I'm fully in support of net neutrality, but I'm somewhat surprised they're restoring it, as I have not really heard a peep about it since it was repealed in the first place. From my perspective, nothing about the internet changed since then (my experience did not upgrade or downgrade). People stopped talking about it, there weren't major protests, news about it even largely disappeared from the front page of HN (!). So, I would be beyond shocked if this was an election year issue of substance. What, then, is the impetus for restoring the net neutrality rules, given there is always some political cost to any action like this? Has the lack of net neutrality caused issues that I just have not heard about?
>From my perspective, nothing about the internet changed since then (my experience did not upgrade or downgrade). People stopped talking about it, there weren't major protests, news about it even largely disappeared from the front page of HN (!). ... What, then, is the impetus for restoring the net neutrality rules, given there is always some political cost to any action like this? Has the lack of net neutrality caused issues that I just have not heard about?
IMO it seems likely ISPs knew the rules were likely to come back so they avoided most of the practices that would generate outrage (throttling streaming and other popular services unless you pay an additional fee). I have no doubt if they could get away with it they would haha. Many providers did roll out zero rating programs.
As for why this is important just because ISPs aren't currently doing it on a large scale doesn't mean steps shouldn't be taken to prohibit it. We already know what happens in the long run when ISPs are allowed to double dip https://restofworld.org/2024/south-korea-twitch-exit-problem...
> IMO it seems likely ISPs knew the rules were likely to come back so they avoided most of the practices that would generate outrage (throttling streaming and other popular services unless you pay an additional fee).
It had nothing to do with market effects. Some states and even quite a few local governments made their own net neutrality laws once the Trump admin nixed it federally. Complying with NN laws in some places but not others would have been way too complicated, so they just let it be.
NN being saved by consumer backlash doesn't really make sense in the US, anyway, where many (most?) people only have one or two choices for internet service. ISPs don't really need to care if their customers don't like their policies.
> It had nothing to do with market effects. Some states and even quite a few local governments made their own net neutrality laws once the Trump admin nixed it federally. Complying with NN laws in some places but not others would have been way too complicated, so they just let it be.
If that's the case, which I doubt it is, it's not like it's expensive to charge some customers more money and not others, no need for FCC regulation then, right?
No, it doesn't take this much time. It's just that net neutrality wasn't a priority for the Biden administration, so they dragged their feet until the very last minute. IIRC, there's been a flurry of rule-making just now because they are running up against a Congressional Review Act deadline.
> It's just that net neutrality wasn't a priority for the Biden administration, so they dragged their feet until the very last minute.
The FCC was deadlocked until September 2023 and started this process a few days later. Maybe they could have started in 2022 if Biden had nominated someone else after Republicans blocked his 1st choice. But Democrats believed Republicans would block anyone who would restore net neutrality.
> The FCC was deadlocked until September 2023 and started this process a few days later.
I am aware of that.
> Maybe they could have started in 2022 if Biden had nominated someone else after Republicans blocked his 1st choice. But Democrats believed Republicans would block anyone who would restore net neutrality.
And they were proven wrong, and didn't even try to test their theory until half his term was over. That counts as "not a priority" in my book.
I think you expect that government works "fast" and that is usually not the case unless it's a dire emergency. The wheels of government are just slow. Net Neutrality is important to codify/enact and that's what they've done, I'm certainly not going to complain about it. There are a lot of other nits I have to pick with Biden's policies but this isn't one of them, better late than never like it was going to be under a second Trump term, and could be again.
That’s not entirely what happened. The prior candidate didn’t withdraw until March 2023. Biden nominated Gomez in May 2023. Presumable the two months intervening included negotiations and background. That doesn’t sound like a priority issue.
It really didn't have to in this case. It would have been perfectly acceptable to crib California's NN law, ctrl-r "California" "United States of America" and call it a day.
The FCC has a legally mandated process (see Administrative Procedure Act) including a public comment period that is open to judicial review. They can’t just copy California’s law and call it a day, they have to actually take public comments into consideration. If they don’t follow this process the courts will overturn the rules.
They couldn’t seat the fifth person (democrat) because the GOP was blocking it. As soon as the person was seated, they moved forward with restoring net neutrality. Hands were tied until then because they couldn’t get the 3-2 vote. They didn’t have 5 until September 2023 so it’s been just over half a year
No, literally, there is a legal requirement for certain process; debates over whether it was properly followed tied the Trump repeal up in court for a while though it was eveentually resolved in favor of the Administration.
Not even bothering to follow the clear objective formal requirements of that process (the question about Trump was more about good faith in the substance) would make it trivial to defeat in court.
— Verizon throttles so much that the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s ability to provide emergency services during the California wildfires. "The fire department experienced slowed down speeds on their devices and had to sign up for a new, expensive plan before speeds were restored." https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttle...
Claiming that nothing happened is false. A lot did happen. A lot of people have been fighting very hard to preserve internet access and the internet has been degraded.
> Even when net neutrality rules were in place, all major carriers imposed some form of throttling on unlimited plans when customers used more than a certain amount of data. They argued that it was allowed under the rules' exception for "reasonable network management." But while such throttling is generally applied only during times of network congestion, the Santa Clara Fire Department says it was throttled at all times once the device in question went over a 25GB monthly threshold.
> Even if Verizon's throttling didn't technically violate the no-throttling rule, Santa Clara could have complained to the FCC under the now-removed net neutrality system, which allowed Internet users to file complaints about any unjust or unreasonable prices and practices. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's decision to deregulate the broadband industry eliminated that complaint option and also limited consumers' rights to sue Internet providers over unjust or unreasonable behavior.
Soft caps for "unlimited" plans and content-neutral QoS don't seem like net neutrality violations as I understand it. If they started slowing down one internet service while allowing another on the same plan to run at full speed, that would be another story.
> Verizon throttles so much that the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s
Net Neutrality does not prevent throttling. Bandwidth + data volume limits still exist.
Rather, NN prevents throttling or preferential treatment based on content/services. (E.g. throttling the fire department's access to Netflix but not to Facebook.)
---
Likewise, the CenturyLink example has nothing to do with NN either.
Centurylink did not block internet to display an ad. They blocked internet to display a notice so they could comply with some regulation. This was a bad move. But wont be prevented by Net neutrality.
Data throttling during heavy load wont violate NN either.
And cell phone networks have long throttled video data connections even during NN. Not much of an issue nowadays because of robust networks.
This, and that it is far more profitable for ISPs to aggregate our traffic patterns and sell them to ad companies and governments than to drive people to VPNs by raising awareness of the reasons we can't trust them.
the neutrality rule would be applying to ISPs. Those would be local to California. Outside of California, we would see the effects of no net neutrality
Yes, but the big ISPs would have a much harder time explaining the difference. Imagine them going into court or Congress having to explain why they needed to shakedown Netflix in NYC but not LA or explain why it suddenly became cost-prohibitive to run a network when you cross the border into Oregon or Arizona.
Challenges to a state or local law, any kind of unfair competition or price gouging suit brought by consumers, any sort of anti-competitive behavior suit brought by one of the companies they try to double-charge or compete with?
There were lawsuits over the repeal under Trump raising uncertainty. That lawsuit wasn't resolved until 2019.
California adopted it's net neutrality law in 2018. 12 other states adopted net neutrality laws or executive actions, and over 100 local governments also did so, some before and some after the lawsuit over the federal repeal was resolved. Democrats in Congress in 2019 moved to legislatively reverse the repeal, and that passed through one house. Biden was elected in 2020, and either a legislative or executive reinstatement of net neutrality was expected.
All of this made meant that big ISPs would have to have patchwork rules in different jurisdictions if they wanted to skirt net neutrality and face a significant risk of having to unwind them. So, generally, no one did much that would go against net neutrality.
I believe a side effect of the way the legislation was written included that if they weren't neutral, then they couldn't do business with the State of California either or anything the state runs, like pension plans.
How much can you make doing business with or in CA vs. grifting the rest of the nation and bad press? It's very risky move. CA won and Verizon et all blinked.
> What, then, is the impetus for restoring the net neutrality rules, given there is always some political cost to any action like this? Has the lack of net neutrality caused issues that I just have not heard about?
The rule was always going to get reversed eventually. Several major factions within the Democratic party are strong supporters of net neutrality and they've become increasingly more powerful over the last two decades, at the expense of its detractors like the media conglomerates and ISPs.
It only took this long because of the Administrative Procedure Act [1] which regulates how agencies make rules. They can't just flip flop the second a new political party gains power because of judicial review - they have to follow a process (though they probably also timed this for an election year).
>What, then, is the impetus for restoring the net neutrality rules, given there is always some political cost to any action like this?
there's usually some principled people in the government, and every now an then when an issue is obscure enough they can manage to get something done without the other side caring too much.
> keeping the government away from internet is a good thing
See, I would have agreed more with this if most of our internet infrastructures were not controlled by three megacorps with more power than many small to medium sized economies in the world. As it stands, the only valid option is to fight fire with fire.
If anti competitive corporations are the problem, why not pursue these monopolistic companies using the existing anti-trust laws? Why does there need to be a new law with the FCC involved?
No, likely in anticipation of the rules being changed back.
Better question for you. Why did ISPs attempt to fake support for repealing Net Neutrality [0][1], as well as spend money lobbying Congress? You'll note in that article that there were also fake comments in support of Net Neutrality, apparently mostly generated by one individual, but many, many fake comments against it from ISPs that even used real people's identities [2].
These aren't the actions a company takes if they don't have incentive.
No, because California and 12 other states, as well as quite a few local governments, passed their own net neutrality laws. The larger, national ISPs were pretty hamstrung: they couldn't really follow the NN laws in the places where they existed, but then impose non-neutral terms in the places where they didn't, without running into lots of trouble.
A federal rule is good, though, to harmonize things, even if the state/local laws were more or less already doing the job.
I think the point the person you're replying to was trying to make is that the line drawn between things the government should have a hand in vs. things they should leave alone is fairly arbitrary, and is a matter of opinion. So saying the government should be kept away from the internet is just one place to draw the line, and it's perhaps interesting to know of other places where someone might draw that line, in order to get a baseline, and determine if it's even worth trying to have a productive discussion with them about government regulation.
The way you positioned the argument is helpful and conducive to a conversation. Just throwing out scenarios and expecting me to derive meaning isn't productive.
The internet was explicitly privatized and deregulated in 1995 by the Clinton Administration.
It has flourished under private sector control without net neutrality. A 30 year track record of success, yet people are still clambering to have it back under government control.
The American libertarian dream confuses me because unlike libertarians abroad (where it's a synonym with "anarchist") they stop with political authority, and seem to have no issue with corporate authority. The ISP business in the USA is very clearly an oligopoly with the top players colluding. Not sure how a rugged individual is supposed to fight back against that.
Fighting back against powerful corporations does happen, though usually over long time scales.
Plenty of the most powerful corporations a few generations ago are weak or nonexistent today. Their abuses of power, though problematic, are typically less egregious than governmental abuses of power.
Even at an individual level, I can simply withdraw my support by not buying their products or services.
Whereas fighting the government - or even trying to withdraw support - typically leads to imprisonment or death.
The difference between political authorities and corporate authorities is that the former can conscript you, tax you, send you to jail, seize your assets, etc.
The latter can affect you insofar as you enter a contract.
There is no "opt-out" of a political authority. "No thanks, I'm better off without your services."
The usual claim in right libertarian circles is that monopolies only arise because they can bribe the government into passing laws that enable them to exist.
The usual claim in right-libertarian circles is that it is only possible for monopolies to arise through government action (bribery is sometimes a means to encourage that action, but its not always intentional or that kind of specific corruption, but it is, in most libertarian explanations, always government action.)
And for this purpose, “government action” excludes protection of what the libertarian in question thinks of as proper property rights, which almost dogmatically have no adverse consequences.
There exists already anti-trust laws to deal with monopolies.
Why does there need to be another new law that, instead of punishing the monopolistic companies, gives them the right to maintain their monopolies as long as they promise not to discriminate on filtering their traffic?
Why can't the government pursue these literal monopolies using the DOJ with existing laws?
Yep, the Peter Thiel school of thought. But people like that tend to not stay libertarian in any meaningful sense for long; to quote Thiel himself, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible". That's how you get neo-reactionaries, basically.
You only get neo-reactionaries out of people that define their freedom as including their abilities to coerce others, and then get frustrated that said "freedom" is being impinged. They think they're morally right because they've defined away the coercion.
Personally, around the time the whole Unqualified Reservations / NRx thing was starting up, I considered myself a libertarian with more rightist sympathies. Reading UR and its classification of left versus right is actually what pushed me back into seeing that my philosophy is more aligned with the left. Axiomatic framing and fundamentalism simply doesn't work (cf Gödel). Systems need to be judged on their effective results regardless of their implementations' terminology.
The problem with right libertarianism, IMO, is that private property rights (as opposed to personal property / "right to that which you're using") broadly necessitate coercion. The notion of abstract ownership of, say, a piece of land that you have never even visited in your life and that you do not currently occupy - which is necessary to e.g. lease it to someone for actually to live on it or otherwise do something useful with it, and then collect rent from them for that use - requires coercive force to prevent people from just using it without paying said rent to you. This is also why any realistic model of a right libertarian society requires government large enough to provide this coercion as a service.
How exactly do you define a piece of land being occupied in your argument? Your example is obviously clear cut. But what about the 'extra' area of a residential lot not actually holding a house or otherwise used for much? Or unused rooms of a house, for that matter?
Doesn't that still require your definition of coercion to prevent my neighbor from using it for what he wants? Or to prevent a new party moving in and setting up their own shelter there?
To me, the right libertarian conception of property rights is not the problem per se. It's when that is taken as an axiomatic framework and claimed to justify all the emergent behavior that happens on top of it.
libertarians are a subgroup of classical liberalism; limited government and socially liberal, or at least the right to live as one wants within reason in a society. Anarchists, at least to Americans, have so many subgroups I don't even know where to start, it always seems completely watered down to me other than the "no central government" part.
> libertarians are a subgroup of classical liberalism
No, they aren’t. There is some overlap between “libertarians” and groups from left to right (in the modern sense) that are grounded primarily in classical liberalism, and those include the bulk of what tend to get labeled “libertarians” in America (which are mostly the center-to-right subset of the classical liberal subset of libertarians.)
But “libertarian” also encompasses anarchists, libertarian socialists, and a number of other left-libertarian ideologies that are not particularly grounded in what would usually be regarded as classical liberalism (most of them are grounded in newer philosophies which could reasonably be viewed as later developments from or reactions against – but not in a reverse direction – classical liberalism.)
It's just another system of control. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires and all that. And once the desire for freedom has been transmuted into support for corporate authoritarianism, the money flows and the political hacks get to work shoring up the platform for the sponsors.
I don't think 'libertarian' has to be synonymous with 'anarchist', but US libertarianism desperately needs an analog of anarchism-without-adjectives and to drop the axiomatic-fundamentalist approach that ends up fooling so many into supporting authoritarianism. Coercion is not some binary thing, but rather a matter of degree based on power differentials.
If you made a Venn diagram of self-proclaimed libertarian’s beliefs, the center would be empty. That is the practical definition of libertarian in today’s world.
Could you not lay this same criticism at the feet of the other political parties as well? Due to the way plurality voting works, the incentive of each party is to be as large as possible (at the expense of group consistency), and the incentive of each individual is to align themselves with only one party (at the expense of accurately expressing all of one's views).
What changed for me is that my home internet provider (Comcast) implemented an overly-burdensome impossible data cap that I can only get rid of if I agree to use their router with deep packet inspection, ad injection, and more.
Fwiw you can set their router to bridge mode and use your own. It is probably still doing some traffic analysis but certainly no ad injection. This is what I do to get unlimited data without paying their exorbitant standalone fee.
The parent post misses the main reason they sell these. It's not for the ad injection but because they broadcast a Wi-Fi hotspot that you cannot turn off, which shares your internet connection.
I live in a densely populated city. The wifi spectrum is already horrendously congested. The last thing I want is my modem polluting the airwaves, degrading my service from inside my home, all for Comcast's profit.
If configuring a router into bridge mode is too burdensome of a step, then Comcast is actually providing that person a service by forcibly managing equipment for them at that point. If only the stalking component of it could be made illegal with proper privacy laws instead of piecemeal app bans.
What a weird way to think about it. I often wonder why I have to take those brain-dead ethics courses at work, then someone like you comes along and reminds me. Comcast can only fully take advantage of people who don't have the technical skills to not get fucked, that is what is happening.
That sounds absolutely horrendous. I keep getting surprised by how shitty Comcast can be, and at this point I don't know how. I'd get a 5G hotspot before I use somebody else's router.
ISPs can monitor what you're browsing through DNS requests and SNI host headers and sell that data to advertisers who then inject personalized ads into ad supported websites.
The thing I don't get is why they need a spyware router in everyone's home. They own the infrastructure and know where all the traffic is coming from. They can do this with their own hardware outside people's homes.
I do wonder if they're sucking up LAN traffic data too, though, some of it which might be unencrypted, like smart devices talking to each other.
Not sure where you're located, but in California at least, I was able to add unlimited data for an extra $30/mo. I am still using my own modem and router.
It's incredible bullshit that they can pull this crap, but... well, at least it's possible. Here, anyway. Dunno if they offer that everywhere.
This reminds me when I got a “survey” email from ERCOT, the entity that oversees Texas’ “deregulated” energy provider racket. I was ready to lay into them hard, but starting with the second or third questions, it was clear that all they were concerned about was to _sell_ new products — ZERO interest in hearing feedback of how terrible the system for end users, they just want to sell some sort of outage insurance product (“would you pay $5 to be protected from a 30 minute or less outage one time?”).
I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a less than noble ulterior motive behind this push, although I’m hoping for the best. Sounds like the main reason it may actually make sense to bring it back from their PoV is because ISPs have to deal with individual state laws.
The proponents of net neutrality thought without it ISPs would just arbitrarily block data and require bribes from data providers to even serve up their data. In reality, no net neutrality would mean things like Netflix not counting as data on your mobile plan through some kind of sponsorship, or free basic internet like Wikipedia and news at a lower cost.
I don't support legislation that bans something undertaken voluntarily unless it proves to be very harmful and the last few years have proven that we don't need this legislation.
> In reality, no net neutrality would mean things like Netflix not counting as data on your mobile plan through some kind of sponsorship, or free basic internet like Wikipedia and news at a lower cost.
You seem pretty pro-free-market, so here's the free-market angle: things like zero-rated Netflix on your mobile plan and free "basic" internet are market distortions. Companies are abusing the lack of net neutrality to engage in bundling, discounting, and collusion practices, which are bad for you as a consumer - these are anti-competitive practices!
Everyone likes getting something for cheap/free, but that doesn't mean that it's actually good for you, other people, the market, or society as a whole.
I agree that most of the bad things that net neutrality advocates predicted would happen wouldn't, but the things that did happen are still bad.
There's two ways to make money: bundling and unbundling. Zoom and slack unbundled video chat from places like Google workspace and similar software suites. A company like clickup tries to bundle all that stuff as a one stop shop (tagline is one app to replace them all)
If anything more offers would increase competitiom as it's a bigger vector to make a sale.
> There's two ways to make money: bundling and unbundling
This is pretty obviously wrong - you can sell things to make money, in a way that requires neither.
Now, the problem with bundling itself is that it introduces market distortions. The way that free markets work is that producers make things, and then buyers buy the best thing based on its price and other factors. Bundling impedes this process because it means that consumers no longer buy the best goods based on their individual price and merits.
Plus, bundling is usually used by monopolistic companies to anti-competitively extend their influence from one market to another, in a way that doesn't allow the market to work.
Another hypothetical: your isp zero rates the news sites with a given political leaning, but not yours. Reading the news that they want you to costs nothing, whereas reading the news that you want, or getting an alternative perspective on a story costs you something.
So why can't the solution be that the DOJ files antitrust lawsuits? Like every other antitrust issue. It really doesn't make sense to create a new set of rules when there already exists antitrust regulations.
> and the last few years have proven that we don't need this legislation.
Given that large states like California and New York passed independent net neutrality laws and there were continuing legal battles in almost half of all US states I don't think you can draw many conclusions. ISP behavior very likely never changed because they knew they were just one decision away from having to comply. Sort of proven by this very decision we're commenting on.
Here is something I found. Seems like "unfair" since they're favoring their videos but as a user its okay by me since I get something for free and preventing them from not counting their content doesn't mean they'll necessarily just drop their data cap.
If ISPs just behave because it's always just a ruling away, then I'm fine with that status quo. I don't want unintended consequences from invasive legislation that could eventually be used to control what ISPs can show us
> invasive legislation that could eventually be used to control what ISPs can show us
What specific legal principle do you think would lead to this? Network neutrality is the polar opposite of that - it’s like arguing that we shouldn’t have restaurant health codes because the government could start requiring us to eat peas.
It's a precedent that government can tell ISPs and others what they can provide you. Once they have that in place, it's not a stretch to imagine them furthering that power for political purposes.
Think about surveillance legislation after 9/11. None of it applied to domestic population originally
It’s the opposite of that - it’s saying companies cannot discriminate – but also that argument doesn’t make any sense because governments already do that and nothing in network neutrality legislation grants new powers. If they want to ban a political party’s website they’re passing new legislation (or ignoring laws) whether or not network neutrality laws exist.
> free basic internet like Wikipedia and news at a lower cost.
I can't comprehend why you think ISPs would feel compelled to be so altruistic without any government intervention.
Except, since when was free wi-fi an impossible thing to find? Ever been to a coffee shop? Even in the "free shitty half-internet for everyone" pipe dream, the costs of such a service don't just magically disappear. Either way, someone's paying for that free internet, and it isn't the ISP.
Telecoms likely didn't deploy anything because this was obviously going to get overruled by the next non-Trump FCC. Even Ajit Pai has a long record of advocating for modernizing the FCC, which would explicitly involve the regulation of internet services. Abolishing net neutrality is only universally popular among communities where the underlying philosophy is "government is bad, and I'm gonna prove it by running it badly."
> I can't comprehend why you think ISPs would feel compelled to be so altruistic without any government intervention.
Price discrimination. No altruism necessary. Kind of like my isp offering me different speeds.
Meta tried to offer free limited internet to poor rural Indians but idealistic tech workers from wealthy neighborhoods opposed it on moral grounds since it was against net neutrality so then they got no internet
So Facebook would have provided access where Facebook-owned properties were zero-rated, leading to Facebook distorting those people's view of the world.
If you want to see what happens to countries where Facebook is essentially "the internet", look no further than Myanmar.
I'd genuinely like to understand why you think corporations, whose success is measured by profit and basically nothing else, are more likely to do things that are good for people than governments, whose success is measured at least a little bit by the wellbeing of their constituents.
I really want to better understand the thinking of people who hold opinions like yours.
It’s easier for me to switch which business I give my money to than it is for me to move or change governments. Most of the services I use are provided by private industry and I have choices. Everything from food, clothing, shelter. All private corporations I choose to buy from. I guess I can go get my food from a government soup kitchen or apply for government housing but my experience is these services are not competitive with private market even at the lower price (or free)
> I guess I can go get my food from a government soup kitchen or apply for government housing but my experience is these services are not competitive with private market even at the lower price (or free)
Because you have such limited experience with the world. Did you know there are countries out there — dozens of them even! — which are not American?
Interesting. Personally I believe people should have total freedom to change governments, but I'm a utopian thinker so /shrug though I wonder in such a world whether you'd feel the same way. "Too Like the Lightning" explored this if you enjoy sci-fi.
I'm hung up on something though - in this specific subject, there's been massive market capture in the USA by one to four ISPs, depending on region. For most of rural america (something insane like 80% of the geography) there's only one provider. In these situations, the provider provides subpar service, often asking for handouts from the government before being willing to build more infrastructure (hm.. is that still "private?").
If the private market is better, why does Comcast, which routinely wins "worst company in america" awards, still exist, despite providing abysmal service to its customers? Surely a private enterprise could have eaten their lunch by now?
If the private market is better, why are local governments providing the highest rated internet services in America?
So basically, your feeling rests in the belief that you have more choice when it comes to private options - but in telecom, that doesn't seem to be the case, and of the options available, they're all widely considered to suck. Perhaps this isn't true for every industry, Stalin and Mao certainly showed us that it doesn't work for food, but does that mean the private option is better for everything we use? What does it mean to have a "private highway" system, or a "private fire department?"
I dont there's anything inherently different about Internet delivery. There's some last mile problems and some services no market exists because the cost would be higher than people are willing to pay. Internet service is expensive and maybe the high fixed cost makes it so only a few people can deliver and they can charge monopoly prices. There are also regulations that could make this expensive to provide too
But you can't just look at final price with a lower price being good. If some municipal service costs half the price but it costs taxpayers the other half, is that better? Maybe if you think they have a right to this service and you're okay with subsidizing it. But there is no free lunch, someone is paying.
I think ultimately you want it to be provided by private market if possible. So leaving it open at a high price encourages others to try and innovate. Think about starlink. If government was providing Internet to everyone for below market prices, no innovation would happen because they essentially crowded out private industry. So in the long run it would be much more expensive and opaque. You lose a market signal through artificially low prices
>But you can't just look at final price with a lower price being good. If some municipal service costs half the price but it costs taxpayers the other half, is that better?
Where, exactly, is that happening?
As I understand it, the vast majority of taxpayer monies for broadband doesn't go to municipally owned networks, but rather to private ISPs. And that's been the case for decades.
And those monies are given with a pinky-swear that this time, we'll actually spend the money on expanding broadband to under-served areas, with a similar likelihood that will happen as the last four or five times taxpayer monies were given to those folks.
Meanwhile, actual municipal broadband[0][1] pays for itself by charging multiple ISPs to access their last mile -- paying for the infrastructure and introducing (often for the first time) competition into the market.
What's more, nearly a third of states have laws[2] blocking/hindering municipal broadband. Most of which are related to model legislation promulgated by groups like ALEC[3]. Many of the artificial roadblocks put up by such laws make municipal broadband (both implicitly and explicitly[4]) more expensive than private broadband
In theory, if people don’t perceive corporations as improving their well-being, they will stop being customers. Also in theory, if people don’t perceive governments as doing so, they will vote in different politicians.
In practice, both effects exist, but are not perfectly efficient for lots of different reasons. That’s why neither Stalinist planned economies nor right-libertarian total lack of regulation work well overall, and the correct approach is somewhere in the middle and different for different sectors (and different countries).
I had an extended outage and could not contact my ISP. They kept sending me to a bot, and I had no idea if anyone actually knew about the outage or was doing anything to fix it.
If you read the article, it does have to do with the ruling. Part of regulating ISPs as a utility is that they can regulate/enforce rules on how ISPs handle outages.
I wouldn't be surprised if your experience hadn't changed: Net neutrality rules were gutted at the same time as the internet has been largely consolidated, so major players paying for "fast lanes" and the ISPs throttling other kinds of traffic is, statistically, likely to have gone mostly unnoticed by you as an end user. If you have internet use cases beyond that which is endorsed by corporate tech, you will likely have noticed a stark difference. I've found that things like SSH tunnels have been less reliable, that there is noticeable slowdown when I find myself on a smaller website (Like those maintained by a shrinking minority of local vendors and artists who don't do everything on instagram). The most obnoxious thing about shady degradations of infrastructure in the name of profit is that these changes are often made in a way that's hard to specifically pinpoint, and by entities that make it somewhere between infuriating and futile to address any kind of complaint to.
> it since it was repealed in the first place. From my perspective, nothing about the internet changed since then
I got downvoted heavily years ago on HN for predicting this when it was making the rounds
There is almost no evidence of a tiered model either working or being legitimately attempted, even globally in places without these rules. The only evidence I was ever given was some tiny Portugese mobile network entirely serving the lowest end of the market, and even that barely made a dent in the local market.
I want a free internet as much as anyone but people like to fear monger scenarios they invent in their heads, and pointing at vaguely defined wealthy people conspiring to do so behind the scenes, even when theres little evidence it was ever a plausible market nor technically coherent scenario.
But I guess people fear that sort of chaos where every detail isn't in a neat box clearly defined by the government, even if it means finite regulatory time/resources gets redirected from pre-existing tangible issues like privacy and spam.
This rule does, however, effectively regulate the prices that broadband providers charge consumers, as it disallows high-volume customers from being charged a higher periodic rate than lower-volume consumers. If that's not regulating prices, it's not at all clear what might be.
Just like Obamacare, another gift from the left that has worked out so well...
This should be a reminder that almost all dire consequences from any government action are overblown. I also think the net neutrality was an important thing 15 years ago for how the internet worked then it has little practical value now.
Your first post in this thread containing partisan flamebait getting flagged into destruction wasn't enough for you? You toned down the cultish political speech about 30% but posted effectively the same comment again. Your posts do not create useful discourse, they just create political flame wars with echo chamber 1 fighting echo chamber 2.
[Edit] Looking through your history you seem to often make similar political posts making biased, (in my opinion hate-based), partisan assertions and having people reply to you telling you this. There's Reddit/Twitter/etc for you to do this sort of thing.
There's wrong, and then there's "not appropriate for the site". I accept that I do veer into the "not appropriate for this site" category sometimes, and I understand and accept why I get flagged when I do so. But getting flagged is not evidence of being wrong. (And, as much as I wish I were wrong, I am unfortunately not.) I also disagree that it's not useful discourse -- ignoring the problem certainly isn't useful either. But I wouldn't post about it in Club Penguin and I understand if people don't want me to post about it in HN. It's a tricky line, because the article under discussion is inherently political. It's one thing to get flagged for off-topic in a tech thread, but it's harder for me to know where the line is when everyone else in the discussion is also talking politics.
As someone who was fortunate enough to see their previous comment, it sure wasn't wrong, though it sure was inconvenient for the Temporarily Embarrassed Billionaires here who are happy to sleepwalk the rest of us into fascism if it means making another buck.
As for rooting through their comment history, those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, my friend. So far yours is "cars good", "California bad", "won't someone think of the poor companies (unironically)", "public transit bad", "everyone does propaganda so it's okay when Russia does it". Is this comment hate-based, in your opinion?
I believe they are only restoring it to enact “security” aka more spying. I would like to see what the actual text of these policies are. The administration has its tentacles into too many tech companies already.
The doomsday "propaganda" didn't come to pass because several states and localities promptly passed their own net neutrality laws after it was deregulated at the federal level. The larger ISPs couldn't find a workable way to implement their non-neutral bullshit in some markets but not others, and the local ISPs in places with no net neutrality laws never really had enough clout to do crappy things in the first place.
If that didn't happen, and the ISPs started profiting off non-net-neutral tactics, it could have been permanently fucked.
Once someone depends on a legal source of income, if that source of income gets banned in the future, they generally get to keep that source of income "grandfathered in" if they take the issue to court.
> Once someone depends on a legal source of income, if that source of income gets banned in the future, they generally get to keep that source of income “grandfathered” forever if they take the issue to court.
That’s… not true.
Otherwise, all the people depending on selling drugs that were later banned would have been grandfathered in when the drugs were prohibited.
Even when there is a regulatory taking (that is, government regulations eliminate the value of existing property in a way that is considered a taking under the 5th amendment), the remedy is compensation for the lost value of the property, not a lifetime exemption from the regulation.
Hm. I would encourage a different, less intense angle here. It’s possible the doomsday didn’t come to pass because a lot of passionate people worked very hard to make sure we avoided it.
Possible, but is there any reason to believe so? I'm open to hear it.
The whole point was that companies like Comcast don't give a crap what we think and will engage in this anti competitive behavior unless the FCC stops them. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt they would if it was in their financial interest.
But can we agree that it is also possible that market incentives aligned and the infographics depicting tv-bundle-like internet packages weren't actually around the corner? To me it seems like the easier explanation. The incentive could be as simple as Comcast not wanting a new monopoly court case or to start being classified as a utility in areas where they have no real competition.
Sure, maybe those bundles weren’t right around the corner. But the fight for NN probably incentivized the MBA grads to not explore those options with fervor.
And it’s very reasonable to assume that avoiding a monopoly case or being classified as a utility is enough of an incentive.
But I have a preference for putting up the defenses on all fronts when it comes to ISPs and their unlimited creative chicanery.
The null hypothesis is that market forces takes care of it. Like your airline ticket prices. The onus of proof is on you to market forces aren't enough.
Similarly, the FCC net neutrality rules allow telcos to charge any price for the service while disallowing blocking or throttling particular Internet sites or protocols. If such rules weren't indeed necessary, big telcos wouldn't be spending their money campaigning against them, would they?
Vote first, plan the project later. Allocate money to your donors then let them figure out how to go over budget and ask for 1.5X more in 5 years. All congressional laws are essentially money laundering operations now where the main priority is getting govt funds to your best donors. Gg.
This makes my week! Long overdue and finally the middle finger back to Comcast/Universal, Verizon, Spectrum, and AT&T etc. The regulations should never have been tampered with.
> Safeguard National Security – The Commission will have the ability to revoke the authorizations of foreign-owned entities who pose a threat to national security to operate broadband networks in the U.S. The Commission has previously exercised this authority under section 214 of the Communications Act to revoke the operating authorities of four Chinese state-owned carriers to provide voice services in the U.S. Any provider without section 214 authorization for voice services must now also cease any fixed or mobile broadband service operations in the United States.
That seems rather vague. The timing is also rather interesting, given the forced divestiture of TikTok.
> That seems rather vague. The timing is also rather interesting, given the forced divestiture of TikTok.
This is just a press release. The actual decision is more than 400 pages long and will come out in the next few days. Here's the draft of the order released three weeks ago: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-401676A1.pdf (Of course, parts of this will inevitably be vague as well.)
The timing is almost certainly a coincidence. They started the process of adopting these rules as soon as they could after democrats regained a majority of seats on the FCC last year and got them done as fast as they could.
I'm not sure that's the order itself or just a very detailed "fact sheet" about the orde. It seems like it references the content of the order in great detail, allowing someone to figure it out, but I don't see the raw text of the rule there unless I just don't understand what FCC rules look like. I read a lot of FTC rules and court documents, but this the first time I'm looking for the full text of something the FCC voted on or was something close to it (like an earlier version of the exact document they voted on).
Yes that is just the "FCC FACT SHEET" as it says in the top title of the document. It is not the actual rule/action. It is also the exact same link that the poster just above me already gave.
>Yes that is just the "FCC FACT SHEET" as it says in the top title of the document. It is not the actual rule/action. It is also the exact same link that the poster just above me already gave.
No. The first page is the "fact sheet." The other 693 pages is the rule-making document.
Or are you unable to read past the first line of the first page?
Regarding the last line of your post, you may want to spend some time reading the HN commenting guidelines[0] and edit if you feel it's the right thing to do.
I did read a very thorough sample of the document. When I'm trying to find an actual "order" / "rule" / whatever, I'd be drawn to something like
> V. "REPORT AND ORDER: OPEN INTERNET RULES"
on page 264 and figure that might be the order. But all throughout that section it constantly has paragraphs that just contain language that obviously isn't an order / ruling / regulation, like on page 265:
> The Internet serves as a cornerstone for free expression, fostering a diverse and inclusive digital space where individuals can share ideas, opinions, and information without undue influence or interference. It promotes the exchange of diverse perspectives, ultimately enriching society by exposing individuals to a wide range of thoughts and experiences. As the Supreme Court noted in 1997, the Internet enables any person to “become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox.”
That's not a rule, that's just talking about stuff in general. When I read the FTC document about non-compete, it has hundred of pages like this, but then at the end of the document it has a clear section of legalese that contains the actual technical content of the rule. This document from the FCC does not have any section like that -- every section is mostly non-binding descriptive language, and I'm having trouble figuring out what, precisely, this ruling / order enacts, because this document spends most of its time justifying the action rather than actually enacting.
FWIW, virtually the whole document is "the Order" (in draft form--the final order has not been released yet). The FCC is a little unusual in that it regards the entirety of their written orders as legally binding (the normative parts, at least).
> When I read the FTC document about non-compete, it has hundred of pages like this, but then at the end of the document it has a clear section of legalese that contains the actual technical content of the rule.
You're probably looking for the "Final Rules" text. That's in Appendix A which starts on page 397. Again, though, the FCC would take the position that the whole final order is binding (once it's released and published in the federal register)--not just those formal rules. Yes, this does make it very challenging to understand the FCC's rules!
> No. The first page is the "fact sheet." The other 693 pages is the rule-making document.
You are incredibly rude for someone who is also incredibly wrong. It is strange that whenever we are one of those, we all seem far more likely to be the other as well.
Only the last two pages before the appendix is "the rule-making document", and the 4 pages of appendix A - just six pages in total. The rest is a dialogue on why the rules are needed and provide context to understand the intent of the rules. The rule starts at "X. ORDERING CLAUSES" on page 394 and is less than 2 pages long in total. It will also be necessary to fill in references made to "Appendix A" which is an additional 4 pages (397-401).
It's not surprising to me that both you and the other poster couldn't figure this out -- it's very easy to miss a section so small when it's titled similarly to sections like "IV. ORDER: FORBEARANCE FOR BROADBAND INTERNET ACCESS SERVICES" which are mostly discussion. That contains language like:
> Petitioners ask that the Commission reverse, vacate, or withdraw the RIF Remand Order, and request that the Commission initiate a new rulemaking to reclassify BIAS as a Title II service and reinstate the open Internet conduct rules. Collectively, petitioners make several procedural arguments for why the Commission should reconsider the RIF Remand Order. Common Cause et al. and Public Knowledge each assert that procedural deficiencies in the process the Commission used to adopt the RIF Remand Order are cause for reconsideration. Common Cause et al. argue that because the Commission failed to open the record to receive comment on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it failed to adequately consider harms of reclassifying BIAS as a Title I service on public safety, pole attachments, and the Lifeline program.
Which is clearly not an order - it is a discussion with a goal towards justifying parts of the order.
There are also only 434 pages. Not anywhere close to "693". It would be very rude of me to point out that you might be "unable to read past the table of contents". To the contrary, I understand that it's easy to misinterpret the indexing of the table of contents as pages rather than sections, and I have empathy for someone making that mistake, even if it does demonstrate that someone probably hasn't tried to use the table of contents to actually read the document.
>You are incredibly rude for someone who is also incredibly wrong. It is strange that whenever we are one of those, we all seem far more likely to be the other as well.
Yep. That's me. I smell bad and like jazz too.
The order is reclassifying ISPs (or as named in the document, Broadband Internet Access Services -- BIAS) under Title II of the FCC Act of 1934 (as amended repeatedly over the past 90 years). I believe the below is the pointy end of the stick and the first sentence (set apart for specific folks -- see below) is, in fact, the order.
Since I'm already rude, obnoxious and wrong, I'll wonder aloud at folks' reading comprehension skills as well.
Part III (section 25) states:
We reinstate the telecommunications service
classification of BIAS under Title II of the
Act.
Reclassification will enhance the Commission’s
ability to ensure Internet openness, defend national
security, promote cybersecurity, safeguard public safety,
monitor network resiliency and reliability,
protect consumer privacy and data security, support
consumer access to BIAS, and improve disability
access. We find that classification of BIAS as a
telecommunications service represents the best reading
of the text of the Act in light of how the service is
offered and perceived today, as well as the factual and
technical realities of how BIAS functions. Classifying
BIAS as a telecommunications service also accords with
Commission and court precedent and is fully and
sufficiently justified under the Commission’s
longstanding authority and responsibility to classify
services subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction, as
necessary. We also ensure that consumers receive the same
protections when using fixed and mobile BIAS by
reclassifying mobile BIAS as a commercial mobile service.
Yes that section tells the audience what their new rules are doing, why they are doing it, and justification for how they’re allowed to do it. From your own quote choice:
> Classifying BIAS as a telecommunications service also accords with Commission and court precedent and is fully and sufficiently justified under the Commission’s longstanding authority and responsibility to classify services subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction, as necessary.
This is clearly discussion about the rules in the section X and Appendix A. It’s clearly not an actual rule itself.
The actual rule relevant to your quote is the new Section 8.3 that they are adding to Part 20 of Title 47.
The new part 20 is given on page 398 of the document that you linked. This new section 8.3 is the actual action they take to specifically classify BIAS as a Title II telecommunications service.
> the first sentence is, in fact, the order.
No, it's a more-easily accessible description of the order in something approaching plain English. The new Section 8.3 in Appendix A is the "pointy end of the stick" of the Title II order, to use your terminology. The rest of the document is describing these changes (section X and Appendix A) in more plain English.
The actual order for what you quoted is on page 394:
> 693. Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED, pursuant to the authority contained in sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 13, 201, 202, 206, 207, 208, 209, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 230, 251, 254, 256, 257, 301, 303, 304, 307, 309, 310, 312, 316, 332, 403, 501, 503, and 602 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as amended, 47 U.S.C §§ 151, 152, 153, 154(i)-(j), 160, 163, 201, 202, 206, 207, 208, 209, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 230, 251, 254, 256, 257, 301, 303, 304, 307, 309, 310, 312, 316, 332, 403, 501, 503, 522, and 1302, that this Declaratory Ruling, Order, Report and Order, and Order on Reconsideration IS ADOPTED and that Parts 8 and 20 of the Commission’s Rules, 47 CFR Parts 8, 20, ARE AMENDED as set forth in Appendix A.
Specifically, the last little part:
> that Parts 8 and 20 of the Commission’s Rules, 47 CFR Parts 8, 20, ARE AMENDED as set forth in Appendix A.
That is the new rule. It is an actual change to Title 47. The rule is not what you quoted. What you quoted is not part of of any CFR. What you quoted is not federal code. Only Section X and Appendix A make actual changes to the "Code of Federal Regulations".
This is a reasonable supposition, but it's not true. The FCC can and has created a whole raft of specific rules that implement the m much broader Title II requirements as they apply to ISPs, including decisions not to impose certain Title II requirements (which is a power that the statute itself gives them).
If, say, you were an ISP, reading Title I and Title II would tell you very little about what you have to do to comply with the FCC's rules. You would have to read the actual FCC rules and the order to actually understand your legal obligations.
(Maybe you have in mind a quibble about what "rules" are. By "rules" I mean the U.S. government publications that tell you what you have to do in order to not be fined or punished in some other way by the U.S. government, and specifically the FCC.)
> The change being that ISPs are now regulated under Title II rather than Title I.
That is a description of the change. The changes made to Title 47 are how ISP's are actually being regulated under Title II. A translation of what they are saying in the changes to section 8.3 is:
"Because Title II gives us the authority to do so, we choose to regulate them using that authority from Title II by making these specific changes to Title 47."
Again, what you quoted is not part of any CFR. What you quoted is not federal code.
What I quoted is an actual change to federal code which is what actually regulates ISP's "under" the authority given by title II. The actual federal code being changed is: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B... which has a note that "Title 47 was last amended 4/22/2024." but does not yet show the changes. The most recent version currently available is from changes enacted 12/06/2023. Within the next week or so it will show the changes made by Section X and Appendix A to CFR Title 47 "under" the authority granted by CFR Title II.
That is what it actually means "that ISPs are now regulated under Title II" (as you wrote). Saying "ISPs are now regulated under Title II" is just saying it. Changing Title 47 is actually doing it.
Opponents have been doing a victory lap for some time. COVID especially showed how much better the US Internet expands and contracts based on demands.
As far as I know, nobody has accused ISPs of throtteling Netflix.
The whole idea behind CDNs is we should stop treating all Internet users as equals, and connect based on geography. Not dystopian censorship, but the sort of thing neutrality enforcers would have to approve.
Many plans do throttle. On my “unlimited data” cell phone plan, YouTube, Netflix, etc all can only really load at 480p, even in areas where speeds are fast enough for hd video.
In those areas, I can use a vpn and easily get hd video.
Although, the cell network is pretty terrible where I am, and more often than not there is no hope for streaming hd video.
> This battle has been happening for a better part of a decade
Closer to 3; it started almost immediately after the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the FCC first adopted nondiscrimination prinicples that underlie net neutrality as a basis for policy (but not as regulation) in 2004.
Fortunately this won't be the end of the world, as quite a few states and localities now have net neutrality laws of their own, which would presumably go back into effect if it were deregulated at the federal level again.
Of course, the FCC could presumably create a rule that explicitly allows ISPs to do non-neutral shenanigans, and then the DoJ could start suing states, saying the federal rule preempts them. Not sure how that would pan out, though I'm sure the current composition of SCOTUS would be fine backing the FCC in this case, if the challenges got that far.
By "they" you mean voters. This policy isn't top priority for very many voters, but the battle lines on this are clear. Trump will overturn (he already did once). Biden will protect it. A vote for Trump is a vote to overturn.
Obama set the FCC on a course to lower jail and prison phone call prices (which is understood to decrease recidivism by keeping prisoners in contact with their support systems).
Trump came in and replaced the FCC head with this guy:
As a United States immigrant, I had never heard of the fairness doctrine before. My first thought is: how would it be compatible with the freedom of the press granted by the First Amendment?
There's a ton of precedence for fraud protection law blocking perverse applications of the first amendment. The right to free speech is not a right to commit fraud or slander against another. If it were, society would fall into catastrophic disarray. I can say what I want, but if I lie to you or try to trick or swindle you there are allowed to be consequences.
It should be obvious here that even the most succinctly and universally stated rights have certain correct limits needed to protect society from individual selfishness.
So the fairness doctrine can be seen as compatible with the first amendment in exactly the same way that consumer protection laws against false advertising are compatible with the first amendment, because it is observably the case that a media institution selectively using its platform to attempt to control and direct the public mindset in a particular direction is itself a form of intentional public harm for selfish interests.
> For example, the right to free speech is not a right to commit fraud or slander against another. If it were, society would fall into catastrophic disarray.
Fraud and slander are not illegal purely on the basis of content of the speech used to conduct the activities. A sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent must also exist. It's not fraud or slander to state an opinion one sincerely believes in, and obtain money or credibility for it.
> So the fairness doctrine can be seen as compatible with the first amendment in exactly the same way that consumer protection laws against false advertising are compatible with the first amendment in a world where it is observably the case that a media institution selectively using its platform to direct the public mindset is itself a form of intentional public harm for selfish interests.
I don't think you understand what the fairness doctrine was in practice or why it existed. It's regulation of private conduct. It didn't begin with television, but rather radio at the end of WW2 in an attempt to prevent future Father Caughlins from having access to a private audience over the airwaves. GE and RCA were not their targets. If anything, the fairness doctrine stifled competitive and independent media over the airwaves, with most such individuals and organizations functionally limited to local broadcast where they could get away with it and newsletters.
The doctrine never applied to Voice of America or "friendly" news organizations and the FCC wasn't compelled to apply it equally across the political spectrum (so much for equal liberty under the law!). If one wanted to provide supportive commentary on the Kennedy's invasion of Vietnam without a competing voice denouncing it, one was free to do so without fear of a costly suit or a revoked broadcasting license. Just like most regulations, the fairness doctrine was little more than a selectively used cudgel for political purposes. Even the Wikipedia page for the topic cites members of previous administrations making admitting to it.
> Fraud and slander are not illegal purely on the basis of content of the speech used to conduct the activities. A sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent must also exist.
Now point me to where the first amendment says "except in cases where a sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent also exists". It doesn't say that. It makes no concessions and imposes no bounds itself on the right to declare things freely at all. It states the complete and universal right without any caveats whatsoever. And yet here we are anyway with protection laws imposing caveats, and nobody can faithfully claim that product truthful labeling regulations should be declared unconstitutional, because there is no contradiction between the two if read with a clear mind toward building society rather than destroying it.
I think you just said: these are contradictory, and then you did a cognitive dissonance to avoid that conclusion by saying but it's fine, because I want to build society.
But the "Anti-Free/Speech Anti-1A ideas = building society" is just a fallacy that have been assumed.
Here, it's even admitted: "It states the complete and universal right without any caveats whatsoever,". then you do the dissonance dance because you don't like that very much.
Our founding fathers should have included a list of definitions (and a list of definitions to those definitions...), but they probably didn't realize how catty their future generations would be, or how much they like being oppressed because it makes them feel safe.
There's a difference between "states" and "justly means". The words do not include all of the things that are obviously just and true. It is obviously just and true, both to the official dedicated arbiters of such things, and also to anyone else who thinks even a little bit about the consequences of fraud, that the rights granted by the first amendment necessarily only work with unstated conditions.
No, there isn't. Anyone who thinks so is experiencing cognitive dissonance. It is what happens when a normally smart person encounters info that they consider unacceptable, so their brain protects them by turning off logic and engaging emotions.
They stated very clearly what it means. You do not like that, so you are playing definition games because you cannot tolerate the reality of the matter.
Have as anybody ever done any research into the consequences of removing consequences from your average person through excessive government smothering (protection for some depending on your upbringing).
This causes the lowest common denominator to live and influence the world much more vividly than ever before. And our politicians are super cool with that because it's their secret for creating long political careers.
So, they subsidize the lowest common denominators of society, the ones that would have dunning-krugered themselves ten times over, then the politicians tell them if they want to survive, they have to vote for us, or the other guy will take your livelihood. 9/10 times it's a lie, but they're super easy to manipulate and cheap to subsidize (buy votes - this cheapness is important to their super PACs low cost per vote is just simple business, better to buy one McConnell or Pelosi than 5 fresh faces) so they keep the voters miserable, in pain, and desperate for government help.
But what is this doing to the average competency of humans overall? This group of low-understanders keep demanding that we put together more bureaucracy and regulations slowing down progress so the politicians can look like they're doing something when they should be demanding the opposite and instead pushing for transparency and consumer choice laws. These nip profits pretty badly though, so our bought politicians never push the idea.
Even this Net Neutrality scuffle is just them creating solutions to problems they've already caused with overregulation creating no competition. Then we get the lowest common denominators cheering it and it's just sad.
> Have as anybody ever done any research into the consequences of removing consequences from your average person
For a lot of it, yeah, it's called history.
Generally speaking, the consequences we have now are because of what was seen to happen when we didn't have them before. Regulations nearly always happen after the fact. Laws against stealing happen because people are stealing, and that's bad. Laws against murder happen because people are murdering, and that's bad. Laws against putting asbestos in things happen because people are putting asbestos in things, and that's bad. Laws against fraud happen because people are doing fraud, and that's bad. Laws about net neutrality happen because ISPs start enacting or publicly preparing to enact abusive policies. You don't need to remove the consequences. We already know what things were like before we started applying them.
Are the consequences we have now the right consequences? That's a much harder question to answer.
So, I said one thing (The US government subsidizes low agency individuals, who drag the rest down by existing, so that they can keep a stable population from which to buy votes on the cheap), and you completely ignored it to start straw-manning something unrelated (simping for regulations).
These are unrelated, so I'm not sure how you got there.
The FTC chair and this honestly is the best reason to vote for the Biden Administration (I feel like at this point whose in office largely doesn't matter 98% of the time, they're too old and or self absorbed to be heavily involved). Really just voting for the people they put in charge of everything below them, which was always the case, just more so now.
This has generally been my opinion on the office of the President. The actual quality of the administration comes from the level underneath the chief executive and I have been very pleased with the people in this administration.
The FTC, Department of Interior and FCC all seem like they have very competent (and non-corrupt!) people running them. Can't say I have strong feelings on Biden but I think he's shown good sense in who he appoints to actually manage the Executive Branch.
Now if only Buttigieg was a more than a do nothing position and the FAA/FDA, etc stopped acting like captured agencies and do their jobs.
Boeing is like what, our one major airline manufacturer and because they're part of the military industrial complex, they get a free pass and get to murder whistle blowers after asking them to stay an extra day in town.
I think these are great reasons to vote for Biden (or Democrats in general), but... I mean... the best reasons? I'd think the best reason would be not putting the country back into the hands of a wannabe dictator who has said he will target his political opponents if he's re-elected. That seems quite a bit more high stakes than the good work that the FTC and now FCC have been doing on Biden's watch.
Interesting to see this come through effectively at the same time as the law granting powers that allows the government to ban TikTok and others in the future.
I can't help but assume there's a connection there. I also don't know why the new law allowing a ban on foreign influenced social media would be necessary if the FCC decides again that it can regulate ISPs as utilities. Weren't the powers there already strong enough to force an ISP-level ban on a service deemed a national security threat?
Your assumption is wrong. The net neutrality fight is older than TikTok. The process for this vote started in September. It would have started in 2021 if Biden's FCC nominee was approved. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act does not involve the FCC. Regulating ISPs as utilities does not empower the FCC to force ISPs to block services. Never mind regulate app stores and hosting services.
I wasn't actually proposing that the FCC would have the power to remove apps from the app store, only that they could force ISPs to block specific servers.
I was thinking the FCC regulations would have that power to implement such a ban based on national security, though I could be wrong. I'd have to look back at the Patriot Act as well, I'd expect that to offer similar powers but I don't remember for sure.
The quote "markets can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent" comes to mind.
Governments can stay irrational longer than you can stay vigilant.
It's frustrating that a decision can be made at great effort in support of net neutrality, only for a new bill to easily be introduced that undermines it yet again.
I guess that's a feature of democracy, not a bug. But I can imagine these battles gets harder and harder to win as time progresses.
Despite the required process for changing regulations in a log of executive branch agencies, I feel like laws Congress passes are a bit more durable. Even with a different majority, there's still horse-trading that needs to go on to get things done, and it's not always easy to push through things that are unpopular with the minority party. With executive branch agencies, whoever is in the White House pretty much has complete control, modulo rules that slow things down, anyway.
IMO this is why communities should do everything they can to build their own infrastructure independent of these massive institutions that can't possibly represent their needs - some being comcast, others being the USA federal government.
It's worth noting that these agencies and their powers did not spring up out of thin air. Various elected Congress sessions wrote the laws that created and empowered these agencies to create rules.
This is a reasonable implementation of a "democratic republic" as Congress still has oversight.
The problem with merely having regulations rather than laws is not a concern that they may not have proper legal authority, but that they are less durable and more easily overturned than laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.
I agree, and I'd rather Congress weigh in now that we've had this specific issue flip-flop twice. I do not like the implication that agency rulemaking is anti-democratic though. We have utilized this structure for well over 120 years, or practically half of the country's history.
We have always had things like executive orders. Just an insane number are issued between the Great Depression and WWII, and then we have 100 years of using them as a ham fisted tool for policy.
You may not like it being pointed out, but having rules made by appointed regulators rather than elected legislators is obviously anti-democratic. Yes, delegating powers like this is a practical necessity, but having made that reasonable tradeoff does not erase the reality that it's a less than perfectly democratic process. So is the structure of Congress itself.
First, the US is not a pure democracy. We elect representatives on our behalf to handle voting on matters. So dismissing something as "anti-democratic" is not applicable here.
Our elected officials set up a system where a series of agencies under the Executive Branch may create rules, but the elected officials have oversight authority.
If you disagree, you may petition your state government for a constitutional amendment that prohibits this practice and advocate for additional states to join in.
> So dismissing something as "anti-democratic" is not applicable here.
[...]
> If you disagree, you may petition your state government for a constitutional amendment
I think you're misinterpreting what's being said here in order to over-react. I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that executive orders and delegating powers to appointed regulators should be expunged from our system of government. But they should be acknowledged as a necessary evil, and their use minimized when possible, and not allowed to completely replace the legislative process. Whereas you seem to be defending taking those practices to the extreme simply because of historical precedent.
> I think you're misinterpreting what's being said here in order to over-react.
If you can point out how I'm misinterpreting, I'm open to discuss. From what it appears though, we have a disagreement on what we wish to delegate to different branches of government.
> But they should be acknowledged as a necessary evil, and their use minimized when possible
I disagree that executive agency rulemaking is a "necessary evil". Congress can simultaneously be derelict in their duties as a legislative body while having a executive regulatory apparatus that creates rules under their purview.
> Whereas you seem to be defending taking those practices to the extreme simply because of historical precedent.
If not for historical precedent and recognizing the practices we've been utilizing for 4-5 generations of people, what should we prioritize?
> rules made by appointed regulators rather than elected legislators is obviously anti-democratic
The people making the appointments are elected. It is obviously democratic.
The general population can't get together to vote on everything, so we elect representatives to do that job for us. Our representatives can't make rules on minutia, so they appoint regulators. Don't like the regulators? Go talk to your representative.
The opposite is worse: I live in a town that still has old-style town meeting where any resident can show up. It's tyranny of whoever has time to show up and stay up late, because someone will always create an amendment at 11PM to overrule a town-wide vote.
It’s not scope creep as much as recognizing that Congress is less functional than it used to be. Obstruction has been normalized since the backlash to Obama’s election – think about how often people claim you need 60 votes in the senate – and that means anyone who sees a problem has an incentive to figure out how to do it without needing timely action.
You'd rather have some idiotic trash that's been elected to congress have to decide what a safe dose of a drug is than an agency largely staffed by people with deep medical training?
You'd rather have such a decision be at the whims of political showboating and culture wars than what can be proven safe and effective with actual medical testing?
I'd argue that a better use of legislature time would be to find ways to reduce the clout of political beliefs in people appointed to high level positions in the agencies rather than requring the useless fools eleceted to congress getting final say in what the rules are.
Seriously do you think the jewish space laser lady should have any say in sattelites or forest fires? Do you really want the moron that thinks injecting bleach is a viable cure to decide what makes for good medicine? Do you want a fool who think's an ar-15 with a certain set of cosmetics is a scary bad gun, but an ar-15 with hunting stocks isn't the exact same weapon to decide firearm policy?
Those are the people you are suggesting should make the decisions on specifics?
I blame this squarely on the congress. Congress has been the weakest it’s ever been, passing almost nothing substantial. If we had to rely on them to ensure basic things like drug approvals we never have anything. They can barely get funding passed to fund themselves!
Perhaps because Democrats control half of Congress today, and the general trend of Congressional avoidance-of-clear-rulemaking has been the same even during those periods that Dems or Republicans control both chambers.
The filibuster makes this kind of 'control' moot. You need a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and a majority in the House to actually get anything done (and the Presidency, to not veto). 'Control of half of Congress' when that half is the house, is meaningless.
That applies equally when each party is the filibuster-sized minority in the Senate.
And: if Senate majorities really want to pass something, they can change the filibuster rules – and have, for some topics.
Otherwise, the filibuster is maintained out of tradition, courtesy, and its usefulness as a change-of-control 'debounce' mechanism – as well as providing a convenient excuse for posturing more and doing less, as Congress is wont.
Still, in other eras, Congress was able to move compromise legislation forward. Recently, Congress has been unable to – both parties, no matter the relative control. Any belief that it's only "the other guys" is partisan myside blindness.
Congress creates and funds agencies. Agencies write the regulations. This is all specified in the law that was passed. FCC commission makeup is defined by law and their authority is defined by law.
Unsurprisingly, Kavanaugh and the rest of the conservatives would prefer this approach be relegated to history. Of course, the areas of particular interest that he cites as examples (securities e.g, finance, communications, and environmental laws) just happen to be those where the two parties could not possibly be further apart in their approaches.
I don't see the relevance to the topic being discussed.
The fact remains that the ATF enjoys the ability to unilaterally revise firearm policy well beyond what many find reasonable without a change in law made by Congress.
This scenario is precisely why the outcome of Chevron is useful -- and, I'd argue, vital in addressing areas where legislation is needed, even if we still disagree about what shape it might take.
Congress' process takes too long to adapt to conditions on the ground. The ATF has a focused mandate to study and set policy in this area without waiting for Congress to consider the issue. It might not be perfect and is still subject to political influencing as the makeup of the committee changes based on appointments, but at least something gets done.
Regarding the FCC, there is some prioritization based on the type of traffic served, but it's fairly commonsense in its approach and the committee recognized that a complete lack of regulation wasn't in the public's best interest.
The idea that everything is left to Congress -- or ignored, as the case may be -- creates a situation where good ideas don't develop into meaningful legislation or the bad ones get implemented over the will of the majority.
Again, not only does this not happen in parliamentary systems, it's not possible because the people debating the issue are all on the same side. They all agree on the desired outcome, it's rather a question of how far they want to go.
It seems to me that the Chevron doctrine has essentially created a fourth branch of government with minimal democratic oversight. It feels like an end run around the constitution. In many cases the agencies exercise legislative, executive, and judicial powers all at the same time.
In case you are unaware, but congress has been DEEPLY dysfunctional for the past 30 years, and has been getting worse every session. Even this week it was shocking news that a bipartisan bill managed to even come to a vote.
This is what happens when the party that doesn't have the White House chooses obstruction and enforces the the Hastert Rule.
Yet in functioning legislative bodies (think: parliamentary systems), employing something like Hastert doesn't require any enforcement at all.
They don't typically require supermajorities to pass laws, and those in the minority don't have the means to substantively object to bills they disagree with.
I should have been more precise - the Senate's rules are garbage and should be hurled into the Sun. More generally, my comments come from watching PMQ's in the House of Commons and seeing that the party out of power really doesn't have many tools to slow down the opposite sides agenda.
If such a system was implemented in the US, it would force politicians to more carefully consider their positions -- no confidence votes and a motion to vacate serve the man functional purpose as a stick to get people in line, which might not otherwise be possible if they consistently took unpopular positions.
You’re fundamentally misunderstanding what is going on. There are a majority number of votes to support popular legislation. These bills are simply not brought to a vote BY THE MAJORITY PARTY due to internal majority party politics.
Nothing in your facile proposal would remedy this. What would fix the problem would be change to the rules so that simple majority could bring legislation to a vote. This does not exist in any functional way.
And we haven’t even touched on the fact that the majority of seats are often controlled by a minority of voters due to gerrymandering and the constitutional structure of the senate.
I'm well aware of the procedural votes that occur before something goes before the entire House or Senate...which serve no other practical purpose than to slow things down. It should not be possible under any circumstances for a single vote -- in an instance where that vote would not make or break a tie among the majority -- to doom a bill that a majority of the caucus supports.
Glares in the direction of the Freedom Caucus, many of whom should have been expelled from Congress after 1/6
In addition, the shitshow that is the amendment process demonstrates that our representatives have long forgotten how to craft comprehensive legislation that has even a chance of addressing all potential concerns.
Again, if I had a magic wand for a day to fix Congress, I'd dissolve it and reconstitute the chambers as a parliament...but how exactly to do that is an argument for another day.
If I had my way I’d create a unicameral legislature with a combination of multimember districts and at-large party list seats in the vein of Germany’s Bundestag.
On a slightly more reasonable note, I’d be happy with just eliminating all state senates nationwide, similar to Nebraska.
You really blame republicans like when the shoe is on the other foot the other party doesn’t do the exact same tactics of blatantly stalling bills they don’t like and overall slowing government to a crawl.
Congress does not want to have to learn the minutia of every aspect of things that are regulated. Delegating responsibility to the relevant agencies is exactly how Congress operates.
Our legislative branch abdicated its power when they stopped bothering to pass laws that people actually want.
If the FTC and FCC weren't doing either of these things, they simply wouldn't happen. As soon as a Net Neutrality or non-compete clause ban bill makes it to the senate floor, Republicans will just filibuster it, even though public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of both these measures.
While I support both of those things, I don't see any problem requiring the legislature to actually legislate to make them happen. If the public felt strongly about these issues they would just remove their representatives next election.
Just because I happen to agree with the actions of the agency in this case is not enough to justify handing legislative power over to bureaucratic agencies that do not have any of the checks and balances that are supposed to exist in our system.
> that do not have any of the checks and balances that are supposed to exist in our system.
But they do have the same checks and balances. All of these rules are open to judicial review and there is a whole process in place due to the Administrative Procedure Act. In fact there are more rules for these agencies like having public commenting periods after which they're required by law to consider that input when making their rules.
One of the things the legislative branch can do is delegate their powers to organizations better equipped to understand complex issues.
These organizations, which function as part of the executive branch, are still subject to checks and balances from both the legislative and judicial branches. The legislative branch has the power to change the laws that govern what these agencies can or cannot do, and the judicial branch has the power to determine if their actions go against either the laws passed by the legislature or the constitution.
Banning regulatory agencies from doing their job would hamstring our government's ability to regulate anything, which is probably why monied interests like to argue that their very existence is unconstitutional.
This is the equivalent of a CEO/C-suite delegating decision making to various teams and leaders below them. They still add laws and appoint the leaders of those organizations, but can't be involved in every decision.
Can't expect every single item in the government to get direct democracy, the world would grind to a halt due to the sheer number of decisions needed to be made.
These are not the net neutrality rules I personally was looking for. They allow a base traffic speed with data caps, and then you buy a la carte for the additional speeds you want. They still allow prioritizing traffic. There is nothing neutral in these new rules.
The rules under Obama were far better, and strangely better under Trump. They have taken the privacy provisions back that were allowed previously. Please read the fine print, and call your congress person, and senator and let them know you demand true net neutrality, and your privacy needs to be protected, with emergency services only having priority above other traffic.
The amount of pro-net neutrality in here is a clear demonstration of the opinion forming power of John Oliver, by dressing the issue as affecting users instead of companies.
A lot of people seem very confused about what “neutrality” means, and it’s consequences. As an analogy, VAT is an equal tax (everyone pays the same VAT) but it’s a very non-progressive tax (it burdens poor people more than rich people.
Your ISP doesn’t really care about your speed, it could increase yours and all your neighbors speed by a big chunk and it won’t really notice it. The problem is that to handle a Netflix they need to do a massive investment.
Yes, non net neutrality is about creating differentiated “highways”, but you are not going on that “highway” no matter what.
The discussion is if internet is considered infrastructure (as roads are) and thus they should be built with everyones money, no matter how specific they are to a single company, or if we should leave it to the market.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why a company that makes massive amounts of money from the internet shouldn’t be paying a higher proportion of the infrastructure costs than a user.
Net neutrality laws are not an US only thing. EU (The Net Neutrality Regulation 2015) and many other countries have net neutrality laws.
>I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why a company that makes massive amounts of money from the internet shouldn’t be paying a higher proportion of the infrastructure costs than a user.
Because ISP is in business of selling internet access to consumer. ISP can sell different tiers of service to the consumer, but can't sell the product twice. Netflix pays huge sum in their end.
This is how money flows:
customer--->[ISP]-->|backbone|<---Netflix
>The framework we adopt today does not prevent broadband providers from asking subscribers who use the network less to pay less, and subscribers who use the network more to pay more
> Because ISP is in business of selling internet access to consumer. ISP can sell different tiers of service to the consumer, but can't sell the product twice. Netflix pays huge sum in their end.
The network is not some amorphous blob.
If a new streaming company called Notflix enters the market (with dedicated hardware), ISPs will have to build dedicated infrastructure that connects that competitor to the network. One of the obvious ways of gaining a foothold in the market is to go where other services have poor connectivity and setup shop there. Of course the ISP that sets up that infrastructure will take big cut for their work, as they should.
With Net Neutrality in effect, the supply side of heavy use internet services becomes constrained, creating a barrier of entry for new competitors. It’s just plain old regulatory capture.
I became "pro-net neutrality" back in the 2010's when Verizon was trying to charge an extra $20/mo for hot spot functionality on my provider locked android phone.
After some rooting and side loading I was gleefully working around that until FCC came down on them for it [1]. Net Neutrality was passed after that and only seemed like a logical response as a means of consumer protection.
It has always been a user facing issue, it's just not one that many people seem to want to expend the energy to think about how it impacts them. Netflix isn't using that bandwidth, the users are. Without users, Netflix would use low/no bandwidth, just as it did when it was renting DVDs. The users are paying for their own access and speeds to be able to watch netflix over the internet instead. And in turn Netflix is paying their ISP to be able to provide that data. Punishing either the users or the web hosts for finding a more effective use case for the internet than just sending static pages is the ISPs either trying to find a way to blame someone else for having over provisioned their network. Or they are trying to strong arm web hosts into paying more because they have regional monopolies and can get away with it. As a consumer if I had a choice between two ISPs and one of them throttling Netflix to try and extort them for more money, even for self centered reasons I would pick the other just to have better service. But there are a lot of areas where that isn't the case and there is a single major broadband provider who has free reign.
This flip-flopping happens because there is no commonality to find. One of the only (effectively) two major political parties of the United States is completely uninterested in governing. They have no policy. They have no plan for governing; they don't like governing. Their only goal is the piecemeal selloff of government powers to the highest bidder, and they convince their stalwart followers of this by making sure they get their daily dose of other people suffering. As long as others are suffering, their base will support the wholesale takeover of government by the rich.
The other half is pretty bad at governing, but at least they try to govern. So when they're in power, the first thing they have to do is try to build back up the institutions that have been disabled or dismantled by the party of government-cannibals.
Yes, they spend a lot of energy on obstructing the government from functioning, and creating a naked kleptocracy to use the government to funnel money into their own pockets. But they are also moving openly towards a fascist dictatorship with very specific ideas about how society should function, and how (and when) people should be permitted to live.
1. Installing a conservative super-majority to the Supreme Court. [Criminalized abortion in half the US. Blocked student loan relief. Gutted voting rights. Environmental protections. Health mandates. Firearm restrictions.]
2. Indiscriminate obstruction. [Months of crucial Ukraine aid. Blocked voting rights bill. Immigration reform. Firearm safety. Tax relief.]
It's honestly difficult to pick the Greatest Hits, given how much damage they've done.
> But they are also moving openly towards a fascist dictatorship
Democrats have been calling on Biden to increase his power through just writing Executive Orders to act on their platform, and bypass all other branches of government...but THAT's not dictatorship?
If you look at the number of executive orders per president, republicans tend to have slightly more over the past couple decades. (Bush more than Obama, Trump more than Biden.)
I don’t think executive orders are that concerning when the legislative body has problems getting shit done. It’s a normal political tool that both parties use (relatively) evenly. What is concerning is gravely anti-constitutional movements to overturn the results of democratic elections.
> calling on Biden to increase his power through just writing Executive Orders to act on their platform, and bypass all other branches of government
Executive orders are one instantiation of what's literally the job of the executive branch: executing the law.
Executive orders operate within the authority granted by the legislative branch as judged by the judicial branch, and that authority can also be removed by the legislative branch.
You can say an order is unconstitutional or unlawful, but it's still not dictatorship.
funny, thats definitely not what it was called when trump issued executive orders, there we had to endure things like the definition of dictator which tends to include "rules by decree" etc, as proof of him being a dictator :) oh how the winds are fleeting
That was before the people most opposed to net neutrality had started lobbying local governments to give them monopoly access and to make it illegal for local governments to try and encourage competition.
Basically I find a good rule of thumb to be: if comcast is against it, it's probably going to improve the lives of everyone via some form of competition between businesses.
ISPs knew this would happen if Trump lost in '20, they never acted on it's repeal in the first place. We'll almost certainly get to see what the no-neutrality internet really looks like if Trump wins this year...
Don't you think that is a very cynical view? The party or parties you disagree with may not share your views, but they do have many things in common with you. In order to build bridges with other parties, it's important to believe that the majority of people who get involved in government, regardless of party, are motivated primarily by the desire to serve their neighbors and their country; otherwise they would find better ways to spend their time. Without that belief, it will be near impossible to form agreements across the aisle.
I mostly agree with you, but disagree on one point:
What is a party? I think there still is a Republican Party that fits your description. I meet them in every day life all the time. They are reasonable, agree on many things, and are willing to seek compromise. I hope they are the majority, if not the voting majority.
But they are not well represented by 90% of the current Republican office holders.
Perhaps those conservatives you're referring to would like to vote for a more moderate candidate, but they are chained to the Republicans via First Past The Post voting.
Nothing will change until average Americans are fed up with the status quo, and force change - that goes for basic things like making the parties work together.
Look, I'm not saying the Republican Party are Nazis. But let's just imagine they were. Would we still have to believe they were good-faith actors just trying to improve their country?
I do not believe the majority of Republican politicians today are trying to improve the country. I think the majority are self-serving, self-interested, and corrupt. This isn't the party of George Bush—who I disagree with about virtually everything, but seemed genuinely interested in trying to do a good job. This is now the party of Donald Trump, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, James Comer, Ted Cruz, and so on. There is no equivalent to any of these characters on the left. There is no compromising with obviously bad-faith actors like this.
As a trans person (and you can substitute pretty much any identity that is commonly understood to be marginalized and the point stands), there is no middle ground to be found working with republicans. I'm either allowed to exist, work, own property, access healthcare, etc., or I'm not. I'm either being discriminated against or I'm not. I'm not interested in compromise here.
> The party or parties you disagree with may not share your views, but they do have many things in common with you. In
The major party I disagree with least doesn’t share my most of views but has many things, in broad focus, in common with me.
That’s very much not true of the major party I disagree with most.
> In order to build bridges with other parties, it’s important to believe that the majority of people who get involved in government, regardless of party, are motivated primarily by the desire to serve their neighbors and their country
Why would “building bridges with other parties” be a goal? A lot of people seem to have gotten ideas that the long realignment period from 1930s to the 1990s when the salient political divides were not along the same axis as the divide between the major parties (though they were approaching alignment at the end of the period) was a norm and not an aberration, and thus have fetishized bipartisanship which was simply a result of ideological factions crossing partisan boundaries rather than generally being contained within major parties. When that applies, you don't need to build bridges between parties, the factions inherently provide it; when it doesn't, you don't have a commonality to build on.
And, in any case, this is the fallacy of argument to the consequences of belief – you are justifying a belief in a fact claim not by any evidence that it represents the actual facts, but by the notionally desirable consequences of believing it independent of its truth.
> Without that belief, it will be near impossible to form agreements across the aisle.
I actually think that its a lot easier to achieve agreements across the aisle, where there is utility in doings so, by observing the actual things that the specific goals the other side has in concrete terms and appealing to them, rather than fantasizing a distant abstraction like “serving the neighbors and their country”. The latter is only useful once you determine a concrete operationalization that comports with the actual behavior of the individuals involved, but that offers nothing between a low-level concrete model of interests that avoids any high-level abstractions.
Now, to the extent that its often a concrete low-level interest that they want to be seen as motivated by the desire to serve their neighbors and their country, that may be useful, but that’s different than believing that that is their actual motivation.
This comment isn't directed at OP, it's directed at anyone reading this who might be tempted to get swept up in OP's stereotypes without thinking critically about them. I'm writing this as a left-leaning moderate who grew up among staunch conservatives and understands their philosophy very well.
Conservatives sincerely believe that government bureaucracies are less efficient than a free market economy. That's not a cover or a motte and bailey, it's legitimately and literally true. Conservative politicians dismantle government when given the opportunity because that's what their base wants them to do because, again, their base sincerely believes that the government is bad at most things it does.
It's true that Republican politicians (like most politicians) are mostly charlatans who are intentionally creating circumstances that reinforce the belief in the ineffectiveness of government, but OP's stereotype of conservative voters as simply wanting a "daily dose of other people suffering" is baseless, wrong, offensive, and extremely counterproductive.
This stereotype is a misrepresentation of the other core tenet of conservative philosophy, which is that what is right and wrong is not up to humans to decide, it comes either from God or from long-standing and proven traditions. Conservative opposition to LGBT rights and similar have nothing to do with wanting to see people suffer, they have to do with their deep-seated belief that some things are simply wrong because something greater than us has said so.
They can be wrong in that deep-seated belief, but it's unfair of OP to characterize it as sadism.
Republicans either want the suffering directly, or - what is most often the case - they want the system that guarantees that suffering will happen, and will refuse any alternative whatsoever out-of-hand.
My parents don't want trans people to suffer: they want trans people to find happiness through the impossible avenue of just not being trans anymore. My parents don't want illegal immigrants to be incarcerated or murdered by border authorities: they want illegal immigrants to find liberty through the impossible process that is just becoming a legal immigrant, or living peacefully in whichever failed country they were born. My parents don't want people with substance abuse disorders to live and die on the streets: they want people with substance abuse disorders to overcome them through the impossible avenue of simply curing their own addiction without any outside support, safety, or encouragement whatsoever.
I cannot convince them that any of this is the case. On the other hand, people like Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh, and Glen Beck can convince them of just about anything. Why? Because right-wing talking heads have a foot in the door: belief. They abuse every belief that a conservative holds dear, and turn it into engagement. Critical thought has no air to breathe in a world made of belief.
It doesn't matter what people want. It matters what people do.
I hate to tell you this, but if you can believe it, they're for the second time now, electing the most sadistic candidate to represent their party. This guy has promised to deport millions of people, put them in "camps", use the military to quell "woke" protests, etc.
The sincere Conservative electorate had every opportunity to choose a less-sadistic option. They chose. OP's characterization is perfectly valid.
Trump supporters resonate with that rhetoric because the rent is too high, groceries are too expensive, and inflation doesn't seem to apply to wages. The causes of unrest haven't changed in thousands of years, but they can be convenient to forget.
I just don't understand how, if their problem is rent is too high and inflation doesn't apply to wages, they vote for Trump. He has made money his whole life by jacking up rent prices and paying people as little as he's legally allowed to (or less than that).
Don’t confuse talking points with the underlying reality. Trump supporters existed when inflation was basically non existent. His support is really independent of the economic situation.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in this time. He barely beat one of the least popular candidates in decades and then got crushed the next election cycle. Opposition candidates tend to do well when the economy is doing poorly, but he’s got a lot of baggage and the poles are dead even right now.
> Trump supporters resonate with that rhetoric because the rent is too high, groceries are too expensive, and inflation doesn't seem to apply to wages.
And so they vote for the party that is against rent controls, against expanding food stamps, and against raising the minimum wage?
And Trump (and his sycophants) seek to take advantage of this feeling. Using the age old approach of blaming "the other" and seeking not any real improvement in conditions, but a consolidation of power in their hands.
Well, then, maybe they should consider solutions for solving those problems rather than yelling "big government"/etc at every opportunity and further eroding the protections the previous generations put in place to keep things like this from happening.
AKA, a lot of this is the result of generations of poor education, an education system that is strongly biased propaganda based on provably wrong economic models that tell k-12th graders that the best and only choice is the one where the free market runs roughshod over anyone who can't afford the rent, etc because that's simply "capitalism" and all the other choices are worse.
Maybe? But how is Trump or the Republican Party planning to address any of these?
Remember, Trump successfully pressured the Fed to lower interest rates while the economy was strong. Think that contributed a bit to the inflation we've been dealing with?
Are they recommending corporate tax increases? New marginal tax brackets? No? Did they add tax loopholes for private jets and yachts while they were last in power? You bet!
No, what they're doing instead is trying to scapegoat things like "woke" college students and immigrants.
Part of the reason liberals hate conservatives and vice versa is that they think the government is actually representing their opponents. The reality is that influence is severely concentrated on every "side," and things that average people believe are only used to justify actions that a truly influential coalition wants to take. Your disagreeable family relations are as powerless to get a new issue introduced as you are, but they're going to be blamed for whatever advances the oligarchs who are opposed to your oligarchs have recently made.
On the contrary: most liberals (or anyone else who doesn't identify as a [neo]conservative) are painfully aware that the democratic party is failing to represent them. We just know that that failure is less damaging than what the Republican party is up to.
The Republican party is the party of unification and engagement. The Democratic party is the tent for everyone else. The presence of the former demands the existence of the latter.
> The Republican party is the party of unification and engagement.
The anti-LGBT party with a well-known track record of racism is the party of unification?
No...no it's not. They're the party, that when asked to NOT be anti-LGBT and not be racist, cries about their freedom being repressed.
The Republican party is the party of authority, tradition (Which is not necessarily a virtue), and conformity. They're the party of freedom, but only if you're a white Christian male, bonus points if you're rich.
The Republican seeks to oppress minorities, and then when asked to not be hateful, act like they're a victim of thought policing. They spew hateful messages on social media, get rightfully banned for it, and then pretend they got banned for their conservative views, which of course is pretty telling.
No, they're anything BUT the party of unification. They USED to be, but they let some loudmouth idiots become the face of the party.
I mean unification with themselves. Either you are a Republican, or you are not a conservative. In contrast, the Democratic party actually tries to cater to leftists, progressives, liberals, etc. all at once: one tent for everyone who isn't Republican.
Take for example the words, "In God We Trust; United We Stand." A christian conservative can read those words as a call for compromise around a shared identity; but the rest of us can read them for the threat that they are: either you are in the in group, or you are selfishly standing against it.
If the unification of the Republican voterbase wasn't working, Utah would have put 20% of its 2020 vote into an independent candidate, just like we did in 2016. That didn't happen. Instead, those voters became Trump supporters.
In this thread we see the iron law of 21st century American polarization and the uttermost death of nuance. I’m sure someone will come along to argue how nuance is a luxury we can’t afford in the face of these communist/fascist maniacs.
Before the Internet, people talked politics in person and nuance was included. Communication was synchronous, with instant feedback, and basically required engagement. You couldn't just walk away without upsetting social norms.
But the Internet (and especially Twitter), changed all that. People don't want to discuss, they want to "win", so you get 1-sentence "owns" that are just straw men. Nuance gets thrown out the window. If someone you're arguing with comes up with an excellent point that you can't counter, it's easier to just not reply. You're not on the spot, facing a human, and having to admit out loud that they've got a point. Nope. Much easier to just ignore it and remain entrenched in whatever bullshit you believe.
The other half of the blame is 24-hour cable news that has to constantly come up with shit to show, and now entertainment and news have become intertwined with a disastrous result.
I agree with your statements, and they were true until sometime between Newt taking over and Trump being elected.
They used to have a a coherent positive viewpoint and policy to support it. And they sought to advance that policy through normal democratic means: convincing a majority of voters.
That has stopped being their approach. They no longer seek a genuine popular majority. They are turning inwards, adopting ever more extreme positions disconnected from genuine ideals. They seek only the power to impose their worldview on others.
They no longer feel constrained by long standing traditions and institutions. Any act is justified in their minds.
It stopped being true after the Romney loss. They wrote a report [1] that basically outlined the fact that due to demographic trends and the makeup of Republican electorate, the RNC would have to start becoming a big tent, multicultural party in order to succeed in the future.
The decided exactly the opposite -- they elected Trump and decided to become a party based on white Christian grievance.
That’s a bit of an extreme comment “seeking medical help” but to be fair I’m only aware of the “to 1953” legislation and not the additional “to 1853” legislation.
did they actually reinstate? isnt it just that newer legislation was made illegal, and it DEFAULTED back to this, where there is proposals by republicans to make legislation that in many ways mirrors most EU countries, but that is unacceptable to the democrats?
"just that".... the newer legislation was made illegal by Republicans, and Republicans decided the 1864 law is still valid. This is how you roll back the country 160 years. And it's not just that this particular law is literally from 1864, it's that even new laws are mirroring these 160 year old laws. Many have no exception for rape, incest, or the life of the mother [1]. That's barbaric.
The reason that Democrats find all of this unacceptable is that Republicans have either failed to anticipate the chaotic consequences of their actions, or -- as they argue in court in support for jail terms for people who have abortions, and that doctors should not have exception in the case of life of the mother or rape -- that they intend the chaos and resulting harm to women. As people suffer and die due to their actions, it's not hard to see why rolling back laws to 1864 is objectionable to Democrats.
I appreciate you bringing up EU countries, but if we are striving to emulate them, we should strive to match their maternal mortality rates by providing adequate healthcare to pregnant people [2]. Instead, by upending abortion rights in this country, we are worsening these trends. You can't use the EU as a benchmark if you're not willing to implement EU-like healthcare and social services in the US.
its very obvious that you are grossly misrepresenting things. If you have an old law that for whatever reason was there, and a newer one is removed, this is how it works. And to suggest that the republicans decided to roll back to 1864 is simply dishonest and intentional misrepresentation. This is the exact sort of thing that makes compromises less likely to happen. One side will GROSSLY misrepresent what the other side does, making conversation and compromise impossible.
Also, you are wrong. The week-number cutoff for abortion for example can EASILY be used as a benchmark for what should be allowed, regardless of what other healthcare is available. I am not from the US, nor am I a supporter of the republican OR democratic party, but it is blindingly obvious that the democrats are WAY less willing to compromise on anything than the republicans, and attempts to use emotion and misrepresent to extreme levels, and on this particular issue, its very obvious that democrats are the obstructionists and extremists, and 100% unwilling to go out of their reality distortion field. On other issues, republicans are insane, but it is a different insane (and different does NOT mean less). And more importantly, NONE of these parties are good for the people, both are abominations that only serve their own agenda
Your comment works from an assumption that bad governing is superior to not governing.
I don't agree.
I think particularly at the federal level a deadlocked government that is only able to accomplish a few things that can achieve broad consensus is preferable to one that governs badly and will invade the autonomy of the public who is, by the large part, capable of governing themselves.
Political gridlock is, from that perspective, a feature. Not a bug.
In terms of revealed preferences, clearly the bulk of the US agrees. :)
I think a point that gets missed is that in terms of capacity for causing great evil, money hardly moves the needle. People do-- of course-- intentionally perform minor evils for money, or negligently do somewhat greater evils because of money. Worse than money in terms of ability to do evil is shame and gross incompetence combined with power. But to do grandiose evil, the kind of evil that murders tens of millions, requires someone who wants to "do good".
So to many, a party that wants to "do good" but is transparently incompetent or beholden to irrational views is a lot more troubling than someone who wants to sell things off to the highest bidder and otherwise keep themselves out of trouble. Selling things off to the highest bidder is evil, but evil in bounded, largely predictable, and often recoverable ways.
If you really think that the public in general are rooting for other people's suffering in a meaningful way then I think you need to get offline and go spend time in person with the people who you believe are doing that. I am confident you will find that they aren't.
> They have no policy. They have no plan for governing; they don't like governing.
This is an unfair analysis, and is either naive at best or disingenuous at worst.
I'm not a registered Republican, but I AM strongly against an all-powerful centralized body of government that continues to expand exponentially. I would rather focus powers in a more decentralized direction closer to the individuals and the States themselves. e.g. "Think globally - act locally."
The parent's comment is the EXACT problem that comes with a central government that is too powerful: you have to be mindful that "your party" will not be in "charge" about ~50% of the time.
For a concrete example, I don't like expanding Presidential powers nor extensive use of Executive Orders because likely there will be a president I don't support in that position, and I'd rather her/him NOT have that type of power.
States and local communities are more knowledgable about what their constituents need, and the more local you go, the more homogeneous that group becomes - leading to a higher degree of success for those policies. For example, I have never lived on a farm, nor have every lived remotely _near_ a farm...so how can I properly empathize with their needs or considerations in a fair way?
States and more local forms of government also provide solid grounds for the greatest real-life A/B test of policies in the world: if you are living in an area that doesn't align with your values and/or needs, you have _so many_ other options to consider settling. e.g. if you like living in California where virtually all the policies and politicians are left of center, then great! You can live there and it doesn't impact me in any way over in where I live.
Homogeneity also comes with its own problems -- smaller, more homogenous governments are much more likely to discriminate against the "out group", for instance.
Government grows because what we do grows. We didn't need legislation on airspace and radio waves and net neutrality and cyber bullying when our Constitution was written. In many cases, powers simply come into existence, and I'd rather the government have those powers than a monopoly or oligopoly of private rich entities.
Rather than limited Government, I'd rather see an Open Government -- one that is accountable to, accessible to, and made up of us. Then why does it matter if government gets big? Government is us, after all. At least we can work toward that. Maybe?
> Homogeneity also comes with its own problems -- smaller, more homogenous governments are much more likely to discriminate against the "out group", for instance.
I discriminately support my family more than my neighbors. You probably do too.
I also discriminately support my circle of friends more than the random stranger. You probably do too.
I also don't think a random stranger can come into my home and get equal footing with myself as the homeowner simply because the other person was "out". You probably do too.
Hell, even at the broad government level, US citizens are prioritized over non-citizens - like literally every single country that has ever existed.
From this comment it is clear that you have a policy and plan for governing. But it isn't clear what that has to do with the portion of the parent comment that you quoted.
The implication of the way you wrote your comment is that it's unfair and naive or disingenuous to say that the Republican party has no policy, because what you outline is their policy. But the rest of your comment just ... isn't their policy. (Which is, presumably, why you aren't a registered Republican.)
For instance, you say you don't like expanding Presidential powers. But the leader of the Republican party has a suit in front of the Supreme Court, right this moment, attempting to expand Presidential powers all the way to "immune from the rule of law".
Now, it could still be true that the policy of the Republican party is in disagreement with the desires of that person who is the leader of their party - that totally happens! - but unfortunately at this specific moment in time, "the desires of that person who is the leader of their party" is exactly as close as you can get to defining the party's policy.
It's a sad state of affairs! But I seem to frequently see this kind of wishcasting based on what people think the party's policy should be, except it has nothing to do with the clear policy of the party in actuality. (Note that this wishcasting thing is not actually unique to the Republican party.)
Sounds good in theory, but we are more intertwined on private sector levels.
As an example, the cost of natgas on the east coast after California's rules limiting coal for power generation. People in nearby states with different COL pick up part of the tab.
> after California's rules limiting coal for power generation.
Great example & case study for the beauty of the US Constitution's "interstate commerce" clause, and one of the areas the federal government _SHOULD_ focus its attention.
>because likely there will be a president I don't support in that position, and I'd rather her/him NOT have that type of power.
I wish more people had this perspective.
The topic of packing the Supreme Court comes to mind. There are people who want Biden to do this, but if does it, what’s stopping the next Republican from doing it too… back and forth until the court is so big it can’t function. These easily won “victories” can just as easily work against a group as they can work for them. It’s very short-sighted.
The only reason the courts are getting involved as much as they are, is because Congress can’t get anything done. They make the law, the court interprets it. We need a functioning Congress to avoid the courts needing to give their best guess on what the law currently is for issues that aren’t well defined, or not defined at all. Packing the court as a solution is solving the wrong problem.
Congress had decades to make actual abortion laws, and both sides had times where they were fully in power - not that they shouldn’t have compromised on something like 12 or 15 weeks instead like most European countries.
As far as people’s opinions of the court goes, it really grinds my gears how most people assume the Supreme Court is there to essentially make or strike down laws on their own whims. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. I’m no judicial scholar but it seems to me the current court is doing the best job of what they’re actually supposed to do than they have in a long time.
The Supreme Court decides which cases it wants to hear and there are many cases brought into the legal system each year. That practically gives it the power to make (well, re/interpret) or strike down whatever legislation it wants, as long as there's a relevant-enough case.
Right, but they ideally choose because they think a law needs to be struck down, clarified, etc. based on legal merit and not because of how they or the population feel about the end result.
I would say that is unfair because their actual platform is deliberately sabotaging any kind of functional governance and refusing to change any government policy that is clearly broken and in desperate need of change. Obviously they won't admit that. But that is what they have been doing for decades. They wouldn't want to accidentally make things better for people because then they can't campaign on fixing the problems.
I recall reading or hearing that a bunch of senior GOP leadership got together immediately after Barack Obama’s election and agreed explicitly that their approach was going to be obstruction.
And that worked, but then the next generation of elected party members seemed to be obstructionist only. So much so that in 2017 when they held the executive branch and both houses of congress, they couldn’t get anything done.
This is sort of a democrat neolib explanation that's only possible if you ignore the corrupting effects of capitalism and the unending class struggle between workers and capital, regardless of party.
The GOP isn't some weird guys who can't govern, but an incredibly powerful group that works almost exclusively for the capital owning class and uses social issues to empower that class. The GOP caters a bit to the workers class but not a lot and is actively radicalizing them to believe they have the same interests as the capital owning class. The culture war is by accident. If the GOP could do this all without the culture war, selling hate, etc then it would. These are merely tools for an end.
The Democrats are almost as bad, but also are beholden to some level of will of the working class, but generally default to the whims of the capital owning class as much as practically possible. The Dems need to get the working class on its side to continue to exist. The pure capital owner party is the GOP and they can't compete against them without this rhetoric. Hence, a lot of Dem ideology being lip service for populist worker issues and actual change from Dems is very rare, and when it happens, its under the approval of the many/most capital owners (see Obamacare being a mandatory private insurance program instead of a Euro-style socialized medicine program.)
The better governing of the dems is by accident. If the dems govern better its only by accident due to the strong influence of the middle-class dependent on good government to survive, and if the dems could maintain power with more corrupt governing, they would.
This is your classic conservative vs liberal divide that defines nearly all modern capitalist nations.
The difference between the two parties isn't that strong. Under capitalism, the government is a capitalist government and is nearly fully corrupted by it, regardless of party. The only real fix is to replace capitalism with socialism, but neither party will allow that, so here we are with the usual back and forth and hiding issues with workers class and capitalism under whatever social issues of the day best distract.
> The GOP caters a bit to the workers class but not a lot and is actively radicalizing them to believe they have the same interests as the capital owning class.
They don't cater to them as much as they convince them that they could one day be a member of the capital owning class.
The whole "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" line.
> The difference between the two parties isn't that strong.
That's the kind of thinking that led to Bush in 2000. Say what you like about Gore, but his administration would have done a great number of things differently from how it worked out.
Additionally, you wouldn't see e.g. Trump's EPA turning up the pressure on coal power plants. In fact hundreds of effective EPA staffers left (/were purged from) the EPA in 2017/2018.
To the working class who under Both Bush/Trump and Obama/Biden sent their kids to die in the war on terror and under both fund a destructive foreign policy that has led to incredible civillian deaths wordwide especially in the middle east, a "well one guy might make cleaner coal" is a cold comfort.
To the working class who labors under inflation with no guaranteed vacation or maternity or pension, its a cold comfort that the one guy "likes ice cream and is friendly." To the working class who can't buy a home, its a cold comfort that one guy has better diction and vocabulary than the other. To the working class that can't retire and will die at their desks, its a cold comfort that one guy said something nice about labor unions. To the working class who are watching the global south be exploited and the pollution there blowing upstream to the "clean EPA driven USA" its a cold comfort. To the working class who can't afford to have children, its a cold comfort that one guy has given lip service to LGBTQ issues.
etc, etc.
Neither can or will address the fundamental problems of capitalism that causes nearly all these issues. The working class will continue to suffer under any pro-capitalist leadership. One guy just has nicer window dressing than the other.
I don't think you're being very fair. We can see stark difference between Democratic and Republican controlled states, especially when looking at the South. In terms of women's rights, they are second class citizens in the South while their rights are protected in states with Democrats leading the charge. In states where Republicans have complete control, they've asserted full control over women. That's a real difference between Democrats and Republicans that I hope you can appreciate.
In the South they are banning DEI, queer books, and trans participation in public life. This is not happening in Democratic controlled places, and that's not just lip service, that's for real. People's jobs are being impacted by this, teachers are fleeing Republican controlled states.
You look at rate of infant mortality, pregnancy complications, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, opioid addiction, childhood poverty, poverty in general, and it all looks better in Blue versus Red states. That's real data we can look at which tells us the parties are different. Under Democratic administrations, access to healthcare is expanded. Under Republican control, it contracts. I know it's not your preferred solution, and I'd like a better one too, but when it comes time to vote I'm damn for sure voting for the party that causes healthcare access to expand.
And Trump's problem isn't that he has poor diction or vocabulary, it's that what he says is literally insane and psychopathic. The SC case today was evidence of that, where he argued in court that he deserves the power to assassinate his rivals and to order the military to stage a coup without fear of prosecution. Democrats are not arguing this position in court.
Yes both will not address the fundamental problems of capitalism, and the working class will continue to suffer under both, but the data say they will suffer more under Republicans compared to Democrats.
We are not talking about window dressing we are talking about measurably less suffering. I understand that's not the "no suffering" benchmark you'd like to achieve, but how about we not let perfect be the enemy of better?
I recommend looking at your motives. Thinking that people who disagree with you politically want nothing else than other people to suffer, while being unfair and inaccurate, probably betrays your own desires.
The poor state of democracy in the US is not a one-party problem, it's a two-party problem. My proof is the fact that each party holds almost exactly 50% of the mindshare of the US. As far as I can tell, this was achieved through gerrymandering, one party automatically and consistency taking the opposite view of a contentious issue the moment the other adopts any particular stance, and backroom deals among congress and senate members ("You support my bill for X," spin it to your constituents as good for them, and I'll do the same for your bill Y.")
Neither party wins elections based on which candidates are more suited to the job, they win based on who can out-trash-talk the other side. If this was not true, negative campaign ads would not be the main form of advertising during election season.
I predict that if one of the parties fails and dissolves due to severe missteps, there will be a period of severe democratic instability, followed by a split of the surviving party into two major factions, each of which settles out at around exactly 50% of voter mindshare again.
> I predict that if one of the parties fails and dissolves due to severe missteps, there will be a period of severe democratic instability, followed by a split of the surviving party into two major factions, each of which settles out at around exactly 50% of voter mindshare again.
I actually see this too. The Republican party is on the verge of collapse not because of anything Democrats have done, but because of what Trump has done to the Republican party apparatus. He's redirecting all funds to his legal bills instead of electing candidates. He's causing them to lose in red districts because of abortion by previously unseen margins. He's telling everyone that voting is fraudulent so Republicans aren't voting.
I mean, Trump has never been the head of a non fraudulent, successful company in his entire life. Why would we not expect him to similarly destroy the RNC?
So if the Democrats are left standing, I see them cleaving in two, with one half being the Biden/Manchin/Romney axis. The other party would be more like the Warren/AOC/Bernie axis. MAGA types would be left in the political wilderness.
I would actually be fine with either of those parties in power.
Me too. At least we'd have people on the playing field who agree to the fundamental rules of democracy. Rules like "when you lose an election, you concede and transfer power."
I'm happy this reversal occurred, but I am exhausted by the continuous flip-flopping of legislation depending on which party is in charge. Feels like we're stagnating as a nation by going in a circle rather than finding commonality to go forward.
Maybe it's always been this way though and I'm just getting old enough to be bothered by it?
It's partly what happens when such important rules are determined by who is appointed at an executive agency, rather than requiring an act of Congress. The former can be trivially gamed by the party in power after each election, whereas getting Congress to take action on something can be difficult and requires you to first get them motivated to do so at a given moment.
This is the tyranny of minority rule. When congress is not representative of the electorate and the minority doesn’t have to compromise to get things done to gain political favor and power, nothing gets done.
Exactly, we never voted any of the people making these decisions into office, they didn’t have to campaign or explain their policies to the public. Having a layer in between these regulators and the public (the politicians who appoint them) removes power from the common people.
I'd flip it and say its what happens when Congress has been dysfunctional for over a decade. It's not even possible to get a house bill with net neutrality passed without it included 99 other things that will inevitably get the bill punted on forever.
Congress could have drafted this anytime if they had seen fit, but they are "too busy" fighting ideology wars.
To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
The reality is, they just don't care about net neutrality. I'm still mad that they haven't passed the bill that gets rid of DST (or rather, gets rid of standard time). Everyone wants it in both parties. Just get it done.
Even more annoying is the whole Section 174 debacle. Completely killing the field of software engineering in the US.
“Congress avoided two government shutdowns” is like saying “I avoided pooping in my pants twice today.” It’s factually true and objectively a positive thing, but there’s nothing really commendable about it.
The debt ceiling is Congress’s own creation, and Congress itself approves the budgets that cause the increase in debt. There isn’t another parliament on the planet that behaves so absurdly, fighting shadow puppets set up by itself.
There are plenty of countries with legal debt ceilings, some of them even in the constitution. That said, I'll grant you that I don't know of any that behave so absurdly about it. The trick is to stay clear very far from the limit, which is something that recent US governments are simply unwilling to do.
There are plenty of dysfunctional/autocratic/kleptocratic governments based on constitutions that are somewhat democratic in nature. The US is just a high profile example of government structure slowly sliding into one of these failed states (faster if Trump gets another term).
I didn't keep track and don't have a good list, but a guess is that Trump did push through a lot of regulatory changes. If the media would publish a well documented list ...!!
From all I've seen, I like Trump, but apparently a lot of people don't. I wonder where am I going wrong.
Why do some people not like him? A guess is the now old collection of video clips from the MSM (mainstream media) still at
Sooo, recently I watched several videos (still at YouTube) of episodes of Trump's old TV show The Apprentice. (1) From the business world I've seen, this guy was definitely, uh, different! In a way, tough to criticize since apparently he was very successful. (2) A surprise was the propensity of mess ups, in fighting of the apparently carefully selected candidates. When I think back, yup, I did see a lot of that but guessed it was incidental and would go away and wasn't too bad -- I was wrong, and Trump's TV show was closer to right. How Trump handled (2) was good to see, although maybe some of it was just "TV".
Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior.
But I don't know if the statement you quoted is correct either. Trump isn't the politician who has people tracking their stock trades because they so consistently outperform the market (that would be legislators, including Democrats, who trade on insider information, but face no consequences because the arbiters of such judgment are... themselves). Unfortunately, I'm not sure that even a second Biden term will save us.
> Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior.
This is the first I've heard of her. So, just did a Google search on her:
She has written a lot of stories for the "news" on a lot of subjects. Maybe ~10% of the stories are about Trump.
There were some lists of story titles with URLs, but the URLs didn't point to the stories -- apparently were old and now broken.
Her stories on Trump I could find didn't seem like they were on important issues. Then I saw her story on the "Russia" issue. Sorry, I long ago concluded that Trump did nothing wrong and, instead, the whole Russia Gate issue was a cooked up, made up, pile of nonsense trying to get Trump.
If you'd actually read her long-form work (specifically, her books Hiding In Plain Sight and They Knew)... Humor her for the length of those, then see how you feel.
Her thesis is that "Russiagate" wasn't cooked up; that Trump is, in fact, simply an agent of a class of wealthy oligarchs who don't have loyalty to anything but their own money; that people are drawn to him because their correct instincts about the dysfunction in DC are being misdirected to him as a savior, in a way that is identical to the way autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem have been put into power in the past in other countries.
Give her work a chance. If you come out of it still supporting Trump, then I suppose you've made the right decision. But see why she's come to her conclusions first; I personally think that they're compelling. Otherwise, it's kind of weird to disagree with an argument you don't even understand.
> Her thesis is that "Russiagate" wasn't cooked up;
...
> weird to disagree with an argument you don't even understand.
To me, from all I have seen, the "cooked up" part was real and well documented. If not cooked up, then some of the media did a really big trick on me, after trying at first to do the big trick of trying to convince me that Russia Gate was real. Peeing in the bed with women in a Moscow hotel??? Naw.
> in a way that is identical to the way autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem have been put into power in the past in other countries.
Hmm .... Tough to take that very seriously when I disagree with the not cooked up assumption. But, interesting, fits some of what is easy to see about Trump: He is a strong personality. He is rich and powerful. He is not, "leading from behind", waiting until the polls says he should take action X but, instead, looking at X well in advance and making decisions then -- so, e.g., he is not merely representing the voters but is charging in some directions he likes and, if not a nuts strongman, competently thinks will be good for the US and that voters will like.
It's a judgment each US citizen has to make: Is he nuts???? For an answer, that's part of why I watched some of his TV series The Apprentice.
From some that's easy to see about him, even if he is nuts, he works hard to appear not to be and, instead, to take actions to appear to be sympathetic, empathetic, generous, etc. with people in need. E.g., in The Apprentice he flew the Rhodes Scholar candidate down to Pennsylvania for a family funeral. That said, maybe working for him could be tough, need 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, and a quart of sweat an hour.
And as voters, we can see that we have to be careful, i.e., once a POTUS is in office, super tough to get him out, no matter what the heck he does.
But for Trump, we do have 4 years of his time as POTUS. There I didn't see a nut case. It looked like in business he was a darned good CEO and as POTUS was the same as it can be appropriate for a POTUS instead of a CEO to be.
We will see in November and, then, likely again, starting in 2025.
Thanks for the book review: "autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem"??? Naw.... Watched him for 4 years, Naw.
No one's arguing that Trump isn't forceful. It's to what end. The "kleptomanic" part is important, exemplified publicly (at the very least) by the way he changed the tax code to advantage wealthy individuals and businesses, while middle class and working class Americans have seen their tax bills rise. (Again, Biden is not so good on this either, as he didn't repeal Trump's changes).
Of course, the books go into more detail. Unfortunately, if you don't read them, your opinion that the issue was "cooked up" remains baseless and bereft of value. :)
> Are you being sarcastic? Did you miss the part where he waged an attempted coup against the US government to remain in power?
I never understood that: I watched his speech. All I saw looked reasonable, appropriate, prudent. It seemed he was careful to advise no violence. That there was an "attempted coup" makes no sense to me. I watched his speech and saw nothing wrong.
> I mean... he was just found by a court to have committed rape.
I didn't and don't see that.
But, if what you say is correct, then that would explain why some people don't like him.
From your post, it looks like there is some deep bitterness about Trump. I don't see why, but okay. For one explanation there is that old collection of media video clips
Apparently the media was totally convinced that those clips would doom Trump; maybe those clips are why some people don't like him.
Watch the clips -- if anything, by now they are entertaining! They have much of the largest of the MSM (mainstream media) doing a big gang up, pile on of "bombshell", "done, no question about that", etc. that never happened.
Maybe in low level town and city politics nearly everyone interested in politics at all has some really strong reasons to like the Democrat Party. If my startup works, maybe I'll discover that the local Democrats will do good things for me but the Republicans won't. Hmm.
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ... Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
> I watched your video -- it's media personalities babbling.
Yup, but maybe it and related media stuff is responsible for much of the anti-Trump opinions there are. I thought the collection was outrageous, insulting, and dirty politics but settled on it being entertaining.
> rape
A NY jury found Trump guilty of WHAT with his fingers?
If Trump entered Carroll's dressing room, she was supposed to scream loudly enough to blow the roof off the store. Every girl over the age of 12, 9, ..., 5 knows this.
"Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse."
and the article quotes some judge saying that the act really was rape. Hmm. If we are going by a jury trial, then it's "sexual abuse". If we are not going by a jury trial, then it's made up, cooked up, porn star and Democrat Party political dirt to "get Trump" -- Trump with a "porn star". Naa .... While married to Melania??? Naa!! While planning to run for POTUS, take a risk of being extorted??? Whatever Trump is, he's NOT bonkers, brain-dead stupid. Besides, in US culture, what happens between a male and female alone is unknowable, and that's why US females over the age of 12, 9, ..., 5 are strongly advised never to be alone with a male. So, likely we can never know for sure about such things.
As I recall, there is a document signed by Carroll that no rape ever happened.
Uh, maybe Trump was guilty of the bad judgment of being in the women's department of a high end NYC department store ....
Or, maybe it's about "defamation" of a porn star?
Maybe it's about getting $130,000 to keep quiet.
> Arizona
Seems to have to do with Kelli Ward and nothing directly with Trump. As I recall, Ward has been fighting in Arizona.
> Georgia
I would trust any homeless person in a plastic shelter on a street in NYC more than the Georgia legal system.
> J6
Maybe some day we will have access to and an objective review of all the actions of and evidence presented to the J6 committee. (A) From watching Trump's J6 speech, I don't believe he did anything wrong on J6 -- he didn't even have an opportunity to do anything wrong. (B) The J6 committee looked like a kangaroo court, not at all objective, just to sow doubt about Trump. It was not a real court and was just a committee of Congress, and apparently they are permitted to do whatever they want. So, they wanted to dump on Trump -- we can believe that.
> Federal
That's a bunch of DC stuff saying that, yes, Trump has rights, e.g., 1st rights, but still from his words within those rights did something illegal. Nonsense. On troops for J6, there are claims that (a) that decision is up to the Speaker, Pelosi, (b) within plenty of time Trump offered a big force from the military, (c) the Mayor of DC also turned down both Trump and the DC Chief of Police. Besides, what I saw of J6 was (a) US citizens legally petitioning Congress for redress of grievances, (b) some guy in a Buffalo costume, (c) a police officer assuming his "tactical stance" and killing some citizen for no good reason, (d) some small fraction of the people misbehaving in ways that should get them arrested.
As I saw the 2020 election, in some of the "swing states" (a) the local Democrats had a long standing, non-trivial, and effective machine to create votes, at least as mail-in ballots, as necessary and, in a close election, sufficient and (b) the state governments declined to exercise their authorities to investigate the situation. Sounds like machine politics.
> A NY jury found Trump guilty of WHAT with his fingers?
Rape. I linked to the court's opinion stating this. What the judge makes clear is that "rape" as a matter of law in NY is with a penis only. That Trump raped was with his fingers does not make his rape any less rape.
The jury’s unanimous verdict in Carroll II was almost entirely in favor of Ms. Carroll. The only point on which Ms. Carroll did not prevail was whether she had proved that Mr. Trump had “raped” her within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law – a section that provides that the label “rape” as used in criminal prosecutions in New
York applies only to vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the vagina or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called “rape” under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled “sexual abuse.”
Do I need to make this more clear? Putting a part of your body into another person's body without their consent is rape. A court found Trump did that, and now people don't want him to be president for that among other reasons. Not hard to understand.
> maybe Trump was guilty of the bad judgment
No. The jury found he's guilty of rape, not bad judgment. Trump is a rapist.
> Seems to have to do with Kelli Ward and nothing directly with Trump
Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment, so it relates directly to him. The acts under indictment are the various frauds the defendants underwent in service of Trump's coup plot. They are also Trump campaign surrogates. This is another reason people don't like Trump -- he surrounds himself with people willing to commit crimes, and asks people to commit crimes for him.
> I would trust any homeless person
You don't have to Trust the legal system, you have to trust Georgia's Republican SoS and Republican Governor, who felt so pressured by Trump to overturn the election that they started recording and leaking calls with him doing exactly that. Another reason people don't like him.
> he didn't even have an opportunity to do anything wrong. (B) The J6 committee looked like a kangaroo court, not at all objective, just to sow doubt about Trump.
See, this is how I know you didn't read any of the information I linked to nor did you watch the hearings. Because if your had you would know the speech was not the coup. That you keep trying to deflect to it shows me you didn't even consider the vast array of evidence laid out by the committee. They show the effort that went on months beforehand which culminated in the J6 insurrection was the coup attempt.
> Besides, what I saw of J6 was...
This has been litigated in court for years. The opportunity to petition was prior to December 14, the date states certify their elections. Trump, appropriately, brought 60+ challenges in court and lost all but 1 due to lack of evidence. Since then, he has not brought any proof of fraud. He had none at the time, and after plenty of forensic audits in the intervening years, fraud at the alleged scale has not been found in any of the disputed states.
So it was all a lie at the time, and we know that now. By Dec 14, since Trump did not have that evidence, he should have dropped his challenge.
> As I saw the 2020 election, in some of the "swing states" (a) the local Democrats had a long standing, non-trivial, and effective machine to create votes
This is not what happened at all. What really happened was that many states had affected CVOID emergency measures to allow people to vote by mail who wouldn't usually have permission to. In my state, PA, it was Republicans who passed a measure allowing no excuse ballot access in 2019.
But either way, state governments have not in any way declined to exercise their authorities to investigate the situation. All elections have been audited several times by now with no anomalies on the scale alleged detected. Nevada results were even opened up to a third party, the Cyber Ninjas, who were a right wing group intent on proving that some ballots came from China by examining the paper they were printed on. They found nothing. Actually what they found through their audit was Biden had more votes on their recount.
Anyway, it seems you have a very cursory and surface-level understanding of these matters and of US politics generally. I linked you those sources so that you would read them, in the hope that you would become more informed. Since you can't discuss these topics past your casual observations, I would suggest just read some actual primary sources before instead of spending hundreds of words replying to me with confident ignorance.
I'm still trying to evaluate Trump and
understand the anti-Trump people.
Thanks for your references and remarks.
Okay, from some of the news, I concluded
that the J6 issues were from what Trump
did on J6 and some role for him in the
disturbance that day at the Capitol
building. But your claim is that,
instead, the issue is about some things
Trump did in 11/5/2020 to 1/6/2021 as
claimed by the J6 committee and that
constitute an attempted "coup". (A) I
can't trust the J6 committee even for the
time of day. (B) If Trump did something
illegal (jay walking doesn't count) in
11/5/2020 to 1/6/2021, then we should have
some actual credible legal actions instead
of just the J6 committee of Congress. (C)
Just from common sense, tough for me to
believe that Trump intended anything like
a "coup", but is dreaming of a "coup"
itself actually illegal?
Trump may have strongly suspected that (a)
he actually won the the 2020 election, (b)
the election was stolen by illegal means,
and (c) he wanted to defend himself.
Sounds reasonable, okay, and not
surprising or at all illegal. He has a
right to defend himself? Right?
For the DC lawsuit, the PDF file seems to
make clear that (A) Trump said some things
that were well within his rights of
freedom of speech but (B) as in the first
actual charge in the PDF, Trump was still
being charged with some consequences of
that free speech? Looks like law-fare.
For Carroll, if Trump did something she
didn't like, she should have, was supposed
to, scream in which case there would be
lots of objective, credible witnesses from
that department store.
As I understand the legal results, Trump
was convicted of "sexual abuse".
Inserting fingers, sure, would be a case
of sexual abuse, but just breast fondling
may also be. All we have from the jury is
"sexual abuse" and that's not necessarily
"rape". That Trump is a convicted rapist
seems to have poor support; seems to be
false.
Also a porn star who did not scream is not
credible; that is, if not consensual, then
scream. That Trump, married, running for
POTUS, and not stupid did anything wrong
with Carroll is not credible.
NY AG Letitia James, out to "get Trump",
and Judge Engoron and his 1/2 $billion
fine are not credible and instead, just
obvious via common sense, look like
Democrat Party law-fare. Trump's loan
application had a disclaimer, and the loan
companies are all happy. The area in
square feet of part of Trump Tower or the
value of Mar-a-Lago seem irrelevant;
claiming that those two are relevant looks
like more law-fare.
(A) NY DA Bragg's many felony charges
based on some goofy issue about some tiny
accounting issue past statute of
limitations and some goofy accusation
about Federal campaign law and (B) Judge
Juan Merchan and his efforts to keep Trump
in court and quiet look like kangaroo
court, election interference law-fare.
In Georgia, Fulton DA Fani Willis and her
boyfriend got, what, $600,000 reasons to
go after Trump? Looks like more Democrat
Party law-fare.
There is a pattern here: Democrat Party
law-fare against Trump.
Sorry, so far I don't see anything
seriously wrong with Trump and don't
understand the anti-Trump people.
We will have to agree to disagree and look
forward to the election.
This rape stuff makes no sense: Before seeing your quote, I saw it myself when I looked at the PDF, and it sounds like Trump was convicted of finger rape. But then there is the statement I referenced:
"Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse."
So, sounds like the jury didn't say "rape", with either penis or fingers and only "sexual abuse".
Finally, the whole Carroll thing, I don't believe it -- Trump is not that stupid. What I believe is the $130,000.
For Georgia, sure, in principle and thankfully, it is up to the Georgia Secretary of State and the Governor, in principle. But it sure looks like that hate Trump prosecutor and her boyfriend are 99% of the reality there.
For the Arizona case, right, there are the charges that somehow near the end of his term, he went around the country doing something illegal complaining about the integrity of the election. So, he went around complaining. And maybe he had some coffee with Kelli. That should be no crime. And, with the Judge Merchant and Bragg case, there is a lot of lawfare going on. Trump did something illegal in Arizona???? Naw.
Again, the J6 committee was 99 44/100% Democrat propaganda.
The recounts, etc. -- if it was just counting again some crooked ballots, then that doesn't mean anything. The Chinese paper thing, then the changes for Covid thing, all looks like maybe something valid. I saw more accusations, e.g., trucks of fake mail-in ballots arriving late at night, but the information is too thin to take seriously. So, if there was cheating, I don't know how it was done.
Maybe the bottom line is "Politics is dirty business" and differs mostly only in how dirty. At this point, with the lawfare, the Democrats look like the dirty ones and look especially dirty since 2020.
Thanks for your materials. Apparently you believe those materials mean more than I do, but maybe they mean something.
For the 50:1 case outcome, looks like NO ONE in power wanted to open that possible Pandora's Box.
With the current lawfare Florida to Maine, it looks like the Democrats are going after Trump any way they can. That makes the legal cases you referenced questionable. The Democrats have a lot of power and money, and they can file lots of lawfare cases, and it looks like that's what they have been doing. I expect that some judges will retire, some higher courts will jump in and hose out the crap, some lawyers will be disbarred, and Trump will win all the cases. Why? In the lawfare, the main goal is not to convict Trump but just to tie him up in court, cost him a lot of time, money, and energy, sow doubt among some voters, and keep him off the campaign trail until 11/5/2024. The Democrats are calling the fire trucks. For that there doesn't have to be a fire or even smoke, and there isn't.
For 2024, Trump promises to have enough lawyers, poll watchers, etc. to have high election integrity. Maybe we will get some more information on how the Democrats try to cheat.
Look, there is something in this whole mud wrestling ring more certain and wrong than any of the actual legal accusations against Trump -- the Democrat's lawfare attack on Trump.
I was glad to get your references -- the DC one is a riot, a scream: As the PDF explains, he was fully within his rights to object to the 2020 election BUUUUUT: They are going to charge him anyway with, what, confusing the politics, the public????? Gads. That's not even up to the kangaroo level.
There is nothing to stop the Democrats from executing lawfare, but we don't have to grant that the objections are valid or that Trump did anything wrong. The Bragg case is a new low in the US justice system. Same for the 1/2 $billion fine.
As sometimes said in courts, there is a "pattern" here.
Actually, Trump is not even accused of doing anything seriously wrong.
Good to see, I'm not making a serious error in judgment liking Trump.
So much cope. It doesn’t matter what you believe. You didn’t hear the evidence. You didn’t sit through the trial. You have no idea what you are talking about to the point you can’t interpret the NY law, the jury instruction, the verdict, and the judge’s ruling.
Sorry but it’s your critical thinking that’s impaired here.
This is a nation of laws, and under the law, Trump is a rapist. If you refuse to admit finger rape is rape, which it is, then you at least have to admit that Trump was found guilty under NY law of sexual abuse. Are you saying sexual abuse is not seriously wrong?
If you think you have good judgement for supporting a convicted sexual abuser, well, good luck to you dying on that hill.
Have a nice life.
PS: you seem like the kind of person who needs to have the last word so I’ll let you have it. But you should answer this: so you don’t trust the judicial system, and you don’t trust democrats. Fine. But why then is his former VP not endorsing him? He’s not a leftist liberal out to get Trump. He’s ride or die Trump. And yet he’s not endorsing, and had this to say:
I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again
This is what Pence said about Trump. Why is he saying that? What does he mean when he says that he feels Trump put himself ahead of the constitution and asked others to violate it?
I think their congressional salary is probably not where most members of Congress are deriving their main income. I think the paychecks their 'other' employers are cutting are more lucrative.
It’s true but “keep the government from grinding to a halt due to pure inaction” is kind of the absolute minimum bar for congress that I don’t think it’s reasonable to call it a win.
Of course, there's no difference between permanent DST and abolishing DST but having everyone agree to shift their schedules forward by 1 hour. So abolishing DST altogether isn't really a better option.
I used to think DST was stupid. Now I think it's actually the best we can do.
People aren’t going to shift an hour. When I’ve argued this with friends it seems to idea is wholly incomprehensible.
Standard time is what we should be on. Anything else makes it way too cold for kids in the morning in the winter, it’s better for our sleep cycles (especially teenagers), and it just makes sense as far as the sun’s position. If you want to go into work an hour early so the “sun is still up when I go home at night,” feel free.
The linked Wikipedia page about the 1974 experiment says "some schools moved their start times later" in response. I agree that trying to get the entire population to shift everything on their schedules at the same time would be inconsistent at best. But many institutions would adjust to the seasons as they see fit. And you want to minimize the inconsistencies; people would pick different cutoffs, different shift amounts, etc. That's the whole point of why it was regulated in the first place.
And DST is demonstrably good during the summer. It lowers crime and improves mood and productivity. It's just not good in the winter, because people in northern latitudes wake up in the cold and dark. It kinda does make sense to have seasonal shifting.
So, unfortunately, the best solution in my opinion is in fact to just lie to ourselves about what time it is for half the year. AKA Daylight Saving.
It could be much worse and end up with a system with smaller timezones with 30 minute offsets instead of DST. Or a single timezone for the continental US.
all expenses, in theory, incurred in connection with software development must now be amortized. Many technology and software companies will face significant increases in their taxable income because they are no longer allowed to deduct certain expenses
> To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
The euphemization in this subthread is a bit out of control. In fact these are 100% partisan issues. The "pro shutdown" and "anti aid/infrastructure" camps who had been blocking progress are uniformly sitting on one side of the aisle, and the progress you are celebrating happened when their party split under duress and aligned with the other side briefly.
That's not "congress" doing some work. That's a "pro work" and "anti work" partisan argument whose answer flips due to intra-GOP drama.
>To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
That's just three different ways of saying, "Wrote checks to fill the pockets of monied interests, the bill for which will be paid for by the generations which explicitly oppose such policy."
Talk to me when they pass Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, campaign finance reform, and a border/immigration bill that finally puts that issue to rest. Until then, it's just another round of avoiding addressing the issues that are easiest to run on if they haven't been fixed in a prior term.
>Talk to me when they pass Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, campaign finance reform, and a border/immigration bill that finally puts that issue to rest. Until then, it's just another round of avoiding addressing the issues that are easiest to run on if they haven't been fixed in a prior term.
You do realize that half (and maybe a little more than that) of the elected folks in Congress do not support such things. That those folks represent less than half of the electorate is a different discussion -- but until you have clear majorities that support those initiatives (I and those I voted for certainly do), clamoring for everything all at once is a waste of time.
The idea that "I'm not getting everything I want right now means that government is irreparably broken," is ridiculous on its face.
That's not to say we shouldn't have better governance and more focus on making the world a better place rather than maintaining power. We definitely should. But asserting that unless all our elected representatives support our own beliefs/policy ideas and pass them post-haste is both unhelpful and not very realistic.
>The idea that "I'm not getting everything I want right now means that government is irreparably broken," is ridiculous on its face.
It's weird that you would put those words in my mouth when the actual reason for the dysfunction
>That those folks represent less than half of the electorate
is readily apparent to you.
The point is that Congress is terminally dysfunctional. Avoiding shutdowns and passing grift doesn't change that. I don't want to hear all the reasons why things can't be done (perhaps the most unhelpful thing to do). I just want them done. And I have every right to be pissed abot the state of things until that happens.
> They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Aaaannnndd?... You're just going to leave out the banning of TikTok while claiming a victory for sending my money to other nations for wars I do not want to fund?
And another thing </Andy Rooney>, government shutdowns are problems created ENTIRELY BY CONGRESS for never operating under a proper budget since 1997. All they're doing is fighting each other over a massive shell game of sending the right amounts of money to their donors' interests to guarantee reelection.
"Infrastructure projects" is just another term for crony capitalism. Just look at funding for telcos to build out infra, or EV charging stations, or solar panels, or anything else they fund as "infrastructure." It's always just a massive kickback scheme, and nothing gets built.
They're doing work alright, just not any that I want. Our system is nakedly and brazenly corrupt, and we don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
>"Infrastructure projects" is just another term for crony capitalism. Just look at funding for telcos to build out infra, or EV charging stations, or solar panels, or anything else they fund as "infrastructure." It's always just a massive kickback scheme, and nothing gets built.
This is the most baffling one. Everyone seems to forget that they also failed to pass the bill that contained the provisions that most working and middle-class Americans wanted. I've had multiple conversations where the counterargument was, "Well, at least they got part of it passed." No, that's actually worse. We got all of the expensive giveaways without any of the mitigating funding and policies. We literally would have been better off if nothing had passed.
> we don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
I thought that, with our democratic structures, it would be really easy "to do" a lot about it, but you seem right:
I don't get it and have been guessing that
> It's always just a massive kickback scheme,
is correct.
A first problem is some basic vote counting: A politician does something, e.g., a "kickback scheme", that pleases < 10% of the voters by essentially stealing from > 90% of the voters. Soooo, at the next election, the politician should lose by at least 9 to 1, but apparently not and I'm wrong and the politician, correct?
Uh, maybe the politician partitions the voters into 10 parts, has 10 schemes, and for each of the 10 steals from the other 9 to please the one, and everyone is happy even though everyone gets stolen from 10 times?
My guess was, if a good majority, 80%, maybe as low as 55%, of the voters would write their Members of Congress objecting to the scheme, then Congress would STOP it, in a few minutes. But, nope. Apparently tough to get > 20%, maybe > 5%, of the voters to write their Members of Congress about even a "brazen" scheme.
In simple terms, Congress is awash in powers, e.g., that massive one, "power of the purse". So, I have to believe that in any 10 minutes, Congress could have gasoline under $2 a gallon and falling, but Congress declines to do that.
The blame is the media that wants eyeballs for ad revenue and, thus, creates divisions, grabs people emotionally, avoids exposing the schemes??? Or the voters are "apathetic"??
Politics is goofy, inscrutable, and the media is right? Uh, ABC, CBS, CNN, ... WaPo are short on money so are not really "right"?
While I agree Congress is quite dysfunctional, the sheer difficulty with which to get a bill written, passed, and signed into law is by design. Legislation is supposed to take a large amount of deliberation, agreement, and time.
Also consider that this works both ways: If something is passed into law by Congress, it's going to take monumental effort to undo it just like getting it passed was. An example of this is Obamacare, where getting it passed was difficult and revoking it has been difficult.
Likewise, the flippant nature of orders authorized by the Executive Branch is also by design. Such orders are meant primarily to address short-term concerns requiring immediate or expedient attention, not long-term concerns that require thorough deliberation.
> Congress could have drafted this anytime if they had seen fit,
Congress as a whole does not support net neutrality, and the reason they have not drafted a simple house bill to do it that doesn't include 99 other things is because they had no desire to. It has nothing to do with "ideology wars."
because nobody wants single subject bills, it would semi make them accountable.. remind me, who in congress is for single subject bills, who is against? (and its very few individuals FOR, so not super hard)
There are de-facto one party systems in many cities, counties, and some states. They all suffer from getting nothing done. “Both sides” is a legitimate observation by those who recognize politics as upper class nobility vs the peasants. They run in the same social circles. We’re still primates at our core.
And when the House Speaker won’t even let it get to a vote in the first place, no one has any motivation to even draft such a bill. But yeah let’s ban TikTok because in theory they could do something bad that every US-based company already does. Way to represent the will of the people, House.
Congress was destined to this fate when they eliminated earmarks. Earmarks, or pork barrel spending, were derided as gov't waste, but in reality they were the grease that kept legislation moving. A representative could go back to their voters and say, "I voted for this thing you might not like, but I did it to ensure this crucial local project got done."
Without earmarks there is no incentive to compromise. Compromise is actually a liability now, because there is always someone who will challenge you in a primary and promise to be more "ideologically pure." Without the ability to point to money and public works to defend yourself both during a primary and an election the best you can do is point to a record without compromise.
Not wanting to compromise comes largely from the two-party system. If a politician had to worry about losing votes to a more moderate party, they'd end up with less extreme voting records.
Multi-party governments function largely because some subset of the parties agrees to compromises to gain a combined majority on a specific topic; none of them can do anything in isolation.
You're absolutely right IMO. When there is no reason to compromise and compromise can only hurt you, no one compromises and nothing gets done. Earmarks shift those incentives in the right direction, and their cost is a small price to pay to have a government that governs.
I think the results are mixed and the lessons aren’t clear to me.
Perhaps earmarks were the result of an electorate that wanted more purity in decision-making (at the cost of stability). In other words, earmarks didn’t break cooperation. Corrupted cooperation led to the end of earmarks.
Earmarks probably do grease the wheels, but it’s important to remember a step existed before the compromise: a member of the congress could hold out until they received something, often unrelated to the matter at hand. That is wasteful and, to some, dishonest.
Now, did a removal earmarking result in more financial efficiency? Surely not. The budget deficit continued to grow, mostly because of Obamacare, Covid, wars, tax cuts.
So what of compromise? One might think compromise is dead, and yet we live in a world where Ukraine aid is tied to social media ownership.
An implicit assumption of the American political order is that a body that makes policy also has the ability to unmake that policy. I think that's good because otherwise there would be a land rush to create policies that are irreversible or have a higher bar for reversal than enactment. These policies would inevitably become out of date and reversing them could be politically impossible.
The big exception to this was the drafting of the Constitution itself, which arguably was easier to ratify than it is to amend. The problem of the practical impossibility of undoing past policies applies very much here.
The Constitution was very difficult to get ratified. For one thing, it was recognized that it had to be unanimous. Don't forget it was replacing an existing political order of the Continental Congress + state governments.
Its always been this way, but the internet sure has amplified the effect of Edward Bernay’s theories. So much free PR copy is created on your behalf by your army of sheep active on the internet. Used to be that stuff was put on car windshield wipers and promptly thrown away, now people are engaging with it online now that there’s a mechanism to talk back to it.
Unfortunately, if you have a contentious issue which is decided by fiat of one of the sides being in power and not by mutual compromise, there's no reason for the other side, coming in power, to not change it back. Since, fortunately, we still have a functioning democracy in the US, the sides in power change. Since, unfortunately, there seems to be not enough will to reach a workable compromise satisfactory to both sides, flip-flopping will likely continue in the foreseeable future, until either societal consensus moves firmly on one side of the issue to the point that makes other side's position untenable, or some mutually agreeable compromise emerges.
At it's core, it is a technical issue - primarily network management. Under NN framework, ISPs would adhere to minimal straightforward rules that would disallowed them from prioritizing, throttling, capping, purposefully degrading, etc wireline networks. For most of 2 decades, this is where NN lived.
In apparent response to NN becoming reality, ISP funded representatives began echoing the talking points of ISP lobbyist groups and contention was born.
I don't think it's a technical issue. The implementation is technical, but the implications are societal. Is the state allowed to restrict ISPs from certain forms of network management? How far the governmental control over ISP actions can go? Does such restriction benefit the society? I'm sure a lot of people have opinions on these questions, but it's not a technical issue and not one that has an obvious correct solution. It's not like "is quicksort better than bubble sort" (even that is not 100% clear cut but let's not get into the weeds) where you can make mathematical arguments and tests to establish the conclusion. It's a matter of values and policies, and as such, it's bound to produce disagreement. I don't think it's also useful to frame it as "it all worked super awesome and then greedy capitalists stole it from us by their dirty tricks". It's usually not how it works and it's not what happened in this case.
We are flipfloppimg because the legislature is paralysed, so only the executive can function.
This is a fundamental issue with the American form of government. Parliamentary systems which have the executive made up of members of the legislature have way less flip-flopping, finger-pointing, and paralysis.
The governments they produce are more reflective of current public sentiment, end up with more than two parties, and are thus less stable. Minority rule and coalition rule is very common... which actively forces either compromise, or a new election.
This "paralyzed" legislature just passed, by large margins, a large amount of foreign aid and a very significant provision on a popular social media platform.
Before that it spent billions of dollars on covid aid.
Throughout that time it has appropriated billions of dollars to keep the government running.
This "paralyzed" narrative is something the press and politicians like to push because it serves their ends, though for different reasons. It's false.
> Throughout that time it has appropriated billions of dollars to keep the government running.
In no other country is it considered an accomplishment for a government to debate a budget, agree on it, pass it, spend it, and then three quarters of the way through the year refuse to pay for the spending it agreed on, manufacturing a crisis that sometimes gets resolved at the eleventh hour, and sometimes results in a multi-week disaster and government shutdown.
If a company had a department that ran that way, every single director and manager in it would be fired after the first time it happened. It has so far happened three times (Including once when the Republicans fully controlled congress), and has been threatened every year.
That’s what the debt ceiling arguments are about: members of Congress don’t want to take the heat for actually canceling something so they don’t remove it from the budget but then refuse to pay without some kind of token win for their campaign ads. The real debt problem is that you either need to restore taxes to pre-Bush levels or cut popular programs, but there’s no way to do either of those without being willing to negotiate and that’s currently politically untenable for one of the major parties.
The two-party system in the US is equivalent to a multiparty coalition system, just with the coalitions negotiated before the election instead of after it.
It used to be the case that Congress actually passed laws. And pre-Chevron, the regulatory agencies actually constrained their rule making to be within the law, and so laws were more specific.
The problem started IMHO with Republican obstructionism under Clinton, but got out of control with Obama’s shift to using executive orders over legislation after the affordable care act nonsense. It’s definitely a both sides issue.
The Supreme Court is poised to decide a case this term, Loper Bright, which should help restore more finality to decisions like this.
Because agencies receive considerable deference to their interpretation of the law, even when that interpretation flip-flops every four years, we never get a definitive ruling on what the law says. The Court seems likely to greatly reduce this deference, leading to more consistency.
This would be an OK way of running things if we had a court with any legitimacy. Unfortunately partisanship has ruined any hope of that. (And actually, it would be better if laws could be interpretable by normal people without an SC case, but that would be too sensible).
The overruling of Chevron is not about stripping power from federal agencies, it's about determining who should resolve ambiguities in regulations. Should it be the agency itself, or should it be the branch of government whose job it is to "say what the law is"?
That being said, I don't think Chevron deference has a part to play when it comes to Net Neutrality flip flopping all the time - these are not ambiguous regulations. In that sense I don't agree with the person you're replying to - Loper Bright won't help here. Now, if you want to say that the FCC doesn't have the authority to issue this rule, that's something that was always reviewable by the courts.
The concept that would actually attempt to strip power from agencies is the nondelegation doctrine. While I suspect that has support among a few justices, it would be a very radical change and there is no case on the horizon that I'm aware of that would be a vehicle to implement it.
Hard to see how reducing deference could lead to less consistency. You are literally commenting on a post about the FCC reinterpreting their authority to regulate internet broadband years after the lawsuits over the original Net Neutrality laws concluded.
If Loper Bright had been decided ten years ago we would already know today whether the FCC possessed this authority or not and it would be settled. Instead, we are about to embark on another round of litigation because the FCC just unsettled expectations again.
Case 1: agencies reinterpret the law ever four years in each new administration until the end of time.
Case 2: we figure out what the law means once and apply it going forward until Congress changes it again.
Case 1: Changing after clear notification is not ambiguous.
Case 2: Waiting until every single individual aspect of every single law is litigated means for years to decades the actual meaning is ambiguous until each court case finishes.
Perhaps it's getting worse, but it has always been this way to a degree. What few people seem to realize, is that while democracy and the separating of powers seem good in principle, they also have innately dysfunctional qualities to them. The more divided or opposed things are, the more dysfunction there is.
Hard problems are considered unsolvable by today's Congress (except for military funding bills), so they focus their energies on 'red meat' for the voting base (abortion resrictions, affirmative action), or for wealthy donors (tax cuts, SC nominations).
Proportional representation is a terrible idea, in that it entrenches the role of parties per se, but ranked-choice balloting in SMDs would be a massive improvement over the status quo.
Nope nope nope. Political parties are good. 2 incumbent political parties in a permanent grapple is what is bad. Politics is a "team sport", by which I don't mean it must a facile context practiced by west-wing-loving weirdos, but that is is a fundamentally collective effort.
Americans love to think political parties are inherently bad, but seriously when are mere individuals reliable? How the hell am I supposed to tell who all these down-ballet no-names are and what they actually believe in? Much of the rest of the democratic world functions fine with parties that are not all 150+ years old and ship-of-theseus-ed beyond recognition.
Nah, parties are bad. They perfectly exemplify the adage about people dedicated to the ostensible mission of the organization vs. those dedicated to the organization as an end it itself. With formalized parties, we often see the strategic concerns of the party as an organization eclipse any coherent policy goals that are the ostensible reason for the party existing in the first place.
Multi-party in particular democracy has some significant pitfalls, including the tendency of marginal and extremist parties to play kingmaker. The historian Hannah Arendt made some salient points about how the multi-party structure of Weimar Germany contributed directly to the radicalization and eventual total control of the state by the Nazis.
Politics will always involve factions forming around shared interests or values, but in a situation without those factions being calcified into formal organizations, or even identities, we'd expect them to be much more fluid and ephemeral, and for politicians to be much more willing to reach across ideological divides without worrying about institutional discipline or being ostracized by the party establishment regardless of their constituents' opinions.
Ranked-choice balloting wouldn't eliminate parties per se, but it would reduce their influence in the electoral process significantly.
> How the hell am I supposed to tell who all these down-ballet no-names are and what they actually believe in?
I'd expect a reasonable voter to investigate the actual candidates on the ballot and make an informed choice, and not merely rely on party affiliation as the only criterion for casting a vote.
> They perfectly exemplify the adage about people dedicated to the ostensible mission of the organization vs. those dedicated to the organization as an end it itself.
The same argument cuts both ways. Individuals can be corrupted by personal ambition versus sticking to a mission too.
> With formalized parties, we often see the strategic concerns of the party as an organization eclipse any coherent policy goals that are the ostensible reason for the party existing in the first place.
This is because there is no marketplace of parties. There is are just two, and we are stuck with them --- they are more akin to coalitions to parties in a multiparty than individual parties in a multiparty system. The monopoly/incumbency problems this creates are the same ones we see in commerce when there is a dearth of firm creation/failure, and the zombies live on.
> Multi-party in particular democracy has some significant pitfalls, including the tendency of marginal and extremist parties to play kingmaker. The historian Hannah Arendt made some salient points about how the multi-party structure of Weimar Germany contributed directly to the radicalization and eventual total control of the state by the Nazis.
There is that risk, but it is not like the US's system has protected us well from extremism either. When politics as usual gets discredited, we see both the rise of radical non-partisanship and parties shifting to the extreme.
I would not expect multiparty democracy to protect us from stupid as colossally stupid as the Treaty of Versaille, and neither should Hanna Ardent. US policy towards West Germany and Japan is the much better model of dealing with defeated enemies.
> Politics will always involve factions forming around shared interests or values, but in a situation without those factions being calcified into formal organizations, or even identities, we'd expect them to be much more fluid and ephemeral, and for politicians to be much more willing to reach across ideological divides without worrying about institutional discipline or being ostracized by the party establishment regardless of their constituents' opinions.
Again this all sounds nice in principle, but we are not seeing that in any extent political system. Large parties and small parties both have plenty of rhetorical dogmatism and inflexibility. But at least small parties can outflank large incumbents, bringing together constituents in hitherto unexpected ways. Stuff like YIMBYism, for example, which doesn't neatly fit into either US party is really screwed over by having to win through the "long slow march through the primaries", rather than create a nimble new party with cross-spectrum appeal.
> Ranked-choice balloting wouldn't eliminate parties per se, but it would reduce their influence in the electoral process significantly.
You need to provide more evidence for this. Campaigning is expensive. The returns on consistent messaging increase with scale (e.g. ingraining strains of through, moving the Overton window, etc.)
> I'd expect a reasonable voter to investigate the actual candidates on the ballot and make an informed choice, and not merely rely on party affiliation as the only criterion for casting a vote.
With enough work, one can learn about individual, but what enforces that those individuals are consistent? Firstly. The incentives for politicians, especially minor ones, are to avoid making enemies more than make friends --- they don't want you to know how they feel. Secondly, and more importantly, they have zero incentive to consistently feel anything as the political landscape and space of compromises shape-shifts.
You talk about reaching across the aisle as an unvarnished good thing, but as a voter there some deals are really worth it, and some deals are not worth it --- not all deals/compromises are good.
When individuals are fickle and nebulous, there is no way to vote on individuals that adequately conveys this sort of information. We can say "vote for good character", but that is feel-good dribble.
Part of the reason some one like Modi came into power and has been able to maintain it (amongst many other reasons) is people were disgusted by the continuous reversal of administrations and their policies. Nothing ever progressed to completion. That malcontent is generally settling into the west as well and strongmen are looking more and more attractive. The auth option in the US is a regressive dummy, but India, China and several African, Latin American and South East Asian countries have competent people filling those roles.
IIRC with Modi a big factor was that the previous prime minister was seen as effectively a spineless puppet, kind of like how Biden is seen by many. Modi came in promising to try literally anything rather than just sitting by and doing nothing unless ordered to by the political dynasty leading the party, and has largely delivered on that promise.
It has meant lots of controversial legislation being forced through, but to many that's better than just letting the issues simmer for decades. Especially since many of those issues had no uncontroversial solution.
Trump came in promising similar action, but in hindsight did absolutely nothing besides further divide the country. Unfortunately at the moment neither side seems to have a candidate that's actually willing to do something similar. Biden will continue to make excuses about not being able to do things, and Trump will continue to focus more on PR and dominating the news cycle than actual work.
Manmohan Singh was seen as exceptionally spineless (because he pretty much cowtowed to whatever the Gandhi family said). That’s not how Biden is perceived. At all. Biden has installed more justices than Obama and Trump combined. He has done it without the right freaking out about it. He has been incredibly effective if you delve past the surface.
In right wing circles Biden is often perceived as a puppet for 'elites', too old and senile to make his own decisions. Every other tweet about him seems to get people joking about how he had to go to bed early or how they had to drag him out to make a speech. I was a bit young to carefully follow Manmohan's term, but I recall that one of the comments I often heard from adults were that he was clearly too old for office.
It's funny how his speech is an indicator that he is too old for office, when his opponent's speech is so frequently and completely unhinged[1], that it sounds like a self-parody.
---
> [1] I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record. Because you know, look I only need this space. They need much more room. For basketball, for hockey and all of the sports, they need a lot of room. We don’t need it. We have people in that space. So we break all of these records. Really we do it without like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important.
Yep, it's pretty ironic, the only difference between the two (in terms of showing their age) is that Trump is more energetic (animated?), but energy doesn't translate to coherence.
Voters aren't voting for policies at all. They're voting for candidates who come as a package deal, and often have to make tradeoffs among their own policy positions as no single candidate aligns with them on all issues. On top of that voters are casting their votes in an electoral process rife with gerrymandering, wedge issues, exaggerated or fabricated crisis rhetoric, party-line voters, and other distortions.
The idea that the behavior of the government is ever a consistent reflection of the aggregated intentions of the electorate is something of a fantasy. No one is intentionally voting for bad policy -- they're getting bad policy in one area as a consequence of voting for good policy in another.
I’m not sure either side is invested in making sure people are suffering. I do think both sides have differing opinions on what the role of government should be in Americans lives. Neither side is wholly consistent, which is okay. Demonizing “the other” is the root issue. Everyone should stop doing that.
> I do think both sides have differing opinions on what the role of government should be in Americans lives.
I think everyone seems to largely agree that the government should definitely have a big role in Americans' lives, but they differ significantly on what issues they think the gov't should be involved in. Relatively few people seem think the gov't should largely leave people alone (although it is popular for some folks to say they feel that way while simultaneously agitating for the opposite).
I actually don't believe this anymore. I think that up to the Bush years, you could argue the sides were just taking different paths to achieve the same goals. As bad his policy ended up being, I think Bush and Cheney and their cohort were really trying to do the right thing. I also genuinely think that Trump and his enablers are people with bad intentions. Their intentions range between callous self-interest and downright nativist authoritarianism. They would harm democracy and their perceived enemies in America to further their goals. That's maybe not 100% of the political right but I have very little pushback against it.
ah yes, the good old binary worldview. Such a delightfully simple algorithm.
def decide_position(position)
case position.party do
when GOOD_PARTY
cheer()
return true
when BAD_PARTY
boo()
return false
else
shutdown()
raise InvalidPartyError.new "Warning: Logically impossible situation detected. There are only two parties, and one is good and the other is bad. System shutdown initiated to avoid potential memory corruption"
end
end
1. Why is decide_position returning a boolean? The function signature, even without types, doesn't really indicate that it should return a true / false value. Perhaps a better name would be "is_position_good"?
2. Why would the memory get corrupted? Most operating systems should be able to handle such a case.
3. Why do we shut down the entire application? Surely there's a better method rather than killing the entire application due to a single boolean check.
It's funny that this is the exact opposite of what I said. I said "vote for policy". As it stands one party is at least on the right side of most major policies and one is on the wrong side. You'll never get 100% alignment but the two main parties are generally pretty good and aligning with the sensibilities of major blocs.
> when half the populations entire political identity is “whatever we think will make the other side angry”?
I assume those are the guys who are voting for the party opposed to one you're voting for, correct?
> actively stifling progress is not actually funny
Another thing that is less than funny is assuming that there's some universal definiton of "progress" and those who disagree are just doing it out of stupid stubbornness, unwilling to concede the obvious truth.
> It is not possible for me to base my legislative direction on “everyone that is not cis white is bad”.
It's not possible to anybody. Literally nobody does that. It's a crude caricature. By perpetuating this caricature as if it had any bearing to reality, you are a major part of the problem.
> And the republicans have changed a lot more than the democrats on that front.
Only if you're looking at it from the Democratic perspective. From the Republican side they look at Democratic policies from the last decade and see a group that suddenly decided to throw all previous social norms out the window and upend social order. They see themselves as reacting to that change in the Democratic Party.
I think the truth is that both parties simultaneously escalated, but that perspective usually gets shouted down pretty hard by both sides who each really want to perceive themselves as the consistent one.
> a group that suddenly decided to throw all previous social norms out the window and upend social order
That's a different front, though.
Even if it's a response to those things, the level of "don't cooperate even on issues where you agree/used to agree" has not been the same between parties.
> when half the populations entire political identity is “whatever we think will make the other side angry”?
The idea here is that Republicans are somehow out to spite the Democrats more than vice versa, and I frankly don't see it. Both sides believe the other to be acting in bad faith, and honestly from my perspective it certainly looks like both sides are acting in bad faith.
We've had more than our fair share of close calls to government shutdowns the past four years, but let's not forget that Congress actually did fail to fund the government twice during Trump's presidency. The current Congress flirts with the line but has always ended up actually finding something that can pass.
> And the republicans have changed a lot more than the democrats on that front.
Of course, your team have always been standing for the common sense but the other team is just crazy now. Long gone are the times of Bush presidency, where the parties lives in almost perfect harmony, and the worst thing the President could be called by the opposing politician is "this esteemed and honorable man is sometimes mistaken". If only would could go back to those golden times.
I find the only commonality is that after the right wing does something, both sides say “this is going to hurt so many people”. It’s just that one side is laughing when they say it.
I visit alt-right circles A LOT, and I have literally never once heard “the other side does these things out of spite”. The vast majority of the time, they don’t have anything to say on a topic beyond repeating some stupid meme.
Additionally, I would also like to point out that people on the right actually demonstrably DO have zero conviction for their beliefs. It is a tested fact that on the whole people on the right will absolutely flip flop on a topic the moment they find out that the left supports it (some 90% of right wing voters in tests), however, on the whole, people on the left are *far* less likely to flip flop (only some 10% of left wing voters flip on a topic upon learning the right supports it).
That the right actually votes out of spite is not just something people assert, it’s a tested fact.
Mitch *blocked his own goddamn bill upon finding out that dems supported it*.
You obviously haven't been in any right-wing circles.
They're constantly saying that the other side "hates you and wants to destroy the country", exactly the same thing left-wing circles are constantly saying about them. If they're laughing when they're saying it, it's either because you're failing to read the room and arguing with someone who's just sharing an edgy meme rather than actually talking politics (I see this very often on the fediverse), or they're doing it in a cynical "haha, we're so screwed" manner.
> The vast majority of the time, they don’t have anything to say on a topic beyond repeating some stupid meme.
You from earlier:
> It is not possible for me to base my legislative direction on “everyone that is not cis white is bad”.
Both sides are totally guilty of repeating stupid memes instead of engaging in intelligent discourse. You just don't recognize your stupid memes because they seem like factual statements since you've heard them so much from your circles.
You hear someone say something that you disagree with and you immediately interpret it using the memetic pigeon hole that you've adopted for that "kind of person" instead of actually listening to what they have to say. Get out more and actually listen (really listen!) to what conservatives have to say. Why do they repeat the memes that they do? What do those memes say about their inner life?
As a rule, conservatives are no less thoughtful and caring than you are, they just have a very different set of axioms governing their ethics. Until you understand those priors their words will sound as irrational and foolish to you as your words do to them.
"these results suggest that Trump was able to leverage populist anger for political advantage in ways that other candidates were not and that such anti-elitism played an important and underappreciated role in explaining the outcome of the [2016] presidential election."
Not going to pay 50 bucks to read that article, but if the term "populist anger" is used there in its common meaning, it's not about "other side" at all. It's mainly about people feeling supposedly representative government has abandoned any pretense of representing the population and their interests, and that understandably makes some people feel bad about it. It's not about pissing off some imaginary opponent, it's about making the persons taking decisions hear what the population is concerned about. And yes, a lot of people supported Trump because they thought - and think (correctly or incorrectly) that Trump is more attentive to these concerns than the alternatives.
You're trying to say that policy and representation is the broad concern. The studies say otherwise. The whole of government is one part of the elite that conservative America wants to tear down.
Do you think "owning the liberals" is a completely made up thing? How do you think it compares to the phrase "owning the conservatives", a phrase nobody uses nor seemingly aspires to?
No, it's not the specific policy. It's the general feeling that there's no representation at all happening. And yes, people would certainly would want to tear down the elites that don't even bother to listen what their subjects want - it's exactly how it happened all over history, once the elites forget the population exists and has needs, the revolution is brewing in one form or another.
> Do you think "owning the liberals" is a completely made up thing
No, I don't think it's completely made up. I think it's by far not the main driver, and claiming like everything the right does, or even most significant driver for what the right does is this is nonsense.
> "owning the conservatives", a phrase nobody uses nor seemingly aspires to
A brief search (not using Google since their results are garbage now) provides ample proof otherwise. But my point is that spite in not a primary motivation neither for the right nor for the left. Since the right is by its nature more reactionary (I don't use it here as pejorative but as a description of action caused by another action), their actions can looks spiteful in more cases, but that's not the primary motivation, whatever the forum trolls say. For the trolls, on both sides, yes, this is a primary motivation, sure, and they obviously exist, but they are not the main or the only force by far.
> ... I am exhausted by the continuous flip-flopping of legislation depending on which party is in charge.
By design, Congress is unable to do anything. It's either one party (always the same party) being completely obstructionist, even other presidential appointments, or if a rotating villain who defects and stops any meaningful legislation.
Power has moved to the courts and to the states. Again, entirely by design. In the current term, there is an inocuous sounding case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo [1], which is expected to overturn a longstanding (~40 years) precedent called Chevron [2]. This would gut Federal agencies. Chevron set a precedent that in areas of ambiguity courts would give deference to Federal agencies. The argument for this is that Congress has to be explicit but Congress cannot possibly explicitly regulate, for example, salmon quotas and inspections. The goal here is deregulation for profit. That's it.
For the last 30+ years, every president issues an executive order on day 1 either banning or allowing recipients of foreign aid to provide counselling on abortion, depending on the party.
The real question here is why did this take 3 years into Biden's regime for the FCC to act? The FCC is an appointed position. This could've been done in 2021.
> Maybe it's always been this way though and I'm just getting old enough to be bothered by it?
No, it's now more obstructionist than it ever has been but it's always been more difficult to make changes than not. Previously there was more respect for institutional norms. For example, if the president nominated someone for a position, that person would always get a Senate hearing regardless of who controlled the Senate. There is no law that required that but people previously accepted the president had a mandate for appointments. Now? It's way more scorched earth.
> The real question here is why did this take 3 years into Biden's regime for the FCC to act? The FCC is an appointed position. This could've been done in 2021.
FCC commissioners must be approved by the Senate. Biden nominated Gigi Sohn in 2021. Republicans blocked her. Biden nominated Sohn again. I don't think he said why. But other Democrats believed Republicans would block anyone who would restore net neutrality. Republicans blocked Sohn again. Democrats took control of the Senate in 2023. Joe Manchin said he would block Sohn. Sohn withdrew. Biden nominated Anna Gomez. The Senate approved her in September. The FCC started the process for this vote a few days later.
Democrats controlled the Senate in 2021. Republicans didn't block the nomination. Democrats allowed the Republicans to block the nomination. The process by which that block happened could easily have been eliminated by a Senate rules change. There were attempts to do this on other issues (eg voting rights) but the rotating villains of the Democratic Party at the time (ie Sinema, Manchin) blocked it.
Joe Liebermann was previously the rotating villain. He is singlehandedly the only reason why 55 year olds can't buy into Medicare to get health insurance coverage.
The Senate was split evenly in 2021 and operated under a power sharing agreement. And you can't change rules easily or not when you don't have the votes.
I reject the rotating villain conspiracy theory. 1 scapegoat would have been enough. Sinema's choices ended her Senate career. Manchin and Lieberman didn't change suddenly.
> By design, Congress is unable to do anything. It's either one party (always the same party) being completely obstructionist, even other presidential appointments, or if a rotating villain who defects and stops any meaningful legislation.
Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
What we actually have is lack of consensus, and excessively polarized factions that are unwilling to budge to create a consensus (or rather waste their energy making a great deal of noise on non-consensus issues and nonstarters and bickering with each other).
> Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
So if someone throws a stone at you, you might reasonably be tempted to throw a stone back. If called up on this, you might be tempted to say "he started it". Legally speaking, that might or might not be a defense.
What if instead you throw a stone at someone and justify it with "he was going to throw a stone at me"? Would you consider that a sound defense?
Take it further. Your defense becomes "he would've thrown a stone at me if he had the option so I had to throw the stone at him". No reasonable person would respect that argument.
So why is the hypothetical "Democrats would block a Supreme Court nomination if they had the chance" reasonable to you?
> Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
And this is exactly what they did when Trump was in office! Their motto was “#resist” for crying out loud. Sheesh, right now TikTok is on the verge of being banned, something that they were completely against when Trump wanted to do it. Bad idea when Trump wants it, good idea when Biden does.
Just be honest folks, it’s truly a “both sides” thing. And honestly, political gridlock is a good thing. Most of the people here on HN quickly forget how valuable it is when it’s the side YOU don’t like ramming legislation through.
Changing government policy isn't always an instant process. Most of the FCC rules go through the "notice and comment" process that takes quiet a long time. The net neutrality rule for example has been in the works since at least January 2022 [1].
All of the new "rules" being proposed by executive agencies will be subject to court challenge, and some of them (like the FTC's non-compete "rule") will likely be subject to a preliminary injunction.
The goal is to get people to think "Yeah! Taking action on non-competes is great! Darn politicized courts!", when in reality this is not something an executive agency should be doing without an act of congress, or it may not even be a matter that falls to the federal government at all.
Most employment law, for example, falls to the state in which the worker lives, and some have chosen to ban non-competes via legislation. This is much more democratic than attempting to craft law by executive fiat, even though I tend to agree that non-competes are more harmful than good in many situations.
>This is much more democratic than attempting to craft law by executive fiat
What exactly "more democratic" means is a bit unclear to me. Is an act of Congress more democratic than agency policy because more reps voted on it? Is it more democratic because the reps who voted on it were elected rather than appointed by people who were elected like over at those agencies? Or is a policy democratic based on its alignment with the will of the electorate regardless of provenance?
Is it less democratic because unlike laws, there's an open comment period for the public to make their voice heard? (unlike laws or executive orders)
Is it less democratic because it's policy being implemented by people who spend a lot of time thinking about the policy and its effects, rather than by some blowhard trying to score culture war points on twitter than making a policy?
I'm confused by your questions. Are you suggesting that ignoring the structure of government carefully laid out in the constitution and agreed upon by every state in the union is more democratic because you like the outcome?
This is happening in an election year, so the office of the presidency is driving this for political reasons. I sincerely doubt you'd be comfortable having someone you disagree with politically wield the same powers in the same way.
I was building on what the comment i replied to said. The concept of "more democratic" is kind of strange. So i comment on things that have elements of democracy.
My first question merely pointed out that the process that exists, with a public comment period etc, is in some ways more democratic than congress passing laws. That is - this is a place where the rulemaking is more inclusive of the public than some having some trash that got themselves elected passing laws on behalf of people they don't actually talk to or consult about those laws.
The second is actually a statement about how it's shockingly responsble for the selfish idiots that get themselves into congress to have somewhat knowledgable, focused people do the work instead of just randomly passing laws based on their twitter feed.
The end of the process initated by executive order in 2021 is happening this year, yes. I've seen people I like and dislike wield that power. Witha ll of them I've agreed with some of the policies they had and disagreed with others. I'm comfortable with it happening generally, but i wish congress would be a little more involved and representative of the people when they set up those powers and issue the directional laws that these people administer. That is not an issue with methodology though, just political opinion about the specific policies.
> knowledgable, focused people do the work instead of just randomly passing laws based on their twitter feed.
That's not what happens, though. Agency heads are political appointees who take their marching orders from the executive (president). They engage in poor-quality rule-making all the time when it's politically advantageous for the president and/or his party.
Coming from a country with a Westminster system where federal legislation is relatively easy to pass, I strongly believe it's a feature of the US system of government that it's a herculean task for congress to pass new laws and that the executive is very limited in its powers.
The more power that can be devolved to the state and local level, the better - there's no reason to think a small group of people in Washington are capable of making considered decisions on behalf of 330M+ Americans in the majority of circumstances, and that extends to the myriad of federal agencies engaged in the rule-making process.
> Is it more democratic because the reps who voted on it were elected rather than appointed by people who were elected like over at those agencies?
The presidency is not an elected autocracy. The extent of his powers are strictly limited to those granted by a) the constitution, and b) acts of congress.
Attempts to circumvent these limitations through clever legal theories are undemocratic, doubly so when that circumvention bypasses duly elected state governments. No act of congress has ever explicitly banned non-compete agreements or authorized the FTC to do so, and the plethora of employment law at the state level strongly supports the notion that it wasn't even a federal matter to begin with.
Would you argue that it's more democratic or less democratic when powers previously belonging to states are subsumed by the executive in this way? What if the people of Texas believe non-compete agreements are important? Why not just federalize all laws and tell state legislatures to pound sand?
People with this viewpoint seem to forget that Congress often granted these agencies these powers, or at least, were vague enough in their definition to allow it to plausibly happen.
It's also worth noting that many of the people who demand that Congress do these things instead of bureaucrats are saying that in bad faith; that is, they don't want it done at all and know Congress can't possibly come to an agreement on it because they're the same people funding the campaigns of representatives who go out of their way to sink the legislative process.
The supreme court has been very clear that congress can't delegate lawmaking to executive agencies. So no, I haven't forgotten that at all.
As for it being a feature, you're right - I think the vast majority of legislating should be done at the state and local level. This isn't a secret, it was covered in the Federalist Papers in the 18th century.
What's your argument in favor of federalizing all aspects of law in a large and heterogenous country? Why does the federal government need to force Texas to ban non-competes when Texas has decided not to do so but California has?
What if the next government decides to force California to un-ban non-competes with a new rule issued by Executive Order? Do you not see why this is an unworkable and brittle approach?
> The supreme court has been very clear that congress can't delegate lawmaking to executive agencies. So no, I haven't forgotten that at all.
Well, they do it all the time. FCC, OSHA, EPA... Try taking the approach that you shouldn't have your FCC license (amateur radio, broadcasting, whatever) to the courts because these bureaucrats made up the whole thing. You won't get very far.
> What's your argument in favor of federalizing all aspects of law in a large and heterogenous country?
My argument is that no one actually believes in not federalizing things. Not unless it fits their agenda. See the Comstock Act, for example.
> Why does the federal government need to force Texas to ban non-competes when Texas has decided not to do so but California has?
They need to ban non-competes because they're horrifically abusive of workers and like most things, the corporate class keeps pushing until someone pushes back. Would you like that "someone" to be the FTC through a legal process, or an angry mob tearing people apart? Mobs don't particularly care much about "states' rights" or the writings of a bunch of slave owners who lived before the creation of germ theory, after all.
> What if the next government decides to force California to un-ban non-competes with a new rule issued by Executive Order? Do you not see why this is an unworkable and brittle approach?
What if the next Congress decides the opposite of the current one? What if a future SCOTUS bench decides to contradict a past ruling? What's your point?
Not really. There has been a continuous stream of pro-consumer actions out of the Biden admin since day one. Lots of anti-trust activity in really critical sectors, for example.
You’re not paying very close attention if you can’t spot any substantive differences between the two sides.
Would you like to make a wager on that? I would be prepared to bet money (and give you very generous odds) that, contra your claim, if Biden is re-elected in November the FCC will not undo this change and remove net neutrality afterward.
I'd expect that if Biden gets a second term, then after the election you can basically expect little to no action for the next 3 years. Business as usual... ish. Major changes will likely happen before the next election just to try and keep a democrat in office.
The Trump second term will likely immediately start with rolling back things like Net Neutrality. Biden's admin likely wouldn't do that as that'd keep them from getting cabinet positions in the future and Trump's admin will do it right away because it can both be sold as a referendum on the previous admin and would help them get future positions for the next republican president.
For trump, I doubt he'll do anything at the end of his term different from the beginning. I really don't think Trump cares about keeping republicans in office.
It's true that he cares about himself first, but he only stumps for republicans (as long as they support him) and he packed the federal and supreme court with republicans (and they've won important cases about redistricting rules and other things that keep republicans in power).
So saying he doesn't care about keeping republicans in office makes no sense as he's probably cemented them in office in places they have no business being elected for another 30 years.
I can't say this for certain, but my guess is that Trump's supreme court picks weren't really him looking at potential nominees and instead were done based on the advice of his cabinet. (I'm certain that's how it is for most presidents).
Trump will likely appoint a republican friendly cabinet, for sure, which means their goals and agendas will be centered around the party as much as they are for trump.
But that said, I just don't think Trump cares about the republican party. He cares about it in as much as it's a vehicle for him to maintain power.
Said another way, I don't think trump the person cares about the republican party. I think the trump admin does.
If he wins, the only way I really see him personally caring about the next presidency is if he decide to try and run for a 3rd term (like he's floated).
Not to be glib, but it's just Democrats. They are not immune from corporate interests, but they are not wholly owned by them. And really, corporate interests are American interests so long as they don't needlessly harm citizens.
Ahh yes courting the young vote, that group famous for going out to the polls in large numbers. The 16-25 age group is really into FCC regulation and anti-TikTok right now.
I mean great. I don't really want the things it's trying to ban, so good?
But this is sorta like plastic straw bans: 0.0000000001% actual impact, all while making HUGE headlines, while doing absolutely zero to solve root systemic issues: Entrenched Local Monopolies by telco providers.
So yeah, good, glad my Nebula won't be slower than my YouTubes, while all along I just wanted to ditch the assholes in the first place and use a different ISP.
To be fair, wouldn't this still be the case?
Google peer with many ISPs, and have a lot of server / networking prowess, so the YouTube experience is normally pretty good across the board.
Nebula, on the other hand, is a fairly new player from my understanding.
Yes, YouTube might have better CDN solutions, but ISPs can't unfairly discriminate against Nebula. Nebula is a new player, but presumably they're using CDNs with good reach.
The point isn't that Google can't build a better CDN. The point is that we don't want ISPs creating a situation where they've inked a deal with Google to prevent good performance from YouTube competitors. We don't want a situation where "YouTube is the exclusive 4K video provider on ISP-X."
> The point isn't that Google can't build a better CDN. The point is that we don't want ISPs creating a situation where they've inked a deal with Google to prevent good performance from YouTube competitors. We don't want a situation where "YouTube is the exclusive 4K video provider on ISP-X."
Definitely not, and I would never advocate for that -- I was perhaps being slightly pedantic in the above comment :-)
Remember when Comcast throttled Netflix to ISDN speeds because... hey... no net neutrality? Those were good times.
Comcast's perspective was that Netflix was using "their pipes" for free. Those "pipes" are what their paying customers are paying for. Not to mention the hefty government subsidies that go to cable companies to establish internet service in the first place. A google search today reveals plenty of VPN providers offering workarounds Comcast's throttling which is still going on today.
ISPs should deliver bits in a way that's fair to their paying customers. Period.
In my eyes, we will see a resurgence of P2P and home-hosted services. The reason is that without net neutrality, only companies like Akamai, Netflix, Google, and Meta are able to consistently deliver their bits to customers with low latency and high bandwidth. We have to pay a premium to the VPNs in order to connect to our friends and not get packet loss and jitter. It's one of the main reasons game servers have become so centralized in my opinion.
The fight for net neutrality may not have been as public anymore, but it kept going over the last 5 years. Plenty of court cases challenging the FCC's ruling have been ongoing and California even passed their own net neutrality law. Congress attempted to pass a bill that would enshrine net neutrality as well, though of course the Republic majority never allowed it to get to a vote.
All this is to say despite net neutrality technically not being federally required between 2018 - 2024, it wasn't feasibly for ISP's to roll out metered plans that would go unchallenged. I suspect most were stuck in a "wait and see" stage, and likely expected this eventual rollback anyway given the landscape is still so rapidly changing.
So the protests and constant pushing back against NN did have a positive impact on our eventual outcome, even if it's not obvious or a direct line from reddit blackouts. Like most things, the truth is complex.
This is a bit like removing a traffic light from an intersection and then after a day saying "see, nothing happened, we don't need regulation from traffic lights". Laissez faire, everything will be alright.
ISPs don't exist in a vacuum. Why would Comcast spend millions of dollars implementing some anti-NN consumer ratfuckery when they'd have to revert it once the next administration came into power? If Comcast knew that it wasn't going to get overturned, then they would take advantage.
> How long are we supposed to wait for your doom prophecy to realize?
We shouldn't have waited at all, and in fact shouldn't have allowed it to be repealed in the first place. We have been extraordinarily lucky to have not had to deal with any nonsense from ISPs in all this time. California having their own NN law helped a lot. Now that we're back on track we can call it crisis averted, no harm no foul.
Do you remember when we used to self host content and now we have to use a central provider and/or pay a premium to a VPN/CDN?
Net neutrality fucked the internet and its really actually upsetting to me how quickly we as a society had become complacent with the enshittification.
You're being down voted for telling the truth, which is extremely inconvenient. Notice all the debate in this thread is about partisan score keeping and no one is able to explain why they want these rules back after all their predictions of terrible doom failed to happen. They need them back so they can claim doom was just around the corner if they hadn't been passed. The longer they went without being in effect, the more difficult it would be to explain why the doom never came to be.
It is 100%, Grade A partisan score keeping to preserve future doomsaying without being called out on this absolutely failed predictions. Looks as bad for the doomsayers as a Bush administration's doomsaying about Weapons of Mass Destruction piling up in Iraq, ready to attack the US if we didn't invade. Incredible what people will let their partisan brains twist reality into. Of course, when this is used against them in the future, they'll scream like banshees, claiming it's unprecedented. This is the power of a brain addicted to partisanism.
The whole net neutrality discussion seems pretty hypocritical in hindsight, since huge portions of people who furiously supported NN stayed silent or encouraged censorship after 2016 (including the sitting president of the united states) on Facebook, Twitter, IG, etc.
Why would someone only advocate for an open, unrestricted internet at the hardware/ISP level? The whole point of NN was to ensure ISPs couldn't act as gatekeepers, yet people are fine with trillion dollar tech companies (that hold enormous market share) gatekeeping certain content now?
If ISP's are the utility pipes, platforms are the water and control what flows through them.
The whole point of NN is to stop ISPs from "playing favorites" since they hold too much power over what we can access. But if you ignore the fact that a few big tech companies (which hold a MUCH bigger market share compared to comcast/other big ISPs) basically decide what gets seen and what gets hidden, it's the exact same problem in a different disguise.
These are categorically different situations. In many places, people literally only have 1 or 2 choices for their ISP - not so for social networks. The degree to which the logic of neutral platforms applies depends on the availability of other options and the cost to switch; in the ISP case, the options are very limited and the cost is monetary and very high, and in the case of social networks the cost is low and purely social and there are many available options.
You can learn the difference by looking at what happened when Musk bought Twitter. Tons of people moved to other services like Threads, BlueSky, or Mastodon because all it takes is typing a different name into your browser.
When Comcast decided to double-charge Netflix, in contrast, what happened? Most people just had to put up with it because they only had one option for broadband or a contract. There’s no fast way to run new fiber or cable, so if your options are two companies with a history of network neutrality violations the best you can do is switch plans to whoever is currently not misusing their position.
I feel like this is positive, but it doesn't really go far enough to have an impact on the internet as it exists today. The network itself being neutral doesn't make much difference at all to the average user when the majority of internet usage is through private platforms that are not bound by any such rules. We need to have some utility style regulation for the large web platforms too.
No they shouldn't. I don't think that logic makes any sense at all. No one is paying increased costs because their neighbor is watching netflix, youtube, or browsing reddit. Users already pay for internet service they shouldn't have to pay again because the ISP wants to be greedy and double dip from fees to avoid throttling.
If netflix traffic is straining ISPs to the point of requiring hardware upgrades etc., I think it is fair for ISPs to ask them to pay some of that cost.
It isn't netflix traffic it is ISP customer traffic which they pay for. Hardware upgrade, bandwidth costs, and other operating costs are already paid for by the ISP customers. The ISP should not be able to double dip by charging netflix or the customer a second time.
If the ISP isn't able to provide the service they advertised and sold they should be investigated and be issuing refunds at the very least. Can't provide the service you said you could? Maybe don't advertise and defraud customers.
it's not a double-dip. if a single service is behind load problems and causing general service degradation, I think it is fair to throttle that service.
Customer pays for say, 1Gbps bidirectional. ISP has a total capacity of 1Tbps. They find that the average usage rate from users is 100Mbps bidirectional, so they sign on 10x as many users as they could truly offer a full 1Gbps to, taking a risk. Then new services come along, and the customer average usage increases to 500Mbps.
Instead of upgrading their total capacity, reducing their user count by 5x or reducing the speeds they promise, the ISP decides that it's the service's fault that they can't provide the 1 Gbps they're selling. This is obviously double dipping. They want to both sell higher bandwidths than they can provide, and charge others for making them have to provide what they're advertising.
It is a double dip. The ISP customer already pays for that bandwidth and internet connection. Asking the customer to pay a second time or asking netflix to pay is clearly double dipping. Trying to call it something else is just silly!
>causing general service degradation
Customers using their internet service they pay for isn't causing service degradation. If the ISP oversold or lied about being able to provide the service they were selling that is another issue. The response to that shouldn't be charging more for a service customers already pay for.
These companies already have fine print that the advertised speed is not a guarantee. My point in this thread is this policy takes away a tool ISPs had to control traffic in their networks, which I believe will lead to higher costs.
> If netflix traffic is straining ISPs to the point of requiring hardware upgrades etc., I think it is fair for ISPs to ask them to pay some of that cost.
It is fair for ISPs to ask their customers to pay for required upgrades. Netflix's ISPs can ask Netflix. Netflix's customers' ISPs can ask Netflix's customers.
They should be able to throttle across the board to load balance. They sell an IP protocol service. They should honor the customer's wishes by delivering those packets fairly, not necessarily reliably.
The ISP customers already paid for that. The ISP customer already paid for the bandwidth, hardware, and all other costs. Not sure why this is confusing for you. The ISP isn't paying more because Bob next door decides to watch netflix for a few hours a night.
>Who do you think is paying?
The customer..? Are you really confused about this?
The ISP’s customers pay for their costs. The problem started when those ISPs decided they weren’t satisfied with 15-20% profit margins and started finding other ways to generate revenue like selling their customers’ activity data to advertisers, injecting ads, or by trying to get popular services to double-pay their operating costs.
You can tell it’s not a real barrier to the business in two ways: one is that it only affects MBA-infested companies - small ISPs and municipal broadband never seems to have a problem providing better service for less money – and the other is that they’re not asking their customers to pay more. If their cost of providing service had actually gone up, they’d have been open about that and own the claim that a few Mbps costs more than it used to despite all evidence to the contrary. Keeping as a back room deal lets them try to hide all of the details behind NDAs.
Yes, and then they charge $Z dollars for a certain bandwidth allotment to each of their customers. It does not cost the ISP more money to route a MB/s to Netflix than it does to route a MB/s to Reddit.
>In some cases. In other cases, it hasn't even happened yet.
..? By the point ISP customers receive internet they have either already paid for the service, paid a deposit, or agreed to pay for it the following month like other utilities. In all of these cases by the time the user makes use of their service they have already agreed to pay for the internet service which includes data, hardware, and other infrastructure fees.
>The ISP spends $X to build and maintain infrastructure for Y Gbps internet.
EXACTLY. You are proving my point! The customer of the ISP has already paid for that. It doesn't cost the ISP any more money if I make use of my service by sending data to netflix, reddit, or whoever! If I watch netflix 12 hours a day it costs the ISP exactly $0 extra dollars. Asking me to pay more money or be throttled is ridiculous.
Hell, if you have one of the largest ISPs they pay nothing for any amount of data transfer over their networks anyway so your argument is even weaker lol.
I bought a 1 gigabit connection. If the 10-20 mbps data stream from Netflix is overloading my ISP, then my ISP is not providing me with what I paid for.
ISPs should throttle for network health if necessary. This should occur in a fashion that is fair to users, some services might get hit disproportionately because they consume a lot of bandwidth, but no services should be given an exception just because they happen to be, say, provided by the ISP.
I think you need to provide a lot more explanation and clarification of what you mean; your comment as written sounds like nothing more than a hollow talking point. What kind of throttling in what situations would be prohibited by these regulations and how would that cause increased costs?
https://archive.li/ITyf1
Thanks
You're welcome
I'm fully in support of net neutrality, but I'm somewhat surprised they're restoring it, as I have not really heard a peep about it since it was repealed in the first place. From my perspective, nothing about the internet changed since then (my experience did not upgrade or downgrade). People stopped talking about it, there weren't major protests, news about it even largely disappeared from the front page of HN (!). So, I would be beyond shocked if this was an election year issue of substance. What, then, is the impetus for restoring the net neutrality rules, given there is always some political cost to any action like this? Has the lack of net neutrality caused issues that I just have not heard about?
>So, I would be beyond shocked if this was an election year issue of substance.
Because it isn't an election year issue. This has been in the works since at least 2022.https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/net-neutrality-will-make-...
The rule making process takes time!
>From my perspective, nothing about the internet changed since then (my experience did not upgrade or downgrade). People stopped talking about it, there weren't major protests, news about it even largely disappeared from the front page of HN (!). ... What, then, is the impetus for restoring the net neutrality rules, given there is always some political cost to any action like this? Has the lack of net neutrality caused issues that I just have not heard about?
IMO it seems likely ISPs knew the rules were likely to come back so they avoided most of the practices that would generate outrage (throttling streaming and other popular services unless you pay an additional fee). I have no doubt if they could get away with it they would haha. Many providers did roll out zero rating programs.
As for why this is important just because ISPs aren't currently doing it on a large scale doesn't mean steps shouldn't be taken to prohibit it. We already know what happens in the long run when ISPs are allowed to double dip https://restofworld.org/2024/south-korea-twitch-exit-problem...
> IMO it seems likely ISPs knew the rules were likely to come back so they avoided most of the practices that would generate outrage (throttling streaming and other popular services unless you pay an additional fee).
And several states passed their own laws.
[flagged]
> I have no doubt if they could get away with it they would haha. Many providers did roll out zero rating programs.
This isn't a hypothetical, this is the case now and it's not happened. The reason is because of public backlash which is a market effect.
It had nothing to do with market effects. Some states and even quite a few local governments made their own net neutrality laws once the Trump admin nixed it federally. Complying with NN laws in some places but not others would have been way too complicated, so they just let it be.
NN being saved by consumer backlash doesn't really make sense in the US, anyway, where many (most?) people only have one or two choices for internet service. ISPs don't really need to care if their customers don't like their policies.
> It had nothing to do with market effects. Some states and even quite a few local governments made their own net neutrality laws once the Trump admin nixed it federally. Complying with NN laws in some places but not others would have been way too complicated, so they just let it be.
If that's the case, which I doubt it is, it's not like it's expensive to charge some customers more money and not others, no need for FCC regulation then, right?
> The rule making process takes time!
No, it doesn't take this much time. It's just that net neutrality wasn't a priority for the Biden administration, so they dragged their feet until the very last minute. IIRC, there's been a flurry of rule-making just now because they are running up against a Congressional Review Act deadline.
> It's just that net neutrality wasn't a priority for the Biden administration, so they dragged their feet until the very last minute.
The FCC was deadlocked until September 2023 and started this process a few days later. Maybe they could have started in 2022 if Biden had nominated someone else after Republicans blocked his 1st choice. But Democrats believed Republicans would block anyone who would restore net neutrality.
> The FCC was deadlocked until September 2023 and started this process a few days later.
I am aware of that.
> Maybe they could have started in 2022 if Biden had nominated someone else after Republicans blocked his 1st choice. But Democrats believed Republicans would block anyone who would restore net neutrality.
And they were proven wrong, and didn't even try to test their theory until half his term was over. That counts as "not a priority" in my book.
I think you expect that government works "fast" and that is usually not the case unless it's a dire emergency. The wheels of government are just slow. Net Neutrality is important to codify/enact and that's what they've done, I'm certainly not going to complain about it. There are a lot of other nits I have to pick with Biden's policies but this isn't one of them, better late than never like it was going to be under a second Trump term, and could be again.
That’s not entirely what happened. The prior candidate didn’t withdraw until March 2023. Biden nominated Gomez in May 2023. Presumable the two months intervening included negotiations and background. That doesn’t sound like a priority issue.
> The rule making process takes time!
It really didn't have to in this case. It would have been perfectly acceptable to crib California's NN law, ctrl-r "California" "United States of America" and call it a day.
The FCC has a legally mandated process (see Administrative Procedure Act) including a public comment period that is open to judicial review. They can’t just copy California’s law and call it a day, they have to actually take public comments into consideration. If they don’t follow this process the courts will overturn the rules.
They couldn’t seat the fifth person (democrat) because the GOP was blocking it. As soon as the person was seated, they moved forward with restoring net neutrality. Hands were tied until then because they couldn’t get the 3-2 vote. They didn’t have 5 until September 2023 so it’s been just over half a year
Republicans and Manchin.
Good catch
No, literally, there is a legal requirement for certain process; debates over whether it was properly followed tied the Trump repeal up in court for a while though it was eveentually resolved in favor of the Administration.
Not even bothering to follow the clear objective formal requirements of that process (the question about Trump was more about good faith in the substance) would make it trivial to defeat in court.
It feels like everyone has short memories. Net neutrality abuse did indeed happen, a few notable incidents,
— Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile slowed down YouTube + Netflix traffic. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-04/youtube-a...
— Verizon throttles so much that the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s ability to provide emergency services during the California wildfires. "The fire department experienced slowed down speeds on their devices and had to sign up for a new, expensive plan before speeds were restored." https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttle...
— CenturyLink blocked content to insert their ads, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/centurylink-bloc...
Claiming that nothing happened is false. A lot did happen. A lot of people have been fighting very hard to preserve internet access and the internet has been degraded.
From that firefighter article:
> Even when net neutrality rules were in place, all major carriers imposed some form of throttling on unlimited plans when customers used more than a certain amount of data. They argued that it was allowed under the rules' exception for "reasonable network management." But while such throttling is generally applied only during times of network congestion, the Santa Clara Fire Department says it was throttled at all times once the device in question went over a 25GB monthly threshold.
> Even if Verizon's throttling didn't technically violate the no-throttling rule, Santa Clara could have complained to the FCC under the now-removed net neutrality system, which allowed Internet users to file complaints about any unjust or unreasonable prices and practices. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's decision to deregulate the broadband industry eliminated that complaint option and also limited consumers' rights to sue Internet providers over unjust or unreasonable behavior.
Soft caps for "unlimited" plans and content-neutral QoS don't seem like net neutrality violations as I understand it. If they started slowing down one internet service while allowing another on the same plan to run at full speed, that would be another story.
> — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile slowed down YouTube + Netflix traffic. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-04/youtube-a...
They still do... Get on AT&T and hist fast.com You are pegged at 4Mbps
I get 35 mbps in nyc on att for fast. Com
> Verizon throttles so much that the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s
Net Neutrality does not prevent throttling. Bandwidth + data volume limits still exist.
Rather, NN prevents throttling or preferential treatment based on content/services. (E.g. throttling the fire department's access to Netflix but not to Facebook.)
---
Likewise, the CenturyLink example has nothing to do with NN either.
Centurylink did not block internet to display an ad. They blocked internet to display a notice so they could comply with some regulation. This was a bad move. But wont be prevented by Net neutrality.
Data throttling during heavy load wont violate NN either.
And cell phone networks have long throttled video data connections even during NN. Not much of an issue nowadays because of robust networks.
the bloomberg article is paywalled. it doesnt event exist, as far as im concerned.
I think the bloomberg article was summarizing a study utilizing the wehe mobile application:
- i believe this was the study: https://wehe.meddle.mobi/papers/wehe.pdf
- the app and the data has continued to be collected and is also available in bigquery https://www.measurementlab.net/blog/wehe-bigquery-announceme...
edited to format bullets
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989>
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40161991> (Top comment on this post as I submit this comment.)
Because California saved it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Internet_Consumer_P...
If any of the companies that wanted to exploit the lack of FCC enforced net neutrality did business with California they would have had a big problem.
This can't be stated enough.
They could not get away with it. Otherwise, they would. There is little to no competition in the segment. And that must change.
This, and that it is far more profitable for ISPs to aggregate our traffic patterns and sell them to ad companies and governments than to drive people to VPNs by raising awareness of the reasons we can't trust them.
the neutrality rule would be applying to ISPs. Those would be local to California. Outside of California, we would see the effects of no net neutrality
Yes, but the big ISPs would have a much harder time explaining the difference. Imagine them going into court or Congress having to explain why they needed to shakedown Netflix in NYC but not LA or explain why it suddenly became cost-prohibitive to run a network when you cross the border into Oregon or Arizona.
Without NN, under what charge would they be going to court?
Challenges to a state or local law, any kind of unfair competition or price gouging suit brought by consumers, any sort of anti-competitive behavior suit brought by one of the companies they try to double-charge or compete with?
There were lawsuits over the repeal under Trump raising uncertainty. That lawsuit wasn't resolved until 2019.
California adopted it's net neutrality law in 2018. 12 other states adopted net neutrality laws or executive actions, and over 100 local governments also did so, some before and some after the lawsuit over the federal repeal was resolved. Democrats in Congress in 2019 moved to legislatively reverse the repeal, and that passed through one house. Biden was elected in 2020, and either a legislative or executive reinstatement of net neutrality was expected.
All of this made meant that big ISPs would have to have patchwork rules in different jurisdictions if they wanted to skirt net neutrality and face a significant risk of having to unwind them. So, generally, no one did much that would go against net neutrality.
I believe a side effect of the way the legislation was written included that if they weren't neutral, then they couldn't do business with the State of California either or anything the state runs, like pension plans.
How much can you make doing business with or in CA vs. grifting the rest of the nation and bad press? It's very risky move. CA won and Verizon et all blinked.
> What, then, is the impetus for restoring the net neutrality rules, given there is always some political cost to any action like this? Has the lack of net neutrality caused issues that I just have not heard about?
The rule was always going to get reversed eventually. Several major factions within the Democratic party are strong supporters of net neutrality and they've become increasingly more powerful over the last two decades, at the expense of its detractors like the media conglomerates and ISPs.
It only took this long because of the Administrative Procedure Act [1] which regulates how agencies make rules. They can't just flip flop the second a new political party gains power because of judicial review - they have to follow a process (though they probably also timed this for an election year).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act
>What, then, is the impetus for restoring the net neutrality rules, given there is always some political cost to any action like this?
there's usually some principled people in the government, and every now an then when an issue is obscure enough they can manage to get something done without the other side caring too much.
what's the impetus for blocking this?
it's not needed, the fcc doesnt have the authority, keeping the government away from internet is a good thing
> keeping the government away from internet is a good thing
See, I would have agreed more with this if most of our internet infrastructures were not controlled by three megacorps with more power than many small to medium sized economies in the world. As it stands, the only valid option is to fight fire with fire.
If anti competitive corporations are the problem, why not pursue these monopolistic companies using the existing anti-trust laws? Why does there need to be a new law with the FCC involved?
And what has happened after the Trump FCC un-wound the previous net neutrality rules? Did the internet go to hell?
No, likely in anticipation of the rules being changed back.
Better question for you. Why did ISPs attempt to fake support for repealing Net Neutrality [0][1], as well as spend money lobbying Congress? You'll note in that article that there were also fake comments in support of Net Neutrality, apparently mostly generated by one individual, but many, many fake comments against it from ISPs that even used real people's identities [2].
These aren't the actions a company takes if they don't have incentive.
[0] https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-...
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/11/29/public-comme...
[2] https://mashable.com/article/fake-net-neutrality-comment-fcc
No, because California and 12 other states, as well as quite a few local governments, passed their own net neutrality laws. The larger, national ISPs were pretty hamstrung: they couldn't really follow the NN laws in the places where they existed, but then impose non-neutral terms in the places where they didn't, without running into lots of trouble.
A federal rule is good, though, to harmonize things, even if the state/local laws were more or less already doing the job.
Is keeping the government away from roads a good thing? From helping poor people with basic necessities of life? Keeping children out of workhouses?
Where did anyone say that?
I think the point the person you're replying to was trying to make is that the line drawn between things the government should have a hand in vs. things they should leave alone is fairly arbitrary, and is a matter of opinion. So saying the government should be kept away from the internet is just one place to draw the line, and it's perhaps interesting to know of other places where someone might draw that line, in order to get a baseline, and determine if it's even worth trying to have a productive discussion with them about government regulation.
The way you positioned the argument is helpful and conducive to a conversation. Just throwing out scenarios and expecting me to derive meaning isn't productive.
Ah yes, keeping the US government away from the thing they created in the first place. That's seems workable, sure.
The internet was explicitly privatized and deregulated in 1995 by the Clinton Administration.
It has flourished under private sector control without net neutrality. A 30 year track record of success, yet people are still clambering to have it back under government control.
In some libertarian dream the FCC lacks authority...
The American libertarian dream confuses me because unlike libertarians abroad (where it's a synonym with "anarchist") they stop with political authority, and seem to have no issue with corporate authority. The ISP business in the USA is very clearly an oligopoly with the top players colluding. Not sure how a rugged individual is supposed to fight back against that.
Fighting back against powerful corporations does happen, though usually over long time scales.
Plenty of the most powerful corporations a few generations ago are weak or nonexistent today. Their abuses of power, though problematic, are typically less egregious than governmental abuses of power.
Even at an individual level, I can simply withdraw my support by not buying their products or services.
Whereas fighting the government - or even trying to withdraw support - typically leads to imprisonment or death.
> they stop with political authority
The difference between political authorities and corporate authorities is that the former can conscript you, tax you, send you to jail, seize your assets, etc.
The latter can affect you insofar as you enter a contract.
There is no "opt-out" of a political authority. "No thanks, I'm better off without your services."
The usual claim in right libertarian circles is that monopolies only arise because they can bribe the government into passing laws that enable them to exist.
The usual claim in right-libertarian circles is that it is only possible for monopolies to arise through government action (bribery is sometimes a means to encourage that action, but its not always intentional or that kind of specific corruption, but it is, in most libertarian explanations, always government action.)
And for this purpose, “government action” excludes protection of what the libertarian in question thinks of as proper property rights, which almost dogmatically have no adverse consequences.
There exists already anti-trust laws to deal with monopolies.
Why does there need to be another new law that, instead of punishing the monopolistic companies, gives them the right to maintain their monopolies as long as they promise not to discriminate on filtering their traffic?
Why can't the government pursue these literal monopolies using the DOJ with existing laws?
Or everyone is happy with the monopoly.
Or the flip side, local ISPs that a government can't block.
Monopoly ISP in your region the Government can't stop? Fine, start your own, The monopoly can't stop it either by lobbying.
Yep, the Peter Thiel school of thought. But people like that tend to not stay libertarian in any meaningful sense for long; to quote Thiel himself, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible". That's how you get neo-reactionaries, basically.
You only get neo-reactionaries out of people that define their freedom as including their abilities to coerce others, and then get frustrated that said "freedom" is being impinged. They think they're morally right because they've defined away the coercion.
Personally, around the time the whole Unqualified Reservations / NRx thing was starting up, I considered myself a libertarian with more rightist sympathies. Reading UR and its classification of left versus right is actually what pushed me back into seeing that my philosophy is more aligned with the left. Axiomatic framing and fundamentalism simply doesn't work (cf Gödel). Systems need to be judged on their effective results regardless of their implementations' terminology.
The problem with right libertarianism, IMO, is that private property rights (as opposed to personal property / "right to that which you're using") broadly necessitate coercion. The notion of abstract ownership of, say, a piece of land that you have never even visited in your life and that you do not currently occupy - which is necessary to e.g. lease it to someone for actually to live on it or otherwise do something useful with it, and then collect rent from them for that use - requires coercive force to prevent people from just using it without paying said rent to you. This is also why any realistic model of a right libertarian society requires government large enough to provide this coercion as a service.
How exactly do you define a piece of land being occupied in your argument? Your example is obviously clear cut. But what about the 'extra' area of a residential lot not actually holding a house or otherwise used for much? Or unused rooms of a house, for that matter?
Doesn't that still require your definition of coercion to prevent my neighbor from using it for what he wants? Or to prevent a new party moving in and setting up their own shelter there?
To me, the right libertarian conception of property rights is not the problem per se. It's when that is taken as an axiomatic framework and claimed to justify all the emergent behavior that happens on top of it.
libertarians are a subgroup of classical liberalism; limited government and socially liberal, or at least the right to live as one wants within reason in a society. Anarchists, at least to Americans, have so many subgroups I don't even know where to start, it always seems completely watered down to me other than the "no central government" part.
> libertarians are a subgroup of classical liberalism
No, they aren’t. There is some overlap between “libertarians” and groups from left to right (in the modern sense) that are grounded primarily in classical liberalism, and those include the bulk of what tend to get labeled “libertarians” in America (which are mostly the center-to-right subset of the classical liberal subset of libertarians.)
But “libertarian” also encompasses anarchists, libertarian socialists, and a number of other left-libertarian ideologies that are not particularly grounded in what would usually be regarded as classical liberalism (most of them are grounded in newer philosophies which could reasonably be viewed as later developments from or reactions against – but not in a reverse direction – classical liberalism.)
Different words mean different things at different times in different places.
In America, the word "liberal" in 1900 is very similar to "libertarian" in 2020.
You may agree or disagree with this variability (I'm not a fan personally). But there you have it.
It's just another system of control. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires and all that. And once the desire for freedom has been transmuted into support for corporate authoritarianism, the money flows and the political hacks get to work shoring up the platform for the sponsors.
I don't think 'libertarian' has to be synonymous with 'anarchist', but US libertarianism desperately needs an analog of anarchism-without-adjectives and to drop the axiomatic-fundamentalist approach that ends up fooling so many into supporting authoritarianism. Coercion is not some binary thing, but rather a matter of degree based on power differentials.
If you made a Venn diagram of self-proclaimed libertarian’s beliefs, the center would be empty. That is the practical definition of libertarian in today’s world.
Could you not lay this same criticism at the feet of the other political parties as well? Due to the way plurality voting works, the incentive of each party is to be as large as possible (at the expense of group consistency), and the incentive of each individual is to align themselves with only one party (at the expense of accurately expressing all of one's views).
What changed for me is that my home internet provider (Comcast) implemented an overly-burdensome impossible data cap that I can only get rid of if I agree to use their router with deep packet inspection, ad injection, and more.
Fwiw you can set their router to bridge mode and use your own. It is probably still doing some traffic analysis but certainly no ad injection. This is what I do to get unlimited data without paying their exorbitant standalone fee.
The parent post misses the main reason they sell these. It's not for the ad injection but because they broadcast a Wi-Fi hotspot that you cannot turn off, which shares your internet connection.
So what? You don't find it useful to be able to use Wifi in more places if you have an Xfinity login?
I live in a densely populated city. The wifi spectrum is already horrendously congested. The last thing I want is my modem polluting the airwaves, degrading my service from inside my home, all for Comcast's profit.
Not if they're sharing my connection…
This is a completely out of reach solution for most people.
I doubt it's out of reach for someone who already wants to use their own equipment, like the person upthread who brought up this topic.
If configuring a router into bridge mode is too burdensome of a step, then Comcast is actually providing that person a service by forcibly managing equipment for them at that point. If only the stalking component of it could be made illegal with proper privacy laws instead of piecemeal app bans.
What a weird way to think about it. I often wonder why I have to take those brain-dead ethics courses at work, then someone like you comes along and reminds me. Comcast can only fully take advantage of people who don't have the technical skills to not get fucked, that is what is happening.
That sounds absolutely horrendous. I keep getting surprised by how shitty Comcast can be, and at this point I don't know how. I'd get a 5G hotspot before I use somebody else's router.
How does it work, because there is no way to inject anything to HTTPS connections?
ISPs can monitor what you're browsing through DNS requests and SNI host headers and sell that data to advertisers who then inject personalized ads into ad supported websites.
The thing I don't get is why they need a spyware router in everyone's home. They own the infrastructure and know where all the traffic is coming from. They can do this with their own hardware outside people's homes.
I do wonder if they're sucking up LAN traffic data too, though, some of it which might be unencrypted, like smart devices talking to each other.
Not sure where you're located, but in California at least, I was able to add unlimited data for an extra $30/mo. I am still using my own modem and router.
It's incredible bullshit that they can pull this crap, but... well, at least it's possible. Here, anyway. Dunno if they offer that everywhere.
I was one of the "peeps" testifying to the California Assembly committee that promptly made Net Neutrality a CA thing even if not yet Federal.
Which is why most consumers didn't notice.
CA making something a rule makes it a very strong incentive to follow it nationwide.
This reminds me when I got a “survey” email from ERCOT, the entity that oversees Texas’ “deregulated” energy provider racket. I was ready to lay into them hard, but starting with the second or third questions, it was clear that all they were concerned about was to _sell_ new products — ZERO interest in hearing feedback of how terrible the system for end users, they just want to sell some sort of outage insurance product (“would you pay $5 to be protected from a 30 minute or less outage one time?”).
I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a less than noble ulterior motive behind this push, although I’m hoping for the best. Sounds like the main reason it may actually make sense to bring it back from their PoV is because ISPs have to deal with individual state laws.
> I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a less than noble ulterior motive behind this push
"Oh your power is out? Guess you should have purchased a ElektriciT+ subscription! YOUR FAULT!"
ISPs predicted this would happen and didn't want to have to revert back everything.
The proponents of net neutrality thought without it ISPs would just arbitrarily block data and require bribes from data providers to even serve up their data. In reality, no net neutrality would mean things like Netflix not counting as data on your mobile plan through some kind of sponsorship, or free basic internet like Wikipedia and news at a lower cost.
I don't support legislation that bans something undertaken voluntarily unless it proves to be very harmful and the last few years have proven that we don't need this legislation.
> In reality, no net neutrality would mean things like Netflix not counting as data on your mobile plan through some kind of sponsorship, or free basic internet like Wikipedia and news at a lower cost.
You seem pretty pro-free-market, so here's the free-market angle: things like zero-rated Netflix on your mobile plan and free "basic" internet are market distortions. Companies are abusing the lack of net neutrality to engage in bundling, discounting, and collusion practices, which are bad for you as a consumer - these are anti-competitive practices!
Everyone likes getting something for cheap/free, but that doesn't mean that it's actually good for you, other people, the market, or society as a whole.
I agree that most of the bad things that net neutrality advocates predicted would happen wouldn't, but the things that did happen are still bad.
What's wrong with bundling or discounting?
There's two ways to make money: bundling and unbundling. Zoom and slack unbundled video chat from places like Google workspace and similar software suites. A company like clickup tries to bundle all that stuff as a one stop shop (tagline is one app to replace them all)
If anything more offers would increase competitiom as it's a bigger vector to make a sale.
> There's two ways to make money: bundling and unbundling
This is pretty obviously wrong - you can sell things to make money, in a way that requires neither.
Now, the problem with bundling itself is that it introduces market distortions. The way that free markets work is that producers make things, and then buyers buy the best thing based on its price and other factors. Bundling impedes this process because it means that consumers no longer buy the best goods based on their individual price and merits.
Plus, bundling is usually used by monopolistic companies to anti-competitively extend their influence from one market to another, in a way that doesn't allow the market to work.
Another hypothetical: your isp zero rates the news sites with a given political leaning, but not yours. Reading the news that they want you to costs nothing, whereas reading the news that you want, or getting an alternative perspective on a story costs you something.
>these are anti-competitive practices
So why can't the solution be that the DOJ files antitrust lawsuits? Like every other antitrust issue. It really doesn't make sense to create a new set of rules when there already exists antitrust regulations.
> and the last few years have proven that we don't need this legislation.
Given that large states like California and New York passed independent net neutrality laws and there were continuing legal battles in almost half of all US states I don't think you can draw many conclusions. ISP behavior very likely never changed because they knew they were just one decision away from having to comply. Sort of proven by this very decision we're commenting on.
Here is something I found. Seems like "unfair" since they're favoring their videos but as a user its okay by me since I get something for free and preventing them from not counting their content doesn't mean they'll necessarily just drop their data cap.
If ISPs just behave because it's always just a ruling away, then I'm fine with that status quo. I don't want unintended consequences from invasive legislation that could eventually be used to control what ISPs can show us
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/veriz...
> invasive legislation that could eventually be used to control what ISPs can show us
What specific legal principle do you think would lead to this? Network neutrality is the polar opposite of that - it’s like arguing that we shouldn’t have restaurant health codes because the government could start requiring us to eat peas.
It's a precedent that government can tell ISPs and others what they can provide you. Once they have that in place, it's not a stretch to imagine them furthering that power for political purposes.
Think about surveillance legislation after 9/11. None of it applied to domestic population originally
It’s the opposite of that - it’s saying companies cannot discriminate – but also that argument doesn’t make any sense because governments already do that and nothing in network neutrality legislation grants new powers. If they want to ban a political party’s website they’re passing new legislation (or ignoring laws) whether or not network neutrality laws exist.
> free basic internet like Wikipedia and news at a lower cost.
I can't comprehend why you think ISPs would feel compelled to be so altruistic without any government intervention.
Except, since when was free wi-fi an impossible thing to find? Ever been to a coffee shop? Even in the "free shitty half-internet for everyone" pipe dream, the costs of such a service don't just magically disappear. Either way, someone's paying for that free internet, and it isn't the ISP.
Telecoms likely didn't deploy anything because this was obviously going to get overruled by the next non-Trump FCC. Even Ajit Pai has a long record of advocating for modernizing the FCC, which would explicitly involve the regulation of internet services. Abolishing net neutrality is only universally popular among communities where the underlying philosophy is "government is bad, and I'm gonna prove it by running it badly."
> I can't comprehend why you think ISPs would feel compelled to be so altruistic without any government intervention.
Price discrimination. No altruism necessary. Kind of like my isp offering me different speeds.
Meta tried to offer free limited internet to poor rural Indians but idealistic tech workers from wealthy neighborhoods opposed it on moral grounds since it was against net neutrality so then they got no internet
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-india-rejected-facebooks-...
So Facebook would have provided access where Facebook-owned properties were zero-rated, leading to Facebook distorting those people's view of the world.
If you want to see what happens to countries where Facebook is essentially "the internet", look no further than Myanmar.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55929654
The internet, in it’s current non-net-neutral form, is very popular.
So the Internet before 2016 wasn’t popular because it had net neutrality? That’s definitely a new one. Is that you Pai?
I'd genuinely like to understand why you think corporations, whose success is measured by profit and basically nothing else, are more likely to do things that are good for people than governments, whose success is measured at least a little bit by the wellbeing of their constituents.
I really want to better understand the thinking of people who hold opinions like yours.
It’s easier for me to switch which business I give my money to than it is for me to move or change governments. Most of the services I use are provided by private industry and I have choices. Everything from food, clothing, shelter. All private corporations I choose to buy from. I guess I can go get my food from a government soup kitchen or apply for government housing but my experience is these services are not competitive with private market even at the lower price (or free)
> I guess I can go get my food from a government soup kitchen or apply for government housing but my experience is these services are not competitive with private market even at the lower price (or free)
Because you have such limited experience with the world. Did you know there are countries out there — dozens of them even! — which are not American?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/realestate/paris-france-h...
We are talking about the U.S., though, not France.
Interesting. Personally I believe people should have total freedom to change governments, but I'm a utopian thinker so /shrug though I wonder in such a world whether you'd feel the same way. "Too Like the Lightning" explored this if you enjoy sci-fi.
I'm hung up on something though - in this specific subject, there's been massive market capture in the USA by one to four ISPs, depending on region. For most of rural america (something insane like 80% of the geography) there's only one provider. In these situations, the provider provides subpar service, often asking for handouts from the government before being willing to build more infrastructure (hm.. is that still "private?").
On the other hand, some local governments have simply built their own broadband networks, with far better results: https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map and they have some of the highest satisfaction ratings in the nation https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/teleco...
If the private market is better, why does Comcast, which routinely wins "worst company in america" awards, still exist, despite providing abysmal service to its customers? Surely a private enterprise could have eaten their lunch by now?
If the private market is better, why are local governments providing the highest rated internet services in America?
So basically, your feeling rests in the belief that you have more choice when it comes to private options - but in telecom, that doesn't seem to be the case, and of the options available, they're all widely considered to suck. Perhaps this isn't true for every industry, Stalin and Mao certainly showed us that it doesn't work for food, but does that mean the private option is better for everything we use? What does it mean to have a "private highway" system, or a "private fire department?"
I dont there's anything inherently different about Internet delivery. There's some last mile problems and some services no market exists because the cost would be higher than people are willing to pay. Internet service is expensive and maybe the high fixed cost makes it so only a few people can deliver and they can charge monopoly prices. There are also regulations that could make this expensive to provide too
But you can't just look at final price with a lower price being good. If some municipal service costs half the price but it costs taxpayers the other half, is that better? Maybe if you think they have a right to this service and you're okay with subsidizing it. But there is no free lunch, someone is paying.
I think ultimately you want it to be provided by private market if possible. So leaving it open at a high price encourages others to try and innovate. Think about starlink. If government was providing Internet to everyone for below market prices, no innovation would happen because they essentially crowded out private industry. So in the long run it would be much more expensive and opaque. You lose a market signal through artificially low prices
>But you can't just look at final price with a lower price being good. If some municipal service costs half the price but it costs taxpayers the other half, is that better?
Where, exactly, is that happening?
As I understand it, the vast majority of taxpayer monies for broadband doesn't go to municipally owned networks, but rather to private ISPs. And that's been the case for decades.
And those monies are given with a pinky-swear that this time, we'll actually spend the money on expanding broadband to under-served areas, with a similar likelihood that will happen as the last four or five times taxpayer monies were given to those folks.
Meanwhile, actual municipal broadband[0][1] pays for itself by charging multiple ISPs to access their last mile -- paying for the infrastructure and introducing (often for the first time) competition into the market.
What's more, nearly a third of states have laws[2] blocking/hindering municipal broadband. Most of which are related to model legislation promulgated by groups like ALEC[3]. Many of the artificial roadblocks put up by such laws make municipal broadband (both implicitly and explicitly[4]) more expensive than private broadband
[0] https://broadbandnow.com/municipal-providers
[1] https://www.theverge.com/23763482/municipal-broadband-biden-...
[2] https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_...
[4] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/virginia-broadba...
In theory, if people don’t perceive corporations as improving their well-being, they will stop being customers. Also in theory, if people don’t perceive governments as doing so, they will vote in different politicians.
In practice, both effects exist, but are not perfectly efficient for lots of different reasons. That’s why neither Stalinist planned economies nor right-libertarian total lack of regulation work well overall, and the correct approach is somewhere in the middle and different for different sectors (and different countries).
I have a friend in Texas who had some issues because of net neutrality being gone (huge throttling on some sites)
> nothing about the internet changed since then
I had an extended outage and could not contact my ISP. They kept sending me to a bot, and I had no idea if anyone actually knew about the outage or was doing anything to fix it.
That has absolutely nothing to do with net neutrality.
If you read the article, it does have to do with the ruling. Part of regulating ISPs as a utility is that they can regulate/enforce rules on how ISPs handle outages.
> lack of net neutrality caused issues
given it's all still just regional ISP monopolies, there is decided _not_ a lack of issues
I wouldn't be surprised if your experience hadn't changed: Net neutrality rules were gutted at the same time as the internet has been largely consolidated, so major players paying for "fast lanes" and the ISPs throttling other kinds of traffic is, statistically, likely to have gone mostly unnoticed by you as an end user. If you have internet use cases beyond that which is endorsed by corporate tech, you will likely have noticed a stark difference. I've found that things like SSH tunnels have been less reliable, that there is noticeable slowdown when I find myself on a smaller website (Like those maintained by a shrinking minority of local vendors and artists who don't do everything on instagram). The most obnoxious thing about shady degradations of infrastructure in the name of profit is that these changes are often made in a way that's hard to specifically pinpoint, and by entities that make it somewhere between infuriating and futile to address any kind of complaint to.
> it since it was repealed in the first place. From my perspective, nothing about the internet changed since then
I got downvoted heavily years ago on HN for predicting this when it was making the rounds
There is almost no evidence of a tiered model either working or being legitimately attempted, even globally in places without these rules. The only evidence I was ever given was some tiny Portugese mobile network entirely serving the lowest end of the market, and even that barely made a dent in the local market.
I want a free internet as much as anyone but people like to fear monger scenarios they invent in their heads, and pointing at vaguely defined wealthy people conspiring to do so behind the scenes, even when theres little evidence it was ever a plausible market nor technically coherent scenario.
But I guess people fear that sort of chaos where every detail isn't in a neat box clearly defined by the government, even if it means finite regulatory time/resources gets redirected from pre-existing tangible issues like privacy and spam.
This rule does, however, effectively regulate the prices that broadband providers charge consumers, as it disallows high-volume customers from being charged a higher periodic rate than lower-volume consumers. If that's not regulating prices, it's not at all clear what might be.
Just like Obamacare, another gift from the left that has worked out so well...
It does not disallow charging consumers for traffic used. But why should they be able to charge for it twice?
This should be a reminder that almost all dire consequences from any government action are overblown. I also think the net neutrality was an important thing 15 years ago for how the internet worked then it has little practical value now.
[flagged]
Your first post in this thread containing partisan flamebait getting flagged into destruction wasn't enough for you? You toned down the cultish political speech about 30% but posted effectively the same comment again. Your posts do not create useful discourse, they just create political flame wars with echo chamber 1 fighting echo chamber 2.
[Edit] Looking through your history you seem to often make similar political posts making biased, (in my opinion hate-based), partisan assertions and having people reply to you telling you this. There's Reddit/Twitter/etc for you to do this sort of thing.
There's wrong, and then there's "not appropriate for the site". I accept that I do veer into the "not appropriate for this site" category sometimes, and I understand and accept why I get flagged when I do so. But getting flagged is not evidence of being wrong. (And, as much as I wish I were wrong, I am unfortunately not.) I also disagree that it's not useful discourse -- ignoring the problem certainly isn't useful either. But I wouldn't post about it in Club Penguin and I understand if people don't want me to post about it in HN. It's a tricky line, because the article under discussion is inherently political. It's one thing to get flagged for off-topic in a tech thread, but it's harder for me to know where the line is when everyone else in the discussion is also talking politics.
As someone who was fortunate enough to see their previous comment, it sure wasn't wrong, though it sure was inconvenient for the Temporarily Embarrassed Billionaires here who are happy to sleepwalk the rest of us into fascism if it means making another buck.
As for rooting through their comment history, those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, my friend. So far yours is "cars good", "California bad", "won't someone think of the poor companies (unironically)", "public transit bad", "everyone does propaganda so it's okay when Russia does it". Is this comment hate-based, in your opinion?
Yeah also the non compete stuff is absolutely fantastic even if it only affects those with middle class income.
Shits happening again and I'm here for it. Constant gridlock in passing laws is terrible.
I believe they are only restoring it to enact “security” aka more spying. I would like to see what the actual text of these policies are. The administration has its tentacles into too many tech companies already.
>I would like to see what the actual text of these policies are.
They aren't a secret:
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-401676A1.pdf
I’m very surprised by some of the comments here questioning the value of restoring net neutrality. Times have changed.
It's probably because none of the hysterics or doomsday propaganda actually came to pass.
The doomsday "propaganda" didn't come to pass because several states and localities promptly passed their own net neutrality laws after it was deregulated at the federal level. The larger ISPs couldn't find a workable way to implement their non-neutral bullshit in some markets but not others, and the local ISPs in places with no net neutrality laws never really had enough clout to do crappy things in the first place.
I didn't know that. That's actually a good explanation for the why.
If that didn't happen, and the ISPs started profiting off non-net-neutral tactics, it could have been permanently fucked.
Once someone depends on a legal source of income, if that source of income gets banned in the future, they generally get to keep that source of income "grandfathered in" if they take the issue to court.
> Once someone depends on a legal source of income, if that source of income gets banned in the future, they generally get to keep that source of income “grandfathered” forever if they take the issue to court.
That’s… not true.
Otherwise, all the people depending on selling drugs that were later banned would have been grandfathered in when the drugs were prohibited.
Even when there is a regulatory taking (that is, government regulations eliminate the value of existing property in a way that is considered a taking under the 5th amendment), the remedy is compensation for the lost value of the property, not a lifetime exemption from the regulation.
So the FCC Net Neutrality is inconsequential.
Localities experimented with a policy, a federal agency agreed with the outcome of the policy, so the agency adopted the policy.
It's a functional example of letting states be experimentation grounds for policy.
Could you explain what makes this process "inconsequential"?
The internet with FCC Net Neutrality was the same as the internet without FCC Net Neutrality.
Ergo, FCC Net Neutrality is inconsequential.
Hm. I would encourage a different, less intense angle here. It’s possible the doomsday didn’t come to pass because a lot of passionate people worked very hard to make sure we avoided it.
Possible, but is there any reason to believe so? I'm open to hear it.
The whole point was that companies like Comcast don't give a crap what we think and will engage in this anti competitive behavior unless the FCC stops them. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt they would if it was in their financial interest.
But can we agree that it is also possible that market incentives aligned and the infographics depicting tv-bundle-like internet packages weren't actually around the corner? To me it seems like the easier explanation. The incentive could be as simple as Comcast not wanting a new monopoly court case or to start being classified as a utility in areas where they have no real competition.
Sure, maybe those bundles weren’t right around the corner. But the fight for NN probably incentivized the MBA grads to not explore those options with fervor.
And it’s very reasonable to assume that avoiding a monopoly case or being classified as a utility is enough of an incentive.
But I have a preference for putting up the defenses on all fronts when it comes to ISPs and their unlimited creative chicanery.
The null hypothesis is that market forces takes care of it. Like your airline ticket prices. The onus of proof is on you to market forces aren't enough.
Airline fares are regulated by the FAA and the DOT to disallow deceptive business practices and require minimum service levels: https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...
Similarly, the FCC net neutrality rules allow telcos to charge any price for the service while disallowing blocking or throttling particular Internet sites or protocols. If such rules weren't indeed necessary, big telcos wouldn't be spending their money campaigning against them, would they?
That's an insane null hypothesis.
If passion can be used instead of policy, I'm for it.
Seat belts may seem useless too if you've never been in an accident.
On Reddit there was a lot of bot activity downplaying net neutrality. May be the case here too
Here's the FCC announcement (pdf) for those interested: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-restores-net-neutrality
I'm looking for full text of the actual action / implementation. Like the document containing the text that they actually voted on, specifically.
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40160960
Vote first, plan the project later. Allocate money to your donors then let them figure out how to go over budget and ask for 1.5X more in 5 years. All congressional laws are essentially money laundering operations now where the main priority is getting govt funds to your best donors. Gg.
This makes my week! Long overdue and finally the middle finger back to Comcast/Universal, Verizon, Spectrum, and AT&T etc. The regulations should never have been tampered with.
What's the value of the middle finger?
> Safeguard National Security – The Commission will have the ability to revoke the authorizations of foreign-owned entities who pose a threat to national security to operate broadband networks in the U.S. The Commission has previously exercised this authority under section 214 of the Communications Act to revoke the operating authorities of four Chinese state-owned carriers to provide voice services in the U.S. Any provider without section 214 authorization for voice services must now also cease any fixed or mobile broadband service operations in the United States.
That seems rather vague. The timing is also rather interesting, given the forced divestiture of TikTok.
> That seems rather vague. The timing is also rather interesting, given the forced divestiture of TikTok.
This is just a press release. The actual decision is more than 400 pages long and will come out in the next few days. Here's the draft of the order released three weeks ago: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-401676A1.pdf (Of course, parts of this will inevitably be vague as well.)
The timing is almost certainly a coincidence. They started the process of adopting these rules as soon as they could after democrats regained a majority of seats on the FCC last year and got them done as fast as they could.
I'm not sure that's the order itself or just a very detailed "fact sheet" about the orde. It seems like it references the content of the order in great detail, allowing someone to figure it out, but I don't see the raw text of the rule there unless I just don't understand what FCC rules look like. I read a lot of FTC rules and court documents, but this the first time I'm looking for the full text of something the FCC voted on or was something close to it (like an earlier version of the exact document they voted on).
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-401676A1.pdf
Yes that is just the "FCC FACT SHEET" as it says in the top title of the document. It is not the actual rule/action. It is also the exact same link that the poster just above me already gave.
>Yes that is just the "FCC FACT SHEET" as it says in the top title of the document. It is not the actual rule/action. It is also the exact same link that the poster just above me already gave.
No. The first page is the "fact sheet." The other 693 pages is the rule-making document.
Or are you unable to read past the first line of the first page?
Regarding the last line of your post, you may want to spend some time reading the HN commenting guidelines[0] and edit if you feel it's the right thing to do.
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I did read a very thorough sample of the document. When I'm trying to find an actual "order" / "rule" / whatever, I'd be drawn to something like
> V. "REPORT AND ORDER: OPEN INTERNET RULES"
on page 264 and figure that might be the order. But all throughout that section it constantly has paragraphs that just contain language that obviously isn't an order / ruling / regulation, like on page 265:
> The Internet serves as a cornerstone for free expression, fostering a diverse and inclusive digital space where individuals can share ideas, opinions, and information without undue influence or interference. It promotes the exchange of diverse perspectives, ultimately enriching society by exposing individuals to a wide range of thoughts and experiences. As the Supreme Court noted in 1997, the Internet enables any person to “become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox.”
That's not a rule, that's just talking about stuff in general. When I read the FTC document about non-compete, it has hundred of pages like this, but then at the end of the document it has a clear section of legalese that contains the actual technical content of the rule. This document from the FCC does not have any section like that -- every section is mostly non-binding descriptive language, and I'm having trouble figuring out what, precisely, this ruling / order enacts, because this document spends most of its time justifying the action rather than actually enacting.
FWIW, virtually the whole document is "the Order" (in draft form--the final order has not been released yet). The FCC is a little unusual in that it regards the entirety of their written orders as legally binding (the normative parts, at least).
> When I read the FTC document about non-compete, it has hundred of pages like this, but then at the end of the document it has a clear section of legalese that contains the actual technical content of the rule.
You're probably looking for the "Final Rules" text. That's in Appendix A which starts on page 397. Again, though, the FCC would take the position that the whole final order is binding (once it's released and published in the federal register)--not just those formal rules. Yes, this does make it very challenging to understand the FCC's rules!
Source: IAA FCC lawyer.
> No. The first page is the "fact sheet." The other 693 pages is the rule-making document.
You are incredibly rude for someone who is also incredibly wrong. It is strange that whenever we are one of those, we all seem far more likely to be the other as well.
Only the last two pages before the appendix is "the rule-making document", and the 4 pages of appendix A - just six pages in total. The rest is a dialogue on why the rules are needed and provide context to understand the intent of the rules. The rule starts at "X. ORDERING CLAUSES" on page 394 and is less than 2 pages long in total. It will also be necessary to fill in references made to "Appendix A" which is an additional 4 pages (397-401).
It's not surprising to me that both you and the other poster couldn't figure this out -- it's very easy to miss a section so small when it's titled similarly to sections like "IV. ORDER: FORBEARANCE FOR BROADBAND INTERNET ACCESS SERVICES" which are mostly discussion. That contains language like:
> Petitioners ask that the Commission reverse, vacate, or withdraw the RIF Remand Order, and request that the Commission initiate a new rulemaking to reclassify BIAS as a Title II service and reinstate the open Internet conduct rules. Collectively, petitioners make several procedural arguments for why the Commission should reconsider the RIF Remand Order. Common Cause et al. and Public Knowledge each assert that procedural deficiencies in the process the Commission used to adopt the RIF Remand Order are cause for reconsideration. Common Cause et al. argue that because the Commission failed to open the record to receive comment on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it failed to adequately consider harms of reclassifying BIAS as a Title I service on public safety, pole attachments, and the Lifeline program.
Which is clearly not an order - it is a discussion with a goal towards justifying parts of the order.
There are also only 434 pages. Not anywhere close to "693". It would be very rude of me to point out that you might be "unable to read past the table of contents". To the contrary, I understand that it's easy to misinterpret the indexing of the table of contents as pages rather than sections, and I have empathy for someone making that mistake, even if it does demonstrate that someone probably hasn't tried to use the table of contents to actually read the document.
>You are incredibly rude for someone who is also incredibly wrong. It is strange that whenever we are one of those, we all seem far more likely to be the other as well.
Yep. That's me. I smell bad and like jazz too.
The order is reclassifying ISPs (or as named in the document, Broadband Internet Access Services -- BIAS) under Title II of the FCC Act of 1934 (as amended repeatedly over the past 90 years). I believe the below is the pointy end of the stick and the first sentence (set apart for specific folks -- see below) is, in fact, the order.
Since I'm already rude, obnoxious and wrong, I'll wonder aloud at folks' reading comprehension skills as well.
Part III (section 25) states:
Yes that section tells the audience what their new rules are doing, why they are doing it, and justification for how they’re allowed to do it. From your own quote choice:
> Classifying BIAS as a telecommunications service also accords with Commission and court precedent and is fully and sufficiently justified under the Commission’s longstanding authority and responsibility to classify services subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction, as necessary.
This is clearly discussion about the rules in the section X and Appendix A. It’s clearly not an actual rule itself.
The actual rule relevant to your quote is the new Section 8.3 that they are adding to Part 20 of Title 47.
The current part 20 is here: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B...
The new part 20 is given on page 398 of the document that you linked. This new section 8.3 is the actual action they take to specifically classify BIAS as a Title II telecommunications service.
> the first sentence is, in fact, the order.
No, it's a more-easily accessible description of the order in something approaching plain English. The new Section 8.3 in Appendix A is the "pointy end of the stick" of the Title II order, to use your terminology. The rest of the document is describing these changes (section X and Appendix A) in more plain English.
The actual order for what you quoted is on page 394:
> 693. Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED, pursuant to the authority contained in sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 13, 201, 202, 206, 207, 208, 209, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 230, 251, 254, 256, 257, 301, 303, 304, 307, 309, 310, 312, 316, 332, 403, 501, 503, and 602 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as amended, 47 U.S.C §§ 151, 152, 153, 154(i)-(j), 160, 163, 201, 202, 206, 207, 208, 209, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 230, 251, 254, 256, 257, 301, 303, 304, 307, 309, 310, 312, 316, 332, 403, 501, 503, 522, and 1302, that this Declaratory Ruling, Order, Report and Order, and Order on Reconsideration IS ADOPTED and that Parts 8 and 20 of the Commission’s Rules, 47 CFR Parts 8, 20, ARE AMENDED as set forth in Appendix A.
Specifically, the last little part:
> that Parts 8 and 20 of the Commission’s Rules, 47 CFR Parts 8, 20, ARE AMENDED as set forth in Appendix A.
That is the new rule. It is an actual change to Title 47. The rule is not what you quoted. What you quoted is not part of of any CFR. What you quoted is not federal code. Only Section X and Appendix A make actual changes to the "Code of Federal Regulations".
No. The "Rules" that apply are Title II of the FCC Act of 1934. The change being that ISPs are now regulated under Title II rather than Title I.
That's it. That's the rule change. Full stop.
If you'd like to understand what's different between Title I and Title II, I suggest checking out the law in question.
This is a reasonable supposition, but it's not true. The FCC can and has created a whole raft of specific rules that implement the m much broader Title II requirements as they apply to ISPs, including decisions not to impose certain Title II requirements (which is a power that the statute itself gives them).
If, say, you were an ISP, reading Title I and Title II would tell you very little about what you have to do to comply with the FCC's rules. You would have to read the actual FCC rules and the order to actually understand your legal obligations.
(Maybe you have in mind a quibble about what "rules" are. By "rules" I mean the U.S. government publications that tell you what you have to do in order to not be fined or punished in some other way by the U.S. government, and specifically the FCC.)
> The change being that ISPs are now regulated under Title II rather than Title I.
That is a description of the change. The changes made to Title 47 are how ISP's are actually being regulated under Title II. A translation of what they are saying in the changes to section 8.3 is:
"Because Title II gives us the authority to do so, we choose to regulate them using that authority from Title II by making these specific changes to Title 47."
Again, what you quoted is not part of any CFR. What you quoted is not federal code.
What I quoted is an actual change to federal code which is what actually regulates ISP's "under" the authority given by title II. The actual federal code being changed is: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B... which has a note that "Title 47 was last amended 4/22/2024." but does not yet show the changes. The most recent version currently available is from changes enacted 12/06/2023. Within the next week or so it will show the changes made by Section X and Appendix A to CFR Title 47 "under" the authority granted by CFR Title II.
That is what it actually means "that ISPs are now regulated under Title II" (as you wrote). Saying "ISPs are now regulated under Title II" is just saying it. Changing Title 47 is actually doing it.
T-Mobile has a variety of plans that selectively throttle video streaming for known streaming services. I wonder if this will force them change it.
I thought Net Neutrality was a “has been” idea …
Opponents have been doing a victory lap for some time. COVID especially showed how much better the US Internet expands and contracts based on demands.
As far as I know, nobody has accused ISPs of throtteling Netflix.
The whole idea behind CDNs is we should stop treating all Internet users as equals, and connect based on geography. Not dystopian censorship, but the sort of thing neutrality enforcers would have to approve.
Many plans do throttle. On my “unlimited data” cell phone plan, YouTube, Netflix, etc all can only really load at 480p, even in areas where speeds are fast enough for hd video.
In those areas, I can use a vpn and easily get hd video.
Although, the cell network is pretty terrible where I am, and more often than not there is no hope for streaming hd video.
Mobile carriers have always been excluded from net neutrality, but even so, this doesn’t apply anyway. NN regulates the L3 peering agreements
It’s really infuriating when T-Mobile forces YouTube down to 420p and then says (roughly) “you can get 720p with only $10 a month” condescendingly.
Several ISPs used intentional congestion to extort Netflix into paying peering fees they shouldn't have to pay. AFAIK Netflix is still paying.
This is why Netflix built fast.com
This battle has been happening for a better part of a decade and won’t seem to go away. Every time it’s defeated it seems to pop back up.
> This battle has been happening for a better part of a decade
Closer to 3; it started almost immediately after the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the FCC first adopted nondiscrimination prinicples that underlie net neutrality as a basis for policy (but not as regulation) in 2004.
in a sense it goes back to 1966
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/30/commission-impossible-how-...
great, what are the odds they reverse the reversal next year in a hypothetical new administration?
Fortunately this won't be the end of the world, as quite a few states and localities now have net neutrality laws of their own, which would presumably go back into effect if it were deregulated at the federal level again.
Of course, the FCC could presumably create a rule that explicitly allows ISPs to do non-neutral shenanigans, and then the DoJ could start suing states, saying the federal rule preempts them. Not sure how that would pan out, though I'm sure the current composition of SCOTUS would be fine backing the FCC in this case, if the challenges got that far.
I'd say 50/50
By "they" you mean voters. This policy isn't top priority for very many voters, but the battle lines on this are clear. Trump will overturn (he already did once). Biden will protect it. A vote for Trump is a vote to overturn.
Obama set the FCC on a course to lower jail and prison phone call prices (which is understood to decrease recidivism by keeping prisoners in contact with their support systems).
Trump came in and replaced the FCC head with this guy:
https://nypost.com/2017/08/10/fcc-chairman-under-fire-for-co...
If there is a new administration, close to 100%.
yep imo it's dead in that case:
https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/04/net-neutrality-wont-surviv...
Depends on who controls the US Senate, presumably!
While they're at it they could restore the FCC fairness doctrine, repealed in 1987.
As a United States immigrant, I had never heard of the fairness doctrine before. My first thought is: how would it be compatible with the freedom of the press granted by the First Amendment?
There's a ton of precedence for fraud protection law blocking perverse applications of the first amendment. The right to free speech is not a right to commit fraud or slander against another. If it were, society would fall into catastrophic disarray. I can say what I want, but if I lie to you or try to trick or swindle you there are allowed to be consequences.
It should be obvious here that even the most succinctly and universally stated rights have certain correct limits needed to protect society from individual selfishness.
So the fairness doctrine can be seen as compatible with the first amendment in exactly the same way that consumer protection laws against false advertising are compatible with the first amendment, because it is observably the case that a media institution selectively using its platform to attempt to control and direct the public mindset in a particular direction is itself a form of intentional public harm for selfish interests.
> For example, the right to free speech is not a right to commit fraud or slander against another. If it were, society would fall into catastrophic disarray.
Fraud and slander are not illegal purely on the basis of content of the speech used to conduct the activities. A sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent must also exist. It's not fraud or slander to state an opinion one sincerely believes in, and obtain money or credibility for it.
> So the fairness doctrine can be seen as compatible with the first amendment in exactly the same way that consumer protection laws against false advertising are compatible with the first amendment in a world where it is observably the case that a media institution selectively using its platform to direct the public mindset is itself a form of intentional public harm for selfish interests.
I don't think you understand what the fairness doctrine was in practice or why it existed. It's regulation of private conduct. It didn't begin with television, but rather radio at the end of WW2 in an attempt to prevent future Father Caughlins from having access to a private audience over the airwaves. GE and RCA were not their targets. If anything, the fairness doctrine stifled competitive and independent media over the airwaves, with most such individuals and organizations functionally limited to local broadcast where they could get away with it and newsletters.
The doctrine never applied to Voice of America or "friendly" news organizations and the FCC wasn't compelled to apply it equally across the political spectrum (so much for equal liberty under the law!). If one wanted to provide supportive commentary on the Kennedy's invasion of Vietnam without a competing voice denouncing it, one was free to do so without fear of a costly suit or a revoked broadcasting license. Just like most regulations, the fairness doctrine was little more than a selectively used cudgel for political purposes. Even the Wikipedia page for the topic cites members of previous administrations making admitting to it.
> Fraud and slander are not illegal purely on the basis of content of the speech used to conduct the activities. A sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent must also exist.
Now point me to where the first amendment says "except in cases where a sufficiently culpable and provable malicious intent also exists". It doesn't say that. It makes no concessions and imposes no bounds itself on the right to declare things freely at all. It states the complete and universal right without any caveats whatsoever. And yet here we are anyway with protection laws imposing caveats, and nobody can faithfully claim that product truthful labeling regulations should be declared unconstitutional, because there is no contradiction between the two if read with a clear mind toward building society rather than destroying it.
I think you just said: these are contradictory, and then you did a cognitive dissonance to avoid that conclusion by saying but it's fine, because I want to build society.
But the "Anti-Free/Speech Anti-1A ideas = building society" is just a fallacy that have been assumed.
Here, it's even admitted: "It states the complete and universal right without any caveats whatsoever,". then you do the dissonance dance because you don't like that very much.
Our founding fathers should have included a list of definitions (and a list of definitions to those definitions...), but they probably didn't realize how catty their future generations would be, or how much they like being oppressed because it makes them feel safe.
There's a difference between "states" and "justly means". The words do not include all of the things that are obviously just and true. It is obviously just and true, both to the official dedicated arbiters of such things, and also to anyone else who thinks even a little bit about the consequences of fraud, that the rights granted by the first amendment necessarily only work with unstated conditions.
No, there isn't. Anyone who thinks so is experiencing cognitive dissonance. It is what happens when a normally smart person encounters info that they consider unacceptable, so their brain protects them by turning off logic and engaging emotions.
They stated very clearly what it means. You do not like that, so you are playing definition games because you cannot tolerate the reality of the matter.
Have as anybody ever done any research into the consequences of removing consequences from your average person through excessive government smothering (protection for some depending on your upbringing).
This causes the lowest common denominator to live and influence the world much more vividly than ever before. And our politicians are super cool with that because it's their secret for creating long political careers.
So, they subsidize the lowest common denominators of society, the ones that would have dunning-krugered themselves ten times over, then the politicians tell them if they want to survive, they have to vote for us, or the other guy will take your livelihood. 9/10 times it's a lie, but they're super easy to manipulate and cheap to subsidize (buy votes - this cheapness is important to their super PACs low cost per vote is just simple business, better to buy one McConnell or Pelosi than 5 fresh faces) so they keep the voters miserable, in pain, and desperate for government help.
But what is this doing to the average competency of humans overall? This group of low-understanders keep demanding that we put together more bureaucracy and regulations slowing down progress so the politicians can look like they're doing something when they should be demanding the opposite and instead pushing for transparency and consumer choice laws. These nip profits pretty badly though, so our bought politicians never push the idea.
Even this Net Neutrality scuffle is just them creating solutions to problems they've already caused with overregulation creating no competition. Then we get the lowest common denominators cheering it and it's just sad.
> Have as anybody ever done any research into the consequences of removing consequences from your average person
For a lot of it, yeah, it's called history.
Generally speaking, the consequences we have now are because of what was seen to happen when we didn't have them before. Regulations nearly always happen after the fact. Laws against stealing happen because people are stealing, and that's bad. Laws against murder happen because people are murdering, and that's bad. Laws against putting asbestos in things happen because people are putting asbestos in things, and that's bad. Laws against fraud happen because people are doing fraud, and that's bad. Laws about net neutrality happen because ISPs start enacting or publicly preparing to enact abusive policies. You don't need to remove the consequences. We already know what things were like before we started applying them.
Are the consequences we have now the right consequences? That's a much harder question to answer.
So, I said one thing (The US government subsidizes low agency individuals, who drag the rest down by existing, so that they can keep a stable population from which to buy votes on the cheap), and you completely ignored it to start straw-manning something unrelated (simping for regulations).
These are unrelated, so I'm not sure how you got there.
Your instincts are correct. It is not compatible with the First Amendment.
The FTC chair and this honestly is the best reason to vote for the Biden Administration (I feel like at this point whose in office largely doesn't matter 98% of the time, they're too old and or self absorbed to be heavily involved). Really just voting for the people they put in charge of everything below them, which was always the case, just more so now.
This has generally been my opinion on the office of the President. The actual quality of the administration comes from the level underneath the chief executive and I have been very pleased with the people in this administration.
The FTC, Department of Interior and FCC all seem like they have very competent (and non-corrupt!) people running them. Can't say I have strong feelings on Biden but I think he's shown good sense in who he appoints to actually manage the Executive Branch.
Now if only Buttigieg was a more than a do nothing position and the FAA/FDA, etc stopped acting like captured agencies and do their jobs.
Boeing is like what, our one major airline manufacturer and because they're part of the military industrial complex, they get a free pass and get to murder whistle blowers after asking them to stay an extra day in town.
I agree for all departments except the state department which seems to be as incompetent as they come
I think these are great reasons to vote for Biden (or Democrats in general), but... I mean... the best reasons? I'd think the best reason would be not putting the country back into the hands of a wannabe dictator who has said he will target his political opponents if he's re-elected. That seems quite a bit more high stakes than the good work that the FTC and now FCC have been doing on Biden's watch.
Interesting to see this come through effectively at the same time as the law granting powers that allows the government to ban TikTok and others in the future.
I can't help but assume there's a connection there. I also don't know why the new law allowing a ban on foreign influenced social media would be necessary if the FCC decides again that it can regulate ISPs as utilities. Weren't the powers there already strong enough to force an ISP-level ban on a service deemed a national security threat?
Your assumption is wrong. The net neutrality fight is older than TikTok. The process for this vote started in September. It would have started in 2021 if Biden's FCC nominee was approved. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act does not involve the FCC. Regulating ISPs as utilities does not empower the FCC to force ISPs to block services. Never mind regulate app stores and hosting services.
I wasn't actually proposing that the FCC would have the power to remove apps from the app store, only that they could force ISPs to block specific servers.
I was thinking the FCC regulations would have that power to implement such a ban based on national security, though I could be wrong. I'd have to look back at the Patriot Act as well, I'd expect that to offer similar powers but I don't remember for sure.
The quote "markets can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent" comes to mind.
Governments can stay irrational longer than you can stay vigilant.
It's frustrating that a decision can be made at great effort in support of net neutrality, only for a new bill to easily be introduced that undermines it yet again.
I guess that's a feature of democracy, not a bug. But I can imagine these battles gets harder and harder to win as time progresses.
If Congress stepped in to mandate it, the flip-flopping wouldn't happen.
You said it. This is a feature of the US government. It allows prototyping of policies before codifying them.
Is that actually true or would the flipping just happen every time the majority party changes?
Despite the required process for changing regulations in a log of executive branch agencies, I feel like laws Congress passes are a bit more durable. Even with a different majority, there's still horse-trading that needs to go on to get things done, and it's not always easy to push through things that are unpopular with the minority party. With executive branch agencies, whoever is in the White House pretty much has complete control, modulo rules that slow things down, anyway.
IMO this is why communities should do everything they can to build their own infrastructure independent of these massive institutions that can't possibly represent their needs - some being comcast, others being the USA federal government.
I find the concept of "the People's internet" fascinating https://urbanomnibus.net/2019/10/building-the-peoples-intern... not to mention distributed networks like this are more rugged in the face of disaster.
FCC rules... The other day it was FTC and banning non competes, there's also talk right now on the home page regarding KYC and an executive order.
I would love for us to be able to get back to making laws in the US. Executive orders and agency rulings are a bad way to run a "democratic republic"
It's worth noting that these agencies and their powers did not spring up out of thin air. Various elected Congress sessions wrote the laws that created and empowered these agencies to create rules.
This is a reasonable implementation of a "democratic republic" as Congress still has oversight.
The problem with merely having regulations rather than laws is not a concern that they may not have proper legal authority, but that they are less durable and more easily overturned than laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.
I agree, and I'd rather Congress weigh in now that we've had this specific issue flip-flop twice. I do not like the implication that agency rulemaking is anti-democratic though. We have utilized this structure for well over 120 years, or practically half of the country's history.
We have always had things like executive orders. Just an insane number are issued between the Great Depression and WWII, and then we have 100 years of using them as a ham fisted tool for policy.
The FTC ruling on non competes... Great, except that getting rid of that rule doesn't create its complementary law around "rading" (see this about ca law: https://www.flclaw.net/is-poaching-employees-illegal-califor... ).
And yes we have used this structure for a long time, but not to this extent, not as a political football for democratic impasse.
You may not like it being pointed out, but having rules made by appointed regulators rather than elected legislators is obviously anti-democratic. Yes, delegating powers like this is a practical necessity, but having made that reasonable tradeoff does not erase the reality that it's a less than perfectly democratic process. So is the structure of Congress itself.
First, the US is not a pure democracy. We elect representatives on our behalf to handle voting on matters. So dismissing something as "anti-democratic" is not applicable here.
Our elected officials set up a system where a series of agencies under the Executive Branch may create rules, but the elected officials have oversight authority.
If you disagree, you may petition your state government for a constitutional amendment that prohibits this practice and advocate for additional states to join in.
> So dismissing something as "anti-democratic" is not applicable here.
[...]
> If you disagree, you may petition your state government for a constitutional amendment
I think you're misinterpreting what's being said here in order to over-react. I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that executive orders and delegating powers to appointed regulators should be expunged from our system of government. But they should be acknowledged as a necessary evil, and their use minimized when possible, and not allowed to completely replace the legislative process. Whereas you seem to be defending taking those practices to the extreme simply because of historical precedent.
> I think you're misinterpreting what's being said here in order to over-react.
If you can point out how I'm misinterpreting, I'm open to discuss. From what it appears though, we have a disagreement on what we wish to delegate to different branches of government.
> But they should be acknowledged as a necessary evil, and their use minimized when possible
I disagree that executive agency rulemaking is a "necessary evil". Congress can simultaneously be derelict in their duties as a legislative body while having a executive regulatory apparatus that creates rules under their purview.
> Whereas you seem to be defending taking those practices to the extreme simply because of historical precedent.
If not for historical precedent and recognizing the practices we've been utilizing for 4-5 generations of people, what should we prioritize?
> rules made by appointed regulators rather than elected legislators is obviously anti-democratic
The people making the appointments are elected. It is obviously democratic.
The general population can't get together to vote on everything, so we elect representatives to do that job for us. Our representatives can't make rules on minutia, so they appoint regulators. Don't like the regulators? Go talk to your representative.
The opposite is worse: I live in a town that still has old-style town meeting where any resident can show up. It's tyranny of whoever has time to show up and stay up late, because someone will always create an amendment at 11PM to overrule a town-wide vote.
The scope creep of these agencies in recent decades is substantial, though.
It's one thing to set rules for dumping that protect wildlands, or verify drugs in the medical supply chain aren't toxic.
Deciding the rules of commerce? I'm less than thrilled.
It’s not scope creep as much as recognizing that Congress is less functional than it used to be. Obstruction has been normalized since the backlash to Obama’s election – think about how often people claim you need 60 votes in the senate – and that means anyone who sees a problem has an incentive to figure out how to do it without needing timely action.
You'd rather have some idiotic trash that's been elected to congress have to decide what a safe dose of a drug is than an agency largely staffed by people with deep medical training?
You'd rather have such a decision be at the whims of political showboating and culture wars than what can be proven safe and effective with actual medical testing?
I'd argue that a better use of legislature time would be to find ways to reduce the clout of political beliefs in people appointed to high level positions in the agencies rather than requring the useless fools eleceted to congress getting final say in what the rules are.
Seriously do you think the jewish space laser lady should have any say in sattelites or forest fires? Do you really want the moron that thinks injecting bleach is a viable cure to decide what makes for good medicine? Do you want a fool who think's an ar-15 with a certain set of cosmetics is a scary bad gun, but an ar-15 with hunting stocks isn't the exact same weapon to decide firearm policy?
Those are the people you are suggesting should make the decisions on specifics?
That was their design to be agile. Regulations can get passed in 100 days and not years.
I blame this squarely on the congress. Congress has been the weakest it’s ever been, passing almost nothing substantial. If we had to rely on them to ensure basic things like drug approvals we never have anything. They can barely get funding passed to fund themselves!
Why do you blame "congress" instead of Republicans?
Perhaps because Democrats control half of Congress today, and the general trend of Congressional avoidance-of-clear-rulemaking has been the same even during those periods that Dems or Republicans control both chambers.
The filibuster makes this kind of 'control' moot. You need a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and a majority in the House to actually get anything done (and the Presidency, to not veto). 'Control of half of Congress' when that half is the house, is meaningless.
That applies equally when each party is the filibuster-sized minority in the Senate.
And: if Senate majorities really want to pass something, they can change the filibuster rules – and have, for some topics.
Otherwise, the filibuster is maintained out of tradition, courtesy, and its usefulness as a change-of-control 'debounce' mechanism – as well as providing a convenient excuse for posturing more and doing less, as Congress is wont.
Still, in other eras, Congress was able to move compromise legislation forward. Recently, Congress has been unable to – both parties, no matter the relative control. Any belief that it's only "the other guys" is partisan myside blindness.
Agencies are not beholden to Congress; they are beholden to the executive branch that creates them.
That is why Nixon created the EPA so that there would not be a Department of the Environment that was out of the hands of executive power.
Congress creates and funds agencies. Agencies write the regulations. This is all specified in the law that was passed. FCC commission makeup is defined by law and their authority is defined by law.
> Nixon created the EPA
Only because Congress allowed it.
https://www.epa.gov/history/origins-epa
Congress created the FCC. Congress passed many laws governing agencies. Departments are not out of the hands of executive power.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Review_Act
Congress has the legislative power all agencies derive their power from some act of congress.
Yet the Chevron decision empowers agencies to make rules independent of Congress in cases where the rules don't already exist or are unclear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....
Unsurprisingly, Kavanaugh and the rest of the conservatives would prefer this approach be relegated to history. Of course, the areas of particular interest that he cites as examples (securities e.g, finance, communications, and environmental laws) just happen to be those where the two parties could not possibly be further apart in their approaches.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/01/supreme-court-likely-to-d...
Also gun laws. Any firearm enthusiast can tell you how inconsistent and incoherent various ATF rulings and determinations have been.
You lost me at "firearm enthusiast."
Try again when US gun laws look more like Japan's -- including an assault weapons ban.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/asia/japan-gun-laws-abe-shoot...
I don't see the relevance to the topic being discussed.
The fact remains that the ATF enjoys the ability to unilaterally revise firearm policy well beyond what many find reasonable without a change in law made by Congress.
This scenario is precisely why the outcome of Chevron is useful -- and, I'd argue, vital in addressing areas where legislation is needed, even if we still disagree about what shape it might take.
Congress' process takes too long to adapt to conditions on the ground. The ATF has a focused mandate to study and set policy in this area without waiting for Congress to consider the issue. It might not be perfect and is still subject to political influencing as the makeup of the committee changes based on appointments, but at least something gets done.
Regarding the FCC, there is some prioritization based on the type of traffic served, but it's fairly commonsense in its approach and the committee recognized that a complete lack of regulation wasn't in the public's best interest.
The idea that everything is left to Congress -- or ignored, as the case may be -- creates a situation where good ideas don't develop into meaningful legislation or the bad ones get implemented over the will of the majority.
Again, not only does this not happen in parliamentary systems, it's not possible because the people debating the issue are all on the same side. They all agree on the desired outcome, it's rather a question of how far they want to go.
It seems to me that the Chevron doctrine has essentially created a fourth branch of government with minimal democratic oversight. It feels like an end run around the constitution. In many cases the agencies exercise legislative, executive, and judicial powers all at the same time.
Congress, in its current state is a sclerotic body barely capable of doing routine committee work that doesn't even rise to the level of passing laws.
They had their chance...and failed spectacularly.
Not if the agencies have leverage over Congress.
In case you are unaware, but congress has been DEEPLY dysfunctional for the past 30 years, and has been getting worse every session. Even this week it was shocking news that a bipartisan bill managed to even come to a vote.
This is what happens when the party that doesn't have the White House chooses obstruction and enforces the the Hastert Rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_rule
Yet in functioning legislative bodies (think: parliamentary systems), employing something like Hastert doesn't require any enforcement at all.
They don't typically require supermajorities to pass laws, and those in the minority don't have the means to substantively object to bills they disagree with.
A man can dream.
You may not realize it, but this is exactly how it works in the House of Representatives today, and is the exact cause of dysfunction.
I should have been more precise - the Senate's rules are garbage and should be hurled into the Sun. More generally, my comments come from watching PMQ's in the House of Commons and seeing that the party out of power really doesn't have many tools to slow down the opposite sides agenda.
If such a system was implemented in the US, it would force politicians to more carefully consider their positions -- no confidence votes and a motion to vacate serve the man functional purpose as a stick to get people in line, which might not otherwise be possible if they consistently took unpopular positions.
You’re fundamentally misunderstanding what is going on. There are a majority number of votes to support popular legislation. These bills are simply not brought to a vote BY THE MAJORITY PARTY due to internal majority party politics.
Nothing in your facile proposal would remedy this. What would fix the problem would be change to the rules so that simple majority could bring legislation to a vote. This does not exist in any functional way.
And we haven’t even touched on the fact that the majority of seats are often controlled by a minority of voters due to gerrymandering and the constitutional structure of the senate.
I'm well aware of the procedural votes that occur before something goes before the entire House or Senate...which serve no other practical purpose than to slow things down. It should not be possible under any circumstances for a single vote -- in an instance where that vote would not make or break a tie among the majority -- to doom a bill that a majority of the caucus supports.
Glares in the direction of the Freedom Caucus, many of whom should have been expelled from Congress after 1/6
In addition, the shitshow that is the amendment process demonstrates that our representatives have long forgotten how to craft comprehensive legislation that has even a chance of addressing all potential concerns.
Again, if I had a magic wand for a day to fix Congress, I'd dissolve it and reconstitute the chambers as a parliament...but how exactly to do that is an argument for another day.
If I had my way I’d create a unicameral legislature with a combination of multimember districts and at-large party list seats in the vein of Germany’s Bundestag.
On a slightly more reasonable note, I’d be happy with just eliminating all state senates nationwide, similar to Nebraska.
Bicameralism is bullshit
You really blame republicans like when the shoe is on the other foot the other party doesn’t do the exact same tactics of blatantly stalling bills they don’t like and overall slowing government to a crawl.
This is politics in the modern era.
Congress does not want to have to learn the minutia of every aspect of things that are regulated. Delegating responsibility to the relevant agencies is exactly how Congress operates.
Our legislative branch abdicated its power when they stopped bothering to pass laws that people actually want.
If the FTC and FCC weren't doing either of these things, they simply wouldn't happen. As soon as a Net Neutrality or non-compete clause ban bill makes it to the senate floor, Republicans will just filibuster it, even though public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of both these measures.
While I support both of those things, I don't see any problem requiring the legislature to actually legislate to make them happen. If the public felt strongly about these issues they would just remove their representatives next election.
Just because I happen to agree with the actions of the agency in this case is not enough to justify handing legislative power over to bureaucratic agencies that do not have any of the checks and balances that are supposed to exist in our system.
> that do not have any of the checks and balances that are supposed to exist in our system.
But they do have the same checks and balances. All of these rules are open to judicial review and there is a whole process in place due to the Administrative Procedure Act. In fact there are more rules for these agencies like having public commenting periods after which they're required by law to consider that input when making their rules.
One of the things the legislative branch can do is delegate their powers to organizations better equipped to understand complex issues.
These organizations, which function as part of the executive branch, are still subject to checks and balances from both the legislative and judicial branches. The legislative branch has the power to change the laws that govern what these agencies can or cannot do, and the judicial branch has the power to determine if their actions go against either the laws passed by the legislature or the constitution.
Banning regulatory agencies from doing their job would hamstring our government's ability to regulate anything, which is probably why monied interests like to argue that their very existence is unconstitutional.
This is the equivalent of a CEO/C-suite delegating decision making to various teams and leaders below them. They still add laws and appoint the leaders of those organizations, but can't be involved in every decision.
Can't expect every single item in the government to get direct democracy, the world would grind to a halt due to the sheer number of decisions needed to be made.
The congress doesn't seem to be able to pass anything itself without it being tied to an increase in the military budget...
A little-discussed consequence of this rule is that it opens the door for the FCC and others to monitor your internet traffic.
These are not the net neutrality rules I personally was looking for. They allow a base traffic speed with data caps, and then you buy a la carte for the additional speeds you want. They still allow prioritizing traffic. There is nothing neutral in these new rules.
The rules under Obama were far better, and strangely better under Trump. They have taken the privacy provisions back that were allowed previously. Please read the fine print, and call your congress person, and senator and let them know you demand true net neutrality, and your privacy needs to be protected, with emergency services only having priority above other traffic.
Please read these new rules.
As much as I support the decision are we just going to keep playing this game flipping back and forth across administrations?
Yes until the congress actually does their job and passes a law.
The amount of pro-net neutrality in here is a clear demonstration of the opinion forming power of John Oliver, by dressing the issue as affecting users instead of companies.
A lot of people seem very confused about what “neutrality” means, and it’s consequences. As an analogy, VAT is an equal tax (everyone pays the same VAT) but it’s a very non-progressive tax (it burdens poor people more than rich people.
Your ISP doesn’t really care about your speed, it could increase yours and all your neighbors speed by a big chunk and it won’t really notice it. The problem is that to handle a Netflix they need to do a massive investment.
Yes, non net neutrality is about creating differentiated “highways”, but you are not going on that “highway” no matter what.
The discussion is if internet is considered infrastructure (as roads are) and thus they should be built with everyones money, no matter how specific they are to a single company, or if we should leave it to the market.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why a company that makes massive amounts of money from the internet shouldn’t be paying a higher proportion of the infrastructure costs than a user.
Net neutrality laws are not an US only thing. EU (The Net Neutrality Regulation 2015) and many other countries have net neutrality laws.
>I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why a company that makes massive amounts of money from the internet shouldn’t be paying a higher proportion of the infrastructure costs than a user.
Because ISP is in business of selling internet access to consumer. ISP can sell different tiers of service to the consumer, but can't sell the product twice. Netflix pays huge sum in their end.
This is how money flows:
>The framework we adopt today does not prevent broadband providers from asking subscribers who use the network less to pay less, and subscribers who use the network more to pay moreYou see.
> Because ISP is in business of selling internet access to consumer. ISP can sell different tiers of service to the consumer, but can't sell the product twice. Netflix pays huge sum in their end.
The network is not some amorphous blob.
If a new streaming company called Notflix enters the market (with dedicated hardware), ISPs will have to build dedicated infrastructure that connects that competitor to the network. One of the obvious ways of gaining a foothold in the market is to go where other services have poor connectivity and setup shop there. Of course the ISP that sets up that infrastructure will take big cut for their work, as they should.
With Net Neutrality in effect, the supply side of heavy use internet services becomes constrained, creating a barrier of entry for new competitors. It’s just plain old regulatory capture.
I became "pro-net neutrality" back in the 2010's when Verizon was trying to charge an extra $20/mo for hot spot functionality on my provider locked android phone.
After some rooting and side loading I was gleefully working around that until FCC came down on them for it [1]. Net Neutrality was passed after that and only seemed like a logical response as a means of consumer protection.
It has always been a user facing issue, it's just not one that many people seem to want to expend the energy to think about how it impacts them. Netflix isn't using that bandwidth, the users are. Without users, Netflix would use low/no bandwidth, just as it did when it was renting DVDs. The users are paying for their own access and speeds to be able to watch netflix over the internet instead. And in turn Netflix is paying their ISP to be able to provide that data. Punishing either the users or the web hosts for finding a more effective use case for the internet than just sending static pages is the ISPs either trying to find a way to blame someone else for having over provisioned their network. Or they are trying to strong arm web hosts into paying more because they have regional monopolies and can get away with it. As a consumer if I had a choice between two ISPs and one of them throttling Netflix to try and extort them for more money, even for self centered reasons I would pick the other just to have better service. But there are a lot of areas where that isn't the case and there is a single major broadband provider who has free reign.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/what-verizons-fcc-tethering...
ISPs don't want to charge they want to extort.
After countless useless online protests it just randomly gets restored.
[dupe]
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40159776
Common Carrier ISPs when?
Woah, this is amazing! So tired of having to pay VPNs or Akamai to not have insane packet loss to other peers. P2P is coming back!
It's going to be sad yet funny to see the same agency repeal it again once (and if) Donald Trump wins the coming elections.
This flip-flopping happens because there is no commonality to find. One of the only (effectively) two major political parties of the United States is completely uninterested in governing. They have no policy. They have no plan for governing; they don't like governing. Their only goal is the piecemeal selloff of government powers to the highest bidder, and they convince their stalwart followers of this by making sure they get their daily dose of other people suffering. As long as others are suffering, their base will support the wholesale takeover of government by the rich.
The other half is pretty bad at governing, but at least they try to govern. So when they're in power, the first thing they have to do is try to build back up the institutions that have been disabled or dismantled by the party of government-cannibals.
Don't ask me which half is which. You know.
Please don't start tedious political flamewars on HN. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I have to disagree that the Republicans do not have a plan. They have a very clear and public plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
Yes, they spend a lot of energy on obstructing the government from functioning, and creating a naked kleptocracy to use the government to funnel money into their own pockets. But they are also moving openly towards a fascist dictatorship with very specific ideas about how society should function, and how (and when) people should be permitted to live.
I'd argue that they planned:
1. Installing a conservative super-majority to the Supreme Court. [Criminalized abortion in half the US. Blocked student loan relief. Gutted voting rights. Environmental protections. Health mandates. Firearm restrictions.]
2. Indiscriminate obstruction. [Months of crucial Ukraine aid. Blocked voting rights bill. Immigration reform. Firearm safety. Tax relief.]
It's honestly difficult to pick the Greatest Hits, given how much damage they've done.
> But they are also moving openly towards a fascist dictatorship
Democrats have been calling on Biden to increase his power through just writing Executive Orders to act on their platform, and bypass all other branches of government...but THAT's not dictatorship?
Bypass all other branches? Have you seen him defy the courts? Threaten judges?
If you look at the number of executive orders per president, republicans tend to have slightly more over the past couple decades. (Bush more than Obama, Trump more than Biden.)
I don’t think executive orders are that concerning when the legislative body has problems getting shit done. It’s a normal political tool that both parties use (relatively) evenly. What is concerning is gravely anti-constitutional movements to overturn the results of democratic elections.
> calling on Biden to increase his power through just writing Executive Orders to act on their platform, and bypass all other branches of government
Executive orders are one instantiation of what's literally the job of the executive branch: executing the law.
Executive orders operate within the authority granted by the legislative branch as judged by the judicial branch, and that authority can also be removed by the legislative branch.
You can say an order is unconstitutional or unlawful, but it's still not dictatorship.
Trump wrote 220 in 4 years, averaging 55 EOs/year
Biden has written 138 in 3.25 years, averaging 42 EOs/year
Nope! That's called doing your job with the tools you've been given.
funny, thats definitely not what it was called when trump issued executive orders, there we had to endure things like the definition of dictator which tends to include "rules by decree" etc, as proof of him being a dictator :) oh how the winds are fleeting
Every President is equivalently, and rightly, castigated by the opposition party over their executive orders.
Every executive order by every President is an abuse of power, as far as I'm concerned.
55/yr for Trump? 44/yr for Biden? No one should be proud of their side.
Remember when there was no net neutrality and everything...worked great?
That was before the people most opposed to net neutrality had started lobbying local governments to give them monopoly access and to make it illegal for local governments to try and encourage competition.
Basically I find a good rule of thumb to be: if comcast is against it, it's probably going to improve the lives of everyone via some form of competition between businesses.
Remember having net neutrality and everything...worked great?
ISPs knew this would happen if Trump lost in '20, they never acted on it's repeal in the first place. We'll almost certainly get to see what the no-neutrality internet really looks like if Trump wins this year...
Don't you think that is a very cynical view? The party or parties you disagree with may not share your views, but they do have many things in common with you. In order to build bridges with other parties, it's important to believe that the majority of people who get involved in government, regardless of party, are motivated primarily by the desire to serve their neighbors and their country; otherwise they would find better ways to spend their time. Without that belief, it will be near impossible to form agreements across the aisle.
I mostly agree with you, but disagree on one point:
What is a party? I think there still is a Republican Party that fits your description. I meet them in every day life all the time. They are reasonable, agree on many things, and are willing to seek compromise. I hope they are the majority, if not the voting majority.
But they are not well represented by 90% of the current Republican office holders.
Perhaps those conservatives you're referring to would like to vote for a more moderate candidate, but they are chained to the Republicans via First Past The Post voting.
That, and some just don’t vote
I won't believe that after seeing the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
it is cynical - but its not wrong either.
Nothing will change until average Americans are fed up with the status quo, and force change - that goes for basic things like making the parties work together.
That's a wonderful perspective, and largely shared by one party! If you can make the other party act like adults, we'll be in business.
thats what both parties say. Those who make blanket statements like this tends to be partisan hacks filled with extremely low levels of information.
Look, I'm not saying the Republican Party are Nazis. But let's just imagine they were. Would we still have to believe they were good-faith actors just trying to improve their country?
I do not believe the majority of Republican politicians today are trying to improve the country. I think the majority are self-serving, self-interested, and corrupt. This isn't the party of George Bush—who I disagree with about virtually everything, but seemed genuinely interested in trying to do a good job. This is now the party of Donald Trump, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, James Comer, Ted Cruz, and so on. There is no equivalent to any of these characters on the left. There is no compromising with obviously bad-faith actors like this.
As a trans person (and you can substitute pretty much any identity that is commonly understood to be marginalized and the point stands), there is no middle ground to be found working with republicans. I'm either allowed to exist, work, own property, access healthcare, etc., or I'm not. I'm either being discriminated against or I'm not. I'm not interested in compromise here.
[dead]
> Don't you think that is a very cynical view?
It's a realistic view.
> The party or parties you disagree with may not share your views, but they do have many things in common with you. In
The major party I disagree with least doesn’t share my most of views but has many things, in broad focus, in common with me.
That’s very much not true of the major party I disagree with most.
> In order to build bridges with other parties, it’s important to believe that the majority of people who get involved in government, regardless of party, are motivated primarily by the desire to serve their neighbors and their country
Why would “building bridges with other parties” be a goal? A lot of people seem to have gotten ideas that the long realignment period from 1930s to the 1990s when the salient political divides were not along the same axis as the divide between the major parties (though they were approaching alignment at the end of the period) was a norm and not an aberration, and thus have fetishized bipartisanship which was simply a result of ideological factions crossing partisan boundaries rather than generally being contained within major parties. When that applies, you don't need to build bridges between parties, the factions inherently provide it; when it doesn't, you don't have a commonality to build on.
And, in any case, this is the fallacy of argument to the consequences of belief – you are justifying a belief in a fact claim not by any evidence that it represents the actual facts, but by the notionally desirable consequences of believing it independent of its truth. > Without that belief, it will be near impossible to form agreements across the aisle.
I actually think that its a lot easier to achieve agreements across the aisle, where there is utility in doings so, by observing the actual things that the specific goals the other side has in concrete terms and appealing to them, rather than fantasizing a distant abstraction like “serving the neighbors and their country”. The latter is only useful once you determine a concrete operationalization that comports with the actual behavior of the individuals involved, but that offers nothing between a low-level concrete model of interests that avoids any high-level abstractions.
Now, to the extent that its often a concrete low-level interest that they want to be seen as motivated by the desire to serve their neighbors and their country, that may be useful, but that’s different than believing that that is their actual motivation.
This comment isn't directed at OP, it's directed at anyone reading this who might be tempted to get swept up in OP's stereotypes without thinking critically about them. I'm writing this as a left-leaning moderate who grew up among staunch conservatives and understands their philosophy very well.
Conservatives sincerely believe that government bureaucracies are less efficient than a free market economy. That's not a cover or a motte and bailey, it's legitimately and literally true. Conservative politicians dismantle government when given the opportunity because that's what their base wants them to do because, again, their base sincerely believes that the government is bad at most things it does.
It's true that Republican politicians (like most politicians) are mostly charlatans who are intentionally creating circumstances that reinforce the belief in the ineffectiveness of government, but OP's stereotype of conservative voters as simply wanting a "daily dose of other people suffering" is baseless, wrong, offensive, and extremely counterproductive.
This stereotype is a misrepresentation of the other core tenet of conservative philosophy, which is that what is right and wrong is not up to humans to decide, it comes either from God or from long-standing and proven traditions. Conservative opposition to LGBT rights and similar have nothing to do with wanting to see people suffer, they have to do with their deep-seated belief that some things are simply wrong because something greater than us has said so.
They can be wrong in that deep-seated belief, but it's unfair of OP to characterize it as sadism.
Republicans either want the suffering directly, or - what is most often the case - they want the system that guarantees that suffering will happen, and will refuse any alternative whatsoever out-of-hand.
My parents don't want trans people to suffer: they want trans people to find happiness through the impossible avenue of just not being trans anymore. My parents don't want illegal immigrants to be incarcerated or murdered by border authorities: they want illegal immigrants to find liberty through the impossible process that is just becoming a legal immigrant, or living peacefully in whichever failed country they were born. My parents don't want people with substance abuse disorders to live and die on the streets: they want people with substance abuse disorders to overcome them through the impossible avenue of simply curing their own addiction without any outside support, safety, or encouragement whatsoever.
I cannot convince them that any of this is the case. On the other hand, people like Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh, and Glen Beck can convince them of just about anything. Why? Because right-wing talking heads have a foot in the door: belief. They abuse every belief that a conservative holds dear, and turn it into engagement. Critical thought has no air to breathe in a world made of belief.
It doesn't matter what people want. It matters what people do.
I hate to tell you this, but if you can believe it, they're for the second time now, electing the most sadistic candidate to represent their party. This guy has promised to deport millions of people, put them in "camps", use the military to quell "woke" protests, etc.
The sincere Conservative electorate had every opportunity to choose a less-sadistic option. They chose. OP's characterization is perfectly valid.
Trump supporters resonate with that rhetoric because the rent is too high, groceries are too expensive, and inflation doesn't seem to apply to wages. The causes of unrest haven't changed in thousands of years, but they can be convenient to forget.
I just don't understand how, if their problem is rent is too high and inflation doesn't apply to wages, they vote for Trump. He has made money his whole life by jacking up rent prices and paying people as little as he's legally allowed to (or less than that).
Think of it like a riot. What does smashing windows have to do with anything? Yet one follows the other.
Don’t confuse talking points with the underlying reality. Trump supporters existed when inflation was basically non existent. His support is really independent of the economic situation.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in this time. He barely beat one of the least popular candidates in decades and then got crushed the next election cycle. Opposition candidates tend to do well when the economy is doing poorly, but he’s got a lot of baggage and the poles are dead even right now.
The camps rhetoric is new. If anything that's further evidence that it's caused by the times rather than the personalities.
When support stays constant despite changing rhetoric it’s not about the rhetoric.
> Trump supporters resonate with that rhetoric because the rent is too high, groceries are too expensive, and inflation doesn't seem to apply to wages.
And so they vote for the party that is against rent controls, against expanding food stamps, and against raising the minimum wage?
Make it make sense.
See my response to a sibling comment:
"Think of it like a riot. What does smashing windows have to do with anything? Yet one follows the other."
Very few people have any idea about the causes of their suffering.
And Trump (and his sycophants) seek to take advantage of this feeling. Using the age old approach of blaming "the other" and seeking not any real improvement in conditions, but a consolidation of power in their hands.
Well, then, maybe they should consider solutions for solving those problems rather than yelling "big government"/etc at every opportunity and further eroding the protections the previous generations put in place to keep things like this from happening.
AKA, a lot of this is the result of generations of poor education, an education system that is strongly biased propaganda based on provably wrong economic models that tell k-12th graders that the best and only choice is the one where the free market runs roughshod over anyone who can't afford the rent, etc because that's simply "capitalism" and all the other choices are worse.
Maybe? But how is Trump or the Republican Party planning to address any of these?
Remember, Trump successfully pressured the Fed to lower interest rates while the economy was strong. Think that contributed a bit to the inflation we've been dealing with?
Are they recommending corporate tax increases? New marginal tax brackets? No? Did they add tax loopholes for private jets and yachts while they were last in power? You bet!
No, what they're doing instead is trying to scapegoat things like "woke" college students and immigrants.
Part of the reason liberals hate conservatives and vice versa is that they think the government is actually representing their opponents. The reality is that influence is severely concentrated on every "side," and things that average people believe are only used to justify actions that a truly influential coalition wants to take. Your disagreeable family relations are as powerless to get a new issue introduced as you are, but they're going to be blamed for whatever advances the oligarchs who are opposed to your oligarchs have recently made.
On the contrary: most liberals (or anyone else who doesn't identify as a [neo]conservative) are painfully aware that the democratic party is failing to represent them. We just know that that failure is less damaging than what the Republican party is up to.
The Republican party is the party of unification and engagement. The Democratic party is the tent for everyone else. The presence of the former demands the existence of the latter.
> The Republican party is the party of unification and engagement.
The anti-LGBT party with a well-known track record of racism is the party of unification?
No...no it's not. They're the party, that when asked to NOT be anti-LGBT and not be racist, cries about their freedom being repressed.
The Republican party is the party of authority, tradition (Which is not necessarily a virtue), and conformity. They're the party of freedom, but only if you're a white Christian male, bonus points if you're rich.
The Republican seeks to oppress minorities, and then when asked to not be hateful, act like they're a victim of thought policing. They spew hateful messages on social media, get rightfully banned for it, and then pretend they got banned for their conservative views, which of course is pretty telling.
No, they're anything BUT the party of unification. They USED to be, but they let some loudmouth idiots become the face of the party.
I mean unification with themselves. Either you are a Republican, or you are not a conservative. In contrast, the Democratic party actually tries to cater to leftists, progressives, liberals, etc. all at once: one tent for everyone who isn't Republican.
Take for example the words, "In God We Trust; United We Stand." A christian conservative can read those words as a call for compromise around a shared identity; but the rest of us can read them for the threat that they are: either you are in the in group, or you are selfishly standing against it.
If the unification of the Republican voterbase wasn't working, Utah would have put 20% of its 2020 vote into an independent candidate, just like we did in 2016. That didn't happen. Instead, those voters became Trump supporters.
In this thread we see the iron law of 21st century American polarization and the uttermost death of nuance. I’m sure someone will come along to argue how nuance is a luxury we can’t afford in the face of these communist/fascist maniacs.
Honestly, I put some blame on the Internet.
Before the Internet, people talked politics in person and nuance was included. Communication was synchronous, with instant feedback, and basically required engagement. You couldn't just walk away without upsetting social norms.
But the Internet (and especially Twitter), changed all that. People don't want to discuss, they want to "win", so you get 1-sentence "owns" that are just straw men. Nuance gets thrown out the window. If someone you're arguing with comes up with an excellent point that you can't counter, it's easier to just not reply. You're not on the spot, facing a human, and having to admit out loud that they've got a point. Nope. Much easier to just ignore it and remain entrenched in whatever bullshit you believe.
The other half of the blame is 24-hour cable news that has to constantly come up with shit to show, and now entertainment and news have become intertwined with a disastrous result.
I agree with your statements, and they were true until sometime between Newt taking over and Trump being elected.
They used to have a a coherent positive viewpoint and policy to support it. And they sought to advance that policy through normal democratic means: convincing a majority of voters.
That has stopped being their approach. They no longer seek a genuine popular majority. They are turning inwards, adopting ever more extreme positions disconnected from genuine ideals. They seek only the power to impose their worldview on others.
They no longer feel constrained by long standing traditions and institutions. Any act is justified in their minds.
It stopped being true after the Romney loss. They wrote a report [1] that basically outlined the fact that due to demographic trends and the makeup of Republican electorate, the RNC would have to start becoming a big tent, multicultural party in order to succeed in the future.
The decided exactly the opposite -- they elected Trump and decided to become a party based on white Christian grievance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_%26_Opportunity_Project
I think they have a clear plan in two parts.
1. Since the opposition seeks progress in many forms, blindly obstruct them in all cases.
2. Legislate the country back to 1953. When that is accomplished, legislate the country back to 1853.
The only part I'm unsure about is whether they're interested in renaming the nation "Gilead."
if you're just halfway serious, perhaps its time to seek some medical help
They published the plan and its pretty much what the parent comment said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
The GOP wants fascism everywhere
That’s a bit of an extreme comment “seeking medical help” but to be fair I’m only aware of the “to 1953” legislation and not the additional “to 1853” legislation.
Are you aware that Arizona recently reinstated an abortion ban from 1864?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/us/arizona-abortion-ban.h...
did they actually reinstate? isnt it just that newer legislation was made illegal, and it DEFAULTED back to this, where there is proposals by republicans to make legislation that in many ways mirrors most EU countries, but that is unacceptable to the democrats?
"just that".... the newer legislation was made illegal by Republicans, and Republicans decided the 1864 law is still valid. This is how you roll back the country 160 years. And it's not just that this particular law is literally from 1864, it's that even new laws are mirroring these 160 year old laws. Many have no exception for rape, incest, or the life of the mother [1]. That's barbaric.
The reason that Democrats find all of this unacceptable is that Republicans have either failed to anticipate the chaotic consequences of their actions, or -- as they argue in court in support for jail terms for people who have abortions, and that doctors should not have exception in the case of life of the mother or rape -- that they intend the chaos and resulting harm to women. As people suffer and die due to their actions, it's not hard to see why rolling back laws to 1864 is objectionable to Democrats.
I appreciate you bringing up EU countries, but if we are striving to emulate them, we should strive to match their maternal mortality rates by providing adequate healthcare to pregnant people [2]. Instead, by upending abortion rights in this country, we are worsening these trends. You can't use the EU as a benchmark if you're not willing to implement EU-like healthcare and social services in the US.
[1] https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/a-revie...
[2] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...
its very obvious that you are grossly misrepresenting things. If you have an old law that for whatever reason was there, and a newer one is removed, this is how it works. And to suggest that the republicans decided to roll back to 1864 is simply dishonest and intentional misrepresentation. This is the exact sort of thing that makes compromises less likely to happen. One side will GROSSLY misrepresent what the other side does, making conversation and compromise impossible.
Also, you are wrong. The week-number cutoff for abortion for example can EASILY be used as a benchmark for what should be allowed, regardless of what other healthcare is available. I am not from the US, nor am I a supporter of the republican OR democratic party, but it is blindingly obvious that the democrats are WAY less willing to compromise on anything than the republicans, and attempts to use emotion and misrepresent to extreme levels, and on this particular issue, its very obvious that democrats are the obstructionists and extremists, and 100% unwilling to go out of their reality distortion field. On other issues, republicans are insane, but it is a different insane (and different does NOT mean less). And more importantly, NONE of these parties are good for the people, both are abominations that only serve their own agenda
lol so many words to say you’re not American and understand us.
i would bet im way more informed than the majority of americans..
how many americans know who the vice president is? how many can even point to DC on a map?
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40160755.
Your comment works from an assumption that bad governing is superior to not governing.
I don't agree.
I think particularly at the federal level a deadlocked government that is only able to accomplish a few things that can achieve broad consensus is preferable to one that governs badly and will invade the autonomy of the public who is, by the large part, capable of governing themselves.
Political gridlock is, from that perspective, a feature. Not a bug.
In terms of revealed preferences, clearly the bulk of the US agrees. :)
I think a point that gets missed is that in terms of capacity for causing great evil, money hardly moves the needle. People do-- of course-- intentionally perform minor evils for money, or negligently do somewhat greater evils because of money. Worse than money in terms of ability to do evil is shame and gross incompetence combined with power. But to do grandiose evil, the kind of evil that murders tens of millions, requires someone who wants to "do good".
So to many, a party that wants to "do good" but is transparently incompetent or beholden to irrational views is a lot more troubling than someone who wants to sell things off to the highest bidder and otherwise keep themselves out of trouble. Selling things off to the highest bidder is evil, but evil in bounded, largely predictable, and often recoverable ways.
If you really think that the public in general are rooting for other people's suffering in a meaningful way then I think you need to get offline and go spend time in person with the people who you believe are doing that. I am confident you will find that they aren't.
> They have no policy. They have no plan for governing; they don't like governing.
This is an unfair analysis, and is either naive at best or disingenuous at worst.
I'm not a registered Republican, but I AM strongly against an all-powerful centralized body of government that continues to expand exponentially. I would rather focus powers in a more decentralized direction closer to the individuals and the States themselves. e.g. "Think globally - act locally."
The parent's comment is the EXACT problem that comes with a central government that is too powerful: you have to be mindful that "your party" will not be in "charge" about ~50% of the time.
For a concrete example, I don't like expanding Presidential powers nor extensive use of Executive Orders because likely there will be a president I don't support in that position, and I'd rather her/him NOT have that type of power.
States and local communities are more knowledgable about what their constituents need, and the more local you go, the more homogeneous that group becomes - leading to a higher degree of success for those policies. For example, I have never lived on a farm, nor have every lived remotely _near_ a farm...so how can I properly empathize with their needs or considerations in a fair way?
States and more local forms of government also provide solid grounds for the greatest real-life A/B test of policies in the world: if you are living in an area that doesn't align with your values and/or needs, you have _so many_ other options to consider settling. e.g. if you like living in California where virtually all the policies and politicians are left of center, then great! You can live there and it doesn't impact me in any way over in where I live.
Homogeneity also comes with its own problems -- smaller, more homogenous governments are much more likely to discriminate against the "out group", for instance.
Government grows because what we do grows. We didn't need legislation on airspace and radio waves and net neutrality and cyber bullying when our Constitution was written. In many cases, powers simply come into existence, and I'd rather the government have those powers than a monopoly or oligopoly of private rich entities.
Rather than limited Government, I'd rather see an Open Government -- one that is accountable to, accessible to, and made up of us. Then why does it matter if government gets big? Government is us, after all. At least we can work toward that. Maybe?
> Homogeneity also comes with its own problems -- smaller, more homogenous governments are much more likely to discriminate against the "out group", for instance.
I discriminately support my family more than my neighbors. You probably do too.
I also discriminately support my circle of friends more than the random stranger. You probably do too.
I also don't think a random stranger can come into my home and get equal footing with myself as the homeowner simply because the other person was "out". You probably do too.
Hell, even at the broad government level, US citizens are prioritized over non-citizens - like literally every single country that has ever existed.
This isn't a real problem.
From this comment it is clear that you have a policy and plan for governing. But it isn't clear what that has to do with the portion of the parent comment that you quoted.
The implication of the way you wrote your comment is that it's unfair and naive or disingenuous to say that the Republican party has no policy, because what you outline is their policy. But the rest of your comment just ... isn't their policy. (Which is, presumably, why you aren't a registered Republican.)
For instance, you say you don't like expanding Presidential powers. But the leader of the Republican party has a suit in front of the Supreme Court, right this moment, attempting to expand Presidential powers all the way to "immune from the rule of law".
Now, it could still be true that the policy of the Republican party is in disagreement with the desires of that person who is the leader of their party - that totally happens! - but unfortunately at this specific moment in time, "the desires of that person who is the leader of their party" is exactly as close as you can get to defining the party's policy.
It's a sad state of affairs! But I seem to frequently see this kind of wishcasting based on what people think the party's policy should be, except it has nothing to do with the clear policy of the party in actuality. (Note that this wishcasting thing is not actually unique to the Republican party.)
Sounds good in theory, but we are more intertwined on private sector levels.
As an example, the cost of natgas on the east coast after California's rules limiting coal for power generation. People in nearby states with different COL pick up part of the tab.
> after California's rules limiting coal for power generation.
Great example & case study for the beauty of the US Constitution's "interstate commerce" clause, and one of the areas the federal government _SHOULD_ focus its attention.
>because likely there will be a president I don't support in that position, and I'd rather her/him NOT have that type of power.
I wish more people had this perspective.
The topic of packing the Supreme Court comes to mind. There are people who want Biden to do this, but if does it, what’s stopping the next Republican from doing it too… back and forth until the court is so big it can’t function. These easily won “victories” can just as easily work against a group as they can work for them. It’s very short-sighted.
The only reason the courts are getting involved as much as they are, is because Congress can’t get anything done. They make the law, the court interprets it. We need a functioning Congress to avoid the courts needing to give their best guess on what the law currently is for issues that aren’t well defined, or not defined at all. Packing the court as a solution is solving the wrong problem.
Congress had decades to make actual abortion laws, and both sides had times where they were fully in power - not that they shouldn’t have compromised on something like 12 or 15 weeks instead like most European countries.
As far as people’s opinions of the court goes, it really grinds my gears how most people assume the Supreme Court is there to essentially make or strike down laws on their own whims. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. I’m no judicial scholar but it seems to me the current court is doing the best job of what they’re actually supposed to do than they have in a long time.
The Supreme Court decides which cases it wants to hear and there are many cases brought into the legal system each year. That practically gives it the power to make (well, re/interpret) or strike down whatever legislation it wants, as long as there's a relevant-enough case.
Right, but they ideally choose because they think a law needs to be struck down, clarified, etc. based on legal merit and not because of how they or the population feel about the end result.
It seems fair to me, because I've been paying attention to state and national politics for the last thirty years.
> They have no policy. They have no plan for governing; they don't like governing.
> This is an unfair analysis, and is either naive at best or disingenuous at worst.
It's fair given that the party literally produced no platform ahead of the last presidential election.
I would say that is unfair because their actual platform is deliberately sabotaging any kind of functional governance and refusing to change any government policy that is clearly broken and in desperate need of change. Obviously they won't admit that. But that is what they have been doing for decades. They wouldn't want to accidentally make things better for people because then they can't campaign on fixing the problems.
I recall reading or hearing that a bunch of senior GOP leadership got together immediately after Barack Obama’s election and agreed explicitly that their approach was going to be obstruction.
And that worked, but then the next generation of elected party members seemed to be obstructionist only. So much so that in 2017 when they held the executive branch and both houses of congress, they couldn’t get anything done.
We’re all sleeping in that bed that they made.
This is sort of a democrat neolib explanation that's only possible if you ignore the corrupting effects of capitalism and the unending class struggle between workers and capital, regardless of party.
The GOP isn't some weird guys who can't govern, but an incredibly powerful group that works almost exclusively for the capital owning class and uses social issues to empower that class. The GOP caters a bit to the workers class but not a lot and is actively radicalizing them to believe they have the same interests as the capital owning class. The culture war is by accident. If the GOP could do this all without the culture war, selling hate, etc then it would. These are merely tools for an end.
The Democrats are almost as bad, but also are beholden to some level of will of the working class, but generally default to the whims of the capital owning class as much as practically possible. The Dems need to get the working class on its side to continue to exist. The pure capital owner party is the GOP and they can't compete against them without this rhetoric. Hence, a lot of Dem ideology being lip service for populist worker issues and actual change from Dems is very rare, and when it happens, its under the approval of the many/most capital owners (see Obamacare being a mandatory private insurance program instead of a Euro-style socialized medicine program.)
The better governing of the dems is by accident. If the dems govern better its only by accident due to the strong influence of the middle-class dependent on good government to survive, and if the dems could maintain power with more corrupt governing, they would.
This is your classic conservative vs liberal divide that defines nearly all modern capitalist nations.
The difference between the two parties isn't that strong. Under capitalism, the government is a capitalist government and is nearly fully corrupted by it, regardless of party. The only real fix is to replace capitalism with socialism, but neither party will allow that, so here we are with the usual back and forth and hiding issues with workers class and capitalism under whatever social issues of the day best distract.
> The GOP caters a bit to the workers class but not a lot and is actively radicalizing them to believe they have the same interests as the capital owning class.
They don't cater to them as much as they convince them that they could one day be a member of the capital owning class.
The whole "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" line.
> The difference between the two parties isn't that strong.
That's the kind of thinking that led to Bush in 2000. Say what you like about Gore, but his administration would have done a great number of things differently from how it worked out.
Additionally, you wouldn't see e.g. Trump's EPA turning up the pressure on coal power plants. In fact hundreds of effective EPA staffers left (/were purged from) the EPA in 2017/2018.
To the working class who under Both Bush/Trump and Obama/Biden sent their kids to die in the war on terror and under both fund a destructive foreign policy that has led to incredible civillian deaths wordwide especially in the middle east, a "well one guy might make cleaner coal" is a cold comfort.
To the working class who labors under inflation with no guaranteed vacation or maternity or pension, its a cold comfort that the one guy "likes ice cream and is friendly." To the working class who can't buy a home, its a cold comfort that one guy has better diction and vocabulary than the other. To the working class that can't retire and will die at their desks, its a cold comfort that one guy said something nice about labor unions. To the working class who are watching the global south be exploited and the pollution there blowing upstream to the "clean EPA driven USA" its a cold comfort. To the working class who can't afford to have children, its a cold comfort that one guy has given lip service to LGBTQ issues.
etc, etc.
Neither can or will address the fundamental problems of capitalism that causes nearly all these issues. The working class will continue to suffer under any pro-capitalist leadership. One guy just has nicer window dressing than the other.
I don't think you're being very fair. We can see stark difference between Democratic and Republican controlled states, especially when looking at the South. In terms of women's rights, they are second class citizens in the South while their rights are protected in states with Democrats leading the charge. In states where Republicans have complete control, they've asserted full control over women. That's a real difference between Democrats and Republicans that I hope you can appreciate.
In the South they are banning DEI, queer books, and trans participation in public life. This is not happening in Democratic controlled places, and that's not just lip service, that's for real. People's jobs are being impacted by this, teachers are fleeing Republican controlled states.
You look at rate of infant mortality, pregnancy complications, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, opioid addiction, childhood poverty, poverty in general, and it all looks better in Blue versus Red states. That's real data we can look at which tells us the parties are different. Under Democratic administrations, access to healthcare is expanded. Under Republican control, it contracts. I know it's not your preferred solution, and I'd like a better one too, but when it comes time to vote I'm damn for sure voting for the party that causes healthcare access to expand.
And Trump's problem isn't that he has poor diction or vocabulary, it's that what he says is literally insane and psychopathic. The SC case today was evidence of that, where he argued in court that he deserves the power to assassinate his rivals and to order the military to stage a coup without fear of prosecution. Democrats are not arguing this position in court.
Yes both will not address the fundamental problems of capitalism, and the working class will continue to suffer under both, but the data say they will suffer more under Republicans compared to Democrats.
We are not talking about window dressing we are talking about measurably less suffering. I understand that's not the "no suffering" benchmark you'd like to achieve, but how about we not let perfect be the enemy of better?
>The only real fix is [...] socialism
And that would be a first, because no one has tried "real socialism"(tm) before, right?
This time around it will work! You just wait and see!
I recommend looking at your motives. Thinking that people who disagree with you politically want nothing else than other people to suffer, while being unfair and inaccurate, probably betrays your own desires.
Neither party is interested in governing - have you seen the border right now? The out of control spending?
Instead we have a crusade against the number of Doritos in a bag https://news.yahoo.com/elizabeth-warrens-shrinkflation-rant-...
The poor state of democracy in the US is not a one-party problem, it's a two-party problem. My proof is the fact that each party holds almost exactly 50% of the mindshare of the US. As far as I can tell, this was achieved through gerrymandering, one party automatically and consistency taking the opposite view of a contentious issue the moment the other adopts any particular stance, and backroom deals among congress and senate members ("You support my bill for X," spin it to your constituents as good for them, and I'll do the same for your bill Y.")
Neither party wins elections based on which candidates are more suited to the job, they win based on who can out-trash-talk the other side. If this was not true, negative campaign ads would not be the main form of advertising during election season.
I predict that if one of the parties fails and dissolves due to severe missteps, there will be a period of severe democratic instability, followed by a split of the surviving party into two major factions, each of which settles out at around exactly 50% of voter mindshare again.
> I predict that if one of the parties fails and dissolves due to severe missteps, there will be a period of severe democratic instability, followed by a split of the surviving party into two major factions, each of which settles out at around exactly 50% of voter mindshare again.
I actually see this too. The Republican party is on the verge of collapse not because of anything Democrats have done, but because of what Trump has done to the Republican party apparatus. He's redirecting all funds to his legal bills instead of electing candidates. He's causing them to lose in red districts because of abortion by previously unseen margins. He's telling everyone that voting is fraudulent so Republicans aren't voting.
I mean, Trump has never been the head of a non fraudulent, successful company in his entire life. Why would we not expect him to similarly destroy the RNC?
So if the Democrats are left standing, I see them cleaving in two, with one half being the Biden/Manchin/Romney axis. The other party would be more like the Warren/AOC/Bernie axis. MAGA types would be left in the political wilderness.
I would actually be fine with either of those parties in power.
Me too. At least we'd have people on the playing field who agree to the fundamental rules of democracy. Rules like "when you lose an election, you concede and transfer power."
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I'm happy this reversal occurred, but I am exhausted by the continuous flip-flopping of legislation depending on which party is in charge. Feels like we're stagnating as a nation by going in a circle rather than finding commonality to go forward.
Maybe it's always been this way though and I'm just getting old enough to be bothered by it?
It's partly what happens when such important rules are determined by who is appointed at an executive agency, rather than requiring an act of Congress. The former can be trivially gamed by the party in power after each election, whereas getting Congress to take action on something can be difficult and requires you to first get them motivated to do so at a given moment.
This is the tyranny of minority rule. When congress is not representative of the electorate and the minority doesn’t have to compromise to get things done to gain political favor and power, nothing gets done.
Exactly, we never voted any of the people making these decisions into office, they didn’t have to campaign or explain their policies to the public. Having a layer in between these regulators and the public (the politicians who appoint them) removes power from the common people.
I'd flip it and say its what happens when Congress has been dysfunctional for over a decade. It's not even possible to get a house bill with net neutrality passed without it included 99 other things that will inevitably get the bill punted on forever.
Congress could have drafted this anytime if they had seen fit, but they are "too busy" fighting ideology wars.
To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
The reality is, they just don't care about net neutrality. I'm still mad that they haven't passed the bill that gets rid of DST (or rather, gets rid of standard time). Everyone wants it in both parties. Just get it done.
Even more annoying is the whole Section 174 debacle. Completely killing the field of software engineering in the US.
“Congress avoided two government shutdowns” is like saying “I avoided pooping in my pants twice today.” It’s factually true and objectively a positive thing, but there’s nothing really commendable about it.
The debt ceiling is Congress’s own creation, and Congress itself approves the budgets that cause the increase in debt. There isn’t another parliament on the planet that behaves so absurdly, fighting shadow puppets set up by itself.
There are plenty of countries with legal debt ceilings, some of them even in the constitution. That said, I'll grant you that I don't know of any that behave so absurdly about it. The trick is to stay clear very far from the limit, which is something that recent US governments are simply unwilling to do.
There are plenty of dysfunctional/autocratic/kleptocratic governments based on constitutions that are somewhat democratic in nature. The US is just a high profile example of government structure slowly sliding into one of these failed states (faster if Trump gets another term).
> (faster if Trump gets another term).
I didn't keep track and don't have a good list, but a guess is that Trump did push through a lot of regulatory changes. If the media would publish a well documented list ...!!
From all I've seen, I like Trump, but apparently a lot of people don't. I wonder where am I going wrong.
Why do some people not like him? A guess is the now old collection of video clips from the MSM (mainstream media) still at
https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908
Sooo, recently I watched several videos (still at YouTube) of episodes of Trump's old TV show The Apprentice. (1) From the business world I've seen, this guy was definitely, uh, different! In a way, tough to criticize since apparently he was very successful. (2) A surprise was the propensity of mess ups, in fighting of the apparently carefully selected candidates. When I think back, yup, I did see a lot of that but guessed it was incidental and would go away and wasn't too bad -- I was wrong, and Trump's TV show was closer to right. How Trump handled (2) was good to see, although maybe some of it was just "TV".
Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior.
But I don't know if the statement you quoted is correct either. Trump isn't the politician who has people tracking their stock trades because they so consistently outperform the market (that would be legislators, including Democrats, who trade on insider information, but face no consequences because the arbiters of such judgment are... themselves). Unfortunately, I'm not sure that even a second Biden term will save us.
> Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior.
This is the first I've heard of her. So, just did a Google search on her: She has written a lot of stories for the "news" on a lot of subjects. Maybe ~10% of the stories are about Trump.
There were some lists of story titles with URLs, but the URLs didn't point to the stories -- apparently were old and now broken.
Her stories on Trump I could find didn't seem like they were on important issues. Then I saw her story on the "Russia" issue. Sorry, I long ago concluded that Trump did nothing wrong and, instead, the whole Russia Gate issue was a cooked up, made up, pile of nonsense trying to get Trump.
If you'd actually read her long-form work (specifically, her books Hiding In Plain Sight and They Knew)... Humor her for the length of those, then see how you feel.
Her thesis is that "Russiagate" wasn't cooked up; that Trump is, in fact, simply an agent of a class of wealthy oligarchs who don't have loyalty to anything but their own money; that people are drawn to him because their correct instincts about the dysfunction in DC are being misdirected to him as a savior, in a way that is identical to the way autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem have been put into power in the past in other countries.
Give her work a chance. If you come out of it still supporting Trump, then I suppose you've made the right decision. But see why she's come to her conclusions first; I personally think that they're compelling. Otherwise, it's kind of weird to disagree with an argument you don't even understand.
> Her thesis is that "Russiagate" wasn't cooked up;
...
> weird to disagree with an argument you don't even understand.
To me, from all I have seen, the "cooked up" part was real and well documented. If not cooked up, then some of the media did a really big trick on me, after trying at first to do the big trick of trying to convince me that Russia Gate was real. Peeing in the bed with women in a Moscow hotel??? Naw.
> in a way that is identical to the way autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem have been put into power in the past in other countries.
Hmm .... Tough to take that very seriously when I disagree with the not cooked up assumption. But, interesting, fits some of what is easy to see about Trump: He is a strong personality. He is rich and powerful. He is not, "leading from behind", waiting until the polls says he should take action X but, instead, looking at X well in advance and making decisions then -- so, e.g., he is not merely representing the voters but is charging in some directions he likes and, if not a nuts strongman, competently thinks will be good for the US and that voters will like.
It's a judgment each US citizen has to make: Is he nuts???? For an answer, that's part of why I watched some of his TV series The Apprentice.
From some that's easy to see about him, even if he is nuts, he works hard to appear not to be and, instead, to take actions to appear to be sympathetic, empathetic, generous, etc. with people in need. E.g., in The Apprentice he flew the Rhodes Scholar candidate down to Pennsylvania for a family funeral. That said, maybe working for him could be tough, need 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, and a quart of sweat an hour.
And as voters, we can see that we have to be careful, i.e., once a POTUS is in office, super tough to get him out, no matter what the heck he does.
But for Trump, we do have 4 years of his time as POTUS. There I didn't see a nut case. It looked like in business he was a darned good CEO and as POTUS was the same as it can be appropriate for a POTUS instead of a CEO to be.
We will see in November and, then, likely again, starting in 2025.
Thanks for the book review: "autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem"??? Naw.... Watched him for 4 years, Naw.
No one's arguing that Trump isn't forceful. It's to what end. The "kleptomanic" part is important, exemplified publicly (at the very least) by the way he changed the tax code to advantage wealthy individuals and businesses, while middle class and working class Americans have seen their tax bills rise. (Again, Biden is not so good on this either, as he didn't repeal Trump's changes).
Of course, the books go into more detail. Unfortunately, if you don't read them, your opinion that the issue was "cooked up" remains baseless and bereft of value. :)
> From all I've seen, I like Trump, but apparently a lot of people don't. I wonder where am I going wrong.
Are you being sarcastic? Did you miss the part where he waged an attempted coup against the US government to remain in power?
I mean... he was just found by a court to have committed rape. You don't see why people don't like him? Be for real.
> Are you being sarcastic? Did you miss the part where he waged an attempted coup against the US government to remain in power?
I never understood that: I watched his speech. All I saw looked reasonable, appropriate, prudent. It seemed he was careful to advise no violence. That there was an "attempted coup" makes no sense to me. I watched his speech and saw nothing wrong.
> I mean... he was just found by a court to have committed rape.
I didn't and don't see that.
But, if what you say is correct, then that would explain why some people don't like him.
From your post, it looks like there is some deep bitterness about Trump. I don't see why, but okay. For one explanation there is that old collection of media video clips
https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908
Apparently the media was totally convinced that those clips would doom Trump; maybe those clips are why some people don't like him.
Watch the clips -- if anything, by now they are entertaining! They have much of the largest of the MSM (mainstream media) doing a big gang up, pile on of "bombshell", "done, no question about that", etc. that never happened.
Maybe in low level town and city politics nearly everyone interested in politics at all has some really strong reasons to like the Democrat Party. If my startup works, maybe I'll discover that the local Democrats will do good things for me but the Republicans won't. Hmm.
I watched your video -- it's media personalities babbling.
You should probably inform yourself about the coup, the speech wasn't it. Here is some actual info to start:
The J6 commission report: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6...
The Federal indictments: https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/trump-i...
The Georgia indictments: https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/CRIMINA...
The Arizona indictments: https://mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f8b1e352e206/files/fa...
The finding of rape: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.59...
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ... Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
> I watched your video -- it's media personalities babbling.
Yup, but maybe it and related media stuff is responsible for much of the anti-Trump opinions there are. I thought the collection was outrageous, insulting, and dirty politics but settled on it being entertaining.
> rape
A NY jury found Trump guilty of WHAT with his fingers?
If Trump entered Carroll's dressing room, she was supposed to scream loudly enough to blow the roof off the store. Every girl over the age of 12, 9, ..., 5 knows this.
I just looked quickly via Google and found:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-car...
with
"Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse."
and the article quotes some judge saying that the act really was rape. Hmm. If we are going by a jury trial, then it's "sexual abuse". If we are not going by a jury trial, then it's made up, cooked up, porn star and Democrat Party political dirt to "get Trump" -- Trump with a "porn star". Naa .... While married to Melania??? Naa!! While planning to run for POTUS, take a risk of being extorted??? Whatever Trump is, he's NOT bonkers, brain-dead stupid. Besides, in US culture, what happens between a male and female alone is unknowable, and that's why US females over the age of 12, 9, ..., 5 are strongly advised never to be alone with a male. So, likely we can never know for sure about such things.
As I recall, there is a document signed by Carroll that no rape ever happened.
Uh, maybe Trump was guilty of the bad judgment of being in the women's department of a high end NYC department store ....
Or, maybe it's about "defamation" of a porn star?
Maybe it's about getting $130,000 to keep quiet.
> Arizona
Seems to have to do with Kelli Ward and nothing directly with Trump. As I recall, Ward has been fighting in Arizona.
> Georgia
I would trust any homeless person in a plastic shelter on a street in NYC more than the Georgia legal system.
> J6
Maybe some day we will have access to and an objective review of all the actions of and evidence presented to the J6 committee. (A) From watching Trump's J6 speech, I don't believe he did anything wrong on J6 -- he didn't even have an opportunity to do anything wrong. (B) The J6 committee looked like a kangaroo court, not at all objective, just to sow doubt about Trump. It was not a real court and was just a committee of Congress, and apparently they are permitted to do whatever they want. So, they wanted to dump on Trump -- we can believe that.
> Federal
That's a bunch of DC stuff saying that, yes, Trump has rights, e.g., 1st rights, but still from his words within those rights did something illegal. Nonsense. On troops for J6, there are claims that (a) that decision is up to the Speaker, Pelosi, (b) within plenty of time Trump offered a big force from the military, (c) the Mayor of DC also turned down both Trump and the DC Chief of Police. Besides, what I saw of J6 was (a) US citizens legally petitioning Congress for redress of grievances, (b) some guy in a Buffalo costume, (c) a police officer assuming his "tactical stance" and killing some citizen for no good reason, (d) some small fraction of the people misbehaving in ways that should get them arrested.
As I saw the 2020 election, in some of the "swing states" (a) the local Democrats had a long standing, non-trivial, and effective machine to create votes, at least as mail-in ballots, as necessary and, in a close election, sufficient and (b) the state governments declined to exercise their authorities to investigate the situation. Sounds like machine politics.
> A NY jury found Trump guilty of WHAT with his fingers?
Rape. I linked to the court's opinion stating this. What the judge makes clear is that "rape" as a matter of law in NY is with a penis only. That Trump raped was with his fingers does not make his rape any less rape.
York applies only to vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the vagina or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called “rape” under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled “sexual abuse.”Do I need to make this more clear? Putting a part of your body into another person's body without their consent is rape. A court found Trump did that, and now people don't want him to be president for that among other reasons. Not hard to understand.
> maybe Trump was guilty of the bad judgment
No. The jury found he's guilty of rape, not bad judgment. Trump is a rapist.
> Seems to have to do with Kelli Ward and nothing directly with Trump
Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment, so it relates directly to him. The acts under indictment are the various frauds the defendants underwent in service of Trump's coup plot. They are also Trump campaign surrogates. This is another reason people don't like Trump -- he surrounds himself with people willing to commit crimes, and asks people to commit crimes for him.
> I would trust any homeless person
You don't have to Trust the legal system, you have to trust Georgia's Republican SoS and Republican Governor, who felt so pressured by Trump to overturn the election that they started recording and leaking calls with him doing exactly that. Another reason people don't like him.
> he didn't even have an opportunity to do anything wrong. (B) The J6 committee looked like a kangaroo court, not at all objective, just to sow doubt about Trump.
See, this is how I know you didn't read any of the information I linked to nor did you watch the hearings. Because if your had you would know the speech was not the coup. That you keep trying to deflect to it shows me you didn't even consider the vast array of evidence laid out by the committee. They show the effort that went on months beforehand which culminated in the J6 insurrection was the coup attempt.
> Besides, what I saw of J6 was...
This has been litigated in court for years. The opportunity to petition was prior to December 14, the date states certify their elections. Trump, appropriately, brought 60+ challenges in court and lost all but 1 due to lack of evidence. Since then, he has not brought any proof of fraud. He had none at the time, and after plenty of forensic audits in the intervening years, fraud at the alleged scale has not been found in any of the disputed states.
So it was all a lie at the time, and we know that now. By Dec 14, since Trump did not have that evidence, he should have dropped his challenge.
> As I saw the 2020 election, in some of the "swing states" (a) the local Democrats had a long standing, non-trivial, and effective machine to create votes
This is not what happened at all. What really happened was that many states had affected CVOID emergency measures to allow people to vote by mail who wouldn't usually have permission to. In my state, PA, it was Republicans who passed a measure allowing no excuse ballot access in 2019.
But either way, state governments have not in any way declined to exercise their authorities to investigate the situation. All elections have been audited several times by now with no anomalies on the scale alleged detected. Nevada results were even opened up to a third party, the Cyber Ninjas, who were a right wing group intent on proving that some ballots came from China by examining the paper they were printed on. They found nothing. Actually what they found through their audit was Biden had more votes on their recount.
Anyway, it seems you have a very cursory and surface-level understanding of these matters and of US politics generally. I linked you those sources so that you would read them, in the hope that you would become more informed. Since you can't discuss these topics past your casual observations, I would suggest just read some actual primary sources before instead of spending hundreds of words replying to me with confident ignorance.
I'm still trying to evaluate Trump and understand the anti-Trump people.
Thanks for your references and remarks.
Okay, from some of the news, I concluded that the J6 issues were from what Trump did on J6 and some role for him in the disturbance that day at the Capitol building. But your claim is that, instead, the issue is about some things Trump did in 11/5/2020 to 1/6/2021 as claimed by the J6 committee and that constitute an attempted "coup". (A) I can't trust the J6 committee even for the time of day. (B) If Trump did something illegal (jay walking doesn't count) in 11/5/2020 to 1/6/2021, then we should have some actual credible legal actions instead of just the J6 committee of Congress. (C) Just from common sense, tough for me to believe that Trump intended anything like a "coup", but is dreaming of a "coup" itself actually illegal?
Trump may have strongly suspected that (a) he actually won the the 2020 election, (b) the election was stolen by illegal means, and (c) he wanted to defend himself. Sounds reasonable, okay, and not surprising or at all illegal. He has a right to defend himself? Right?
For the DC lawsuit, the PDF file seems to make clear that (A) Trump said some things that were well within his rights of freedom of speech but (B) as in the first actual charge in the PDF, Trump was still being charged with some consequences of that free speech? Looks like law-fare.
For Carroll, if Trump did something she didn't like, she should have, was supposed to, scream in which case there would be lots of objective, credible witnesses from that department store.
As I understand the legal results, Trump was convicted of "sexual abuse". Inserting fingers, sure, would be a case of sexual abuse, but just breast fondling may also be. All we have from the jury is "sexual abuse" and that's not necessarily "rape". That Trump is a convicted rapist seems to have poor support; seems to be false.
Also a porn star who did not scream is not credible; that is, if not consensual, then scream. That Trump, married, running for POTUS, and not stupid did anything wrong with Carroll is not credible.
NY AG Letitia James, out to "get Trump", and Judge Engoron and his 1/2 $billion fine are not credible and instead, just obvious via common sense, look like Democrat Party law-fare. Trump's loan application had a disclaimer, and the loan companies are all happy. The area in square feet of part of Trump Tower or the value of Mar-a-Lago seem irrelevant; claiming that those two are relevant looks like more law-fare.
(A) NY DA Bragg's many felony charges based on some goofy issue about some tiny accounting issue past statute of limitations and some goofy accusation about Federal campaign law and (B) Judge Juan Merchan and his efforts to keep Trump in court and quiet look like kangaroo court, election interference law-fare.
In Georgia, Fulton DA Fani Willis and her boyfriend got, what, $600,000 reasons to go after Trump? Looks like more Democrat Party law-fare.
There is a pattern here: Democrat Party law-fare against Trump.
Sorry, so far I don't see anything seriously wrong with Trump and don't understand the anti-Trump people.
We will have to agree to disagree and look forward to the election.
This rape stuff makes no sense: Before seeing your quote, I saw it myself when I looked at the PDF, and it sounds like Trump was convicted of finger rape. But then there is the statement I referenced:
"Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse."
So, sounds like the jury didn't say "rape", with either penis or fingers and only "sexual abuse".
Finally, the whole Carroll thing, I don't believe it -- Trump is not that stupid. What I believe is the $130,000.
For Georgia, sure, in principle and thankfully, it is up to the Georgia Secretary of State and the Governor, in principle. But it sure looks like that hate Trump prosecutor and her boyfriend are 99% of the reality there.
For the Arizona case, right, there are the charges that somehow near the end of his term, he went around the country doing something illegal complaining about the integrity of the election. So, he went around complaining. And maybe he had some coffee with Kelli. That should be no crime. And, with the Judge Merchant and Bragg case, there is a lot of lawfare going on. Trump did something illegal in Arizona???? Naw.
Again, the J6 committee was 99 44/100% Democrat propaganda.
The recounts, etc. -- if it was just counting again some crooked ballots, then that doesn't mean anything. The Chinese paper thing, then the changes for Covid thing, all looks like maybe something valid. I saw more accusations, e.g., trucks of fake mail-in ballots arriving late at night, but the information is too thin to take seriously. So, if there was cheating, I don't know how it was done.
Maybe the bottom line is "Politics is dirty business" and differs mostly only in how dirty. At this point, with the lawfare, the Democrats look like the dirty ones and look especially dirty since 2020.
Thanks for your materials. Apparently you believe those materials mean more than I do, but maybe they mean something.
For the 50:1 case outcome, looks like NO ONE in power wanted to open that possible Pandora's Box.
With the current lawfare Florida to Maine, it looks like the Democrats are going after Trump any way they can. That makes the legal cases you referenced questionable. The Democrats have a lot of power and money, and they can file lots of lawfare cases, and it looks like that's what they have been doing. I expect that some judges will retire, some higher courts will jump in and hose out the crap, some lawyers will be disbarred, and Trump will win all the cases. Why? In the lawfare, the main goal is not to convict Trump but just to tie him up in court, cost him a lot of time, money, and energy, sow doubt among some voters, and keep him off the campaign trail until 11/5/2024. The Democrats are calling the fire trucks. For that there doesn't have to be a fire or even smoke, and there isn't.
For 2024, Trump promises to have enough lawyers, poll watchers, etc. to have high election integrity. Maybe we will get some more information on how the Democrats try to cheat.
Look, there is something in this whole mud wrestling ring more certain and wrong than any of the actual legal accusations against Trump -- the Democrat's lawfare attack on Trump.
I was glad to get your references -- the DC one is a riot, a scream: As the PDF explains, he was fully within his rights to object to the 2020 election BUUUUUT: They are going to charge him anyway with, what, confusing the politics, the public????? Gads. That's not even up to the kangaroo level.
There is nothing to stop the Democrats from executing lawfare, but we don't have to grant that the objections are valid or that Trump did anything wrong. The Bragg case is a new low in the US justice system. Same for the 1/2 $billion fine.
As sometimes said in courts, there is a "pattern" here.
Actually, Trump is not even accused of doing anything seriously wrong.
Good to see, I'm not making a serious error in judgment liking Trump.
Thanks.
So much cope. It doesn’t matter what you believe. You didn’t hear the evidence. You didn’t sit through the trial. You have no idea what you are talking about to the point you can’t interpret the NY law, the jury instruction, the verdict, and the judge’s ruling.
Sorry but it’s your critical thinking that’s impaired here.
This is a nation of laws, and under the law, Trump is a rapist. If you refuse to admit finger rape is rape, which it is, then you at least have to admit that Trump was found guilty under NY law of sexual abuse. Are you saying sexual abuse is not seriously wrong?
If you think you have good judgement for supporting a convicted sexual abuser, well, good luck to you dying on that hill.
Have a nice life.
PS: you seem like the kind of person who needs to have the last word so I’ll let you have it. But you should answer this: so you don’t trust the judicial system, and you don’t trust democrats. Fine. But why then is his former VP not endorsing him? He’s not a leftist liberal out to get Trump. He’s ride or die Trump. And yet he’s not endorsing, and had this to say:
This is what Pence said about Trump. Why is he saying that? What does he mean when he says that he feels Trump put himself ahead of the constitution and asked others to violate it?Is your opinion of Trump as well informed as his?
> They have avoided 2 government shutdowns
You mean they passed a bill that was necessary for them to get their paychecks. I fail to see how this is even remotely surprising.
I think their congressional salary is probably not where most members of Congress are deriving their main income. I think the paychecks their 'other' employers are cutting are more lucrative.
It’s true but “keep the government from grinding to a halt due to pure inaction” is kind of the absolute minimum bar for congress that I don’t think it’s reasonable to call it a win.
And it only grinds to a halt because of rules they created.
The US trialed permanent DST in 1974. In the first 3 months, public support dropped from 79% to 42%. It was ended prematurely. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_...
Of course, there's no difference between permanent DST and abolishing DST but having everyone agree to shift their schedules forward by 1 hour. So abolishing DST altogether isn't really a better option.
I used to think DST was stupid. Now I think it's actually the best we can do.
People aren’t going to shift an hour. When I’ve argued this with friends it seems to idea is wholly incomprehensible.
Standard time is what we should be on. Anything else makes it way too cold for kids in the morning in the winter, it’s better for our sleep cycles (especially teenagers), and it just makes sense as far as the sun’s position. If you want to go into work an hour early so the “sun is still up when I go home at night,” feel free.
The linked Wikipedia page about the 1974 experiment says "some schools moved their start times later" in response. I agree that trying to get the entire population to shift everything on their schedules at the same time would be inconsistent at best. But many institutions would adjust to the seasons as they see fit. And you want to minimize the inconsistencies; people would pick different cutoffs, different shift amounts, etc. That's the whole point of why it was regulated in the first place.
And DST is demonstrably good during the summer. It lowers crime and improves mood and productivity. It's just not good in the winter, because people in northern latitudes wake up in the cold and dark. It kinda does make sense to have seasonal shifting.
So, unfortunately, the best solution in my opinion is in fact to just lie to ourselves about what time it is for half the year. AKA Daylight Saving.
It could be much worse and end up with a system with smaller timezones with 30 minute offsets instead of DST. Or a single timezone for the continental US.
DST is annoying but it's far from the worst.
> They have avoided 2 government shutdowns.
My what a low bar
"They didn't trip on their own feet"
> Even more annoying is the whole Section 174 debacle. Completely killing the field of software engineering in the US.
Elaborate?
all expenses, in theory, incurred in connection with software development must now be amortized. Many technology and software companies will face significant increases in their taxable income because they are no longer allowed to deduct certain expenses
https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/tax-and-accountin...
> To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
The euphemization in this subthread is a bit out of control. In fact these are 100% partisan issues. The "pro shutdown" and "anti aid/infrastructure" camps who had been blocking progress are uniformly sitting on one side of the aisle, and the progress you are celebrating happened when their party split under duress and aligned with the other side briefly.
That's not "congress" doing some work. That's a "pro work" and "anti work" partisan argument whose answer flips due to intra-GOP drama.
>To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
That's just three different ways of saying, "Wrote checks to fill the pockets of monied interests, the bill for which will be paid for by the generations which explicitly oppose such policy."
Talk to me when they pass Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, campaign finance reform, and a border/immigration bill that finally puts that issue to rest. Until then, it's just another round of avoiding addressing the issues that are easiest to run on if they haven't been fixed in a prior term.
>Talk to me when they pass Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, campaign finance reform, and a border/immigration bill that finally puts that issue to rest. Until then, it's just another round of avoiding addressing the issues that are easiest to run on if they haven't been fixed in a prior term.
You do realize that half (and maybe a little more than that) of the elected folks in Congress do not support such things. That those folks represent less than half of the electorate is a different discussion -- but until you have clear majorities that support those initiatives (I and those I voted for certainly do), clamoring for everything all at once is a waste of time.
The idea that "I'm not getting everything I want right now means that government is irreparably broken," is ridiculous on its face.
That's not to say we shouldn't have better governance and more focus on making the world a better place rather than maintaining power. We definitely should. But asserting that unless all our elected representatives support our own beliefs/policy ideas and pass them post-haste is both unhelpful and not very realistic.
>The idea that "I'm not getting everything I want right now means that government is irreparably broken," is ridiculous on its face.
It's weird that you would put those words in my mouth when the actual reason for the dysfunction
>That those folks represent less than half of the electorate
is readily apparent to you.
The point is that Congress is terminally dysfunctional. Avoiding shutdowns and passing grift doesn't change that. I don't want to hear all the reasons why things can't be done (perhaps the most unhelpful thing to do). I just want them done. And I have every right to be pissed abot the state of things until that happens.
> They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Aaaannnndd?... You're just going to leave out the banning of TikTok while claiming a victory for sending my money to other nations for wars I do not want to fund?
And another thing </Andy Rooney>, government shutdowns are problems created ENTIRELY BY CONGRESS for never operating under a proper budget since 1997. All they're doing is fighting each other over a massive shell game of sending the right amounts of money to their donors' interests to guarantee reelection.
"Infrastructure projects" is just another term for crony capitalism. Just look at funding for telcos to build out infra, or EV charging stations, or solar panels, or anything else they fund as "infrastructure." It's always just a massive kickback scheme, and nothing gets built.
They're doing work alright, just not any that I want. Our system is nakedly and brazenly corrupt, and we don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
>"Infrastructure projects" is just another term for crony capitalism. Just look at funding for telcos to build out infra, or EV charging stations, or solar panels, or anything else they fund as "infrastructure." It's always just a massive kickback scheme, and nothing gets built.
This is the most baffling one. Everyone seems to forget that they also failed to pass the bill that contained the provisions that most working and middle-class Americans wanted. I've had multiple conversations where the counterargument was, "Well, at least they got part of it passed." No, that's actually worse. We got all of the expensive giveaways without any of the mitigating funding and policies. We literally would have been better off if nothing had passed.
> we don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
I thought that, with our democratic structures, it would be really easy "to do" a lot about it, but you seem right:
I don't get it and have been guessing that
> It's always just a massive kickback scheme,
is correct.
A first problem is some basic vote counting: A politician does something, e.g., a "kickback scheme", that pleases < 10% of the voters by essentially stealing from > 90% of the voters. Soooo, at the next election, the politician should lose by at least 9 to 1, but apparently not and I'm wrong and the politician, correct?
Uh, maybe the politician partitions the voters into 10 parts, has 10 schemes, and for each of the 10 steals from the other 9 to please the one, and everyone is happy even though everyone gets stolen from 10 times?
My guess was, if a good majority, 80%, maybe as low as 55%, of the voters would write their Members of Congress objecting to the scheme, then Congress would STOP it, in a few minutes. But, nope. Apparently tough to get > 20%, maybe > 5%, of the voters to write their Members of Congress about even a "brazen" scheme.
In simple terms, Congress is awash in powers, e.g., that massive one, "power of the purse". So, I have to believe that in any 10 minutes, Congress could have gasoline under $2 a gallon and falling, but Congress declines to do that.
The blame is the media that wants eyeballs for ad revenue and, thus, creates divisions, grabs people emotionally, avoids exposing the schemes??? Or the voters are "apathetic"??
Politics is goofy, inscrutable, and the media is right? Uh, ABC, CBS, CNN, ... WaPo are short on money so are not really "right"?
Back to something that makes sense.
While I agree Congress is quite dysfunctional, the sheer difficulty with which to get a bill written, passed, and signed into law is by design. Legislation is supposed to take a large amount of deliberation, agreement, and time.
Also consider that this works both ways: If something is passed into law by Congress, it's going to take monumental effort to undo it just like getting it passed was. An example of this is Obamacare, where getting it passed was difficult and revoking it has been difficult.
Likewise, the flippant nature of orders authorized by the Executive Branch is also by design. Such orders are meant primarily to address short-term concerns requiring immediate or expedient attention, not long-term concerns that require thorough deliberation.
> the sheer difficulty with which to get a bill written, passed, and signed into law is by design
No, the 118th Congress was not how anything was designed to operate. This is hand waving mixed with Founding Father fairytales.
> Congress could have drafted this anytime if they had seen fit,
Congress as a whole does not support net neutrality, and the reason they have not drafted a simple house bill to do it that doesn't include 99 other things is because they had no desire to. It has nothing to do with "ideology wars."
Have no desire because they've been bribed, I mean lobbied.
because nobody wants single subject bills, it would semi make them accountable.. remind me, who in congress is for single subject bills, who is against? (and its very few individuals FOR, so not super hard)
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There are de-facto one party systems in many cities, counties, and some states. They all suffer from getting nothing done. “Both sides” is a legitimate observation by those who recognize politics as upper class nobility vs the peasants. They run in the same social circles. We’re still primates at our core.
And when the House Speaker won’t even let it get to a vote in the first place, no one has any motivation to even draft such a bill. But yeah let’s ban TikTok because in theory they could do something bad that every US-based company already does. Way to represent the will of the people, House.
Congress was destined to this fate when they eliminated earmarks. Earmarks, or pork barrel spending, were derided as gov't waste, but in reality they were the grease that kept legislation moving. A representative could go back to their voters and say, "I voted for this thing you might not like, but I did it to ensure this crucial local project got done."
Without earmarks there is no incentive to compromise. Compromise is actually a liability now, because there is always someone who will challenge you in a primary and promise to be more "ideologically pure." Without the ability to point to money and public works to defend yourself both during a primary and an election the best you can do is point to a record without compromise.
Earmarks are back. They were against the House's rules for 10 years, but the 117th Congress started allowing them again in 2021.
And the past three years have seen the return of friendliness and comity unseen for a decade /s
Not wanting to compromise comes largely from the two-party system. If a politician had to worry about losing votes to a more moderate party, they'd end up with less extreme voting records.
Multi-party governments function largely because some subset of the parties agrees to compromises to gain a combined majority on a specific topic; none of them can do anything in isolation.
You're absolutely right IMO. When there is no reason to compromise and compromise can only hurt you, no one compromises and nothing gets done. Earmarks shift those incentives in the right direction, and their cost is a small price to pay to have a government that governs.
There are still bill riders on many congressional votes. I don't think this is true (regarding elimination of earmarks)
I think the results are mixed and the lessons aren’t clear to me.
Perhaps earmarks were the result of an electorate that wanted more purity in decision-making (at the cost of stability). In other words, earmarks didn’t break cooperation. Corrupted cooperation led to the end of earmarks.
Earmarks probably do grease the wheels, but it’s important to remember a step existed before the compromise: a member of the congress could hold out until they received something, often unrelated to the matter at hand. That is wasteful and, to some, dishonest.
Now, did a removal earmarking result in more financial efficiency? Surely not. The budget deficit continued to grow, mostly because of Obamacare, Covid, wars, tax cuts.
So what of compromise? One might think compromise is dead, and yet we live in a world where Ukraine aid is tied to social media ownership.
Shruggy dude.
The supreme court has a long history of overturning its rulings years, or decades, later
https://constitution.congress.gov/resources/decisions-overru...
An implicit assumption of the American political order is that a body that makes policy also has the ability to unmake that policy. I think that's good because otherwise there would be a land rush to create policies that are irreversible or have a higher bar for reversal than enactment. These policies would inevitably become out of date and reversing them could be politically impossible.
The big exception to this was the drafting of the Constitution itself, which arguably was easier to ratify than it is to amend. The problem of the practical impossibility of undoing past policies applies very much here.
The Constitution was very difficult to get ratified. For one thing, it was recognized that it had to be unanimous. Don't forget it was replacing an existing political order of the Continental Congress + state governments.
Its always been this way, but the internet sure has amplified the effect of Edward Bernay’s theories. So much free PR copy is created on your behalf by your army of sheep active on the internet. Used to be that stuff was put on car windshield wipers and promptly thrown away, now people are engaging with it online now that there’s a mechanism to talk back to it.
Unfortunately, if you have a contentious issue which is decided by fiat of one of the sides being in power and not by mutual compromise, there's no reason for the other side, coming in power, to not change it back. Since, fortunately, we still have a functioning democracy in the US, the sides in power change. Since, unfortunately, there seems to be not enough will to reach a workable compromise satisfactory to both sides, flip-flopping will likely continue in the foreseeable future, until either societal consensus moves firmly on one side of the issue to the point that makes other side's position untenable, or some mutually agreeable compromise emerges.
> Unfortunately, if you have a contentious issue
At it's core, it is a technical issue - primarily network management. Under NN framework, ISPs would adhere to minimal straightforward rules that would disallowed them from prioritizing, throttling, capping, purposefully degrading, etc wireline networks. For most of 2 decades, this is where NN lived.
In apparent response to NN becoming reality, ISP funded representatives began echoing the talking points of ISP lobbyist groups and contention was born.
I don't think it's a technical issue. The implementation is technical, but the implications are societal. Is the state allowed to restrict ISPs from certain forms of network management? How far the governmental control over ISP actions can go? Does such restriction benefit the society? I'm sure a lot of people have opinions on these questions, but it's not a technical issue and not one that has an obvious correct solution. It's not like "is quicksort better than bubble sort" (even that is not 100% clear cut but let's not get into the weeds) where you can make mathematical arguments and tests to establish the conclusion. It's a matter of values and policies, and as such, it's bound to produce disagreement. I don't think it's also useful to frame it as "it all worked super awesome and then greedy capitalists stole it from us by their dirty tricks". It's usually not how it works and it's not what happened in this case.
We are flipfloppimg because the legislature is paralysed, so only the executive can function.
This is a fundamental issue with the American form of government. Parliamentary systems which have the executive made up of members of the legislature have way less flip-flopping, finger-pointing, and paralysis.
The governments they produce are more reflective of current public sentiment, end up with more than two parties, and are thus less stable. Minority rule and coalition rule is very common... which actively forces either compromise, or a new election.
This "paralyzed" legislature just passed, by large margins, a large amount of foreign aid and a very significant provision on a popular social media platform.
Before that it spent billions of dollars on covid aid.
Throughout that time it has appropriated billions of dollars to keep the government running.
This "paralyzed" narrative is something the press and politicians like to push because it serves their ends, though for different reasons. It's false.
> Throughout that time it has appropriated billions of dollars to keep the government running.
In no other country is it considered an accomplishment for a government to debate a budget, agree on it, pass it, spend it, and then three quarters of the way through the year refuse to pay for the spending it agreed on, manufacturing a crisis that sometimes gets resolved at the eleventh hour, and sometimes results in a multi-week disaster and government shutdown.
If a company had a department that ran that way, every single director and manager in it would be fired after the first time it happened. It has so far happened three times (Including once when the Republicans fully controlled congress), and has been threatened every year.
> three quarters of the way through the year refuse to pay for the spending it agreed on,
At no time did this happen.
That’s what the debt ceiling arguments are about: members of Congress don’t want to take the heat for actually canceling something so they don’t remove it from the budget but then refuse to pay without some kind of token win for their campaign ads. The real debt problem is that you either need to restore taxes to pre-Bush levels or cut popular programs, but there’s no way to do either of those without being willing to negotiate and that’s currently politically untenable for one of the major parties.
The two-party system in the US is equivalent to a multiparty coalition system, just with the coalitions negotiated before the election instead of after it.
It used to be the case that Congress actually passed laws. And pre-Chevron, the regulatory agencies actually constrained their rule making to be within the law, and so laws were more specific.
The problem started IMHO with Republican obstructionism under Clinton, but got out of control with Obama’s shift to using executive orders over legislation after the affordable care act nonsense. It’s definitely a both sides issue.
The Supreme Court is poised to decide a case this term, Loper Bright, which should help restore more finality to decisions like this.
Because agencies receive considerable deference to their interpretation of the law, even when that interpretation flip-flops every four years, we never get a definitive ruling on what the law says. The Court seems likely to greatly reduce this deference, leading to more consistency.
This would be an OK way of running things if we had a court with any legitimacy. Unfortunately partisanship has ruined any hope of that. (And actually, it would be better if laws could be interpretable by normal people without an SC case, but that would be too sensible).
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The overruling of Chevron is not about stripping power from federal agencies, it's about determining who should resolve ambiguities in regulations. Should it be the agency itself, or should it be the branch of government whose job it is to "say what the law is"?
That being said, I don't think Chevron deference has a part to play when it comes to Net Neutrality flip flopping all the time - these are not ambiguous regulations. In that sense I don't agree with the person you're replying to - Loper Bright won't help here. Now, if you want to say that the FCC doesn't have the authority to issue this rule, that's something that was always reviewable by the courts.
The concept that would actually attempt to strip power from agencies is the nondelegation doctrine. While I suspect that has support among a few justices, it would be a very radical change and there is no case on the horizon that I'm aware of that would be a vehicle to implement it.
Hard to see how reducing deference could lead to less consistency. You are literally commenting on a post about the FCC reinterpreting their authority to regulate internet broadband years after the lawsuits over the original Net Neutrality laws concluded.
If Loper Bright had been decided ten years ago we would already know today whether the FCC possessed this authority or not and it would be settled. Instead, we are about to embark on another round of litigation because the FCC just unsettled expectations again.
Case 1: agencies reinterpret the law ever four years in each new administration until the end of time.
Case 2: we figure out what the law means once and apply it going forward until Congress changes it again.
Case 1: Changing after clear notification is not ambiguous.
Case 2: Waiting until every single individual aspect of every single law is litigated means for years to decades the actual meaning is ambiguous until each court case finishes.
Perhaps it's getting worse, but it has always been this way to a degree. What few people seem to realize, is that while democracy and the separating of powers seem good in principle, they also have innately dysfunctional qualities to them. The more divided or opposed things are, the more dysfunction there is.
Hard problems are considered unsolvable by today's Congress (except for military funding bills), so they focus their energies on 'red meat' for the voting base (abortion resrictions, affirmative action), or for wealthy donors (tax cuts, SC nominations).
Your comment inspired me to make this: https://net-neutrality.vercel.app/
Proportional representation, multiple parties, and parliamentary system (no legislative executive divide) can fix this.
Proportional representation is a terrible idea, in that it entrenches the role of parties per se, but ranked-choice balloting in SMDs would be a massive improvement over the status quo.
Nope nope nope. Political parties are good. 2 incumbent political parties in a permanent grapple is what is bad. Politics is a "team sport", by which I don't mean it must a facile context practiced by west-wing-loving weirdos, but that is is a fundamentally collective effort.
Americans love to think political parties are inherently bad, but seriously when are mere individuals reliable? How the hell am I supposed to tell who all these down-ballet no-names are and what they actually believe in? Much of the rest of the democratic world functions fine with parties that are not all 150+ years old and ship-of-theseus-ed beyond recognition.
Nah, parties are bad. They perfectly exemplify the adage about people dedicated to the ostensible mission of the organization vs. those dedicated to the organization as an end it itself. With formalized parties, we often see the strategic concerns of the party as an organization eclipse any coherent policy goals that are the ostensible reason for the party existing in the first place.
Multi-party in particular democracy has some significant pitfalls, including the tendency of marginal and extremist parties to play kingmaker. The historian Hannah Arendt made some salient points about how the multi-party structure of Weimar Germany contributed directly to the radicalization and eventual total control of the state by the Nazis.
Politics will always involve factions forming around shared interests or values, but in a situation without those factions being calcified into formal organizations, or even identities, we'd expect them to be much more fluid and ephemeral, and for politicians to be much more willing to reach across ideological divides without worrying about institutional discipline or being ostracized by the party establishment regardless of their constituents' opinions.
Ranked-choice balloting wouldn't eliminate parties per se, but it would reduce their influence in the electoral process significantly.
> How the hell am I supposed to tell who all these down-ballet no-names are and what they actually believe in?
I'd expect a reasonable voter to investigate the actual candidates on the ballot and make an informed choice, and not merely rely on party affiliation as the only criterion for casting a vote.
> They perfectly exemplify the adage about people dedicated to the ostensible mission of the organization vs. those dedicated to the organization as an end it itself.
The same argument cuts both ways. Individuals can be corrupted by personal ambition versus sticking to a mission too.
> With formalized parties, we often see the strategic concerns of the party as an organization eclipse any coherent policy goals that are the ostensible reason for the party existing in the first place.
This is because there is no marketplace of parties. There is are just two, and we are stuck with them --- they are more akin to coalitions to parties in a multiparty than individual parties in a multiparty system. The monopoly/incumbency problems this creates are the same ones we see in commerce when there is a dearth of firm creation/failure, and the zombies live on.
> Multi-party in particular democracy has some significant pitfalls, including the tendency of marginal and extremist parties to play kingmaker. The historian Hannah Arendt made some salient points about how the multi-party structure of Weimar Germany contributed directly to the radicalization and eventual total control of the state by the Nazis.
There is that risk, but it is not like the US's system has protected us well from extremism either. When politics as usual gets discredited, we see both the rise of radical non-partisanship and parties shifting to the extreme.
I would not expect multiparty democracy to protect us from stupid as colossally stupid as the Treaty of Versaille, and neither should Hanna Ardent. US policy towards West Germany and Japan is the much better model of dealing with defeated enemies.
> Politics will always involve factions forming around shared interests or values, but in a situation without those factions being calcified into formal organizations, or even identities, we'd expect them to be much more fluid and ephemeral, and for politicians to be much more willing to reach across ideological divides without worrying about institutional discipline or being ostracized by the party establishment regardless of their constituents' opinions.
Again this all sounds nice in principle, but we are not seeing that in any extent political system. Large parties and small parties both have plenty of rhetorical dogmatism and inflexibility. But at least small parties can outflank large incumbents, bringing together constituents in hitherto unexpected ways. Stuff like YIMBYism, for example, which doesn't neatly fit into either US party is really screwed over by having to win through the "long slow march through the primaries", rather than create a nimble new party with cross-spectrum appeal.
> Ranked-choice balloting wouldn't eliminate parties per se, but it would reduce their influence in the electoral process significantly.
You need to provide more evidence for this. Campaigning is expensive. The returns on consistent messaging increase with scale (e.g. ingraining strains of through, moving the Overton window, etc.)
> I'd expect a reasonable voter to investigate the actual candidates on the ballot and make an informed choice, and not merely rely on party affiliation as the only criterion for casting a vote.
With enough work, one can learn about individual, but what enforces that those individuals are consistent? Firstly. The incentives for politicians, especially minor ones, are to avoid making enemies more than make friends --- they don't want you to know how they feel. Secondly, and more importantly, they have zero incentive to consistently feel anything as the political landscape and space of compromises shape-shifts.
You talk about reaching across the aisle as an unvarnished good thing, but as a voter there some deals are really worth it, and some deals are not worth it --- not all deals/compromises are good.
When individuals are fickle and nebulous, there is no way to vote on individuals that adequately conveys this sort of information. We can say "vote for good character", but that is feel-good dribble.
The issue is that it isn’t legislation. It’s a regulation. Laws are both harder to get passed and harder to overturn
Part of the reason some one like Modi came into power and has been able to maintain it (amongst many other reasons) is people were disgusted by the continuous reversal of administrations and their policies. Nothing ever progressed to completion. That malcontent is generally settling into the west as well and strongmen are looking more and more attractive. The auth option in the US is a regressive dummy, but India, China and several African, Latin American and South East Asian countries have competent people filling those roles.
IIRC with Modi a big factor was that the previous prime minister was seen as effectively a spineless puppet, kind of like how Biden is seen by many. Modi came in promising to try literally anything rather than just sitting by and doing nothing unless ordered to by the political dynasty leading the party, and has largely delivered on that promise.
It has meant lots of controversial legislation being forced through, but to many that's better than just letting the issues simmer for decades. Especially since many of those issues had no uncontroversial solution.
Trump came in promising similar action, but in hindsight did absolutely nothing besides further divide the country. Unfortunately at the moment neither side seems to have a candidate that's actually willing to do something similar. Biden will continue to make excuses about not being able to do things, and Trump will continue to focus more on PR and dominating the news cycle than actual work.
Manmohan Singh was seen as exceptionally spineless (because he pretty much cowtowed to whatever the Gandhi family said). That’s not how Biden is perceived. At all. Biden has installed more justices than Obama and Trump combined. He has done it without the right freaking out about it. He has been incredibly effective if you delve past the surface.
In right wing circles Biden is often perceived as a puppet for 'elites', too old and senile to make his own decisions. Every other tweet about him seems to get people joking about how he had to go to bed early or how they had to drag him out to make a speech. I was a bit young to carefully follow Manmohan's term, but I recall that one of the comments I often heard from adults were that he was clearly too old for office.
It's funny how his speech is an indicator that he is too old for office, when his opponent's speech is so frequently and completely unhinged[1], that it sounds like a self-parody.
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> [1] I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record. Because you know, look I only need this space. They need much more room. For basketball, for hockey and all of the sports, they need a lot of room. We don’t need it. We have people in that space. So we break all of these records. Really we do it without like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important.
Yep, it's pretty ironic, the only difference between the two (in terms of showing their age) is that Trump is more energetic (animated?), but energy doesn't translate to coherence.
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Voters aren't voting for policies at all. They're voting for candidates who come as a package deal, and often have to make tradeoffs among their own policy positions as no single candidate aligns with them on all issues. On top of that voters are casting their votes in an electoral process rife with gerrymandering, wedge issues, exaggerated or fabricated crisis rhetoric, party-line voters, and other distortions.
The idea that the behavior of the government is ever a consistent reflection of the aggregated intentions of the electorate is something of a fantasy. No one is intentionally voting for bad policy -- they're getting bad policy in one area as a consequence of voting for good policy in another.
> half the voting population of the 50 states of the union keep making a conscious selection of bad policy
Which half?
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I’m not sure either side is invested in making sure people are suffering. I do think both sides have differing opinions on what the role of government should be in Americans lives. Neither side is wholly consistent, which is okay. Demonizing “the other” is the root issue. Everyone should stop doing that.
> I do think both sides have differing opinions on what the role of government should be in Americans lives.
I think everyone seems to largely agree that the government should definitely have a big role in Americans' lives, but they differ significantly on what issues they think the gov't should be involved in. Relatively few people seem think the gov't should largely leave people alone (although it is popular for some folks to say they feel that way while simultaneously agitating for the opposite).
I actually don't believe this anymore. I think that up to the Bush years, you could argue the sides were just taking different paths to achieve the same goals. As bad his policy ended up being, I think Bush and Cheney and their cohort were really trying to do the right thing. I also genuinely think that Trump and his enablers are people with bad intentions. Their intentions range between callous self-interest and downright nativist authoritarianism. They would harm democracy and their perceived enemies in America to further their goals. That's maybe not 100% of the political right but I have very little pushback against it.
Yes, total agreement. If the other half of people wouldn't make bad policy selections, we'd all be better off.
ah yes, the good old binary worldview. Such a delightfully simple algorithm.
I have some thoughts on this code:
1. Why is decide_position returning a boolean? The function signature, even without types, doesn't really indicate that it should return a true / false value. Perhaps a better name would be "is_position_good"?
2. Why would the memory get corrupted? Most operating systems should be able to handle such a case.
3. Why do we shut down the entire application? Surely there's a better method rather than killing the entire application due to a single boolean check.
It's funny that this is the exact opposite of what I said. I said "vote for policy". As it stands one party is at least on the right side of most major policies and one is on the wrong side. You'll never get 100% alignment but the two main parties are generally pretty good and aligning with the sensibilities of major blocs.
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> when half the populations entire political identity is “whatever we think will make the other side angry”?
I assume those are the guys who are voting for the party opposed to one you're voting for, correct?
> actively stifling progress is not actually funny
Another thing that is less than funny is assuming that there's some universal definiton of "progress" and those who disagree are just doing it out of stupid stubbornness, unwilling to concede the obvious truth.
> It is not possible for me to base my legislative direction on “everyone that is not cis white is bad”.
It's not possible to anybody. Literally nobody does that. It's a crude caricature. By perpetuating this caricature as if it had any bearing to reality, you are a major part of the problem.
> I assume those are the guys who are voting for the party opposed to one you're voting for, correct?
Except that it wasn't the same way one or two decades ago. And the republicans have changed a lot more than the democrats on that front.
> And the republicans have changed a lot more than the democrats on that front.
Only if you're looking at it from the Democratic perspective. From the Republican side they look at Democratic policies from the last decade and see a group that suddenly decided to throw all previous social norms out the window and upend social order. They see themselves as reacting to that change in the Democratic Party.
I think the truth is that both parties simultaneously escalated, but that perspective usually gets shouted down pretty hard by both sides who each really want to perceive themselves as the consistent one.
> a group that suddenly decided to throw all previous social norms out the window and upend social order
That's a different front, though.
Even if it's a response to those things, the level of "don't cooperate even on issues where you agree/used to agree" has not been the same between parties.
Well, OP was responding to this:
> when half the populations entire political identity is “whatever we think will make the other side angry”?
The idea here is that Republicans are somehow out to spite the Democrats more than vice versa, and I frankly don't see it. Both sides believe the other to be acting in bad faith, and honestly from my perspective it certainly looks like both sides are acting in bad faith.
We've had more than our fair share of close calls to government shutdowns the past four years, but let's not forget that Congress actually did fail to fund the government twice during Trump's presidency. The current Congress flirts with the line but has always ended up actually finding something that can pass.
Spite is only one kind of bad faith, and when it comes specifically to spite it doesn't seem to me like it's balanced between the parties.
Except it was. The parties have been calling each other every dirty word in the book since forever. You can sample how it looked like about 150 years ago: https://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2012/11/running-for-governor....
> And the republicans have changed a lot more than the democrats on that front.
Of course, your team have always been standing for the common sense but the other team is just crazy now. Long gone are the times of Bush presidency, where the parties lives in almost perfect harmony, and the worst thing the President could be called by the opposing politician is "this esteemed and honorable man is sometimes mistaken". If only would could go back to those golden times.
> The parties have been calling each other every dirty word in the book since forever.
I don't know why you think this is relevant to what I'm saying.
> Of course, your team have always been standing for the common sense but the other team is just crazy now.
That's not what I said at all. I said both teams used to be more similar in a specific way.
And neither one was very good.
Perhaps one commonality is that we all seem inclined to assume the other half makes political decisions out of spite.
I find the only commonality is that after the right wing does something, both sides say “this is going to hurt so many people”. It’s just that one side is laughing when they say it.
I visit alt-right circles A LOT, and I have literally never once heard “the other side does these things out of spite”. The vast majority of the time, they don’t have anything to say on a topic beyond repeating some stupid meme.
Additionally, I would also like to point out that people on the right actually demonstrably DO have zero conviction for their beliefs. It is a tested fact that on the whole people on the right will absolutely flip flop on a topic the moment they find out that the left supports it (some 90% of right wing voters in tests), however, on the whole, people on the left are *far* less likely to flip flop (only some 10% of left wing voters flip on a topic upon learning the right supports it).
That the right actually votes out of spite is not just something people assert, it’s a tested fact.
Mitch *blocked his own goddamn bill upon finding out that dems supported it*.
You obviously haven't been in any right-wing circles.
They're constantly saying that the other side "hates you and wants to destroy the country", exactly the same thing left-wing circles are constantly saying about them. If they're laughing when they're saying it, it's either because you're failing to read the room and arguing with someone who's just sharing an edgy meme rather than actually talking politics (I see this very often on the fediverse), or they're doing it in a cynical "haha, we're so screwed" manner.
> The vast majority of the time, they don’t have anything to say on a topic beyond repeating some stupid meme.
You from earlier:
> It is not possible for me to base my legislative direction on “everyone that is not cis white is bad”.
Both sides are totally guilty of repeating stupid memes instead of engaging in intelligent discourse. You just don't recognize your stupid memes because they seem like factual statements since you've heard them so much from your circles.
You hear someone say something that you disagree with and you immediately interpret it using the memetic pigeon hole that you've adopted for that "kind of person" instead of actually listening to what they have to say. Get out more and actually listen (really listen!) to what conservatives have to say. Why do they repeat the memes that they do? What do those memes say about their inner life?
As a rule, conservatives are no less thoughtful and caring than you are, they just have a very different set of axioms governing their ethics. Until you understand those priors their words will sound as irrational and foolish to you as your words do to them.
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The data suggests that "both sides" isn't really the case here.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17457289.2019.15...
"these results suggest that Trump was able to leverage populist anger for political advantage in ways that other candidates were not and that such anti-elitism played an important and underappreciated role in explaining the outcome of the [2016] presidential election."
*Edit - added year in brackets for clarification.
Not going to pay 50 bucks to read that article, but if the term "populist anger" is used there in its common meaning, it's not about "other side" at all. It's mainly about people feeling supposedly representative government has abandoned any pretense of representing the population and their interests, and that understandably makes some people feel bad about it. It's not about pissing off some imaginary opponent, it's about making the persons taking decisions hear what the population is concerned about. And yes, a lot of people supported Trump because they thought - and think (correctly or incorrectly) that Trump is more attentive to these concerns than the alternatives.
You're trying to say that policy and representation is the broad concern. The studies say otherwise. The whole of government is one part of the elite that conservative America wants to tear down.
Do you think "owning the liberals" is a completely made up thing? How do you think it compares to the phrase "owning the conservatives", a phrase nobody uses nor seemingly aspires to?
No, it's not the specific policy. It's the general feeling that there's no representation at all happening. And yes, people would certainly would want to tear down the elites that don't even bother to listen what their subjects want - it's exactly how it happened all over history, once the elites forget the population exists and has needs, the revolution is brewing in one form or another.
> Do you think "owning the liberals" is a completely made up thing
No, I don't think it's completely made up. I think it's by far not the main driver, and claiming like everything the right does, or even most significant driver for what the right does is this is nonsense.
> "owning the conservatives", a phrase nobody uses nor seemingly aspires to
A brief search (not using Google since their results are garbage now) provides ample proof otherwise. But my point is that spite in not a primary motivation neither for the right nor for the left. Since the right is by its nature more reactionary (I don't use it here as pejorative but as a description of action caused by another action), their actions can looks spiteful in more cases, but that's not the primary motivation, whatever the forum trolls say. For the trolls, on both sides, yes, this is a primary motivation, sure, and they obviously exist, but they are not the main or the only force by far.
> ... I am exhausted by the continuous flip-flopping of legislation depending on which party is in charge.
By design, Congress is unable to do anything. It's either one party (always the same party) being completely obstructionist, even other presidential appointments, or if a rotating villain who defects and stops any meaningful legislation.
Power has moved to the courts and to the states. Again, entirely by design. In the current term, there is an inocuous sounding case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo [1], which is expected to overturn a longstanding (~40 years) precedent called Chevron [2]. This would gut Federal agencies. Chevron set a precedent that in areas of ambiguity courts would give deference to Federal agencies. The argument for this is that Congress has to be explicit but Congress cannot possibly explicitly regulate, for example, salmon quotas and inspections. The goal here is deregulation for profit. That's it.
For the last 30+ years, every president issues an executive order on day 1 either banning or allowing recipients of foreign aid to provide counselling on abortion, depending on the party.
The real question here is why did this take 3 years into Biden's regime for the FCC to act? The FCC is an appointed position. This could've been done in 2021.
> Maybe it's always been this way though and I'm just getting old enough to be bothered by it?
No, it's now more obstructionist than it ever has been but it's always been more difficult to make changes than not. Previously there was more respect for institutional norms. For example, if the president nominated someone for a position, that person would always get a Senate hearing regardless of who controlled the Senate. There is no law that required that but people previously accepted the president had a mandate for appointments. Now? It's way more scorched earth.
[1]: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/loper-bright-ent...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....
> The real question here is why did this take 3 years into Biden's regime for the FCC to act? The FCC is an appointed position. This could've been done in 2021.
FCC commissioners must be approved by the Senate. Biden nominated Gigi Sohn in 2021. Republicans blocked her. Biden nominated Sohn again. I don't think he said why. But other Democrats believed Republicans would block anyone who would restore net neutrality. Republicans blocked Sohn again. Democrats took control of the Senate in 2023. Joe Manchin said he would block Sohn. Sohn withdrew. Biden nominated Anna Gomez. The Senate approved her in September. The FCC started the process for this vote a few days later.
> Biden nominated Gigi Sohn in 2021
Democrats controlled the Senate in 2021. Republicans didn't block the nomination. Democrats allowed the Republicans to block the nomination. The process by which that block happened could easily have been eliminated by a Senate rules change. There were attempts to do this on other issues (eg voting rights) but the rotating villains of the Democratic Party at the time (ie Sinema, Manchin) blocked it.
Joe Liebermann was previously the rotating villain. He is singlehandedly the only reason why 55 year olds can't buy into Medicare to get health insurance coverage.
The Senate was split evenly in 2021 and operated under a power sharing agreement. And you can't change rules easily or not when you don't have the votes.
I reject the rotating villain conspiracy theory. 1 scapegoat would have been enough. Sinema's choices ended her Senate career. Manchin and Lieberman didn't change suddenly.
> By design, Congress is unable to do anything. It's either one party (always the same party) being completely obstructionist, even other presidential appointments, or if a rotating villain who defects and stops any meaningful legislation.
Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
What we actually have is lack of consensus, and excessively polarized factions that are unwilling to budge to create a consensus (or rather waste their energy making a great deal of noise on non-consensus issues and nonstarters and bickering with each other).
> Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
So if someone throws a stone at you, you might reasonably be tempted to throw a stone back. If called up on this, you might be tempted to say "he started it". Legally speaking, that might or might not be a defense.
What if instead you throw a stone at someone and justify it with "he was going to throw a stone at me"? Would you consider that a sound defense?
Take it further. Your defense becomes "he would've thrown a stone at me if he had the option so I had to throw the stone at him". No reasonable person would respect that argument.
So why is the hypothetical "Democrats would block a Supreme Court nomination if they had the chance" reasonable to you?
> Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
And this is exactly what they did when Trump was in office! Their motto was “#resist” for crying out loud. Sheesh, right now TikTok is on the verge of being banned, something that they were completely against when Trump wanted to do it. Bad idea when Trump wants it, good idea when Biden does.
Just be honest folks, it’s truly a “both sides” thing. And honestly, political gridlock is a good thing. Most of the people here on HN quickly forget how valuable it is when it’s the side YOU don’t like ramming legislation through.
Please enumerate the Supreme Court justices that Democrats refused to seat during Trump's term.
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What's this thing the government has been doing recently where they're no longer content to just let major corporations screw consumers?
Election coming up
Changing government policy isn't always an instant process. Most of the FCC rules go through the "notice and comment" process that takes quiet a long time. The net neutrality rule for example has been in the works since at least January 2022 [1].
[1] https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/net-neutrality-will-make-...
All of the new "rules" being proposed by executive agencies will be subject to court challenge, and some of them (like the FTC's non-compete "rule") will likely be subject to a preliminary injunction.
The goal is to get people to think "Yeah! Taking action on non-competes is great! Darn politicized courts!", when in reality this is not something an executive agency should be doing without an act of congress, or it may not even be a matter that falls to the federal government at all.
Most employment law, for example, falls to the state in which the worker lives, and some have chosen to ban non-competes via legislation. This is much more democratic than attempting to craft law by executive fiat, even though I tend to agree that non-competes are more harmful than good in many situations.
>This is much more democratic than attempting to craft law by executive fiat
What exactly "more democratic" means is a bit unclear to me. Is an act of Congress more democratic than agency policy because more reps voted on it? Is it more democratic because the reps who voted on it were elected rather than appointed by people who were elected like over at those agencies? Or is a policy democratic based on its alignment with the will of the electorate regardless of provenance?
Also:
Is it less democratic because unlike laws, there's an open comment period for the public to make their voice heard? (unlike laws or executive orders)
Is it less democratic because it's policy being implemented by people who spend a lot of time thinking about the policy and its effects, rather than by some blowhard trying to score culture war points on twitter than making a policy?
I'm confused by your questions. Are you suggesting that ignoring the structure of government carefully laid out in the constitution and agreed upon by every state in the union is more democratic because you like the outcome?
This is happening in an election year, so the office of the presidency is driving this for political reasons. I sincerely doubt you'd be comfortable having someone you disagree with politically wield the same powers in the same way.
I was building on what the comment i replied to said. The concept of "more democratic" is kind of strange. So i comment on things that have elements of democracy.
My first question merely pointed out that the process that exists, with a public comment period etc, is in some ways more democratic than congress passing laws. That is - this is a place where the rulemaking is more inclusive of the public than some having some trash that got themselves elected passing laws on behalf of people they don't actually talk to or consult about those laws.
The second is actually a statement about how it's shockingly responsble for the selfish idiots that get themselves into congress to have somewhat knowledgable, focused people do the work instead of just randomly passing laws based on their twitter feed.
The end of the process initated by executive order in 2021 is happening this year, yes. I've seen people I like and dislike wield that power. Witha ll of them I've agreed with some of the policies they had and disagreed with others. I'm comfortable with it happening generally, but i wish congress would be a little more involved and representative of the people when they set up those powers and issue the directional laws that these people administer. That is not an issue with methodology though, just political opinion about the specific policies.
> knowledgable, focused people do the work instead of just randomly passing laws based on their twitter feed.
That's not what happens, though. Agency heads are political appointees who take their marching orders from the executive (president). They engage in poor-quality rule-making all the time when it's politically advantageous for the president and/or his party.
Coming from a country with a Westminster system where federal legislation is relatively easy to pass, I strongly believe it's a feature of the US system of government that it's a herculean task for congress to pass new laws and that the executive is very limited in its powers.
The more power that can be devolved to the state and local level, the better - there's no reason to think a small group of people in Washington are capable of making considered decisions on behalf of 330M+ Americans in the majority of circumstances, and that extends to the myriad of federal agencies engaged in the rule-making process.
And which part of the constitution prevents Congress from passing an act to delegate authority to an agency?
> Is it more democratic because the reps who voted on it were elected rather than appointed by people who were elected like over at those agencies?
The presidency is not an elected autocracy. The extent of his powers are strictly limited to those granted by a) the constitution, and b) acts of congress.
Attempts to circumvent these limitations through clever legal theories are undemocratic, doubly so when that circumvention bypasses duly elected state governments. No act of congress has ever explicitly banned non-compete agreements or authorized the FTC to do so, and the plethora of employment law at the state level strongly supports the notion that it wasn't even a federal matter to begin with.
Would you argue that it's more democratic or less democratic when powers previously belonging to states are subsumed by the executive in this way? What if the people of Texas believe non-compete agreements are important? Why not just federalize all laws and tell state legislatures to pound sand?
People with this viewpoint seem to forget that Congress often granted these agencies these powers, or at least, were vague enough in their definition to allow it to plausibly happen.
It's also worth noting that many of the people who demand that Congress do these things instead of bureaucrats are saying that in bad faith; that is, they don't want it done at all and know Congress can't possibly come to an agreement on it because they're the same people funding the campaigns of representatives who go out of their way to sink the legislative process.
The supreme court has been very clear that congress can't delegate lawmaking to executive agencies. So no, I haven't forgotten that at all.
As for it being a feature, you're right - I think the vast majority of legislating should be done at the state and local level. This isn't a secret, it was covered in the Federalist Papers in the 18th century.
What's your argument in favor of federalizing all aspects of law in a large and heterogenous country? Why does the federal government need to force Texas to ban non-competes when Texas has decided not to do so but California has?
What if the next government decides to force California to un-ban non-competes with a new rule issued by Executive Order? Do you not see why this is an unworkable and brittle approach?
> The supreme court has been very clear that congress can't delegate lawmaking to executive agencies. So no, I haven't forgotten that at all.
Well, they do it all the time. FCC, OSHA, EPA... Try taking the approach that you shouldn't have your FCC license (amateur radio, broadcasting, whatever) to the courts because these bureaucrats made up the whole thing. You won't get very far.
> What's your argument in favor of federalizing all aspects of law in a large and heterogenous country?
My argument is that no one actually believes in not federalizing things. Not unless it fits their agenda. See the Comstock Act, for example.
> Why does the federal government need to force Texas to ban non-competes when Texas has decided not to do so but California has?
They need to ban non-competes because they're horrifically abusive of workers and like most things, the corporate class keeps pushing until someone pushes back. Would you like that "someone" to be the FTC through a legal process, or an angry mob tearing people apart? Mobs don't particularly care much about "states' rights" or the writings of a bunch of slave owners who lived before the creation of germ theory, after all.
> What if the next government decides to force California to un-ban non-competes with a new rule issued by Executive Order? Do you not see why this is an unworkable and brittle approach?
What if the next Congress decides the opposite of the current one? What if a future SCOTUS bench decides to contradict a past ruling? What's your point?
100%
Exactly this.
Regardless of the winners of said election, expect a return to business as usual afterward.
Not really. There has been a continuous stream of pro-consumer actions out of the Biden admin since day one. Lots of anti-trust activity in really critical sectors, for example.
You’re not paying very close attention if you can’t spot any substantive differences between the two sides.
Would you like to make a wager on that? I would be prepared to bet money (and give you very generous odds) that, contra your claim, if Biden is re-elected in November the FCC will not undo this change and remove net neutrality afterward.
Eh... I wouldn't say so much.
I'd expect that if Biden gets a second term, then after the election you can basically expect little to no action for the next 3 years. Business as usual... ish. Major changes will likely happen before the next election just to try and keep a democrat in office.
The Trump second term will likely immediately start with rolling back things like Net Neutrality. Biden's admin likely wouldn't do that as that'd keep them from getting cabinet positions in the future and Trump's admin will do it right away because it can both be sold as a referendum on the previous admin and would help them get future positions for the next republican president.
For trump, I doubt he'll do anything at the end of his term different from the beginning. I really don't think Trump cares about keeping republicans in office.
It's true that he cares about himself first, but he only stumps for republicans (as long as they support him) and he packed the federal and supreme court with republicans (and they've won important cases about redistricting rules and other things that keep republicans in power).
So saying he doesn't care about keeping republicans in office makes no sense as he's probably cemented them in office in places they have no business being elected for another 30 years.
I can't say this for certain, but my guess is that Trump's supreme court picks weren't really him looking at potential nominees and instead were done based on the advice of his cabinet. (I'm certain that's how it is for most presidents).
Trump will likely appoint a republican friendly cabinet, for sure, which means their goals and agendas will be centered around the party as much as they are for trump.
But that said, I just don't think Trump cares about the republican party. He cares about it in as much as it's a vehicle for him to maintain power.
Said another way, I don't think trump the person cares about the republican party. I think the trump admin does.
If he wins, the only way I really see him personally caring about the next presidency is if he decide to try and run for a 3rd term (like he's floated).
>and he packed the federal and supreme court
I can tell where the hypocrisy starts and the eye roll begins.
Not to be glib, but it's just Democrats. They are not immune from corporate interests, but they are not wholly owned by them. And really, corporate interests are American interests so long as they don't needlessly harm citizens.
Administration sees they are losing the young vote. Administration checks what can get them more young votes…..
Politicians doing what voters want?! What a radical concept!
Funny how they seem to rack up most of these high-profile accomplishments in election years....
Tell me you've never started an assignment the day before it's due.
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Which is democracy working as intended and not a cynical thing at all.
Ahh yes courting the young vote, that group famous for going out to the polls in large numbers. The 16-25 age group is really into FCC regulation and anti-TikTok right now.
Check to see if Biden loses what will most likely cause it.
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I mean great. I don't really want the things it's trying to ban, so good?
But this is sorta like plastic straw bans: 0.0000000001% actual impact, all while making HUGE headlines, while doing absolutely zero to solve root systemic issues: Entrenched Local Monopolies by telco providers.
So yeah, good, glad my Nebula won't be slower than my YouTubes, while all along I just wanted to ditch the assholes in the first place and use a different ISP.
> glad my Nebula won't be slower than my YouTubes
To be fair, wouldn't this still be the case? Google peer with many ISPs, and have a lot of server / networking prowess, so the YouTube experience is normally pretty good across the board.
Nebula, on the other hand, is a fairly new player from my understanding.
Yes, YouTube might have better CDN solutions, but ISPs can't unfairly discriminate against Nebula. Nebula is a new player, but presumably they're using CDNs with good reach.
The point isn't that Google can't build a better CDN. The point is that we don't want ISPs creating a situation where they've inked a deal with Google to prevent good performance from YouTube competitors. We don't want a situation where "YouTube is the exclusive 4K video provider on ISP-X."
> The point isn't that Google can't build a better CDN. The point is that we don't want ISPs creating a situation where they've inked a deal with Google to prevent good performance from YouTube competitors. We don't want a situation where "YouTube is the exclusive 4K video provider on ISP-X."
Definitely not, and I would never advocate for that -- I was perhaps being slightly pedantic in the above comment :-)
Nebula fares just fine on my internet at 1080p and 2x speed.
What a huge waste of time, effort and resources
Remember when Comcast throttled Netflix to ISDN speeds because... hey... no net neutrality? Those were good times.
Comcast's perspective was that Netflix was using "their pipes" for free. Those "pipes" are what their paying customers are paying for. Not to mention the hefty government subsidies that go to cable companies to establish internet service in the first place. A google search today reveals plenty of VPN providers offering workarounds Comcast's throttling which is still going on today.
ISPs should deliver bits in a way that's fair to their paying customers. Period.
In my eyes, we will see a resurgence of P2P and home-hosted services. The reason is that without net neutrality, only companies like Akamai, Netflix, Google, and Meta are able to consistently deliver their bits to customers with low latency and high bandwidth. We have to pay a premium to the VPNs in order to connect to our friends and not get packet loss and jitter. It's one of the main reasons game servers have become so centralized in my opinion.
Remember when the Internet freaked out and "when dark" to protest how the lack of NN would ruin the internet?....and then nothing changed?
The boy who cried wolf...again.
The fight for net neutrality may not have been as public anymore, but it kept going over the last 5 years. Plenty of court cases challenging the FCC's ruling have been ongoing and California even passed their own net neutrality law. Congress attempted to pass a bill that would enshrine net neutrality as well, though of course the Republic majority never allowed it to get to a vote.
All this is to say despite net neutrality technically not being federally required between 2018 - 2024, it wasn't feasibly for ISP's to roll out metered plans that would go unchallenged. I suspect most were stuck in a "wait and see" stage, and likely expected this eventual rollback anyway given the landscape is still so rapidly changing.
So the protests and constant pushing back against NN did have a positive impact on our eventual outcome, even if it's not obvious or a direct line from reddit blackouts. Like most things, the truth is complex.
This is a bit like removing a traffic light from an intersection and then after a day saying "see, nothing happened, we don't need regulation from traffic lights". Laissez faire, everything will be alright.
> and then after a day
It's been ~5.5 years since "the internet was doomed" by the FTC[0]
How long are we supposed to wait for your doom prophecy to realize?
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-exclusive/ex...
California stepped up and passed its own net neutrality law, which effectively killed any widespread adoption of anti-net neutrality practices.
It's not unreasonable for the federal government to step back in to regulate an issue that is firmly within their purview.
ISPs don't exist in a vacuum. Why would Comcast spend millions of dollars implementing some anti-NN consumer ratfuckery when they'd have to revert it once the next administration came into power? If Comcast knew that it wasn't going to get overturned, then they would take advantage.
> If Comcast knew that it wasn't going to get overturned, then they would take advantage.
So now our logic is based on a crystal ball? Do the goalposts ever stop moving?
> How long are we supposed to wait for your doom prophecy to realize?
We shouldn't have waited at all, and in fact shouldn't have allowed it to be repealed in the first place. We have been extraordinarily lucky to have not had to deal with any nonsense from ISPs in all this time. California having their own NN law helped a lot. Now that we're back on track we can call it crisis averted, no harm no foul.
Do you remember when we used to self host content and now we have to use a central provider and/or pay a premium to a VPN/CDN?
Net neutrality fucked the internet and its really actually upsetting to me how quickly we as a society had become complacent with the enshittification.
You're being down voted for telling the truth, which is extremely inconvenient. Notice all the debate in this thread is about partisan score keeping and no one is able to explain why they want these rules back after all their predictions of terrible doom failed to happen. They need them back so they can claim doom was just around the corner if they hadn't been passed. The longer they went without being in effect, the more difficult it would be to explain why the doom never came to be.
It is 100%, Grade A partisan score keeping to preserve future doomsaying without being called out on this absolutely failed predictions. Looks as bad for the doomsayers as a Bush administration's doomsaying about Weapons of Mass Destruction piling up in Iraq, ready to attack the US if we didn't invade. Incredible what people will let their partisan brains twist reality into. Of course, when this is used against them in the future, they'll scream like banshees, claiming it's unprecedented. This is the power of a brain addicted to partisanism.
The whole net neutrality discussion seems pretty hypocritical in hindsight, since huge portions of people who furiously supported NN stayed silent or encouraged censorship after 2016 (including the sitting president of the united states) on Facebook, Twitter, IG, etc.
Why would someone only advocate for an open, unrestricted internet at the hardware/ISP level? The whole point of NN was to ensure ISPs couldn't act as gatekeepers, yet people are fine with trillion dollar tech companies (that hold enormous market share) gatekeeping certain content now?
Makes sense to me.
ISPs acting like a utility service should not offer special deals to some companies in a way that harms competition.
A social media site enforcing their terms of service appears entirely different.
If ISP's are the utility pipes, platforms are the water and control what flows through them.
The whole point of NN is to stop ISPs from "playing favorites" since they hold too much power over what we can access. But if you ignore the fact that a few big tech companies (which hold a MUCH bigger market share compared to comcast/other big ISPs) basically decide what gets seen and what gets hidden, it's the exact same problem in a different disguise.
These are categorically different situations. In many places, people literally only have 1 or 2 choices for their ISP - not so for social networks. The degree to which the logic of neutral platforms applies depends on the availability of other options and the cost to switch; in the ISP case, the options are very limited and the cost is monetary and very high, and in the case of social networks the cost is low and purely social and there are many available options.
You can learn the difference by looking at what happened when Musk bought Twitter. Tons of people moved to other services like Threads, BlueSky, or Mastodon because all it takes is typing a different name into your browser.
When Comcast decided to double-charge Netflix, in contrast, what happened? Most people just had to put up with it because they only had one option for broadband or a contract. There’s no fast way to run new fiber or cable, so if your options are two companies with a history of network neutrality violations the best you can do is switch plans to whoever is currently not misusing their position.
ISPs are roads, and websites are businesses and homes.
Comparing Facebook to an ISP is highly disengenuous.
I feel like this is positive, but it doesn't really go far enough to have an impact on the internet as it exists today. The network itself being neutral doesn't make much difference at all to the average user when the majority of internet usage is through private platforms that are not bound by any such rules. We need to have some utility style regulation for the large web platforms too.
ISPs should be allowed to throttle traffic for services. Otherwise, the result is going to be increased costs for all end-users.
No they shouldn't. I don't think that logic makes any sense at all. No one is paying increased costs because their neighbor is watching netflix, youtube, or browsing reddit. Users already pay for internet service they shouldn't have to pay again because the ISP wants to be greedy and double dip from fees to avoid throttling.
If netflix traffic is straining ISPs to the point of requiring hardware upgrades etc., I think it is fair for ISPs to ask them to pay some of that cost.
It isn't netflix traffic it is ISP customer traffic which they pay for. Hardware upgrade, bandwidth costs, and other operating costs are already paid for by the ISP customers. The ISP should not be able to double dip by charging netflix or the customer a second time.
If the ISP isn't able to provide the service they advertised and sold they should be investigated and be issuing refunds at the very least. Can't provide the service you said you could? Maybe don't advertise and defraud customers.
it's not a double-dip. if a single service is behind load problems and causing general service degradation, I think it is fair to throttle that service.
Customer pays for say, 1Gbps bidirectional. ISP has a total capacity of 1Tbps. They find that the average usage rate from users is 100Mbps bidirectional, so they sign on 10x as many users as they could truly offer a full 1Gbps to, taking a risk. Then new services come along, and the customer average usage increases to 500Mbps.
Instead of upgrading their total capacity, reducing their user count by 5x or reducing the speeds they promise, the ISP decides that it's the service's fault that they can't provide the 1 Gbps they're selling. This is obviously double dipping. They want to both sell higher bandwidths than they can provide, and charge others for making them have to provide what they're advertising.
It is a double dip. The ISP customer already pays for that bandwidth and internet connection. Asking the customer to pay a second time or asking netflix to pay is clearly double dipping. Trying to call it something else is just silly!
>causing general service degradation
Customers using their internet service they pay for isn't causing service degradation. If the ISP oversold or lied about being able to provide the service they were selling that is another issue. The response to that shouldn't be charging more for a service customers already pay for.
These companies already have fine print that the advertised speed is not a guarantee. My point in this thread is this policy takes away a tool ISPs had to control traffic in their networks, which I believe will lead to higher costs.
> If netflix traffic is straining ISPs to the point of requiring hardware upgrades etc., I think it is fair for ISPs to ask them to pay some of that cost.
It is fair for ISPs to ask their customers to pay for required upgrades. Netflix's ISPs can ask Netflix. Netflix's customers' ISPs can ask Netflix's customers.
Their customers already pay the cost. The ISPs offer IP services. The customers on each end pay for it.
They should be able to throttle across the board to load balance. They sell an IP protocol service. They should honor the customer's wishes by delivering those packets fairly, not necessarily reliably.
They can, and they do. It's called QoS and it's not effected by net neutrality.
They cannot throttle a particular service under NN. That's the problem.
> No one is paying increased costs because their neighbor is watching netflix, youtube, or browsing reddit
Increased bandwidth = Increased costs
Who do you think is paying?
The ISP customers already paid for that. The ISP customer already paid for the bandwidth, hardware, and all other costs. Not sure why this is confusing for you. The ISP isn't paying more because Bob next door decides to watch netflix for a few hours a night.
>Who do you think is paying?
The customer..? Are you really confused about this?
> already paid
In some cases. In other cases, it hasn't even happened yet.
> Are you really confused about this?
I'm not at all confused.
The ISP spends $X to build and maintain infrastructure for Y Gbps internet.
Mobile carriers do the same.
The ISP’s customers pay for their costs. The problem started when those ISPs decided they weren’t satisfied with 15-20% profit margins and started finding other ways to generate revenue like selling their customers’ activity data to advertisers, injecting ads, or by trying to get popular services to double-pay their operating costs.
You can tell it’s not a real barrier to the business in two ways: one is that it only affects MBA-infested companies - small ISPs and municipal broadband never seems to have a problem providing better service for less money – and the other is that they’re not asking their customers to pay more. If their cost of providing service had actually gone up, they’d have been open about that and own the claim that a few Mbps costs more than it used to despite all evidence to the contrary. Keeping as a back room deal lets them try to hide all of the details behind NDAs.
Yes, and then they charge $Z dollars for a certain bandwidth allotment to each of their customers. It does not cost the ISP more money to route a MB/s to Netflix than it does to route a MB/s to Reddit.
>In some cases. In other cases, it hasn't even happened yet.
..? By the point ISP customers receive internet they have either already paid for the service, paid a deposit, or agreed to pay for it the following month like other utilities. In all of these cases by the time the user makes use of their service they have already agreed to pay for the internet service which includes data, hardware, and other infrastructure fees.
>The ISP spends $X to build and maintain infrastructure for Y Gbps internet.
EXACTLY. You are proving my point! The customer of the ISP has already paid for that. It doesn't cost the ISP any more money if I make use of my service by sending data to netflix, reddit, or whoever! If I watch netflix 12 hours a day it costs the ISP exactly $0 extra dollars. Asking me to pay more money or be throttled is ridiculous.
Hell, if you have one of the largest ISPs they pay nothing for any amount of data transfer over their networks anyway so your argument is even weaker lol.
I already paid for my bandwidth.
I bought a 1 gigabit connection. If the 10-20 mbps data stream from Netflix is overloading my ISP, then my ISP is not providing me with what I paid for.
ISPs should throttle for network health if necessary. This should occur in a fashion that is fair to users, some services might get hit disproportionately because they consume a lot of bandwidth, but no services should be given an exception just because they happen to be, say, provided by the ISP.
I think you need to provide a lot more explanation and clarification of what you mean; your comment as written sounds like nothing more than a hollow talking point. What kind of throttling in what situations would be prohibited by these regulations and how would that cause increased costs?
Maybe DDOS protection? IE: Things that ensure that a malicious user can't negatively impact other users on the network.
Have you ever seen even a draft of a proposed regulation that didn't already have clear exceptions for that?