Time to Shut Down the FCC (A Mark Lloyd Alert!)

WSJ ^ | December 3, 2010 | ANDY KESSLER

[yoe]

If Mark Lloyd weren't threat enough, try this gentleman: (Mr. Genachowski)

Where are the loud, overly critical voices heard during the Bush administration on this issue?

[DManA]

Give me the budget, a red magic marker, and the power to enforce my edicts, and I would save the country. Be fun too.

[DManA]

I could do it in about 1/2 hour.

[antiRepublicrat]

the absurd notion that the Internet should be "open and free" when in fact it's quite expensive to build.

Lie #1. Net neutrality means "free" as in speech, not "free" as in beer.

Additional fact: We the taxpayers paid for much of the Internet. I'm not counting the initial building by the government, but the billions in subsidies and tax breaks we've given to telcos to provide 40 Mbps to everyone's house by now. Oh, few people have that? Why am I not surprised?

Net neutrality will straitjacket the U.S. economy's single most important driver of productivity and transformation.

Lie #2: Net neutrality prevents the telcos from straightjacketing the "single most important driver of productivity and transformation." It tries to keep the net neutrality that created the huge success that is the Internet in face of telco attempts to restrict it.

Besides the obvious question of whether the FCC even has the authority to regulate the Web

Lie #3: Net neutrality does not try to regulate the Web. It prevents carriers from interfering with the Web.

But there is a kernel of truth in whether the FCC has the authority to enforce net neutrality. I don't like over-reaching bureaucracies even if they are on my side.

[mjp]

It's time to close the Federal Communications Commission.

the absurd notion of "open and free"

So long as libtards evade the difference between economic power and political power, between a private choice and a government order, between intellectual persuasion and physical force, libtards have reason to assume that they can safely stretch their evasions all the way to the ultimate inversion: to the claim that a private action is coercion, but a government action is freedom.

[VA_Gentleman]

What’s the purpose of the FCC now that Howard Stern is off terrestrial radio? Have they fined anyone since he went to satellite radio?

[Dead Corpse]

Net neutrality and ARPAnet funding aside... I'm still trying to figure out where in Art 1 Sec 8 it allows the FedGov to have a Department like the FCC.

If the Constitution doesn't mention it specifically, get rid of it. Period.

[raccoonradio]

Only problem:

You have a conservative talk station. Some guy decides to put their own station on right next to yours, and now due to splashover your station is unlistenable. License? They don’t
need no stinkin’ license! You want to make money but what if
people can’t hear your station (in cars, at home etc.)

For that at least, you need the FCC...

[Dead Corpse]

And they don't get heard either. Also, with today's DSP, you can easily filter out the over lap.

If we need a standards organization, come up with a PRIVATE group like the electronic industries IEEE.

Not just for the FCC either... FAA, NASA, FDA, etc... Privatize or make them extinct.

[antiRepublicrat]

I'm still trying to figure out where in Art 1 Sec 8 it allows the FedGov to have a Department like the FCC.

Nothing says "interstate commerce" in the original sense like the Internet. If a company that does business in multiple states and transmits data between those states decides to block or degrade transmissions from another corporation operating in multiple states, that's pretty clearly an interstate commerce issue. The Internet even goes international, definitely in the purview of the federal government.

[Dead Corpse]

If all they were doing was making commerce "regular", we'd be in agreement.

They aren't. So they must go away.

[antiRepublicrat]

I’m not referring to the FCC specifically, but net neutrality is definitely an interstate commerce issue. If Congress decides to give the FCC the responsibility to enforce that part of interstate commerce, then so be it. Some part of the government logically has to enforce the laws.

[Dead Corpse]

Really?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2636941/posts

[WayneS]

Only for the occasional ‘wardrobe malfunction’.

[antiRepublicrat]

Unrelated to net neutrality.

[af_vet_rr]

Additional fact: We the taxpayers paid for much of the Internet. I'm not counting the initial building by the government, but the billions in subsidies and tax breaks we've given to telcos to provide 40 Mbps to everyone's house by now. Oh, few people have that? Why am I not surprised?

They are not only built out with taxpayer money, but they are done using methods that go against the free market. These are government sanctioned monopolies and for once I support the FCC on something - these companies, because they have been built with the help of taxpayer money and tax breaks, and because they are government sanctioned monopolies, they should not have the right to dictate how we use the internet.

If these companies want to dictate to us how we use the internet, then they need to pay back every single flippin penny of taxpayer money and tax breaks.

On top of that, they need to pay every single person whose property they used for their infrastructure. Right now, on a corner of my property, I've got a large box from one of the ISPs sitting there, serving up the internet and TV to my neighbors. They are not paying me a damn penny and have not done so. On a rental property I own, a different company has their infrastructure running across my property and they have also not paid me one damn cent or offered any kind of discounts.

Finally, these government sanctioned monopolies need to end. If these companies want to dictate how we use the internet, then they we need to stop this pseudo-socialism b.s. that allows these companies to have monopolies and we need to go a FREE MARKET.

[Dead Corpse]

It’s the FCC over stepping it’s boundaries. Same thing happens with EVERY organization our FedGov tries to run outside the Constitution.

[antiRepublicrat]

It’s the FCC over stepping it’s boundaries.

Yes, but then on the issue itself there has been proposed legislation that basically mirrored the proposed FCC regulation.

[Dead Corpse]

That is my point! The FedGov doesn't have the Constitutional authority to be doing anything in this regard. This has nothing to do with making commerce between the States "regular" and everything to do with exerting political control.

Are you REALLY going to argue FOR the FedGov on this one?

[af_vet_rr]

Are you REALLY going to argue FOR the FedGov on this one?

The alternative is to argue for the ISPs which means you are arguing for government-sanctioned monopolies that built out part of their infrastructure with tax breaks and taxpayer money, and that have the right to use your property without paying you one dime. Oh and they want to control the content you consume, just as the government does.

We are so screwed, and it's pathetic that we let ourselves reach a point where government-created monopolies control our internet access.

I wish more people would support the free market when it comes to internet service. What we have in the US is a travesty.