect it to be relatively harmless after all is said and done. But what happens when one of the fighters has absolutely NO morals or common sense and pulls out a pistol and pumps three bullets into the other guy's head? That's the kind of behavior the democrats have exhibited time after time. If we're not willing to stop them with every means at our disposal, then we'd better give up and go home. Are you listening GOP?
Intelligent Design| 12.29.10 @ 7:47AM
Obama and the rest of the Demo-Socialists want to make it illegal for private enterprise to provide better service to those who are willing to pay more. It's the same as outlawing overnight delivery by the USPS, Fed X, or UPS. It's another invasion of private property, resulting in subversion of the Constitution and less freedom.
Just as with health care, we need far less government involvement, not more.
Gary| 12.29.10 @ 7:51AM
The Republicans had better prove themselves by stopping this tyranny in its tracks RIGHT NOW. Ken's frustrations are shared by all of us. If an orderly means of stopping this geometric expansion of the federal government (it's way beyond "mission creep") isn't offered than some other type of solution will spontaneously erupt. If enough liberty is taken away, then there will be a huge population of people with nothing left to lose. Are we there yet?
MikeD| 12.29.10 @ 8:19AM
We're much closer to the unthinkable than we have been since 1861. These people are way beyond political fights; they are criminals and deserve to be in jail, if not a worse fate. The GOP had better get out their brass knuckles and turn off their hearing aids to the bleating and screaming from the media.
bluecollarbytes| 12.29.10 @ 8:17AM
'The youth' have no clue either as to the revolutionary nature of the Internet and the healthy threat it poses to all top-down govts (which is all). But they do 'understand' 'free internet'.
'
DonDuke| 12.29.10 @ 8:22AM
When will all of this stop? I swear that if the Republicans don't turn this theft and Obamacare, around there's going to be trouble in this country. I believe people have had enough. This is not only theft of private property but tyranny at it's highest. And now, this morning, Obama states he is going to pursue his global warming agenda next year.... my God..... what reality do these people populate?
stephanie| 12.29.10 @ 9:17AM
Well, Don it's warm in Hawaii. the man is a puppet for a much larger evil.
George True| 12.29.10 @ 8:29AM
1) Cap and Trade fails due to not enough votes for cloture. Now the EPA enacts Cap and Trade by fiat.
2) Obamacare is passed (in a technically illegal way) but the 'death panels' are not part of the legislation. Now CMS enacts it by fiat.
3) So-called net neutrality never makes it to a floor vote. In addition a federal judge rules that the FCC cannot legally enact it. The FCC enacts it anyway.
One of the first things the new Republican led congress better do is appoint a pit bull of a special prosecutor to go after these criminals and prosecute them.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 12:16PM
Hear, hear! Next month should be interesting. If it isn't, we'd better get busy burning up the phone lines to Congress.
Mimi| 12.29.10 @ 8:45AM
Well, well...we got OBAMA across the ocean on another.." VAY-CAY", happy as a clam eating ice cream...SMILING away. The 3 MINI...minions ..Lisa (EPA), Jules (FCC) and Donnie Berwick(Medicare) following "Orders from Headquarters"...Uh.."see if this flys"
It is just a matter of time...mistakes and errors in their over-reaching....Do they not know they live in the LAND OF THE FREE?....
Ryan| 12.29.10 @ 8:52AM
I think that my conservative credentials are pretty safe here, so I may have a little leeway on the next few statements.
1. We on the Right oversimplify net neutrality. It's NOT OMG TEH GOVERNMENT IS TAKING OVER TEH INTERWEBS! - But there IS something to the slippery slope argument, I believe.
2. The FCC shouldn't and doesn't have the authority to make this happen.
3. There needs to be some check on broadband providers to prevent limiting access to the internet. For instance - Comcast wants to block and/or charge Netflix NOT just because Netflix eats a ton of bandwith, but Comcast ALSO owns a competing product - OnDemand.
VOIP third-party providers will also be hurt when their services are throttled in favor of the product the ISP touts.
There IS some anti-competitive issues at hand here that the large ISP's want to put into place by keeping net neutrality out of the way.
It's a situation where I'm not so sure there isn't a good guy in the room - government or corporate.
Ryan| 12.29.10 @ 8:54AM
Here's the other side of the issue - is there really a free market when it comes to getting the internet? How many of us have more than two choices where we live (Cable and DSL?)
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 12:23PM
Ryan,
You are correct that there are subtleties to the Net Neutrality issue and problems which regulation may attack. However regulation opens a host of other problems other than keeping NetFlix and OnDemand in competitive balance.
We already have separate plans for bandwidth. One simple fix is to charge for total downloads.
If Comcast is behaving anti-competitively, there are already remedies to which the FCC regulation does not add.
PS. Cable, DSL and Satellite
Brubaker| 12.29.10 @ 9:12AM
Regarding point 3, just why does there need to be "some check on broadband providers"?
Staying with your example, Comcast spent vast amounts building their network. Why do you think it makes sense to force them to carry the products of their competitors? If you don't like Comcast's policies, don't subscribe.
Ryan| 12.29.10 @ 9:27AM
If I had Comcast (I don't), who would I switch to?
Pete| 12.29.10 @ 10:25AM
Satellite
Ryan| 12.29.10 @ 10:45AM
For internet? Not yet. Reliability is still spotty.
And no guarantees that there won't be the same issues. It's also more expensive.
Pete| 12.29.10 @ 11:13AM
So are the restaurants in rural areas. Why can't I get every kind of fresh exotic food that they get in the big cities where I live...at the exact same price? Surely I am being discriminated against.
And Satellite internet access has been around for a long time.
Ryan| 12.29.10 @ 11:58AM
Netflix, Amazon, Foxnews, etc. aren't "exotic" services.
If I knew that Cox (my provider) throttled down Netflix, I MAY consider jumping to another option, but I would probably just stop watching. Right now, they're providing pretty decent service, and are the cheapest. Plus, they understand that their customer base may want Netflix, and not what they offer.
There's also the content issue as well, with free speech being stifled from the corporate end rather than the governmental.
vladdy| 1.1.11 @ 7:52PM
When free speech is stifled by the corporate, the free market will fill any demand.When it is stifled by the government, the free market cannot work
Conservative BOb| 12.29.10 @ 12:19PM
Ryan,
FYI.
I have had Satellite for TV since it was introduced. (Local monopoly granted by government provided really poor service) I then moved to an extremely rural area and added Satellite Broadband. It is not as fast as services offered to urban areas but is reliable. I think the speeds are comparable to low end DSL..
Too Many Tims| 12.29.10 @ 8:58AM
Would it be too much to ask our new, republican House majority to defund the FCC? The EPA? Obamacare? Would it be too much to ask them to keep the incandescent lightbulb legal?
NavyBrat | 12.29.10 @ 9:13AM
"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."...Goebbels
"The bourgeoisie is many times stronger than we. To give it the weapon of freedom of the press is to ease the enemy’s cause, to help the class enemy. We do not desire to end in suicide, so we will not do this."...Lenin
"While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State."...Lenin
"The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to Socialism."...Marx
Its all there in history folks. These people have been, & still are, pursuing these same goals. They have gotten & retained power by using our own system against us. And now they stand like Caesar, ready to end our Republic & impose their vision of "Empire." They are traitors to this nation, Her People, & Her Constitution. The sooner we rid ourselves of these clowns, the better.
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."...Cicero
"There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like... But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you keep this, you need fear no harm."...Demosthenes
"Men ask, what is the reason why I, or why any one of you, O conscript fathers, should be afraid of bad laws while we have virtuous tribunes of the people? We ahve men ready to interpose their veto; ready to defend the republic with the sanctions of religion. We ought to be strangers to fear. What do you mean by interposing the veto? says he; what are these sanctions of religion which you are talking about? Those, forsooth, on which the safety of republic depends. We are neglecting those things, and thinking them too old fashioned and foolish. The forum will be surrounded, every entrance of it will be blocked up; ARMED MEN will be placed in garrison, as it were, at many points. What then?--whatever is accomplished by those means will be law. And you will order, I suppose, all those regularly passed decrees to be engraved on brazen tablets. 'The consuls consulted the people in the regular form,' (Is this the way of consulting the people that we have received from our ancestors?) 'and the people voted it with due regularity.' What people? that which was excluded from the forum? Under what law did they do so? under that which has been wholly abrogated by violence of arms? But I am saying all this with reference to the future; because it is the part of a friend to point out evils which may be avoided: and if they never ensue, that will be the best refutation of my speech. I am speaking of laws which have been proposed; concerning which you have still full power to decide either way. I am pointing out the defects; away with them I am denouncing violence and arms; away with them too!"...Marcus Tullius Cicero, The First Philippic
"Let him employ arms, if it is neccessary, as he says it is, for his own defence: only let not those arms injure those men who have declared their honest sentiments in the affairs of the republic. Now, what can be more reasonable than this demand? But if, as has been said to me by some of his [Antony's] intimate friends, every speech which is contrary to his inclination is violently offensive, to him, even if there be no insult in it whatever, then we will bear the natural disposition of our friend. But those men, at the same time, say to me, 'you will not have the same license granted to you who are the adversary of Caesar as might be claimed by Piso his father in law.' And then they warn me of something of which I must guard against; and certainly, the excuse which sickness supplies me with, for not coming to the senate, will not be a more valid one than that which is furnished by death."...Marcus Tullius Cicero, The First Philippic
Ken Old Texican)| 12.29.10 @ 5:31PM
Navy Brat
Thank you for the quotes......timeless aren't they?
Draco| 12.29.10 @ 9:47AM
Peter Ferrara states: "ISPs and broadband operators are subject to fierce market competition."
No, Peter, they are not. Competition presupposes a multitude of suppliers readily available to the consumers, who are free to choose among them. In most markets, there are only one or two suppliers of internet access. It's not even remotely a free market.
An article which cannot get even the basic facts right cannot be taken seriously.
Ryan| 12.29.10 @ 9:53AM
This is where the corporatism issue comes in -just about every argument is sound EXCEPT for the fact that there isn't much of a free market on providers.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 12:35PM
Ryan,
Take a look at the big picture. In the time one hundred years since Bell invented the telephone, we got all the way to having a single phone line with a busy signal for about $15 (70's dollars) a month and a long distance call cost quite a bit extra. Green broke up the phone system 30 years ago and no, for about the same money ($50, today) you have internet, VOIP and can download NetFlix for $9 / month.
We've done pretty well without regulation. And with the cellular system, look for more options and competition.
Of course, this FCC regulatory grab also needs to be viewed in the context of Obama's claimed need to be able to shutdown the internet in times of national emergency. There is nothing benign in this action.
Dixie Pixie| 12.29.10 @ 9:57AM
Pardon me for combining a reply to two threads in one post
(aka...."Net Neutrality is Theft" and "Is It a Right or Isn't It"....)
Gentlemen I have an open question.
How long does the current Federal Government expect to last.
In the net neutrality article it is openly admitted the President and his minions are beyond the constraints of the Constitution and written Law.
In the ObamaCare article it is implied that the Federal Government is striving to resolve a budget problem by killing off its most expensive citizens.
How long can a government last when its members openly flaunt its disregard for Law and are an active danger to its citizens.
Add to that the Federal Government is ignoring the last election results.
It then becomes clear the government no longer consider "The Consent of the Governed" or " Rule by the People, For the People" to be in existence.
How long will the American People allow this condition to to last when they loudly yelled "Hell No" just 2 months ago.
Also consider that the recent start-up of propaganda efforts by the MSM to sell life termination by governmental neglect, indicates the situation is Ruling Class wide.
How long can the current government last.
Or even a better question is, when will somebody notice the government has been running on "Good Will" vapor for years.
Brian Mc| 12.29.10 @ 9:59AM
I have a sister who has been a card carrying liberal well before she first took up choir directorship at a local public school...as she now heads towards retirement, her flame for socialism burns as brightly and the legions of students she affected march towards their ever-growing list of entitlements.
I wonder if there will come a day when she calls in the middle of the night and declares to me in a hushed tone so as not to be heard but by me, "Brother, you were right all along"...and since every passing day brings new and more audacious incremental attacks on our liberties and no call forthcoming, I am starting to feel that this Republic was all in vain...short of blood. I am becoming a depressed skeptic when I see our small 'victories' which only take us back to a new line in the sand that the socialists moved in the night...my heart aches for what this country has done to itself in the past one hundred years. Unfortunately, there are no new horizons for which to run to, with covered wagon loaded to the gunwhales; a snap at the reins and we're off to try again somewhere over there; in the land of the setting sun that throws ever longer shadows over this grand Republic. God help us. I will continue to vote for truth and goodness, limited government by the people and so on, but with an ever heavier heart. Texas, we are watching.
Melvin| 12.29.10 @ 10:28AM
Your sister will realize what she has put her whole body and soul into for all these years is a complete failure, as she stands amongst the ruins of a failed, repressive ideology.
Allen Texas| 12.29.10 @ 10:36AM
Brian,
Texas and Texans are already in a struggle with the Feds over Obamacare and now the EPA is illegally taking away Texas's power to license power plants last week. The strange thing is that on Yahoo news this morning is an article claiming that poor environmental standards by the State government is killing forests here though the article doesn't mention that the area has been in drougth conditions for several years now. How surprising that article comes out so soon. It seems the Feds are expanding its powers illegally as usual and even more despotically all at once with the usual lap dog assistance of the MSM to give us too many fronts to defend adequately. The day may come here in Texas where the US flag is taken down and the Gonzalez flag will simply tell the Feds our feelings; COME AND TAKE IT
Brian Mc| 12.29.10 @ 11:21AM
I will watch from the eastern 'shore' of Iowa where socialist dogma has become more prevalent in recent years; you can't even tell a socialist on the ballot since they removed party affiliation from same...smoking is being banned in public as we speak and big brother has affixed increasing numbers of cameras to street corners. If Texas goes in the direction I pray it does, I may stay in Iowa and continue the good fight or, I might pack up and head south...haven't been to the lonestar state since bootcamp where my conservative streak was begun and my whining for socialist reforms ceased.
Melvin| 12.29.10 @ 10:24AM
I have heard the voices of rebellion more and more from those Americans that I would not figure coming from.
Now I would be the first one to grab a pitchfork, and storm the palace, but the voice of, "Ken, (Old Texican) resonates in the brain housing group.
Let say 80% percent of the Nation stormed the palace tomorrow. The next thought that should occur to us is, Now that we have the keys and thrown the bums in jail, now what do we do?
Well, for starters the rule of law applies as much to us as it does to the corrupt. We just can't be a mob, and do what mobs do, besides we don't behave like Democrats anyway.
I would tend to think or at least like to think that there are Americans of certain power and influence that are seeing the exact things we are seeing evolve.
Because after every rebellion there is a inordinate amount of time that passes that there is a void. This void or transition of government if you will can be a very volatile and dangerous time.
This is where I am hoping if indeed this evolution takes place powers that are in-place such as the politicians we know we can trust step in to calm the masses and immediately start new boards of inquires to those politicians, Fed. Res. and the like, we know are corrupt.
I am assuming that we are all for the most part in complete agreement that the current system has been too corrupted and unable to be repaired as the Constitution dictates.
From a historical perspective I never ever thought in my wildest imagination that I would be personally see something of this magnitude that is about to take place.
MikeD| 12.29.10 @ 2:57PM
Melvin! You said the magic words: "...besides, we don't behave like Democrats anyway." That's precisely the problem; We DON'T act like those corrupt, evil, a$$holes! But, it's time we did.
It always bothered me when the heroes in movies swear they'd rather lose than "stoop to their level." We NEED to stoop BEYOND their level and crush them with every filthy, disgusting sneaky trick they have used to get us where we are today. Plus, the demoncraps have already established the precedent. They have demonstrated their complete lack of ANY values or respect for law and the Constitution. Oh, they'll scream and whine, and their 'willing lackies' in the MSM will preach and shriek, but the rules will have been set. Let loose the dogs of political war! Are you listening GOP???
Madison| 12.29.10 @ 10:27AM
I'm not sure about "Net Neutrality" and that's not the issue:The issue is that this regime refuses to be bound by law. e.g. Net Neutrality, Cap and trade.Death Panels, Well drilling. When I was a lad I thought it hyperbola to call the decrat party"the party of treason". Now though, it's accurate.
Melvin| 12.29.10 @ 10:32AM
If the Rule of Law is cast into the abyss. Anarchy will prevail and be the rule of the day. We've all seen it happen before. At least those who delve into history.
Louis Jenkins| 12.29.10 @ 11:54AM
Madison, you are correct. Obama rules by fiat, that's why we have so many czars. But don't just blame the Democrats, the Republicans are there too. After the internet there will be other lesser but booming businesses. It's going to be a trying 2 years before there will be any hope, and the US may not last that long.
Gary| 12.29.10 @ 10:35AM
Unlike the Soviet Union's collapse, we have 50 (not 57) state governments to fall back on. Most of them are now red, which means there is some sanity left out there among the People.
Since it's now as obvious as the nose on my face that the federal government - not radical Islam, nor Mexican drug lords - is public enemy number one, I will be writing a letter to the governor of my adopted state, Texas, how he plans to defend us against this formidable enemy.
Texas is ideally positioned to lead the charge and he's been spouting off lately, so I'd like to hear his answer. If he doesn't have one, well, he'll lose my vote next time around.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.29.10 @ 1:05PM
Gary,
Go to his website and spend some time there.
serch terms easy Gvernor Perry Texas.
Read carefully.
PattyMor| 12.29.10 @ 10:39AM
Shocked! I am just that a committed Communist would not respect property rights! Seriously, people what did you expect? He never respected our Constitution or our traditions. He is so alien, that it would not suprise me if he was actually hired to be foreign agent.
The tyranny that Mark Levin has warned us about, is on the precipice and about to unfold.
Gary| 12.29.10 @ 10:50AM
Right... so how does a half-free population defend itself against rolling tyranny without going to jail or getting shot? Interesting challenge.
What about the Italian solution? We all just stage a sit-down strike until The Muslim resigns. The economy just stops. He's killing it anyway, so let's show the world what happens when the US private sector returns "fire."
Melvin| 12.29.10 @ 11:30AM
It would be chivalrous to storm the castle, by armed insurrection but 5.56mm tend to hurt quite a bit, so it probably would evolve in stages through civil disobedience, strikes. But as in Itatly, France, and England most recent is that anarchist forces basically took over peaceful protests which allowed the government to stomp down with the jackboot.
But keep in mind it is not out of the realm of possibility that government would provoke a violent confrontation which started out with peaceful purposes.
An armed rebellion should only be used when all lesser means have failed.
As a populous we have many options open to us. there was one gentleman from India who posted a very wise posted and darn it I didn't save it. But an armed rebellion is exactly what the government would like, in order to suppress us more with draconian laws.
But this gentleman impressed upon us that Gandhi, through civil disobedience chased England out of India, with very minimum loss of life. If our future history wills this, then this is the approach we should take.
Gary| 12.29.10 @ 11:54AM
No riots, no demonstrations... just a simple sit-down, stay-home, stay-home-from-school strike. Kinda' like an extended holiday hours situation. Sales tax revenues down, school reimbursements down, etc. It would hurt, but compare this short term hurt against a big, permanent hurt if tyranny wins the whole enchilada.
These creeps smell blood in the water and they see the next two years with The Muslim in charge as their gold-plated window of opportunity. Our last line of defense within the system, I'm sorry to say, is that cesspool of sellouts called the Republican Party. Failing that, it's up to us, isn't it? Time for Founding Father courage.
Robert Pinkerton| 12.29.10 @ 12:24PM
Tactical manual for rebels: Creative Non-Violence, by Martin Oppenheimer and George Lakey, Quadrangle (Philadelphia: 1970).
Primary "weapon" for rebels: Video camera with inbuilt date-time generator, for documenting observed governmental abuses.
Who Knows?| 12.29.10 @ 12:21PM
When it comes to the economy, the most basic issue, it seems to me, has to be growth.
What stifles, or even impedes it, is THEFT!
Killing the golden goose, and all that.
Here’s an astounding quote from “Breaking Ranks” by Norman Podhoretz, from 1979. He’s writing about his involvement with the 1972 primary election, when he was backing Muskie.
“It was the same with the issue of growth. As nothing had been more central to the old liberalism of the Democrats---the liberalism of Kennedy and Johnson---than a belief in growth as the key to general prosperity and as the only way to lift the poor out of poverty without dispossessing the prosperous, so nothing had been more important to the new radicalism than its HOSTILITY TO GROWTH as the means by which a hated system was kept alive. Within the Movement this HOSTILITY had been directed not primarily at the idea of growth as such but against the TECHNOLOGICAL advances through which it was achieved, and sometimes even against industrialism itself. But an attitude so close to Luddism being much too extreme to ‘work within the system’, a translation into more respectable terms was needed; and it soon appeared in the form of a new concern over the ‘ENVIRONMENT.’ Under the influence of this concern, TECHNOLOGY could now be portrayed as a kind of carcinogenic agent and the growth it produced as the cancer of the body politic. In the late sixties Susan Sontag had once made the connection altogether explicit.
‘The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone---its ideologies and inventions---which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself.’
Some years later, after falling victim to cancer herself, Susan Sontag would repent of the metaphoric use of cancer in this passage. But by that time a sanitized version of the same idea had gained widespread currency through the theory (which, by the way, she did not repudiate) that the literal, not the metaphorical, cause of cancer was those very TECHNOLOGICAL and industrial ‘inventions’ of our civilization which were allegedly---and again literally, not metaphorically---upsetting ‘the ecological balance of the planet.’
But in addition to upsetting the ecological balance of the planet by polluting the air and the water and the food supply, growth was also charged with exhausting the planet’s resources. Prophets disguised as scientists and waving computer projections instead of scriptural texts now began warning that unless a halt was called to growth, the world would soon---again literally, not metaphorically---come to an end. This was the message of the report, sponsored by a business group known as the Club of Rome and entitled ‘The Limits of Growth’, whose influence was so great that even after its pretensions as a scientific analysis had been destroyed by a host of critics, the case it made against growth was still widely believed to be based on reliable data and irrefutable mathematical projections.
In truth, however, this theory no more deserved to be called scientific than Marx’s theory of history, which also claimed to be scientific and for which, indeed, the anti-growth doctrine served as a replacement in the continuing campaign to prove that Western civilization was doomed by its own internal contradictions. In the Marxist scheme, the survival of bourgeois civilization depended upon continual growth, but this could only be achieved by impoverishing the working class which would at some point arise to destroy it; history (whose inexorable laws had now been scientifically discovered by Marx) thus decreed that bourgeois civilization was unviable. Now according to the new scheme, it was the laws not of History but of Nature which decreed that bourgeois civilization was doomed---that it could not go on existing without either poisoning itself or running out of the raw materials it needed to feed its insatiable machines.
Armed with such ideas, the New Politics movement took a position that amounted to so complete a REVERSAL of the theme of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier that it might have campaigned under the slogan ‘Let’s STOP the Country from Moving Again.’”
And here we are, over 30 years after these insightful words were offered to us all, and look at the present state of affairs! It is apparently the case that Al Gore won by losing to GWB, in that he has a more powerful “Pulpit” from which to play the bully of NO-GROWTH that he is, and golly gee, even John McCain joined the “Prophets disguised as scientists and waving computer projections instead of scriptural texts” crowd.
In another section Podhoretz delves into the 1973 oil crisis, when OPEC jacked up the price of crude by 400%. As he notes, in an earlier time such a TAKING = THEFT of vital raw materials would have been an act of war, and yet, the American CIC failed to take action. Here we can spy perhaps one of the most egregious examples of riding the “weak horse”. Just think if the civilized Western world had squashed in the cradle the birth of this now existential threat---rich Islam!
Maybe we are DOOMED!
Finally, the postscript of the book quoted from is putatively to his son, John. And, if you take seriously the conclusion reached by Mark Steyn about how demographics indicate a foul future for the non-Muslim world, well---ol’ “young” Norm, who was only 49 when he penned this disturbing book, certainly makes Steyn look like a wimpy Johnny-come-lately.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.29.10 @ 1:25PM
Folks,
It truly is a honor and a pleasure to come here to the comments section. You guys make me think in all sorts of meaningful directions...and I grow thereby.
Who Knows,
We are certainly not DOOMED.
We do in fact have some bloody battles ahead of us, and I am not speaking metaphorically.
SOME of us will be killed and maimed, sure enough. Many of us will go hungry...along with our kids.
NO enemy...once recognized and identified by us...can defeat us... NOT EVEN an outlaw government, or Sharia perpetrators.
We may have to bleed, but we WILL prevail... SO HELP US GOD!
MikeD| 12.29.10 @ 3:14PM
As a post-war baby, much of my formative years was influenced by Mad magazine; and not just because it drove my teachers crazy. While it was self-described as a humor magazine, it was actually a conservative observer of the more ludicrious movements in American society particularly the self righteous softening of Americans, all of whom seemed to want something for nothing. (Like today...)
One article in particular comes to mind, coming shortly after Jean Shephards' coining of the term "Creeping Meatballism" to describe the revisionism then beginning to sweep our society. (Late 50' through early 70s)
This particular article by Dave Berg was titled something like: "When this Trend Toward Understanding Gets Out of Hand", and it was a collection of bad behaviors being constantly overlooked for all sorts of reasons that have now, all these years later become legitimized. Like: circumstances of birth, being 'underprivileged', alcoholism, taking drugs, etc... However, the most 'telling' part of the article was the continual softening of America by refusing to hold ANYBODY responsible for their actions, resulting in a "...fat, slovenly, rounded body politic shaped just like Weebles; EASY PREY FOR THE LEAN, HUNGRY HOARDS FROM ASIA (The example was the "Red" Chinese) who will over-run us with little or no effort.
It may be the wrong message, but remember what Tom Jefferson wrote; although it has been attributed to other authors at various times: "From time to time the tree of liberty must be refreshed by the blood of patriots." Are we there yet?
Oldefarte| 12.29.10 @ 12:32PM
Let me try to add a few thoughts to Peter's outstanding editorial on this subject. As the title states, this is governmental THEFT by these liberal, Democrat domestic terrorists. The internet is most efficiently operated if done so by the PRIVATE SECTOR, with minimal oversite by government. The purpose of the government's overreach is their enhancement of the brainwashing and propaganda issuance that they now provide via their controlled MSM [it is indirectly controlled not by governmental boards directing its content, but rather by the liberal/radical journalism professors at every university whose graduates go forth to MSM outlets and thereafter editorialize their news stories with a liberalized slants favorable to the liberal Democratic Party]. Government control will result in their regulating/shutting down of conservative sources such as Limbaugh, Fox, TAS, Atlanta's Bortz, etc so that the liberal NEWS can be spread exclusively by CBS,NBC,NYT, Boston Globe, SF Chronicle, Chicago Tribuen, etc. It is all about control, and not about providing the net to the impoverished members of society. I do disagree with one of Peter's pronouncements though in that I favor an article of IMPEACHMENT being brought against El Chosen One for any one of a number of activities that have come forth from DC/1600 in the last two years [and think that it would further the curtailment of things similar to the subject of this editorial since it would vertually tie up this administration's efforts in most all areas!!!!!!!!!!
Dixie Pixie| 12.29.10 @ 12:35PM
Greetings Melvin
It is always good to have a few people in a squad that think storming a machine gun nest is a fun thing to do.
If you really wanted to stop the Federal Government in its tracks then hit them where it really hurts.
If you can find a way to peacefully and nonviolently stop the Federal income stream then the Federal Government will fold in a matter of weeks.
After all the core of Federal power is the 3 Trillion dollars plus under their control.
No Federal income, No Federal power.
A very simple equation.
Gary| 12.29.10 @ 1:11PM
On a highly-visible but much smaller scale you can starve a local government (corrupt) school in this manner just by keeping a critical mass of children home. Unless I'm mistaken, when a child is absent, the school can't get reimbursed by the state. Think that would get their attention?
I'm 100% sure men with guns would come for the children, so they'd have to be hidden. You know, like Anne Frank had to be hidden from the Nazis. Same thing here. Remember that photograph of Elian Gonzales being dragged out of that home in Florida at the point of an automatic weapon by that brave, ski-masked Gestapo goon?
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.29.10 @ 1:31PM
Gary,
We have a mission for you should you care to accept it.
Find out the simplest way for parents to "claim" homeschooling and get away with it.
Brilliant thought, bud.
You can contact me through one of my publishing companies: sales@texassaidno.com
If you would like to talk privately.
John Navratil| 12.29.10 @ 6:03PM
Gary,
I sent mine to private school, but my brother has not. He took his Kindergartener son to London for a week, having told everyone he was doing so and was threatened when he returned with a charge of truancy if his son missed another day. It seems he needed to get the assignments for his son's work before he left.... from Kindergarten.
The lesson is that it had better be a mass action.
Dixie Pixie| 12.29.10 @ 6:30PM
Greetings Gary
There is a slight flaw in your theory.
In Birmingham Alabama, the City School Supervisor was caught doubling the number of children enrolled reported to the Federal Government for monetary reimbursement. He was doing so for five years. As a minority member and a prominent Democrat he was allowed to resign and find a similar job in another state. The AEA kept him one step ahead of the Federal investigators so he got away clean.
The school system kept the money.
A recent report has found even in the best school systems had a missing rate of 30%
The average missing rate was 50%.
Obviously the home-school rate is much higher than is commonly acknowledged.
The problem with "Going Galt" is the Federal Government never notices the loss.
The Fed's never admitted they destroyed the manufacturing and heavy industries.
Not one bureaucrat ever lost his job or suffered an income drop because of that destruction.
Every election cycle a politician will journey to the Rust Belt to promise the jobs will return for their vote. For 40 years the jobs and revenue did not come back and under the Democrats they never will.
The loss of governmental revenue was compensated by increasing taxes elsewhere.
Thus my idea to really stop the Federal Government is to stop its income stream.
Simultaneously shut down the IRS, Federal Reserve, Bond Brokers and Banks loaning money to the Feds. That will hurt the Federal Government as nothing else will.
No money, no Federal action, it is that simple.
The best part is the people have to keep the money as the Federals can not collect it.
Steve in Pittsburgh| 12.29.10 @ 2:00PM
This whole thing started when a couple of cheapskates wanted to download pirated movies (which they did not pay for), which take up a lot of bandwidth.
So that's 2 reasons why the ISPs don't want to be told how to run their business.
Steve in Pittsburgh| 12.29.10 @ 2:09PM
whitehouse.com was a porn site a few years ago. Now it's a lawyers site. Insert joke here for which option you think does more harm to society.
Seriously, yes, it is easy to accidently go to a porn site, if you mispell a URL. Or confuse ".com" with ".net" or with ".gov", etc.
NJK| 12.29.10 @ 2:45PM
And to think people still believe him when he says he was born in Hawaii? He's steals everything, including the Presidency. Barack Hussein Obama is a Kenyan born/Indonesian citizen. I think the White House will need to be checked when he's removed. I'm sure in addition to the country's secrets he's stolen other things.
vladdy| 1.1.11 @ 8:01PM
BO steals and then distributes to the third world leaders of his choice..
Virginia| 12.29.10 @ 4:12PM
Some internet service provider(s),e.g. Comcast, who have standing must file an injunction with the courts immediately seeking a cease and desist order to prevent the FCC from moving forward.
If the FCC refuses to comply with that order then impeachment proceeding aginst the FCC Chairman must begin.
miles| 12.29.10 @ 9:44PM
I can see that some professional "trolls" have come to visit the Spectator to discourage opposition to the FCC's plan to regulate the internet, claiming to be concerned about pornogrphy (there is plenty of software that can block adult content on your computer for sale). The left must really want this, therefore right-wingers should really oppose it. Give the left a chance, and there wouldn't be a spectator.org. They'd made it an illegal site.
Rebecca| 12.29.10 @ 11:20PM
Thank your Mr. Ferrara. I do not know how we are going to get the facts and the truth when this man, who some still call president, achieves his goal. Control of the internet..control of everything. I learned early in this administration that nothing they did made sense to a normal American. When something does not make sense, it is because it makes sense to only those who know what the end result is going to be. We should all be aware by now they don't want us to know what they are doing. I listen, I read, I study and the more I do..the more I become frightened for America. Everything this man and his Marxist Socialist friends, associates, appointees, Czars (I despise that title) makes sense to them..If you watch what they are doing, you will understand what their deceptive plans are. There lies the problem. It makes sense to those who have a subversive evil plan to undermine our Constitution and steal our freedoms. Many Americans are simply still asking, "What are they doing?" ...I call on all Americans to make their feelings known about what is going on regarding our loss of freedom and the audacity of the Socialist Marxist Progressive Democrat elites to continue to "nudge", push and pull us over the cliff to Socialist hell. We must call, write, email...and contact our government representatives and senators...and The White House. We must continue to be vigilant. We must put a stop to this agenda. The first step is for Americans to admit "we have a problem." Knowledge is power, determination to keep our freedoms a must, and voting for people who appreciate and love America is critical. I am sorry to say, I just do not think Obama has any redeeming qualities. He could not do the things he is doing to this country if he were a real American. The internet and Obamacare are just two examples of his power hungry desires. DADT was not a priority. This is a time of war for our military..they didn't need the distraction. Our economy is a total disaster. Our southern border states are in danger, and soon other states will also be in danger from all the violence.. Obama should be vacationing along the Texas-Mexico border--El Paso, Juarez..or Nuevo Laredo. No budget being presented until February? Meanwhile he is in Hawaii.....vacationing...How long are we going to have to witness this obnoxious behavior? 2012 . I never wish for the quick passing of time, however, in this instance, America has not much time. There are still those who believe in the agenda of this narcissistic creature...For me that is the most frightening thought of all. He is a Socialist. He is not going to change...only his rhetoric may change. Another frightening thought. He is reading books and studying President Reagan. As usual, when Obama is involved, I ask myself, WHY? I doubt it is because he respects or believes in Ronald Reagan's philosophies. My best guess: Know your enemy. Reagan stood for all things opposite Obama. If he were simply an understudy learning to transform himself into a more acceptable president for the next two years, he would be reading more about Clinton. Clinton never fooled me, Obama certainly will not. I hope 2011 will be a good year for America. There is always hope. Not Obama's kind of "Hope", but the kind of hope Americans have always had. Hope for freedom, peace, pursuit of happiness, and all things the Creator bestowed upon us. The very endowments Obama has no right to take away.
Kingofthenet| 12.30.10 @ 12:03AM
Rebecca, Please, for our collective IQ, please have your Ovaries removed or you tubes tied...Thank You
Gohfukurself| 12.30.10 @ 2:11PM
What a classy, charming guy you are! And what a great argument! Good show!
P.S. Go F**K yourself Azzhole!
ManassasGrandma| 12.29.10 @ 11:30PM
I do not want government to control the internet, bit it makes me sad that supposed conservatives are blythe about children being hooked on the disease of porn. I don't know much about computers and can't adequately defend. In addition, it is just everywhere- if you try to protect your own child, but it is like trying to stay clean in a sewer.
Kingofthenet| 12.29.10 @ 11:30PM
Wow, I must think COMPLETELY different than you Rethugs, ONLY in your minds could a ruling that forces All ISP to carry All internet traffic without favor is a bad thing for free speech.
LiveFreeOrDie| 12.30.10 @ 2:33PM
"...a ruling that forces All _____ to _____"
Almost never a good statement. Name an industry the feds touched in the last 50 years that hasn't been made worse?
vladdy| 1.1.11 @ 8:05PM
Maybe you are a person of the left because you have not yet realized that regulation leads to more regulation. Either that, or it's because you are naive enough to believe a government agency who claims they will allow "all internet traffic without favor."
Negro X| 12.29.10 @ 11:42PM
Kingoftrolls,
Your problem is that you don't think.
Kingofthenet| 12.29.10 @ 11:58PM
Most are you Republicans are Dunces, so I will spell it out for you IF there was no 'Net Neutrality' and Youtube, Netfix and of COURSE your beloved Nascar refused to PAY your ISP CASH to carry their traffic, your ISP would refuse to allow their traffic and cut you off. Get it?
LiveFreeOrDie| 12.30.10 @ 2:13PM
Care to cite an example of this happening right now?
vladdy| 1.1.11 @ 8:06PM
You know, you really do hurt your own credibility when you start a comment with an ad hominem attack and then include a stereotype in the body of it.
maikehanmo | 12.30.10 @ 12:18AM
What can i do that you dont dell my word?
Steve| 12.30.10 @ 12:26AM
I take issue with one point that you make. Comcast, as with most residential broadband providers, hasn't seen "fierce competition" in most markets it serves. Most residential broadband providers have a monopoly over the areas they serve. Monopolies are most emphatically not free market. Residential broadband encompasses the majority of users that are not businesses, and are most effected by the whims of monopoly power. If there were several reasonable broadband providers at most residences in the US, then I would accept your idea that free market governs better than regulation. But there is no such thing as free market in residential broadband. There IS reasonable competition in business broadband/Internet, but in many cases, the last mile is owned by one company per geographic area. So in practice, regulation is required to counter monopoly power to guarantee access to those competitive options. To reiterate, when there are several reasonable options for broadband Internet at most locations, then we will be able to rely on market forces to give consumers a reasonable product at a reasonable cost. Until then, don't prescribe a free market solution where free market doesn't exist.
PolishKnight| 12.30.10 @ 12:54PM
I always thought that the FCC's main charter was specious to begin with. The notion that the radio spectrum is finite and this justifies the Feds regulating not only slots for particular users, but content, is like Fidel Castro regulating printing ink. Or a local traffic cop stopping newspaper trucks to regulate the content. Conservatives are WAAAY late for this party!
The internet was originally a network of government and quasi government subnets (academia) that ultimately evolved into a network of private and international subnets. The FCC has no more business regulating the internet than it does UPS but... it probably _does_ have a right to regulate UPS and the internet since both are interstate commerce and communications. Hmm, that probably also applies to the radio spectrum as well.
From what I have read so far, net neutrality appears to be a largely moot, Stalingrad issue in itself. Internet providers probably want to give special bandwidth boosts and discount for their own content but the reality is that this is probably irrelevant in the long run. Internet users are unusually saavy and if one provider is giving lousy bandwidth for a beloved service, they're less likely to switch services than they are to just switch providers out of disgust.
The real threat is a welfare state internet but this sounds similar to the old discounts on telephone two-wire telephone access. While this is a rotten precedent, it's not the end of the world. It's not like there's just one carrier, ma-bell, reaming the rest of paying consumer and business customers (yet!) In addition, there are now several providers of internet available in most areas in a variety of formats: cable, fiber, cellular wireless, and "hot spots."
It shouldn't cost trillions of dollars to lay a high speed network. Hint for service providers: don't buy cisco routers! (The others are far cheaper and faster!) While we're at it, don't buy windows OS either! Linux and MacOS are far superior!
Walt Jones| 12.30.10 @ 2:00PM
The article was not about porn. It was about how Netflicks and Youtube have taken a cut out of the cable company's monopoly. Neither company consumes bandwidth. The people connecting to those sites are initiating the bandwidth use. Those people are being gouged by the cable companies already and can't be financially raped by those companies much more. Since Youtube and Netflicks also pay thier ISP's based on the bandwidth their sites generate, you see the problem for the Comcasts of the world. They want more and they want to destroy the competition. That's all this article is about. As far as "private investors" paying for laying the fiber optic and cable. Congress has given the companies trillions of dollars now to lay that cable. The only company I'm aware of that didn't blow the cash on bonuses was Verizon.
LiveFreeOrDie| 12.30.10 @ 2:36PM
Can you point me to a source to back up your claims of "trillions of dollars to lay cable" paid to private companies by the government?
NJK| 12.30.10 @ 4:58PM
ManassasGrandma,
I have two children and those sights are blocked on our computer. The Supreme Court already ruled that porn falls under free speech. The courts already ruled that the FCC didn't have the authority to do this, so did Congress. They did it anyway. This has nothing to do with protecting anyone. They want to control speech. They want to be able to issue licenses to blogs to use the internet. Now I wonder which ones will be denied licenses? Hugo Chavez is doing this too. Makes you proud doesn't it?
Sherry E. Wood| 12.30.10 @ 6:16PM
U.S. Joe Lieberman (I-CT.) is a Traitor and NOT worthy of Any kind of leadership position!!!
He betrayed the trust of the American people And his 'good buddy' U.S. Senator John McCain, when he pushed for an eleventh hour vote on repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. It was Already voted down Twice before in just 2-3 months time. He is now on my s*** list for sure!!!! Because DADT was repealed, we now have Another serious national security risk issue! Military personnel will leave by the droves, recruitment will become hard to attain, no commaradarie/unit cohesion among those who choose to stay in service, Christians (or anyone who speaks out against homosexuality/lesbianism), Shariah Law trumping the U.S. Constitution, the Muslims hate homosexuality and kill homosexuals (and other Infidels). Thus we will have no military/No National Defense and no America but taken over by any terrorist group who chooses, all in the name of 'special rights'.......Thank you Joe Lieberman!!!
And I also say, Repeal and Replace Obama!!!! Impeach And Imprison him!!!! He was Never been properly vetted and has imposed on We, the People his Anti-American agenda once too many times.
libertytim| 12.31.10 @ 5:59AM
The whole thing about the FCC is that it is a communist concept anyway...regardless of the makeup of the administration running the show from the Whitehouse.
The FCC fulfills a basic requirement of communism. More specifically if one reads through the 10 Platforms of Communism in Marx's Communist Manifesto, they will see where item 6) states Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State. And the FCC satisfies the requirement centralizing the means of communication.
And if one takes the time to read through all the 10 Platforms of Communism, one will see we are not "becoming a coming socialist/communist country", but in fact we are ALREADY a communist country...beginning with the first principal of "Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes" to the last principal of "Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production".
The analogy of a frog in boiling water? Well guess what. We're not in the process of being boiled to death. We've already have been boiled to death.
libertytim| 12.31.10 @ 6:05AM
P.S. And the Republicans have been just as cooperative as the Democrats in the goal of achieving communism in this country. The whole concept of "making the world safe for democracy" (a statement first made by Wilson only to be repeated by Bush the Second) is just the American way of saying "making the world safe for communism".
Dacron mather| 1.1.11 @ 1:20AM
Intelligent Design| 12.29.10 @ 7:47AM
Obama and the rest of the Demo-Socialists want to make it illegal for private enterprise to provide better service to those who are willing to pay more. It's the same as outlawing overnight delivery by the USPS, Fed X, or UPS. It's another invasion of private property, "
No, Dumbo. Having the Feds give Fedex a fast lane monopoly would slow down the highways at large .
Ferara is clearly not writing in his own interest as a net user, let alone TAS readers so who is subsidizing his audience access here?