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Its the just-us system that is to be feared, not the guns, and corrupt big business can manipulate and control that system with an application of money, just as they control members of con-gress.
There would be no income tax and no federal reserve bank without corrupt business manipulation and the resulting expansion of federal power. That has done massive damage to liberty and free markets and has provided the excuse for and imposition of the federal IRS police force. Prior to that, with isolated exceptions (Lincoln's war, for example) the federal government did not use guns against its own people.
Yes, government use of force is to be feared, but is supported and encouraged by big business.
As for the free market, one thing about having a PC has taught old dino is that there is a far more than previously perceived horde of greedy scum out there vying in sundry ways to rip me off.
Unlike our government that's run by a swamp of conniving career politicians, free markets do more openly compete for my dollars.
I was a customer of CVS for a quarter of a century until two years ago I at the pharmacy counter felt insulted by a shoddy service issue. Me dino said to meself, "Why should I take any
crap here when there's a Walgreen's straight across the street?" Guess where me dino went right then and there? Straight across the street!
Government? A mid-70s encounter with the then Democrat of the Alabama senate Richard Shelby personally pegged him for a cowardly career politician.
Now he is a Republican US Senator, who forever appears on the ballot. Unlike CVS, I can't get rid of him. I vote for GOP challengers, who always lose. What else is across the street? A Jackass Party way worse than it was forty-so years ago.
Deregulation is the only real solution, but until it comes we need effective antitrust enforcement. At the very least all mergers and acquisitions by the multinational media companies should be blocked until a lot more competition exists.
In the meantime I strongly oppose Net Neutrality because the likes of Google will capture the regulating agency immediately.
I think that may be the best advice in this situation. Our economic situation has devolved into the best advice that used to be the worst advice. The best would have been, "Of two evils, choose neither but seek out the good." But it looks as if there's no good left to seek out..Talk about a swamp. I expected it from the left, but since Trump, we have discovered that the right is as filled with miscreant weasels as any group, and more than most. Even those professing deep religious conviction are willing to throw their moral convictions under the 18 wheeler if it doesn't coincide with their agenda. Actually, the loud-mouthed bully turns out to be the person who follows his convictions by obeying his promises and working harder with more accomplishment than any politician of recent memory. As a certain A. Lincoln said of one of his much maligned generals, "If it takes a hard drinking, cigar-smoking, foul mouthed man to win a war, then send me more of them." Trump neither drinks or smokes but puts Grant's critics to shame. They accuse him of acts that are physically impossible, but would certainly give him negative super hero powers..Have I wandered away from Net Neutrality? The answer is simple, just ask youreself this question. Do you want to put the last true example of free speech in the hands of two-faced, underhanded lying politicians, or allow it to remain free and just deal with it.
Its buyer beware. If it sounds like a load of crap, it probably IS. Always look for the hidden agenda these days, as plain honesty and integrity and personal responsibility seem to be out the window now.
I agree that a technological solution might be more likely without government (and corrupt big business) intervention. Perhaps the solution is to encourage the big businesses to invest in developing a technology solution that provides a higher level of service for big business (at higher rates if they choose in a free market) without reducing service or increased costs to smaller users, and to guarantee such development protection from government (and corrupt business) meddling in it's free market use.
AT&T and Google can't come to my house and threaten me to buy stuff from them.
And how would you be able to prove otherwise. I am sure it would look just like you did it!
For any police forensic IT team, it will look like you've been searching for child porn, finding child porn sites and storing the images on your disk in covert folders, even making naive attempts to cover your tracks.
If you really piss off big business, they could even plant the really serious stuff on your disk - mutilation, baby rape, the whole shebang, enough to buy you 10+ years in supermax, even with a rapid guilty plea.
The big businesses can also destroy you in court almost as easily as government.
No, they can't directly and legally throw you in a cage, but they may influence government to do so.
Neither big government nor big business can be trusted to control the flow of information. That's why I suggested a different approach.
I want government so small that private companies wouldn't waste their money and government wouldn't have excess power to peddle.
Until the people take away the source of revenue and unlimited debt from government it will continue to grow and meddle and big business will become even more corrupt using government power to loot their competitors and customers .
Government does nothing but take, dictate, and punish. That tone stifles creativity and is never a good thing.
Look at whats already been done to the free market at government hands.
It would make the net equivalent to a telephone service that cuts you off if you say critical things about a company, or ring an enquiry or order through to a rival company.
Without net neutrality, expect to see the rise of corporate equivalents of Pinochet, Kim Jong Un, Pol Pot and the like.
The last thing that makes me want to pull my hair out about this is that just like we've seen with the politicization of every other bureaucracy so-called "net neutrality" will lead to government bureaucrats making the decisions on who gets service. It would only be a matter of time and ideology.